Are Affinity apps more capable on a Mac or Windows machine or about the same?

[v_kyr]

9 hours ago, thomaso said:

My screenshot was just an example to test whether the in-app help contains "lock children" at all. Then the result of this search made me think of a theoretical possibility for the macOS help.app to access more than the currently limited contents. Again, actually the help should be improved by Serif, I don't mean the macOS help app shell get changed.

The in-app help should usually find "lock children" at least for/in all the english localized (English || EN-US) inside the html-help files (see also the individual language related: "AffinityPublisher.helpindex" files), as far as the help files are correctly scanned and also have been right indexed accordingly. Though in my tryouts under El Capitan it doesn't do that at all and the help is thus pretty weak here. Also the English localization "AffinityPublisher.helpindex" file doesn't contain any "lock children" index entry. - Overall the whole needs for sure some improvements by Serif!

9 hours ago, thomaso said:

My screenshots from the Excel in-app help illustrate that it is technically possible AND realised to search & display several help languages synchroneously. This let me assume the limitation is not caused by the macOS help app but by Affinity, respectively the quality of their keywording.

Then Excel probably combined the help indexing and search together for all possible localizations (help dir-paths) here and thus is differently setup and organized here. The whole is a matter of how the help system is intentionally setup and used here by those who created and do reuse the Apple help system. - Further there are also external third party tools and solutions for a better and more advanced generation & usage of app help systems. Some of these tools/solutions offer and yield to an overall slightly more flexible set up & customizaing for Apple help related help capabilities.

Quote

It tried to switch the folder names of "de.lproj" and "English.lproj" within the .help package but it did not cause different search results. So I wonder if / how I could modify the "language.js" to make my APub to show results in both English AND in German. – Maybe you with your coding skills might know?

/Applications/Affinity Publisher.app/Contents/Resources/AffinityPublisher.help/Contents/Resources/resources/js/language.js
...

It's not just that here, aka combining the de+English languages in "language.js" wouldn't change much here, since the whole is customized by Serif to look after ...

prefix + "/index.html"

... like ...

English.lproj/index.html
de.lproj/index.html

... specific localized HTML contents show-up files, which each of them (every localization for itself) in turn do contain their own search related references ...

Quote

...

<li id="search-master">
                <input type="radio" name="tabs" id="tab2" />
                <label for="tab2">Search</label>
                <div id="tab-content2" class="tab-content">
                    <div id="search">
                        <form class="search-form">
                            <input type="text" id="search-bar" class="search" placeholder="Type search terms here">
                            <div class="search-buttons"><input type="submit" value="Search" id="search-button" class="search-button"><input type="submit" value="Clear" id="search-clear" class="search-clear"></div>
                        </form>
                    </div>
                    <div id="search-results">
                        <ul id="search-ul">
                        </ul>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </li>

...

<!-- All other functions migrated to .js -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="../landing.js"></script>
<script src="search.js"></script>
<script src="../resources/js/elasticlunr.min.js"></script>
<script src="../resources/js/functions.js"></script>
<script src="../resources/js/setplatform.js"></script>

...

... to an individual language related "search.js" file! - The later (search.js) contains localization specific entries like ...

