Placement of canvas/controlling work area in Photo

[uburoibob]

55 minutes ago, thomaso said:

In your video I don't understand why you scroll horizontally at all. Is it just to experience / demonstrate a possible width of the pasteboard? If you feel "the live area of the document flying way" by scrolling, wouldn't it be useful to reduce the scroll speed for your Magic Mouse in the macOS system preferences?

Just in case: instead of scrolling from one APub spread to another there is also a keyboard command: In my setup it is fn + cmd + arrow key up/down. The active spread gets displayed in the center of the main window while the current zoom level is maintained – which accordingly may cause unexpected pasteboard height for the first or last spread at a zoom level below cmd-0. (Note, though it is not related to the pasteboard question: this forced auto-centred positioning was reported before as unwanted by quite a few users, same to the forced auto-zoom when a spread gets selected with a doubleclick in the Pages Panel)

Or is it rather that you expect a general limitation of the pasteboard width in APub, plus a max. height in single page documents? – If yes, what do you want to see in small zoom levels instead of a large pasteboard? Nevertheless, a limited pasteboard size might conflict with the mentioned compatibility of Affinity file types and its three apps: While APub allows a simple vertical spread arrangement only (with a fixed vertical pasteboard between spreads), AD allows to arrange its artboards in an unlimited area (as for instance also AI does and Freehand did) and APhoto displays only one canvas or one APub spread at a time but is also able to display all artboards of an AD document, whereas APub's Photo Persona displays all pages and spreads of a document.

Put simply, I’d like it to perform as the two leading DTP programs perform. In particular, as InDesign performs. WHY I’d like it scroll in any direction has nothing to do with anything. Any more than me asking you WHY you don’t. Reducing my scrolling speed to a crawl for everything else I do with my Mac seems a bit extreme. And the obtuse workarounds are fine, but the issue shouldn’t HAVE to be worked around. Just please provide the option to set the size of the pasteboard space.

While I am at it - WHY have such a HUGE pasteboard area above the first page in a multipage document, and then have the pages so close together vertically for the rest of the pages? If I’d need it above/below page 1, would I not need it for every other page?

[Return]

35 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

Put simply

Buy another mouse.
Don't blame the software for your lack of using decent hardware.

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

It happens to me unintentionally using an Apple magic mouse. It is remarkably easy to scroll when I don't want to.

I believe that is an inherent design flaw in the design of that rodent that manifests itself not just in the Affinity apps but also in others, notably Safari & other browsers where it is very easy to accidentally scroll when just trying to click a link with the result that the click lands on something else.

[uburoibob]

16 minutes ago, Return said:

Buy another mouse.
Don't blame the software for your lack of using decent hardware.

It’s not the mouse. Don’t blame the hardware for your lack of understanding of how software SHOULD work.  🙄

[uburoibob]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I believe that is an inherent design flaw in the design of that rodent that manifests itself not just in the Affinity apps but also in others, notably Safari & other browsers where it is very easy to accidentally scroll when just trying to click a link with the result that the click lands on something else.

It has nothing to do with the hardware or mouse. It has everything to do with that GIANT unused area above the document. The mouse is fine, and a speedy scroll to the top of the document is great - it’s just scrolling into that HUGE void that’s the problem. Every other vendor gets it right. Affinity should too.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, uburoibob said:

It’s not the mouse.

Just try out any other non-Apple mouse or mouse equivalent & compare the results. There are a great many of us who feel Apple is among the worst in the world at designing these things, beginning with the infamous hockey puck.

[uburoibob]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

Just try out any other non-Apple mouse or mouse equivalent & compare the results. There are a great many of us who feel Apple is among the worst in the world at designing these things, beginning with the infamous hockey puck.

Will a different mouse make that GIANT void above the document go away?

[uburoibob]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Just try out any other non-Apple mouse or mouse equivalent & compare the results. There are a great many of us who feel Apple is among the worst in the world at designing these things, beginning with the infamous hockey puck.

