I don't like the new UI design

[François R]

9 minutes ago, VectorVonDoom said:

Not sure if anyone replied but the arrows are to re-order fx’s when you have multiples of them e.g. multiple inner shadows. You can’t drag to re-order.

I would prefer to drag to re-order like in the layers panel - but the arrows do show it is possible.

@serif The arrows are hidden until multiple FX are created in the Windows versions of v2, but always shown on macOS. I think. 🙂

[debraspicher]

37 minutes ago, Gary.JONES said:

I cannot agree with you ...

The new Export persona is much harder to use and requires more clicks than the v1 layout.

A better solution IMHO is to keep the old Export Persona, and add a new button with a dropdown for unusual formats.

Personally, I've never found the need for anything other than what was easily available in V1.

Are we talking about the Export dialogue or Export Persona? Persona looks the same...?

[Didge]

We are not designing a bridge here - user experience is everything.

I am not resistant to change - which is why I ditched Adobe the day I discovered Affinity.

What I am resistant to is change for the sake of change.

What is easy for one might not be as easy for another, so I respect that.

 

[Zaxonov]

On 11/10/2022 at 3:51 PM, rparmar said:

Hello, did you notice there's only one forum? Translation apps are free. Chrome will even do it automatically. Expand your world.

If everyone is going to write in his own language we can end-up with one different language for every post and it's becoming a mess.

[Lemon Tree]

3 hours ago, François R said:

Personally I need the preview every time so it being hidden before activated was cumbersome.

There could be a button to hide or show the preview, which was sticky so that it stayed the way it was last left. Then you'd see the preview all the time (and a Hide Preview button) and I'd never see it and have a Show Preview button in case I wanted it.

[fde101]

47 minutes ago, Lemon Tree said:

There could be a button to hide or show the preview, which was sticky so that it stayed the way it was last left. Then you'd see the preview all the time (and a Hide Preview button) and I'd never see it and have a Show Preview button in case I wanted it.

It should be a checkbox rather than a button, but yes, this is exactly what they should have included from the start.  Hopefully that gets added soon.

[myclay]

4 hours ago, Zaxonov said:

If everyone is going to write in his own language we can end-up with one different language for every post and it's becoming a mess.

not only that, many software-translators only can show one language per site. Using anything else than english on the net means you limit the pool of people which can help.

[brunoczech]

I bought V2 Universal Licence yesterday - tried it and found out I won't be able to use it, probably... I had to update from Mojave to Monterey on an old MBP which I didn't even want to do in a first place.

I know I'm in minority but I am used to light UI - and in V2 this is totally wrong. First of all there is no Alpha settings for UI as in V1. And all the buttons - especially in the toolbars - seems like they are already in a clicked state as opposed to V1. See the attached screenshots.

The contrast in the Layer panel is horrible! I can hardly read the names of the layers.

Export window - why on earth do we need to see the preview of the first page of the document, for example?

And so on...

 

BTW, I tried Dark Mode (which I will probably have to get used to until the light UI is fixed) - it is little better when it comes to toolbar icons but the Layer Panel is still very very bad.

 

I am very grateful for all the new features and especially for the generous launch licence offer but these UI problems needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Which I guess shouldn't be that difficult, I guess and I hope.

[MikeTO]

5 hours ago, brunoczech said:

The contrast in the Layer panel is horrible! I can hardly read the names of the layers.

...

BTW, I tried Dark Mode (which I will probably have to get used to until the light UI is fixed) - it is little better when it comes to toolbar icons but the Layer Panel is still very very bad.

I believe the lack of contrast for automatic layer names in the Layers panel is a known issue. Layers you name yourself have decent contrast (I'd prefer more contrast myself) but the automatic ones are a problem.

[fde101]

5 hours ago, brunoczech said:

Export window - why on earth do we need to see the preview of the first page of the document, for example?

Funny that this keeps coming up.  With version 1, there were numerous threads with people begging to have that preview added to the export window.  Now it is here, and people are asking for it to be taken away.

 

5 hours ago, brunoczech said:

I tried Dark Mode (which I will probably have to get used to until the light UI is fixed) - it is little better when it comes to toolbar icons but the Layer Panel is still very very bad.

2 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I believe the lack of contrast for automatic layer names in the Layers panel is a known issue. Layers you name yourself have decent contrast (I'd prefer more contrast myself) but the automatic ones are a problem.

I haven't bothered with light mode as dark mode is technically the superior option when it is offered and is what I prefer anyway, but while I personally am not having difficulty with the contrast in the layers panel, it is close enough that I can easily understand how some would.

In Preferences -> User Interface there are two sliders, Text Contrast and UI Brightness, which adjust this to some degree for most of the UI, but it looks like the default text used for layer names was somehow missed when adjusting Text Contrast, so I suspect there may be a bug in play here (at least on the Mac)?  It does get adjusted by the slider for layers you named yourself, and you can use that to get a bit more contrast than what the default setting provides.

 

 

Examples for reference:

On 10/30/2020 at 7:45 AM, Stephen_H said:

- Previewing at export. Even in Photo, I can't see the effect of the level of JPEG compression being applied to my exported files (neither in Designer nor Photo). I have to export a file half a dozen times until I hit upon that sweet spot of small file size to barely noticable quality loss. Even the open source GIMP does this with a live preview at export. I can do awesome professional work, and then break it all with a poor export... and not even realise it.

[imagodespira]

6 minutes ago, fde101 said:

Funny that this keeps coming up.  With version 1, there were numerous threads with people begging to have that preview added to the export window.  Now it is here, and people are asking for it to be taken away.