Quote

pages = [{"title":"LUT adjustment","description":"The LUT adjustment allows you to emulate image colours used in a variety of media platforms.","id":0,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_3dLut.html","keywords":"adjustment, lut, look-up table, .cube, .csp, .3dl, .look, grading"},
{"title":"HSL adjustment","description":"Fine-tune, or completely change, colours by modifying the hue, staturation and luminosity.","id":1,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_HSL.html","keywords":"adjustment, hue, lightness, saturation, hsl, luminosity"},
{"title":"Applying adjustments","description":"Apply adjustments to your image for creative or corrective purposes.","id":2,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_applying.html","keywords":"adjustment, settings, apply, corrective, correction, creative, image"},
{"title":"Black and White adjustment","description":"Convert a colour image to monochrome while maintaining full control over how individual colours are converted.","id":3,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_blackAndWhite.html","keywords":"adjustment, black and white, monochrome, greyscale"},
{"title":"Brightness and Contrast adjustment","description":"Adjust the values in the shadows and highlights, and the overall tonal range, of images.","id":4,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_brightnessContrast.html","keywords":"adjustment, brightness, contrast"},
{"title":"Channel Mixer adjustment","description":"Adjust the colour of individual channels to produce effects not easily achieved with other colour adjustment tools.","id":5,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_channelMixer.html","keywords":"adjustment, channel mixer, recolour"},
{"title":"Colour Balance adjustment","description":"The Colour Balance adjustment provides a way to modify the contribution of particular colours to a set tonal range.","id":6,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_clrBalance.html","keywords":"adjustment, colour balance"},
{"title":"Curves adjustment","description":"Adjust the colour and tone of images using curves.","id":7,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_curves.html","keywords":"adjustment, curves"},
{"title":"Exposure adjustment","description":"Correct highlight and shadow detail.","id":8,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_exposure.html","keywords":"adjustment, exposure"},
{"title":"Gradient Map adjustment","description":"The Gradient Map adjustment maps the greyscale tonal range of an image to a specified colour gradient.","id":9,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_gradientMap.html","keywords":"adjustment, gradient map"},
{"title":"Invert adjustment","description":"Create a negative image by inverting all colour channels.","id":10,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_invert.html","keywords":"adjustment, invert, negative"},
{"title":"Lens Filter adjustment","description":"Emulate the look of a tonal lens filter.","id":11,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_lensfilter.html","keywords":"lens, filter, warm, cool, tone"},
{"title":"Levels adjustment","description":"Adjust the tonal values of an image by setting the black point, white point, and gamma.","id":12,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_levels.html","keywords":"adjustment, levels"},
{"title":"OpenColorIO adjustment","description":"The OCIO adjustment performs colour transforms to help with a colour managed workflow.","id":13,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_ocio.html","keywords":"adjustment, ocio, opencolorio, managed, workflow, 3d lut, look-up table, .cube, .csp, .3dl, .look"},
{"title":"Posterise adjustment","description":"Create large, flat areas of colour or tone in your images using the Posterise adjustment.","id":14,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_posterize.html","keywords":"adjustment, posterise"},
{"title":"Recolour adjustment","description":"Create a monochrome image using the full spectrum of colours using a Recolour adjustment.","id":15,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_reclr.html","keywords":"adjustment, recolour"},
{"title":"Selective Colour adjustment","description":"The Selective Colour adjustment provides a way to subtly adjust and enhance colours in your image on an individual channel basis.","id":16,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_selectiveClr.html","keywords":"adjustment, selective colour, CMYK"},
{"title":"Shadows/Highlights adjustment","description":"Adjust the lightness of the shadows and highlights in your image using the Shadows/Highlights adjustment.","id":17,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_shadowsHighlights.html","keywords":"adjustment, shadows, highlights"},
{"title":"Soft Proof adjustment","description":"Preview the effect of creating an output for a specific colour space or device.","id":18,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_softProof.html","keywords":"adjustment, output, print, screen, soft proof"},
{"title":"Split Toning adjustment","description":"The Tones panel provides adjustments for correcting the tonal and colour values of pixels in an image.","id":19,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_splitToning.html","keywords":"raw, tones panel"},
{"title":"Threshold adjustment","description":"Create two-tone, black and white images using the Threshold adjustment.","id":20,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_threshold.html","keywords":"adjustment, threshold"},
{"title":"Vibrance adjustment","description":"Adjust the intensity of subtle colours in your images while minimising the over-saturation of more intense colours.","id":21,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_vibrance.html","keywords":"adjustment, vibrance"},
{"title":"White Balance adjustment","description":"Remove unwanted colour casts, or make your design warmer or cooler, using the White Balance adjustment.","id":22,"href":"Adjustments/adjustment_whiteBalance.html","keywords":"adjustment, balance, white"},
...
...

 

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, thomaso said:

Consider that today a search in the entire internet with billions of pages is done without delay and, additionally, is able for fuzzy search (which multiplies the number of your entered search keywords).

Those searches are processed by massive networks of server farms like Google's that by some estimates account for 15% or more of all the electrical power consumed worldwide. A bit much to think any one user's computer could match that.

[thomaso]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

A bit much to think any one user's computer could match that.

The example illustrates the development in search engines / code. Do you think if you start a google search for "lock children" that an entire server farm gets used for your single search? Well, we / I don't know what data structure is stored behind those searches to make each task more efficient. So, back to our local computers:

Just try in Affinity a Find & Replace search for a single character or complex expression in a long document to experience the nowadays search speed of 1 local device. – Or give me a search example which shows an obvious delay or that tends to "it would take forever".

[v_kyr]

Just adding some more keywords wouldn't sensible increase the search time here at all. Further i'm also pretty sure the NSHelpManager and NSUserInterfaceItemSearching (for Spotlight based find help integrations) have been optimized over years, so they can handle some huger amount of keywords, abstracts, anchors etc.

Further if methods like func find(String, inBook: NSHelpManager.BookName?) would be used, then a search for the specified passed over string in the specified help book would be performed. - Meaning here, it should usually search through a whole specified helpbook text contents then.