I am happy with EVERYTHING about my Mac and have been for the 35 years I’ve been a designer. There are a great many of us who feel that Windows appropriation of the Mac OS is awful, starting with the erratic cursor. The problem ISN’T THE MOUSE. It’s the space around the document that SHOULD be adjustable. How hard is that to understand?

[Return]

2 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

How hard is that to understand?

And how hard is it to understand that publisher isn't indesign and the trinity of the affinities need to use the same viewport.

It is you that has a problem so it seems fair to say that you need to adapt to this  different kind of workflow,not the other way around.

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

Will a different mouse make that GIANT void above the document go away?

That giant void only occurs if you scroll down far enough to see it, so if you use a mouse that makes it easy to control how far you scroll, that problem never arrises.

2 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

I am happy with EVERYTHING about my Mac and have been for the 35 years I’ve been a designer.

Did you ever use one of the original hockey puck mouses? If you did & were happy with its design you were in a very small minority of users.

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, Return said:

It is you that has a problem so it seems fair to say that you need to adapt to this  different kind of workflow,not the other way around.

Either that or use some other app that you think is better suited to your working habits.

[uburoibob]

17 minutes ago, Return said:

And how hard is it to understand that publisher isn't indesign and the trinity of the affinities need to use the same viewport.

It is you that has a problem so it seems fair to say that you need to adapt to this  different kind of workflow,not the other way around.

Yes, I have a problem with the GIANT space above the first page in Publisher. I want to be able to switch from InDesign to this - something I have to think the folks at Affinity would want EVERY ID user to do. And I think they do, considering their support for directly importing IDML files. That’s all. Nothing to do with mice, etc. And I don’t get that others don’t seem to want to give the user the option of working that way.

[uburoibob]

9 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Either that or use some other app that you think is better suited to your working habits.

As I said, I am in InDesign user - you know, the program that Affinity Publisher allows you to import directly from IDML files? Why would you resist giving the user the option of setting the pasteboard size? How would that possibly affect you?

[Return]

So to put it straight,

You want others to use the software the way you want it be.

Uhm, not very modest, now are you, good luck with that, bye 

[uburoibob]

It's funny. The responses from fanboys here remind me of the time I was in a what was supposed to be a fine restaurant struggling with the toughest steak I'd ever been served. So tough, it was even hard to cut with a steak knife. I told the waiter about it and demonstrated that it was tough to cut, and he admonished me for cutting it improperly. He took my knife and fork and began to cut. I said, "when you are done cutting that piece, would you like to chew it for me, as well?"  It wasn't about the cut, it was about the steak.

[thomaso]

23 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

Put simply, I’d like it to perform as the two leading DTP programs perform. (…) WHY I’d like it scroll in any direction has nothing to do with anything.

Hm? This sounds you want free choice of scrolling horizontally but on the other hand want your free choice to get limited?

26 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

Just please provide the option to set the size of the pasteboard space.

Yes, this sounds useful and more clear. The responses in this thread appear rather to discuss any possible misbehaviour with scrolling in general, rather than a missing limit of the available dimensions of the area outside a page, artboard or canvas (which indeed appears endless for no purpose or advantage) plus the request for an implementation of a new area type outside of the pasteboard.

This reminds me to earlier bug reports about objects that got moved by the app with a certain task (but other than user-initiated moving) quite far away off the layout area. I don't know if these logged issues were fixed in V2.

I would recommend to create a feature request about the wanted limitation of the pasteboard as percentage of the layout page / artboard / canvas – but without mentioning scrolling as a main issue but rather mention panning (e.g. via Hand Tool or space key). Note, scrolling via scroll bar is limited already, auto-keeping a part of the layout area visible in the main window as wanted. (If wanted you can place a link to this thread but to me it appears rather misleading).

Here an example of V1 which illustrates possible confusion, and coincidentally (?) a rendering issue in the pasteboard. As mentioned, such a situation of being "in the nowhere" may happen not only by user actions but also by issues of the app with auto-misplaced objects. In such a moment it hardly works to zoom out (with the idea to display "everything" but rather requires a reset via one of the Zoom-shortcuts or the Navigator panel:

Nevertheless, I think we all might get used to this Affinity speciality before it gets improved or fixed. To me it took a while of "misuse" the available ways of scrolling, panning, zooming, … while the disappointment and need to correct my workflow speeded up my learning curve which, in the meantime, makes me avoid such things more or less automatically.

