AD Help Search Mac is terrible, only searches title for exact words

[LeftandRight]

Hi,

I've spent the last week learning Affinity Designer, including looking things up using the "Affinity Designer Help" option from the "Help" menu. Or trying to... :

Conclusion: This is the most limited and ridiculous search function I've ever run across. It allmost always returns "no results" for words that are, in fact, included in the help, and are important as well.

At first I couldn't figure out what was the problem, but after some hits I finally undertand that this 'search' function only searches...

  a) The TITLE lines of the Affinity Designer help section, and also requires

  b) EXACT phrase in that title.

So you have to know, exactly, the different words that Affinity Designer staff used to TITLE the section that holds your target word. A new user will never know this. In fact, almost anyone would never know this.

Example:

I want to find out more about the Boolean functions that join, divide shapes. I put "Boolean" in the search Help line. I get "No results". See attached search.

Does this mean "Boolean" doesn't appear in the help. No, it's in the "Joining Objects" section. See attached "Joining Objects" search for that.

"Boolean" in fact appears in the first sentence. But not in the title, so search didn't find it. I double-checked with "Subtract", which you can see is a subsection of the "Joining Objects" section. But it's not the title, so we get "No results" for "Subtract" too. (see attached).

Finally, wondering how absurd this really is, I tried "Join Objects". Surely you'll let me find that? No, it has to be "Joining Objects" or nothing! See attached.

Is there perhaps some way to get this 'Help' to search the content? If not, I ask that you change it so it does. As it stands it's worse than useless.

L&R

Mac High Sierra (10.13.6), AD 1.10.5

 

[JET_Affinity]

Can't help, other than to sympathize and agree. Affinity's very weak documentation is one of the first things I noticed about it. It's not just the search; the writing is far from thorough, too. Have assumed it will eventually be improved.

Best-written user documentation of the many programs I've used over the decades is that of FileMaker Pro. Even it, though, was better before it became web-based.

JET

[deeds]

3ds Max version 3.1 (yes, the 1990's!) was a masterclass in documentation.

Ironically, the Stingray Game Engine had great documentation - before Autodesk shuttered it. 

Documentation done well is so rare that I can remember the instances. This is not an excuse. Affinity could have helped an entire generation skip right over Adobe products by providing great documentation and free licenses for high schools.