Show file path ...

[jweitzel]

Hello out there!

I do want to re-post a request, done by an other customer, Posted November 24, 2017:

Please add the ability to right click the file title at the top of the Affinity window to see the finder path of the file. This is a very useful feature and pretty much standard on current Mac OS apps.
In Mac OS there is not only shown the path in one single line, but every step on the way to the nestes folder on the storage medium. This is a *very* useful feature, because one is working with several files and versions. And every day, you are searching the place or the file, you are just working with...

Best wishes to you all
I'm really happy with my Affinity Suite

Johannes

 

[TomAng]

I'm with Johannes: pleasee provide an easy way to show file path in the file name e.g. by right/ctrl click file name bar.

I know we can make a shortcut for File > Reveal in Finder, but that's long-winded not always necessary. All we want is a quick reminder of where the hell the file is. 

[jweitzel]

even more, to open the folder/window in which the appropriate file is nested if choosing: file –> reveal in finder, this is of mediocre use:
You will see the file itself – but not the path! and where that folder ist nested. You have to start another action: finding out, how the path to that file spells.

In professionel environment, workgroups are working total on file servers (like us/my company). And the path to a task for a  client can be very complicated:
server -> production -> dept. -> kind of product -> year -> month -> client -> status of production -> version etc., etc.

Really, I can't imagine, how developers of such a (really) great software can ommit that (and other) aspect.
Nevertheless, I'm happy with that Suite.

Johannes

[Andreas Scherer]

1 hour ago, jweitzel said:

if choosing: file –> reveal in finder, this is of mediocre use:
You will see the file itself – but not the path! and where that folder ist nested. You have to start another action:

… click on “Column View”, if this is not already your current setting in Finder. So, at the most, three mouse clicks. What a hazzle.

[jweitzel]

That's not really right in my opinion. You have exactly to do, what we are demanding from the Serif developers: ctrl-click on the name of the folder in the title and voilà: There is the path shown:

 

The "column view" for me is one of the most confusing aspects in searching files ... Only for Windows users, which have much time for every once and every time clicking through file paths...
And voilà, we are in danger leaving a simple thread with a simple aspect:

Please give us a "reveal filepath by ctrl + click".

Best wishes to to Cologne!

Johannes

 

 

 

 

 

[GarryP]

Unless I’m mistaken, you originally asked to the able to right-click to get that information:

On 2/7/2023 at 9:42 AM, jweitzel said:

Please add the ability to right click the file title at the top of the Affinity window to see the finder path of the file.

...and now you are asking for Ctrl+click:

10 minutes ago, jweitzel said:

Please give us a "reveal filepath by ctrl + click".

Which is it that you are asking for?

[jweitzel]

Sorry, but for the last 25 years that has been the same (with Apple): "ctrl + click" and "right click".

If you have a two button mouse (or a original "magic mouse" with plane sensitive surface), you can use your right finger and click, and you can choose to press "crtl" (with the left hand!) and use the left finger on the mouse.

Johannes

[PaulEC]

4 minutes ago, jweitzel said:

Sorry, but for the last 25 years that has been the same (with Apple): "ctrl + click" and "right click".

One of those mysteries of Apple that we Windows users know nothing about! 😄

[fde101]

1 hour ago, PaulEC said:

One of those mysteries of Apple

This is actually a convention that is typically implemented at the application (or framework) level and it dates back to a time when Macs shipped with single-button mice.  As there was only one button on the mouse, you couldn't "right click" to open a context menu, so when they finally implemented context menus in the UI, they specified a modifier key (which turned out to be control) to be used to open them unless you happened to be using a third-party mouse with a second button.

While newly sold Macs today all have mice (or mouse-equivalents) that are capable of recognizing a right click, many users became accustomed to using control+click for this, and so the convention has been maintained.

 

Curiously, though, the right-click on the name on the window is a relatively recent convention, and I didn't even realize until now that control+click worked for that.  I had always learned that a command+click, which has been around in the Finder since long before they started adding it to applications' document windows.  So there are actually at least three ways to get at this in current versions of the OS.

 

By the way, there is another set of shortcuts related to this which are similarly missing from the Affinity apps: if you hold down the mouse button on the document icon on the title bar of a standard Mac application document window for a moment, it will highlight, at which point you can drag that icon into a Finder window to move the file, option+drag to copy it, or command+option+drag to create an alias (shortcut).

[loukash]

On 2/7/2023 at 10:42 AM, jweitzel said:

the ability to right click the file title at the top of the Affinity window to see the finder path of the file

5 hours ago, jweitzel said:

Really, I can't imagine, how developers of such a (really) great software can ommit that (and other) aspect.

