Placement of canvas/controlling work area in Photo

[uburoibob]

3 minutes ago, thomaso said:

The vertical spacing between the spreads seems to be reduced only with the goal to reduce the required scrolling when scrolling through a document with many pages. The space above the first and below the last spread has the size like at left and right: apparently 'endless'.

Workaround: in case you really want to use the pasteboard above/below spreads (rather than aside) you can increase the vertical bleed massively, it gets displayed like and can be used as pasteboard. Don't forget to reset such a bleed before export with bleed.

Thanks for the workaround. Personally, I don't need that kind of space (as I, myself, am advocating adjustability so I might reduce the offered space). Perhaps, if they provide a mechanism for adjusting the pasteboard size one day, the need to increase the bleed to work, and then reset it before kicking out final PDFs would be eliminated. My initial point was - why so much space before the first page but not the same amount between pages? I posit that for ME, that huge space at the top is a throughput hinderance, and I'd like a way to reduce it (and others might want to increase it). Flexibility in the user interface is the only point I am trying to make in the least threatening way possible. Some of these folks are a tough audience.

 

[R C-R]

35 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

I believe, if you check back, you referenced "most of us" first, and several times.

What you quoted was about trying to understand what you were talking about because as I said for most of us CMD-0 does what it seemed like at the time was not working for you. Regardless, please note that I said "if that is what you are talking about" because I was struggling to understand what your issue was & why we were seeing the document move all over the workspace window in the screen recording.

Also, the "most of us" comment about CMD-0 working as intended was because it apparently was not for @Docwyatt (as mentioned here).

As it has turned out, I think this is really about scrolling & zooming, either by intent or accidentally, to show more of the empty part of the workspace window than is necessary, but since that is easily avoided I think it is not nor will it be a problem for most Affinity users. Of course, there is no way to know for sure if it would be a deal killer for potential buyers, which is what prompted my last comment.

If you have already made a feature request, there is nothing else you can do besides waiting to see if it is ever implemented & not use the app until it is or adapt to how it works now if you want to continue using it.

Not much else to say.

[uburoibob]

4 hours ago, R C-R said:

What you quoted was about trying to understand what you were talking about because as I said for most of us CMD-0 does what it seemed like at the time was not working for you. Regardless, please note that I said "if that is what you are talking about" because I was struggling to understand what your issue was & why we were seeing the document move all over the workspace window in the screen recording.

Also, the "most of us" comment about CMD-0 working as intended was because it apparently was not for @Docwyatt (as mentioned here).

As it has turned out, I think this is really about scrolling & zooming, either by intent or accidentally, to show more of the empty part of the workspace window than is necessary, but since that is easily avoided I think it is not nor will it be a problem for most Affinity users. Of course, there is no way to know for sure if it would be a deal killer for potential buyers, which is what prompted my last comment.

If you have already made a feature request, there is nothing else you can do besides waiting to see if it is ever implemented & not use the app until it is or adapt to how it works now if you want to continue using it.

Not much else to say.

No, it's not about zooming and scrolling. But thanks for telling me that's what you think I think...

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, uburoibob said:

No, it's not about zooming and scrolling. But thanks for telling me that's what you think I think...

I was telling you what I think it is about. I even italicized those two words in my post you quoted to make that as clear as I could. Did you miss that or just ignore it?

[Pšenda]

If I understand the topic correctly, the problem - rather a deviation from the behavior of other applications, is that if I center the image on the whole screen with Ctrl+0, then some users would expect that the scrollbars will not allow scrolling outside the displayed image - that is, that they will occupy the entire viewable area.

 

I'll give an example of why Affinity's existing behavior is useful: quite often I need to display/enlarge a certain part of a document/image - let's say the word Ask. I do this by moving this part of the image to the middle of the desktop (which I can only do if the application allows me to move outside the borders of the image),

and then I use Ctrl+ to enlarge this part to the required size.

Without the possibility to move the image beyond its borders - that is, without a relatively large pasteboard, I would have to gradually enlarge, move, enlarge again, move again,...

And if the image has a complex structure with many identical or similar objects, I will most likely get lost in this search for the correct position. Searching for the desired part of the image while displaying it in its entirety is thus much easier and more reliable.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Pšenda

[uburoibob]

37 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

If I understand the topic correctly, the problem - rather a deviation from the behavior of other applications, is that if I center the image on the whole screen with Ctrl+0, then some users would expect that the scrollbars will not allow scrolling outside the displayed image - that is, that they will occupy the entire viewable area.

 

I'll give an example of why Affinity's existing behavior is useful: quite often I need to display/enlarge a certain part of a document/image - let's say the word Ask. I do this by moving this part of the image to the middle of the desktop (which I can only do if the application allows me to move outside the borders of the image),

and then I use Ctrl+ to enlarge this part to the required size.