In contrast to that, a func openHelpAnchor(NSHelpManager.AnchorName, inBook: NSHelpManager.BookName?) call, finds and displays the text at the given anchor location and thus only if the anchor name is defined and is matched here then for a given book name.

Also note, that the Affinity related help books and the search access etc. to those, has been own customized by Serif to be cross platform useable. Thus they did setup certain things here their own way and also didn't indexed and anchored every possible term/topic for the help system, like for example "lock children".

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

Do you think if you start a google search for "lock children" that an entire server farm gets used for your single search?

No, of course not. But the point is it takes massive computer resources to continuously search the entire internet, process everything including terms related to literal search strings using a variety of 'smart' algorithms& a massive database of similar searches so 'fuzzy' searches will produce relevant results, & so on. IOW, if for example you use Google to search for "lock children" Google's search engine will look for similar searches, how many of the results of those searches produce click-throughs indicating relevance, & (probably) your own search history to decide how to rank the results.

Regardless, to be clear about it, I agree that Affinity's help index is lacking quite a few keywords (like "lock children" since keywords actually can be phrases, not just single words). However, it is nether practical nor desirable to try to index every word or phrase used in these apps because there would be way too many of them, & because without Google's algorithms to sort & rank them appropriately, searches would be just about useless.

This is why so often suggestions are made in the forum to use Google or a similar search engine to find relevant results, rather than the search function built into the help topics of the apps.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Just adding some more keywords wouldn't sensible increase the search time here at all.

Sure, adding say ten or even fifty would not increase times noticeably, but of course there is more to it than that. If nothing else, there has to be some way to limit the search results to relevant results so for example a search on "children" would not list every single topic that had that word in it or that "lock children" would not return every topic that had either word in it. Then of course there are plural vs. singular forms, synonyms, different word orders in search phrases, localized help books, & so on.

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

However, it is nether practical nor desirable to try to index every word or phrase used in these apps because there would be way too many of them,

This would not be a matter of search time, as you seemed to say before with "it would take forever" but rather of too many possible results. Of course it would not be useful if a help search could find every word – but at least it should find every one of those that are specific Affinity terms, such as for instance studiolink, persona, resource manager, colourspace lock or lock children. In other words, it would not make sense for the help not to mention basic content in the hope or idea that other content would then be easier to find.

[R C-R]

20 minutes ago, thomaso said:

This would not be a matter of search time, as you seemed to say before with "it would take forever" but rather of too many possible results. Of course it would not be useful if a help search could find every word – but at least it should find every one of those that are specific Affinity terms, such as for instance studiolink, persona, resource manager, colourspace lock or lock children. In other words, it would not make sense for the help not to mention basic content in the hope or idea that other content would then be easier to find.

By take forever, I (only in part, admittedly) meant it would take forever to search through all the possible results to find the most relevant ones.

As for "specific Affinity terms," that would include words like layer, draw, vector, pixel, image, & many others that some users think should have their own help topics, because different users have different ideas about what is basic & what is not.  Ideally, there also should be some sort of relevance ranking, so for example searching on "color space" puts the most relevant results first, which it sort of does now, but considering how many different topics include info relevant to color spaces (close to 50 in the US English search) it is never going to rank them the way everyone thinks is appropriate. 

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

By take forever, I (only in part, admittedly) meant it would take forever to search through all the possible results to find the most relevant ones.

Oh, this sounds different. In my impression you were talking about the time until search results would get displayed. No doubt, a full text search without limited keywords might result in a large amount of results. As usual with search tools.

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

As for "specific Affinity terms," that would include words like layer, draw, vector, pixel, image, & many others that some users think should have their own help topics,

These more or less general words have many help topics as far they concern Affinity specific use, like Layer Panel, Adjustment Layer, Vector Brush, Image Layer, Picture Frame, etc. – Furthermore these words have many help topics outside of Affinity as far they are not Affinity specific. Thus there is no need for more detailed but general aspects within the Affinity help, which is neither a general DTP, typography or graphic art dictionary nor a reference manual or a workbook, as the Help does not substitute tutorials.

But all Affinity-specific terms that require knowing Serif's understanding, especially those which are used within the Affinity interface, must be adequately explained or defined by Serif, e.g. in their Affinity Help where all other Affinity specific terms are explained, starting with the interface and its terms.

[R C-R]

32 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Furthermore these words have many help topics outside of Affinity as far they are not Affinity specific. Thus there is no need for more detailed but general aspects within the Affinity help...

Nevertheless, as I said there are users that think these things should have their own comprehensive built-in help topics.