Change guide colour

[Ash]

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad

There is now an option in the guide manager to change the colour of your guides. On desktop you can set this by going to guide manager (View -> Guides... or double click on any guide) and find the colour preference in the bottom left hand side of the dialog. In the example below this being set to red:

On iPad the colour setting is available from the ring towards the top of the guides panel (available from the view drop down menu or again by double tapping on a guide).

[Traceyg]

Can you change the colour of symmetry guides too as they are hard to see as they are white 

[EmT]

Hi @Traceyg
It is not currently possible to change the symmetry guide colour, it should be white unless overlaying something white, at which point it will change to grey.

[Petar Petrenko]

This is very nice feature and very usefull.

BTW, how you managed to change the guide from solid line to dash-dot in the example?

I'd like to see these improvements to this panel:

1. To change the color of any H&V guide.
2. To have separate Gutters for Rows and Columns.
3. Possibility to place Column Guides on whole pages or spread, not only inside margins.
4. Angled guides.
5. If Spread Origin is changed then Column Guides should start from the new 0, 0 point.

[EmT]

6 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

how you managed to change the guide from solid line to dash-dot in the example?

On iOS when a guide is selected it is displayed as the dash-dot line shown in the example. The behaviour is slightly different to desktop due to how the guides are edited. 

[Petar Petrenko]

Oh, I see. I think it would be exaggerating to ask for that feature having in mind that it would not have any practical use.

[linda-btj]

Do you have any plans to add "Presets" to the Guides manager?  Like there is for Grids.

[StuartRc]

Hi

Shouldn't the 'New' File Panel > Documents then tab margins also have the colour section option?

[ronnyb]

Great addition @Ash! Can you add the standard OPACITY slider (and blend modes would be great too) to the Guides, Columns, and Grids color pickers? It would make them all MUCH more useful and avoid lots of visibility issues when interacting with different backgrounds, as objects behind them can obfuscate their visibility when colors are solid. Thanks for all you do!!!

[Petar Petrenko]

18 hours ago, Petar Petrenko said:

This is very nice feature and very usefull.

BTW, how you managed to change the guide from solid line to dash-dot in the example?

I'd like to see these improvements to this panel:

1. To change the color of any H&V guide.
2. To have separate Gutters for Rows and Columns.
3. Possibility to place Column Guides on whole pages or spread, not only inside margins.
4. Angled guides.
5. If Spread Origin is changed then Column Guides should start from the new 0, 0 point.

Sorry, I forgot one more feature:

     6. When dragging a hor. guide with the mouse cursor outside page(s) then the guide has to be positioned over the whole spread, otherwise -- on that single page (like InDesign).

[StuartRc]

Thanks for adding it to the bleed as well!..

[Phil P]

Ash, all of these new features are very good and useful. Congratulations to you and the Team for consistently listening and innovating.

Would it be possible in the Guides Manager to change (increase/decrease) the width of the Guides, either globally or locally?

Thanks again for all you do.

[diarbyrag]

thanks Serif, taken a while but now I can stop moaning about it. Really liking the improvements and look forward to downloading V2.2

[Barry Newman]

Is it correct that there is no setting in preferences to set guide colors once and for all in a central and logical place?

 

Best

Barry

[fde101]

On 7/9/2023 at 3:32 PM, Barry Newman said:

Is it correct that there is no setting in preferences to set guide colors once and for all in a central and logical place?

It would not be logical to do this in application preferences when you might want light-colored guides in a dark-colored document but dark-colored guides in a light-colored document.

To borrow a paraphrase questionably attributed to a famous physicist, things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler...

If you want to avoid setting these repeatedly, the ideal solution is to set them in a template that you use to create new documents.

[Barry Newman]

46 minutes ago, fde101 said:

It would not be logical to do this in application preferences when you might want light-colored guides in a dark-colored document but dark-colored guides in a light-colored document.

To borrow a paraphrase questionably attributed to a famous physicist, things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler...

If you want to avoid setting these repeatedly, the ideal solution is to set them in a template that you use to create new documents.

I can't agree with that on any level. It is very theoretical, and very clumsy and old-fashioned in use. Your quote is also completely useless. 

Customers can now change guides freely, as you describe, with the new features in v2.2 that we have seen. But why on earth doesn't it make sense to you that someone can set these colors in preferences, like in so many other programs? Do you think there's an advantage to your very complicated setup there? Software like Affinity has its default colors and default guide settings somewhere as the most basic configuration information. Add some user interface to change them slightly. Done. If there are other settings in templates, use those instead. Done. Completely de facto standard in how software around the globe works.

