all three 2.0 versions: Preference panes almost unreadable

[Thomas_U]

Hi,

the font is so tiny, I have hard times to read even with reading glasses, light white on grey.

Please make it clear black on white!

Thanks!

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Thomas_U

One thing you can do is to go to Preferences / User Interface and set the “Text Contrast” setting to its maximum value if using Dark Mode or its minimum value if using Light Mode.

It’s not ideal, but it’s a little better.

[Seneca]

10 minutes ago, Thomas_U said:

Please make it clear black on white!

It looks that you have selected a dark theme.

Try to change it to Light by going to Preferences ->User Interface ->UI Style Light.

[Thomas_U]

I was looking for the Dark/light setting because dark was default on all three Apps.

 

Now I found it.

Text contrast does not change anything in light mode. But Font UI size and UI contrast do.

But I still think that the fonts are too small, same with the icons in toolbar and sidebar.

In my Opinion using grey backgrouds is very user-unfriendly. Even in the lightest setting it makes reading harder.

I want clear black on white!

[albertkinng]

When using UWHD Screens monitors (Wide 34/46 inches ones) the windows are hard to read, and it's no way of fixing it. Using Apple Studio Display in normal view is fine but when you use the Extra space view it also makes impossible to enjoy the text. However, this is something related with the monitor, not Affinity. Most people and designers use monitors that aren't designed for video editing, and with color calibration and IPS framework you can work fine. View sonic, Samsung and Dell offer great monitors for graphic designs and UI/UX, so it's better to build a work space that fit your needs.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Thomas_U said:

In my Opinion using grey backgrouds is very user-unfriendly.

I agree!

[Designer1234]

7 hours ago, Thomas_U said:

I want clear black on white!

Ridiculous idea, clear black is much more tiring for eyes.

[R C-R]

14 minutes ago, Designer1234 said:

Ridiculous idea, clear black is much more tiring for eyes.

If you mean a black background & darkish grey text, then it is not for me. It is just like for a white background & light grey text -- for either one the small difference in contrast means I have to squint & strain to read the text.

[Designer1234]

High contrast can help if you have serious problem with your sight but generally high contrast (too high - like really bright text on really dark background) is considered tiring and not very healthy for our eyes. 

I understand that calibrated monitors are usually not very bright and in such case too low contrast between text and background can be a problem, but I did not get the impression that the UI contrast in Affinity is lower than that of the competing software. 

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, Designer1234 said:

High contrast can help if you have serious problem with your sight but generally high contrast (too high - like really bright text on really dark background) is considered tiring and not very healthy for our eyes. 

Yes, but only if it covers most of your field of vision, & for an extended period of time. Nether is true for this.

[Lee N]

Unfortunately, most developers are victims of trend. I personally am getting sick of people telling me what's good for me. My eyesight isn't great. Small fonts and very little contrast between font and background is a bad idea, end of! If that's what most people want then let them knock themselves out but please will they just stop treating the rest of us with so much contempt. Just give us the option to change it - it's not difficult.

[lphilpot]

For photo editing a background color around mid-grey has the least impact on color perception when photo editing, if that's important. But it's also inherently difficult to use since neither a black nor white foreground is very contrastive on it. Unless you're editing for cinema (i.e., dark-room viewing) a truly dark interface can result in your images trending toward being too dark under normal viewing conditions. The reverse is true for a light background. That said, I still prefer a darker background but font size can be an issue. It's kind of funny - UI designers don't hesitate to make HUGE icons, buttons, etc., but fonts remain small.

There are some apps that take this into account. For example, the darktable raw editor has a special color-assessment mode that can be toggled on and off which implements the ISO 12646:2008 recommendation for balanced color editing: https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/4.0/en/module-reference/utility-modules/darkroom/color-assessment/

[jmwellborn]

There is nothing the matter with my eyesight, and I have a 24” screen.  Even so, spending many hours per day in front of it, I wish I could SEE those little thumbnails (even set to Large) on the Layers panel in V2 well enough to figure out all the new bells and whistles they contain without almost pressing my nose to the display.  I have tried every possible slide configuration in User Preferences.  V1 was — for me — more user friendly.  I suspect that there are far more Light Interface users out there than people assume there are.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, jmwellborn said:

 Even so, spending many hours per day in front of it, I wish I could SEE those little thumbnails (even set to Large) on the Layers panel in V2 well enough to figure out all the new bells and whistles they contain without almost pressing my nose to the display.

Exactly! It is all about being able to SEE these UI elements without straining. This is, or at least should be, a no-brainer for UI designers.

[Designer1234]

For you UI is too small on your tiny screens in FHD or 1440p, for me is great on my 32" 1440p screen with 150% scaling set in Windows (yeap, I've got such bad sight - visual acuity=0,05 and astigmatism that can't be corrected). Either you have no problem with your sight and with reading fonts or you do have some problems too . 

I think it's impossible to make really BIG UI for an app which contains so much controls and panels and requires a lot of workspace without forcing people to use second screen - one for controls, another to display picture we work on. Sure, ability so set freely the size of each UI element would be fantastic, but I think it's really hard.

It's strange for me that people with great sight complain. it's usually me who has the problem with some apps - old that doesn't scale well or new that have really strange size (usually TOO BIG with scaling enabled - too big even for myself!) As for me, there is no problem with AP. It's perfectly consistent with my scaling settings in Windows, fonts have the size similar to these in Office, my Browser and any other app that respect Windows scaling.