Affinity Publisher starts with black window and nothing else (designer&photo work fine)

[Elwen]

Hello, 

I am experienced user with Affinity Designer & Photo. But I have limited experience with Affinity Publisher.

When I start the program, all I see is a black window without any tools. I am able to open documents, etc. through the top panel.

I tried to restart computer, reinstall the affinity publisher and check for updates but it still starts like this. Am I doing something wrong?

(just black window, I also left a dialog there proving that I have the latest update)

Thank you for your help!

(EDIT: I am running macOS Monterey 12.6 on Macbook Pro 2021)

[NathanC]

Hi @Elwen,

It's possible that the app is just starting with the UI hidden, press the 'Tab' key or alternatively go to View > Toggle UI and this should hopefully make it visible again.

[Elwen]

Thank you @NathanC! 

That seems to be the problem, I did not realize the UI can be hidden when you start the fresh app after the installation (maybe it shares some settings from Designer/Photo?).

Now the screen looks like this, which is probably the normal default start screen?

 

 

[NathanC]

Looks like that has restored your Toolbar, however I can't see any of the default panels listed or the tools (might just have been cropped out of the screenshot). To get the panels back to their default states, try going to View > Studio > Untick Hide Studio/Reset Studio and to get the tools list back go to View > Show Tools.

Affinity will remember how you last had your panels/UI configured upon closing the software, uninstalling won't have an effect since these settings are stored within the ~/Library/Application Support/ folder which is a local folder, this doesn't get changed when the app is removed.

[Elwen]

26 minutes ago, NathanC said:

Looks like that has restored your Toolbar, however I can't see any of the default panels listed or the tools (might just have been cropped out of the screenshot). To get the panels back to their default states, try going to View > Studio > Untick Hide Studio/Reset Studio and to get the tools list back go to View > Show Tools.

Affinity will remember how you last had your panels/UI configured upon closing the software, uninstalling won't have an effect since these settings are stored within the ~/Library/Application Support/ folder which is a local folder, this doesn't get changed when the app is removed.

Great, Reset Studio showed the bar on the right. 

Additionally, I selected Show Tools, which restored the panel on the left.

This finally starts to look familiar 🙂 (Are there any other panels/tool bars that are still missing? I am still baffled that all these options were deselected after reinstalling the program. Thank you for your help, much appreciated!

[NathanC]

 

10 minutes ago, Elwen said:

Are there any other panels/tool bars that are still missing?

 Happy to help, the last thing I've noticed is the context toolbar is missing, enable this by going to View > Show Context Toolbar. This will allow you to view and change tool settings.

[walt.farrell]

I'm not sure if the screenshot provided the complete screen (or at least the complete application window), but the Status Bar may also be missing. And that is only hidden, as far as I know, by Hide UI.