Documentation for AP 2.1 claims it is for PC & Mac, but it is only written for Macs.

[Grant Robertson]

The page here provides a single link for "PC/Mac" documentation. However, it seems your technical writers only bothered to provide instructions for Macs, throughout the documentation. I find this extremely disappointing and irritating. 

[walt.farrell]

Do you have a specific example? In general I've found that the pages detect the system you're viewing from and tailor the documentation to match.

[Grant Robertson]

5 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Do you have a specific example? In general I've found that the pages detect the system you're viewing from and tailor the documentation to match.

My "example" is the entire documentation for Affinity Photo 2.1.

However, I was reading the documentation via the web browser on my Android tablet. So, it seems the web developers are the ones who dropped the ball. They should provide a means to choose which version of the documentation the user wants to view. Or, simply default to including both, like most other documentation. And, no, I don't think I should be forced to fire up my Windows laptop if I want to do a little light documentation reading while kicked back in my recliner.

They have also assumed that no one would ever want to read the web-based documentation for Macs, while using a PC, or vice-versa. This is one of those times when developers were trying to be too smart for their own good. 

[Ron P.]

I just clicked on the link you provided in your post, which took me to Serif's online Help page, where you're provided links to the proper platform help. Selecting the PC/MAC link, it detects that I'm running Windows, and the Help is based on Windows. The easiest way to check this, is look up the Shortcuts on the online help. For me they're all Windows shortcuts, ie; CTL (control) and not Command.

I don't know why any one would want to read the help information for a platform they're not running. You want to read MAC access using a MAC. The only reason for wanting or needing to read the other, is when working as support personnel to look up information while providing help.

I personally think this is very clever for the web team to design it this way. If not, I know I would not like fumbling through information that would not pertain to my system. However if it wasn't this way, there would be those complaining about having to wade through all the text to just find the help for their system. Yep, I'd be one of those...

 

 

[Barry Newman]

1 hour ago, Ron P. said:

I just clicked on the link you provided in your post, which took me to Serif's online Help page, where you're provided links to the proper platform help. Selecting the PC/MAC link, it detects that I'm running Windows, and the Help is based on Windows. The easiest way to check this, is look up the Shortcuts on the online help. For me they're all Windows shortcuts, ie; CTL (control) and not Command.

I don't know why any one would want to read the help information for a platform they're not running. You want to read MAC access using a MAC. The only reason for wanting or needing to read the other, is when working as support personnel to look up information while providing help.

I personally think this is very clever for the web team to design it this way. If not, I know I would not like fumbling through information that would not pertain to my system. However if it wasn't this way, there would be those complaining about having to wade through all the text to just find the help for their system. Yep, I'd be one of those...

 

I strongly disagree. The following scenarios are quite common:

• You need to see shortcuts to the other operating system for one reason or another
• You are reading the help on an Android tablet or other secondary device that does not correspond to the device you are working on
• I have both systems and would like to see both shortcuts to a function when I'm reading because I need it.
• The help misdetects your operating system and displays incorrect information
• The help doesn't even help you indicate that this help is for A or B to both confusion and frustration

The problem here is that you - very typical of this forum - completely oversimplify reality and make your own theoretical assumptions in your own room.

The automation can be a problem. It may not be a problem. But let Serif gather feedback and assess whether there is a need for a simple selector where customers choose the system.

I use both Windows and Mac, as I said, and think it's a bit silly that I can't choose and compare on the help page. Even if I had to print or copy some of the help for my own use.

Conversely, if you have to argue that there shouldn't be an operating system selector somewhere discreetly on the page to handle the needs of others, you won't have many strong, obvious arguments.

[James Ritson]

Hello, hopefully the following will help. I wrote this functionality a few years ago when we were developing the Windows versions of the Affinity apps. It's actually behaviour for the in-app help viewers which has been ported across to the web version. It detects the operating system and sets an appropriate stylesheet with the OS modifier keys. Therefore you may blame me!

As has been mentioned above, the typical user experience is to be browsing the help with the same OS that they are using the Affinity apps on, so this is generally a sensible behaviour. If you need to see the modifier keys for the other OS, however, you can use Alt/Option and the left and right arrow keys to toggle between the two. Make sure you are focused on the topic window and not the TOC (a single click over the topic area will suffice).

The above modifier is not advertised publicly since it was implemented as a development tool, but there is no harm in exposing this I believe. Having a web version-only toggle for macOS/Windows would be a sensible approach. Another would be to simply list both modifiers side by side with platform clarification, which would likely serve to frustrate both sets of users and create additional 'noise' in the topics—we receive enough criticism about this with the video tutorials where both modifier variants are always mentioned. Any decision would however be up to the documentation team.

[Barry Newman]

Thanks for the background information @James Ritson the truth lay somewhere in between. It often does. 🙂 The original functionality makes a lot of sense in the original context.

And as we can see, it's not a big task technically to make a toggle. I would also recommend a user friendly toggle rather than a mix to make the information clearer.