How can I transfer gradient maps from Photo to Photo 2?

[smellyapple]

When starting up Photo 2 there's a box that says do I want to transfer Photo settings (or something along those lines).

I'm not sure if this was supposed to move my settings over as well as presets saved because it hasn't done so apart from my preset file dimensions.

Any ideas? Or would I have to create them from scratch?

[loukash]

You mean Gradient Maps adjustment presets?

I don't know if v2 is supposed to transfer Adjustment presets from v1. In my case it didn't happen.
My workaround:

1. I clicked all my custom presets in the v1 Adjustments panel to create adjustment layers
2. I copied all those layers from v1 and pasted them into a blank v2 document
3. I opened one by one in the v2 Layers panel and clicked the Add Preset button

Luckily I don't have that many custom presets, maybe a dozen or so.

[walt.farrell]

No, those Presets don't seem to be transferred. 

On Windows, it should be possibly to copy the adjustments.propcol file from V1 to V2 quite easily. It may be harder on macOS.

The method suggested by Loukas is a little more time-consuming, but probably better if you're not used to poking into the internal files used by the apps on V1 and V2.

[loukash]

Meanwhile, I have also saved all my Adjustment presets as individual layers in an otherwise blank v1 *.afphoto document. In v2 the presets are at least being synced across all three apps, but in v1 I noticed that I've never transferred them to Publisher's Photo persona. So this backup document helps to speed it up.

50 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

copy the adjustments.propcol file from V1 to V2 quite easily. It may be harder on macOS.

Not necessarily harder, although some presets (Studio, for example) may also require copying parts of the *.plist file. That's a p.i.t.a. if you don't know what you're doing.

Adjustments v2 would need to go to ~/Library/Group Containers/6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs/v2/user/adjustments.propcol
V1 adjustments are either in ~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Publisher/user/adjustments.propcol (Serif Store version) or in ~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinityphoto/Data/Library/Application Support/user/adjustments.propcol (Apple Store version)

But when setting up new version, I prefer to start from scratch, rather than possibly carrying over some potentially existing data corruption from the old version via "unauthorized hacks".

Speaking of which, the worst offenders are still custom Export presets. You can't export them, you can't import them, and they don't sync.  
For some irrational reason, the settings are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/Affinity [De/Ph/Pu] 2/user/file_export_options.dat, but the actual preset names are in the respective *.plist files. So to sync them, you would need to edit the latter as well. As noted, that's not imposible but it's a p.i.t.a. having to do that in the first place.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, loukash said:

Speaking of which, the worst offenders are still custom Export presets. You can't export them, you can't import them, and they don't sync.  
For some irrational reason, the settings are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/Affinity [De/Ph/Pu] 2/user/file_export_options.dat, but the actual preset names are in the respective *.plist files. So to sync them, you would need to edit the latter as well. As noted, that's not imposible but it's a p.i.t.a. having to do that in the first place.

It's easier on Windows, in my experience.  

[bsx]

17 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

On Windows, it should be possibly to copy the adjustments.propcol file from V1 to V2 quite easily.

I am not sure if this is a good idea. I just noticed that all .propcol files in version 2 apply to all 3 apps (.affinity\Common\2.0\user\*.propcol).
In V1, each app still had its own .propcol files.
For example, I have different assets.propcol files in all V1-Apps and am already thinking about how to bring them together in V2.
I'm waiting for the MSI installer.

Edited November 23, 2022 by bsx

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, bsx said:

I am not sure if this is a good idea. I just noticed that all .propcol files in version 2 apply to all 3 apps (.affinity\Common\2.0\user\*.propcol).

Thanks for mentioning that. Yes, this is true, and of course you'd only get the adjustments from one of the applications as there's no way to merge them when copying the files. So Loukash's method might be safer.

(And this might also help explain why they're not copied automatically as part of the migration process. Merging the data from 3 apps would be very tricky.)

[bsx]

I think it is important and necessary that serif staff create a detailed manual as soon as possible on how to manually transfer all personal settings from the V1 to the V2. I also mean assets brushes and so on.

 

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, bsx said:

I also mean assets brushes and so on.

Those are supposed to be handled automatically.

But manually, you can export each category from its panel and reimport the same way. Or, even easier, once exported use File > Import New Content which can import them all at once.

[bsx]

oh, thank you very much.

