Notifications while opening a document – only dismissed after user action

[jweitzel]

There had already been a lot of discussion about how AFPub deals with missing fonts and the dialoges for missing fonts. To show only for two seconds that fonts are missing, or - as also in my case - the colour profile has been changed to an other, that is in my opinion a bit "dangerous" and vital. Those messages should (if I remember right: like in "other" softwares) *stay* on the screen until commited by the user. These are not a dispensible/superfluous informations! The font substitution in AFPub is so "silent", that it may be only a question of time, that whole a document is finished and printed with substitution fonts or wrong color profile. Its like the message in our car – but only for two seconds while starting the engine –: "the breaks are about to fail".

Therefore I think, those messages e.g. while opening a document should only vanish after the user has commited them. (Who of all of us doesn't turn on the workstation in the morning and open the first job of the day - and then go get coffee first? Those will never see assistant messages like "fonts are missing" or "colour profile is converted".)

Johannes

 

[GarryP]

If someone is working on a document where they aren’t bothered about the messages – maybe because the messages aren’t relevant to the work they are doing on that document at that time – would they have to click every pop-up to get rid of them every time they open the document?

If there are dozens of messages, how should they be kept on-screen waiting for the user to ‘action’ them?
Would each message be shown on its own bit of the screen, like a grid of messages – maybe filling the screen up (what then?) – or should they overlap somehow and, if so, how would they overlap while showing all of the necessary information/controls?

I’m not against having an option to let the user decide how they want to handle the messages but I don’t think changing the way they are handled for everyone would be a good thing.

[jweitzel]

Hello Garry,

I appreciate your answer, but unfortunately it reminds me of an intense experience: someone always gets up and finds exactly the opposite better.

Affinity Suite doesn't "log in" all the time and doesn't pop up any messages. It's also not about dozens of messages all day long. This shows - sorry - that this answer was given by someone with no real practical experience. AFPub pops up 1 or 2 messages when opening a document - namely if fonts are missing or for example if it has changed the color profile of the currently opened document.

So I'm not busy clicking away messages all day - I repeat: It's like when the car starts up and briefly shows the message: The brakes are broken.

Unfortunately, I am running out of joy in discussing at length each of my practical experiences that I bring in here in the forums or - not always but more often - to have dilettantes question them. Elsewhere I have already commented that we are obviously dealing with programmers without *real* professional experience. And that means: A lot of work, responsible, very good, to be done in a short time, not to "fiddle around" a bit. And the rest of the users here in the forum are cavorting.

It's like trying to defuse an unexploded bomb in a "grassroots-democratic" manner. There's always someone who gets up and knows better.

I am very sorry.
John

[Circulus]

I think the modal window that is used for opening a pdf should also be used for placing a linked or embedded document.
This to make sure what actions to take as user.
The toast (assistant) messages should only show for actions like converting to a pixellayer and the like.
 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Return

[GarryP]

As I said above, I’m not against the user having a choice about what happens to the messages, I just don’t think that the software should always work for everyone in the way you have described.

Your car brakes analogy is a good one at face value but, to look at it another way, I wouldn’t want to have to keep pressing buttons on the dashboard before I could drive away just because the car wanted to tell me that the left-hand rear number plate light bulb was faulty, or that the service was 2/3/4/5/6... days overdue, or that one of the tyres was a little bit flat, etc.

If you find that someone else always wants something to work a different way to the way you want then I would suggest that you should probably take that as a sign that you might not be thinking about the ‘wider picture’.

I think this issue is something that may need to be looked at but it needs to take various workflows and needs into consideration.

[Guillermo Espertino]

I've just experienced a minor but very frustrating encounter with this problem. Some fonts were missing, I missed the missing fonts warnings and I ended up exporting and publishing some stuff with Arial instead of the sans font I carefully chose for the design.

There should be some sort of visual cue on the design when fonts are missing. Adobe Illustrator puts a nasty pink highlight that is quite difficult to miss, and that works.

I think Affinity should use a similar approach. Some highlight, a visible bounding box in a specific colour, or something like that.

It's very easy to miss that popup warning when you're in a hurry or tired after a long day of work, and sometimes the font substitution is not that obvious (sure, you will notice if a serf font was replaced by arial, but when you're opening a design done with sans serif text just for a quick export and you don't zoom in or modify text, it's easy to make a mistake).