As much as I'd like to have that as well (because in other apps I use this workflow literally since decades), I don't think it's possible because the Affinity window is not a document window. Hence it can't have a standard MacOS document proxy in the window bar.
At best, it may have had possibly worked in v1 "separated mode". Which is no more.

5 hours ago, jweitzel said:

[in Finder] You will see the file itself – but not the path! and where that folder ist nested.

In Finder: View menu > Show Path Bar (or whatever it may be called in the recent versions of MacOS which I don't use)

Alternatively, get TinkerTool and enable Finder tab > Show selected path in window title. (if it's still possible in this jail they call Ventura )

That's how we work in …

5 hours ago, jweitzel said:

… professionel environment

…  

[MikeTO]

Loukash is correct, right clicking (or Ctrl+clicking or Cmd+clicking) the document name can't use the built-in macOS feature to show the document name and allow you to go to the folder. Likewise, left clicking the document name doesn't let you rename it. These features are part of the titlebar of a macOS window and Affinity can open multiple documents in a single Mac window. There is a solution but it takes up vertical space.

It's the same with Photoshop. Right clicking its document tabs will not show the file path. However, while Affinity does nothing when you click the tab, Photoshop shows a custom context menu with a Reveal in Finder option which sort of makes up for it.

With a floated/torn-off window it should be possible to use the built-in macOS feature. Photoshop shows the path when right clicking the document name in a floated window but doesn't allow you to edit the document name with a left click. Affinity doesn't let you do either with a floated window.

An additional complicating factor for Affinity is the lack of a document tab when there is only a single document open. While this is good because it saves pixels on small screens, it leaves nothing to click were Affinity to offer a Reveal in Finder context menu similar to Photoshop.

MacOS has a solution for this but it takes up vertical space that Serif doesn't want to waste. If Affinity were to use the standard macOS titlebar and tabs then the current tab's name would be shown in the titlebar which would allow it to be left or right clicked to rename or see the path. And right clicking the tab name could show the standard macOS context menu for managing tabs.

I'm on a 14" MacBook screen and I'd happily trade the vertical screen real estate to just use the macOS native titlebar and tabs.

Screenshot: TextEdit

[fde101]

17 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

If Affinity were to use the standard macOS titlebar and tabs then the current tab's name would be shown in the titlebar which would allow it to be left or right clicked to rename or see the path. And right clicking the tab name could show the standard macOS context menu for managing tabs.

Technically they can still do this, but with the non-standard way that they present the document name, they would need to implement it themselves.

[jweitzel]

Sorry to you three of you, but I don't really understand the technic behind the things. As you can see in the screenshots below, I can also use MS Word or Adobe Acrobat and click on the title bar of open documents there. Voilà!. ctrl + click, right click, cmd + click!

Could it be that you made things a little easier on yourself when developing the Affinity Apps - and are now reaching a self induced limit at this point? Apple is always bashed for building "prisons" and restrictions, but as you can see here, Apple's UI guidelines, or libraries, grant users a consistent interface and functionality - unlike Microsoft right from the start.

This function may certainly be a wish of many users. But if it can't be realized due to certain preliminary decisions, we have to live with it – at least for a certain time. Well.

Thank you very much! A big thread for a tiny thing in functionality.

Johannes

 

 

 

[fde101]

2 hours ago, jweitzel said:

Could it be that you made things a little easier on yourself when developing the Affinity Apps

None of us on this thread work for Serif - we are just users of the apps, discussing features of the apps.

 

2 hours ago, jweitzel said:

Apple's UI guidelines, or libraries, grant users a consistent interface and functionality

Only when the guidelines are consistently followed.  Even Apple doesn't always follow them consistently.

 

2 hours ago, jweitzel said:

A big thread for a tiny thing in functionality.

The smallest things can sometimes make the biggest difference.

 

2 hours ago, jweitzel said:

I can also use MS Word or Adobe Acrobat and click on the title bar of open documents there.

I can do that in Nisus Writer, Pages, and numerous other apps which have adopted a more correct Mac interface.  No one here is denying that.

[loukash]

7 hours ago, jweitzel said:

As you can see in the screenshots below […]

… you are using applications with document based windows.
But that's not how Affinity apps are conceived. Standard Affinity windows do not represent individual documents. Except in v1 "separated mode" on Mac where it would have been possible but wasn't implemented.
That's a fact.

[v_kyr]

2 hours ago, loukash said:

Standard Affinity windows do not represent individual documents.

Maybe you should better explain visually UI-wise what a main application window is here in this sense, in contrast to an on this placed layered tabbed pane with individual subviews ... etc.

In the above shown I didn't marked (I left out to explicitely color indicate) the left side Tool panel area (a vertical subpanel which holds the icon buttons) and the right side 3x top to bottom Tab panels which hold the majority of other settings panels.

So ...