Without the possibility to move the image beyond its borders - that is, without a relatively large pasteboard, I would have to gradually enlarge, move, enlarge again, move again,...

And if the image has a complex structure with many identical or similar objects, I will most likely get lost in this search for the correct position. Searching for the desired part of the image while displaying it in its entirety is thus much easier and more reliable.

All I am asking for is a mechanism for adjusting the size of the background/pasteboard, so it can be made less vast for users that have no use for it. I appreciate you taking the time to explain why you need it. In the other programs referenced, one can do the same thing - it simply goes off screen. You can pull it back down, resize etc. For those of us used to it, it’s far more efficient, and I can see that for those used to having an island in a large pasteboard, because you are used to it, you find it useful. I am suggesting Affinity offering a way to adjust that giant area to reduce or enlarge it.

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, LondonSquirrel said:

that setting a size or limit for the pasteboard is not a bad idea

And what about leaving the pasteboard arbitrarily/infinitely large (there were already requirements for this), and only restricting (partially) the displacement of the display outside the document. If I don't have anything placed on the pasteboard, then there is no reason to move the view there. If I put something there, the display might move to here - but there's no reason to display that place if there's nothing placed there.

[uburoibob]

6 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

And what about leaving the pasteboard arbitrarily/infinitely large (there were already requirements for this), and only restricting (partially) the displacement of the display outside the document. If I don't have anything placed on the pasteboard, then there is no reason to move the view there. If I put something there, the display might move to here - but there's no reason to display that place if there's nothing placed there.

Possibly. But…Seems to me letting the user decide the size of their work area is the most elegant, intuitive, and useful solution. Why wouldn’t it be?

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I have scrolled way off the top or bottom or side of a document in APub a few times. As mentioned, it is very easy to do this by mistake with an Apple mouse.

Which is exactly why I think this is a scrolling issue, & one that only arrises if you use that mouse rather than one that lacks that design flaw.

1 hour ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I get the idea of a (seemingly) unlimited pasteboard, but none of us work on an unlimited table. 

No, but consider that for instance we might be working on a document with a relatively small page (or artboard or canvas) size & want to add to it photos or other items that are much larger than that. In that case, what should the limits be on where in the workspace window we can drop them?

Again, to me it all boils down to if you do not want to see a lot of empty space in the workspace window then just don't do anything that makes it visible. Use CMD-0 or the navigation bar at the left of the status bar or any of the other provided methods to center the work in that window & go from there.

[uburoibob]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Which is exactly why I think this is a scrolling issue, & one that only arrises if you use that mouse rather than one that lacks that design flaw.

No, but consider that for instance we might be working on a document with a relatively small page (or artboard or canvas) size & want to add to it photos or other items that are much larger than that. In that case, what should the limits be on where in the workspace window we can drop them?

Again, to me it all boils down to if you do not want to see a lot of empty space in the workspace window then just don't do anything that makes it visible. Use CMD-0 or the navigation bar at the left of the status bar or any of the other provided methods to center the work in that window & go from there.

And again I ask, for the umpteenth time, what is wrong with allowing each user to set the pasteboard/background size so they can work as they like instead of as you like? 

[uburoibob]

1 minute ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Customisable? Like the page itself?

Yes! 

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, LondonSquirrel said:

It happens by accident using an Apple mouse. I sometimes scroll way off the top or to one side. I don't mean just a little bit, I mean waayyyyyyyy off.

No, I am not going to change my mouse.

Suit yourself but unless or until Serif implements some limit the only way to avoid that happening is to use another mouse or equivalent, or stop using the Affinity apps.

BTW, if you do scroll accidentally when using it in Affinity, do you also sometimes do the same in other apps, like in Safari or another browser when just trying to click on something on the page?

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

And again I ask, for the umpteenth time, what is wrong with allowing each user to set the pasteboars/background size so they can work as they like instead of as you like? 

What is wrong with just avoiding displaying more of the workspace window than you want to see? That does not seem to be a problem for anyone that does not use the Apple mouse & of course the apps already provide multiple ways to show just one part of that window.

[uburoibob]

11 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Suit yourself but unless or until Serif implements some limit the only way to avoid that happening is to use another mouse or equivalent, or stop using the Affinity apps.

BTW, if you do scroll accidentally when using it in Affinity, do you also sometimes do the same in other apps, like in Safari or another browser when just trying to click on something on the page?