I just know what guide colors I want in my case and in my company's setup, and want to save this setting once and for all and not in templates. Among other things, this setting should ensure that guides have the same colors in the applications we use, so that end users get a consistent experience.

We won't have to sit and add the colors to the individual templates and remember to focus on it when creating new templates. It sounds like workflows from a millennium that ended 23 years ago. 

Barry

[_Th]

Having a universal/application preference for guide colors does actually make sense. As mentioned above, there are definitely use cases.

Side note: Civility and grace are almost always appreciated. And helpful.

[Pšenda]

On 6/13/2023 at 9:19 AM, Ash said:

There is now an option in the guide manager to change the colour of your guides.

Is this the color for all guides in the document or just one specific guide? I think the option to set different guides with different colors would be very useful.

[Komatös]

4 hours ago, Pšenda said:

Is this the color for all guides in the document or just one specific guide? I think the option to set different guides with different colors would be very useful.

The color settings are only used globally for all guides.

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, Komatös said:

The color settings are only used globally for all guides.

It's a shame, color differentiation of guides would be very useful in many situations - it would increase clarity and thus improve orientation in the document (for example, when zooming in).

[SVVector]

A tick box "show guides" can be useful also in case they are not activated so you can see what you're doing. Grid setting have it why not for guides also

[Hangman]

1 hour ago, SVVector said:

A tick box "show guides" can be useful also in case they are not activated so you can see what you're doing. Grid setting have it why not for guides also

Possibly, though you can activate guide visibility, via the menu or via a keyboard shortcut and drag new guides onto the canvas with the Guides dialog window open and clicking the 'add new horizontal or vertical guide' buttons effectively achieves the same thing. If you don't have any guides set then the addition of a checkbox isn't really going to add anything as there will be no guides to see...

Not opposed to the idea, just wondering how much value it adds but agree, having one would make it consistent with the Grid settings dialog window...

[Pšenda]

On 7/21/2023 at 5:38 PM, Hangman said:

how much value it adds

Perhaps the value that the user does not have to think that when the "set/change" guides parameters, they go to the Guides menu, and when they want to control their visibility, they have to go to a completely different menu. Consistency with grid settings/visibility is of course another benefit.

P.S. In addition to visibility, "Lock Guides" should also be placed in the Guide manager.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Pšenda

[diarbyrag]

Since it has taken quite some time to even get the ability to change the ruler guide color I think you should all be very pleased. Serif are never going to please everyone since the users all have different needs and abilities, SO what you should all remember is that without them your only choice was the big A and it took them many years to change stuff in PS also. The value serif offers for their apps far outweighs a few small ( a lot of ) niggles of a few customers. However as I see it, to not have to pay every month for the rest of my life to use a product is something we should all be very grateful for. A few minor GUI irritations in your work flow will not kill you ...

... please feel free to moan about my comment btw

[debraspicher]

Arguments for keeping the the UI/UX clean, cohesive and consistent is quite the valid criticism and I'm glad that it's been occurring regularly since V2 launch. Keeping  programs pleasant and less clunky to use is what keeps people coming back regularly. I've mentioned on the forums in the past that we all have our individual pet peeves. Tweaks here and there can push forward towards the goal of polish, or it could lead to regression. So like most things, expectations do need managing. A polished UI/UX should theoretically accomplish this with less and less work, rather than introducing details on top of details that increases tension between the user and the programs. Designers are details people, but in the end it's about the overall experience. I do have my own thoughts of what that feels like, but I've often thought it was given in the grand view of things without necessarily knowing what the final picture will look like. So I think it's good to have pet peeves and knit picks get mentioned here, simply because it helps inform the broader perspective. Perhaps many people complain about the same snags and obviously this suggests true areas for improvement. The danger is getting lost in the weeds with an overabundance of ideas... and then there's also prioritizing even good suggestions. Not all can be implemented (read: well) all at once. So I'd rather more often ideas be implemented and implemented right the first few iterations than thrown in and needing a rethink, if that makes sense.

Re: Default Guide Color Setting in Preferences - I don't disagree @Barry Newman's suggestion to have a setting to "redefine" the guide colors manually within preferences or in the guide/grids/whichever. It may not be a high priority right now simply because if we can "redefine" default guide colors, what's to stop us redefining other aspects of the program. So if such a tab/panel is added in the future, it might make more sense it is all added in at one time. It would be less hidden in the feature update than a simple notation in Changelog: "Added option to change default guide color in preferences", etc. There's features I'm still finding because they're not exactly "front and center" thanks to micro changes.