• The red rectangular area shows the whole application window.
• The green area shows the Tab pane which contains the doc tabs, which in turn are associated with showing up the blue area surrounded document panels then.

... the Affinity UIs are more custom ones and not that much designed/modeled after Apple standards here. Thus if things like offering additional right click menus on the tabs of the Tab pane are wanted, it has to be explicitely programmed and setup here. With other words, it's nothing which is inherited from the Apple standard UI components and APIs here automatically.

Also people shouldn't forget, that due to the fact that the Affinity apps are crossplatform usable, their UI is and has also be more defined in a crossplatform manner, thus not following entirely all the OS specifics.

[jweitzel]

7 hours ago, v_kyr said:

... the Affinity UIs are more custom ones and not that much designed/modeled after Apple standards here. Thus if things like offering additional right click menus on the tabs of the Tab pane are wanted, it has to be explicitely programmed and setup here. With other words, it's nothing which is inherited from the Apple standard UI components and APIs here automatically.

Also people shouldn't forget, that due to the fact that the Affinity apps are crossplatform usable, their UI is and has also be more defined in a crossplatform manner, thus not following entirely all the OS specifics.

Yes, I understand that now. More I can't say to that "problem", except that it would be not only "cool" but *very useful and timesaving" if user have ...

Johannes

 

[PaoloT]

On 2/24/2023 at 1:05 PM, fde101 said:

Curiously, though, the right-click on the name on the window is a relatively recent convention

I remember having been using it since the beginning of time. I'm sure it was also in OS9.

Paolo

 

[loukash]

54 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

I remember having been using it since the beginning of the times. I'm sure it was also in OS9.

Cmd-click on Finder window name would reveal the path at least since System 7:

I don't remember if it already was in System 6.

Path of document windows wasn't possible in System 7 yet. That was likely introduced with the document proxy icon in the title bar, likely in OS8 (which I skipped and went from System 7.5 directly to OS9).

In OS9, there were also bunch of "apps" that would enhance on this very feature, my favorite being the Navi iRae control panel:

Worked great in Freehand 9:

[fde101]

14 minutes ago, loukash said:

Cmd-click on Finder window name would reveal the path at least since System 7:

The last versions of GS/OS (for the Apple IIGS) had this feature as well, only for the Finder windows.

 

17 minutes ago, loukash said:

the Navi iRae control panel

Nice...  that one is new to me.

[loukash]

4 minutes ago, fde101 said:

that one is new to me.

Jérome Foucher made a few brilliant control panels: web.archive.org/web/20010302013334/http://jerome.foucher.free.fr
I'm also using A-Dock and Wapp Pro.

And then there was also Finder Pop. (And I just noticed that I totally forgot to install it on my El Capitan partition! D'oh!)

[PaoloT]

1 hour ago, loukash said:

Worked great in Freehand 9

FreeHand 9, eh? Take it, Serif! 😁

Paolo

 

[loukash]

11 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

FreeHand 9, eh? Take it, Serif! 😁

Wait!
No, no, no! Freehand 9 alone has absolutely no clue about cmd-clicking the title bar!
It's the aforementioned brilliant Navi iRae that guesses the file path based on the recent files entry and displays the menu. See also the warning in the popup menu.
And that's exactly the reason I was using these excellent add-ons back in the day.

By the way, just got my beloved FinderPop running on El Capitan:

Finally I can see my Finder labels in context menus again! Rejoice! 

Not sure yet if it will be of any direct help for my Affinity apps usage. Many FP features can be replicated by Default Folder, Keyboard Maestro or XtraFinder as I already use them.
In any case, FinderPop won't run on Catalina or later, so no dice for Affinity v2. And allegedly it only barely works on Mojave.

[jweitzel]

Oh dear! Really, we are now gettin heavy off topic! But I had a good laugh as seldom! And yes, all that pictures and situations came live again for my eyes! LOL!

But it shows for me a very serous background in "modern" software, which I thought often in the last years: Even for programming new software, you will need some rather old guys with knowledge of the old days... which know about things, the younger ones never imagine or never saw and never had been uses to. Although I get not tired to state, that I am happy with the Serif Suite because it enabels me to throw off the yoke (not a joke!) of Adobe, Quark, Extensis and all of them, I often think, that the developers may be rather young and especially not men of professional (typesetting/photoediting/graphical) praxis. Some answers to user feedback came so rude, that can't but a novice in the profession.

Those screenshots of system 7 (I think, I started my job with system 6.x, Adobe Type Reunion and "FontDaMover" ...) and glorious FreeHand 9 – I love it!!!
And they let me grew 40 years younger. Sigh

Johannes

 

[loukash]

3 minutes ago, jweitzel said:

we are now gettin heavy off topic!

Sorry…