No. The Apple Mouse works perfectly for everything else I use. Only one other app had the issue of being too sensitive for Apple’s mouse, about five years ago, and that was Helix Edit - a program for controlling Line6’s Helix guitar processor. Fortunately, they fixed it right away. Hope Affinity fixes this issue soon by allowing users to choose the size of the pasteboard so they can work as they like, rather than as you like. Then we can all be happy. 

[R C-R]

9 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Customisable? Like the page itself?

Why should we have to preset some limit when it is so easy to show just what we want? What if after working on a document for a while we realize for that document we need more space? Should this be a per document setting, an application-wide one, or perhaps even one that is shared across all 3 apps (& maybe also the iPad versions)?

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

No. The Apple Mouse works perfectly for everything else I use.

All I can tell you about that is I know quite a few people who think it is far to easy to scroll with that mouse than it should be  ... & among them is at least one Apple employee.

[uburoibob]

1 minute ago, LondonSquirrel said:

It's called user customisation. If you, and I do mean you, never use such and such a feature, would you disable it for other people?

Exactly.

[R C-R]

4 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

That is extremely impertinent. I have experienced the same problem as the original poster of this thread. Telling anyone not to use Affinity apps because of the way they work is not helpful at all.

I am not telling anyone not to use the apps, just that if you do continue to use them with that Apple mouse this problem will be hard to avoid, at least if or until Serif adds this feature. It's your choice.

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

It's called user customisation. If you, and I do mean you, never use such and such a feature, would you disable it for other people?

I do not know how to make it clearer than this: I am not suggesting that it should be disabled, only that the reality is that feature does not currently exist, so all you can do if you want it is to add your support to the feature request. I don't need it because I do not use that Apple mouse so I am not going to add my support for it, but that in no way means I think you should not support it if you do.

[uburoibob]

8 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I don't understand why you have such a bee in your bonnet about this. Having a customisable pasteboard size it not an unreasonable request. You wouldn't have to use it. The default could even be as it is now to please people who want 20 metre pasteboards, if they find it useful when working on small documents. Telling people they are scrolling wrong, using the wrong mouse, etc, is not at all helpful. 

Thank you. I agree - it’s not the mouse or how people are scrolling. It’s the gigantic pasteboard.

[uburoibob]

6 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I do not know how to make it clearer than this: I am not suggesting that it should be disabled, only that the reality is that feature does not currently exist, so all you can do if you want it is to add your support to the feature request. I don't need it because I do not use that Apple mouse so I am not going to add my support for it, but that in no way means I think you should not support it if you do.

Mighty generous of you... Again, it's not the mouse.

[uburoibob]

Also, in Affinity Photo, there seems to be no use for that gigantic background. You can't use it to store stuff, because anything that's off the doc disappears at the edge of the doc. Or am I missing something here? Both zoomed out and CMD-0 (which, by the way, does the same thing Photoshop does without the gigantic sea of nothing).

 

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, uburoibob said:

Also, in Affinity Photo, there seems to be no use for that gigantic background. You can't use it to store stuff, because anything that's off the doc disappears at the edge of the doc. Or am I missing something here?

In your example the large pasteboard size can be welcome if you want to increase the canvas size via an object. For instance to include your partially hidden image, or just like so:

By the way, this video also illustrates a virtual limit of the pasteboard which gets obvious when panning around. Also using the scrollbars appear to avoid to exceed a certain limit. Thus APhoto feels more helpful and possibly matching your needs than APub where any content can get entirely off the visible area, positioned far away in the 'nowhere' (as shown in a video above).

[uburoibob]

4 minutes ago, thomaso said:

In your example the large pasteboard size can be welcome if you want to increase the canvas size via an object. For instance to include your partially hidden image, or just like so:

By the way, this video also illustrates a virtual limit of the pasteboard which gets obvious when panning around. Also using the scrollbars appear to avoid to exceed a certain limit. Thus APhoto feels more helpful and possibly matching your needs than APub where any content can get entirely off the visible area, positioned far away in the 'nowhere' (as shown in my previous video above).

 

Thanks. Essentially, without the CLIP CANVAS command, you can do the same thing in Photoshop, or quickly resize the canvas and doc, but without the giant pasteboard area. The background can be zoomed out as far as you like to see the image frame, but when zoomed in, you don't have that giant surround to have to deal with. Honestly, a user-definable background would be the perfect solution. In the meantime, I will collect the various remedies (workarounds) that users have offered. Hopefully one day we won't need to work around...

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, uburoibob said:

Again, it's not the mouse.

If it is not the Apple mouse then how do you explain why is it that if you use CMD-0 to center the work in the workspace window & remove your hand from that mouse, that giant area that bothers you so much does not appear? After all, in that case it isn't appearing by itself, right? It only appears as the result of user input after using that command.