But then I'm still missing all the settings for the user interface, the toolbar settings and the system settings. I was asked during the V2 installation whether I wanted to adopt the settings. I said no. Can I repeat this import?

[David in Яuislip]

APhoto2 has an extra adjustment, Normals, so it's unlikely to work but.....
Anyone with half a brain wouldn't bother but I did
Copy adjustments.propcol from V1 over to V2, I tried the common folder and also the user folder for Photo
It doesn't work, do what loukash did

[R C-R]

26 minutes ago, bsx said:

But then I'm still missing all the settings for the user interface, the toolbar settings and the system settings.

The UI has changed enough that it might cause problems if the V1 settings were imported into V2, or might simply be ignored. There have also been some changes in the Toolbar, although mostly just name changes, so that might not work too well even if implemented.

I'm not sure what you mean by system settings. Can you explain more about that?

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, bsx said:

Can I repeat this import?

You can*, but it probably won't help. Some things are just not migrated, probably due to the amount of changes to the user interface. 

----
* Close the application. Press and hold Ctrl and start the application again. Release Ctrl when you get the Clear User Data dialog. Uncheck everything and check the option to Reset Content Migration Prompt. Note that if you do this, you will probably get doubled brush categories, asset categories, etc. And it probably won't copy any of those other settings, anyway. 

[loukash]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Some things are just not migrated

What did migrate were New Document > My Presets. 
The smart thing here: Each v2 app created its own "My Presets" collection first that didn't sync. That's actually a Good Thing™ because in v1 each custom preset was specific to the respective app.
But: when I created a new collection in APu and moved my migrated presets from v1 "My Presets" in there, they synced! So in the other two apps, I only had to move a few other migrated presets to the new collection and delete a few duplicates, and all three apps are now in sync with my custom New Documents presets.

One question remains:

Why for goodness sake was someone at Serif able to figure out and implement a migration and sync mechanism that works for the New Document dialog, but not for other sections like Export, Macros, Adjustments, Snapping, Grids, Younameit?!
Isn't there a coordinated team at work?
I'm seriously puzzled. 

[bsx]

Thanks for the help.

I will give up here with the migration and wait and hope for the msi installer. Surely there will be some other changes. I use V2 at the moment only for "play" and V1 for work.

[loukash]

39 minutes ago, bsx said:

I use V2 at the moment only for "play" and V1 for work.

Same here…  

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, bsx said:

I will give up here with the migration and wait and hope for the msi installer.

There is no guarantee that will change the behavior of any of the migration capabilities from V1 to V2, particularly if they are incompatible because of changes in the UI or internals of V2 vs. V1.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, bsx said:

I will give up here with the migration and wait and hope for the msi installer. Surely there will be some other changes.

It is very unlikely that the MSI installers will behave any differently in the area of migrating settings.

[bsx]

Thanks for support to R CR  and walt.farrell.

I'll take a closer look at the migration when I can use the V2 for work.
Sure the migration options will be similar, but I don't want to explore how to move settings from V2 (MSIX Installer) to a V2 (MSI Installer).

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, bsx said:

... but I don't want to explore how to move settings from V2 (MSIX Installer) to a V2 (MSI Installer).

It seems likely that if one of the installers migrates any V1 settings to V2 that subsequently using the other installer would affect any of those settings.

[walt.farrell]

11 minutes ago, R C-R said:

It seems likely that if one of the installers migrates any V1 settings to V2 that subsequently using the other installer would affect any of those settings.

I think @bsx might have been saying that if they start working with the apps installed via MSIX, and then want to switch to using the MSI installer, they do not want to have to figure out how to transfer their current V2 settings to the new V2 install. That's not something the installer would help with, in any case.

[R C-R]

43 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I think @bsx might have been saying that if they start working with the apps installed via MSIX, and then want to switch to using the MSI installer, they do not want to have to figure out how to transfer their current V2 settings to the new V2 install.

Yes, I also think that is what he is saying. However, like I said, I do not think it likely that running the MSI installer would have any effect on any settings already set after the app was installed using the MSIX installer.

[bsx]

Sorry, my English is so bad that I have to use a translation service. (DeepL).

What I want to say is, I don't want to put any more time and energy into the migration from v1 to v2. I think there will be more changes with the MSI installer, e.g. where the configuration files are. As soon as the first patch is available and the MSI installer and I can use V2 as a working version, then I will think about it further.