 

V1 has a preview but you have to click to a button if you need it and not for every export. That is a difference and no one would complain it if we have a button again or a checkbox to let it activated for people who want it... should be not a big task to code. 

[Designer1234]

I don't like more empty spaces and thicker title bars. Icons... I'm not sure... Old seem to be nicer, new look much modern... perhaps they should have new shapes and old colors (more distinctive)? 

[fde101]

9 minutes ago, imagodespira said:

V1 has a preview but you have to click to a button if you need it and not for every export.

Yes, but it did not initially - it was added at some point after people kept asking.

 

10 minutes ago, imagodespira said:

no one would complain it if we have a button again

I rather suspect some would; a persistent checkbox would clearly be the better choice.

[Designer1234]

But always enabled is still better than always initially closed

[brunoczech]

The Export dialog is horrible! Why do we need preview in a first place anyway...🙄 

But what I find much worse: it takes so much longer to export what I need - these videos above clearly demonstrate that. Even if I didn't need to change any settings - it takes 1 click & Enter in V1 to export simple JPEG. It takes 2 clicks & Enter in V2. How is this good and improved design I will never understand. 

The only good thing I found here that it exports print files at smaller sizes compared to V1 which is very good - at least for me, I've been struggling with unnecessary big files before.

But the overall UI/UX of V2 makes me go back to V1, unfortunately. I've been so looking forward to this and bought licence straight away, but I will start using it when it gets fixed a little.

[loukash]

9 hours ago, fde101 said:

With version 1, there were numerous threads with people begging to have that preview added to the export window.  Now it is here, and people are asking for it to be taken away.

A preview is nice to have when needed. Sometimes it's not needed. All it needs is a button/checkbox "Create Preview".

9 hours ago, fde101 said:

In Preferences -> User Interface there are two sliders, Text Contrast and UI Brightness, which adjust this to some degree for most of the UI

At least on MacOS Catalina, the Light UI settings are extremely wonky. Some of the slider settings won't stick, and when you switch back to Affinity from another app, the UI will suddenly appear white, until you move the sliders again.

[shushustorm]

I don't dislike the UI in general, but there are two things I'd rather see differently:

- Layer's states are shown as dots now, which is much more difficult to read than the previous checkboxes.

- Some text is quite difficult to read (e.g. export persona's export settings on iPad) due to a lack of contrast between font color and background.

[François R]

@serif

Layer names are not affected by the preferences Text Contrast settings 

And

Unless checkerboard background is selected you cannot get a brighter background for layers thumbnails than this:

Edited November 13, 2022 by François R

[MikeTO]

33 minutes ago, François R said:

Layer names are not affected by the preferences Text Contrast settings 

Automatic layer names are not affected by preferences but the layers you've named are. The issue with automatic layer names is a known bug.

[Artsketch]

The UI on the 12.9" iPadPro is one step forward, two steps back. Has anyone considered the font sizes and visibility of the icons at low display lighting and matte display drawing sheets? Any intention to make the UI for iPad usable again?

[Ana-Irina]

On 11/12/2022 at 1:15 AM, Gary.JONES said:

New customers may have a different view - because V2 is more like other products they might have used, like ancient versions of Adobe.

 

I for one used Adobe for a long time...Illustrator was the first design software I ever used. But after a while, Illustrator started driving me insane with its inability to snap correctly and a bunch of other stuff.  I don't even want to start complaining about InDesign, which I personally despise. I stumbled upon Affinity by googling "alternative software to illustrator" and bought it on the spot. It was refreshing. For the same final result, Affinity required significantly fewer clicks. I loved the new, responsive interface, everything was easier to find, easier to see. When Publisher launched, I was all in. I hate it to see Affinity now taking steps back towards Adobe. 

[Ana-Irina]

23 hours ago, fde101 said:

With version 1, there were numerous threads with people begging to have that preview added to the export window.  Now it is here, and people are asking for it to be taken away.

 

The problem with the preview is that is doesn't always work. Personally, I never wished for a preview on export, but now that we have it, it would be nice for it to work. My problem is with that dropdown which is nasty looking and impractical. I understand that they added more formats, but the V1 export panel was very practical. They could have kept the large thumbnails on the top and made them into a carousel. Or they could have made the panel customisable, so that you can choose your favourite export formats and stick them up there, just like you can customise the toolbar in the main window. It is unlikely that everybody really needs all the formats, at all times. There are solutions. The one they chose it's just lazy design.

[brunoczech]

10 minutes ago, Ana-Irina said:

The problem with the preview is that is doesn't always. Personally, I never wished for a preview on export, but now that we have it, it would be nice for it to work. My problem is with that dropdown which is nasty looking and impractical. I understand that they added more formats, but the V1 export panel was very practical. They could have kept the large thumbnails on the top and made them into a carousel. Or they could have made the panel customisable, so that you can choose your favourite export formats and stick them up there, just like you can customise the toolbar in the main window. It is unlikely that everybody really needs all the formats, at all times. There are solutions. The one they chose it's just lazy design.

The Export window bothers me the most, apart from other UI issues. Let's hope somebody will re-think it soon.

See this thread: 

 

[Ana-Irina]

37 minutes ago, brunoczech said:

See this thread:

Thanks for this! 

[Zaxonov]

Well, I issued a refund and will keep using v1 instead. Underwhelming update after a hyped teaser few days prior. Ressources should have been spent into more wanted features that were asked for years on this forum instead of reworking the UI.