[uburoibob]

1 minute ago, Return said:

So to put it straight,

You want others to use the software the way you want it be.

Uhm, not very modest, now are you, good luck with that, bye 

 

No, I want any user to have the option to control their work environment by determining the size of their work area. Bye.

[R C-R]

4 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

Yes, I have a problem with the GIANT space above the first page in Publisher.

It is there only if you scroll the page very far down in the workspace window, so if you have a problem with that, just don't do that.

6 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

And I don’t get that others don’t seem to want to give the user the option of working that way.

As has already been explained it is because APub is just one of three apps in the Affinity suite & via Studio Link if you have the others you can switch to the other personas where it becomes more important to be able to scroll around the workspace without limit.

[uburoibob]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

Hm? This sounds you want free choice of scrolling horizontally but on the other hand want your free choice to get limited?

Yes, this sounds useful and more clear. The responses in this thread appear rather to discuss any possible misbehaviour with scrolling in general, rather than a missing limit of the available dimensions of the area outside a page, artboard or canvas (which indeed appears endless for no purpose or advantage) plus the request for an implementation of a new area type outside of the pasteboard.

This reminds me to earlier bug reports about objects that got moved by the app with a certain task (but other than user-initiated moving) quite far away off the layout area. I don't know if these logged issues were fixed in V2.

I would recommend to create a feature request about the wanted limitation of the pasteboard as percentage of the layout page / artboard / canvas – but without mentioning scrolling as a main issue but rather mention panning (e.g. via Hand Tool or space key). Note, scrolling via scroll bar is limited already, auto-keeping a part of the layout area visible in the main window as wanted. (If wanted you can place a link to this thread but to me it appears rather misleading).

Here an example of V1 which illustrates possible confusion, and coincidentally (?) a rendering issue in the pasteboard. As mentioned, such a situation of being "in the nowhere" may happen not only by user actions but also by issues of the app with auto-misplaced objects. In such a moment it hardly works to zoom out (with the idea to display "everything" but rather requires a reset via one of the Zoom-shortcuts or the Navigator panel:

 

Nevertheless, I think we all might get used to this Affinity speciality before it gets improved or fixed. To me it took a while of "misuse" the available ways of scrolling, panning, zooming, … while the disappointment and need to correct my workflow speeded up my learning curve which, in the meantime, makes me avoid such things more or less automatically.

I have just addressed it with them directly - thank you for the link.

Scrolling ONLY came up because someone asked for an example of how that HUGE space at the top might be cumbersome. I provided one, and they everyone got hung up on the mouse rather than the issue with that space.

ALL I am asking for is to make it adjustable, so the current user base is happy, and the gigantic potential user base isn't put off during a trial run, so that Affinity might prosper.

[Docwyatt]

I truly appreciate all the input/discussion!

 

Here is the official response from Affinity support:

(I sent a video of the screen showing the huge pasteboard area and CMD-0 usage.)

Thank you for the video expanding on your issue. If I understand you correctly, this is how our apps have always functioned Some users workflows use this area, especially if creating compositions that have objects only partially placed on the actual canvas. 

Other similar apps may behave differently such as PS, as they are created by different development teams from different companies.

 

Many thanks,

Lee @ Affinity Support

 

My reply:

I just don’t remember having this before. Is there a way to shrink or remove that area?

Support:

Apart from changing your zoom level as suggestion in the forum post. There aren't any options within the apps to control the size of that area.

 

Many thanks,

Lee @ Affinity Support

 

 

[uburoibob]

2 minutes ago, Docwyatt said:

I truly appreciate all the input/discussion!

 

Here is the official response from Affinity support:

(I sent a video of the screen showing the huge pasteboard area and CMD-0 usage.)

Thank you for the video expanding on your issue. If I understand you correctly, this is how our apps have always functioned Some users workflows use this area, especially if creating compositions that have objects only partially placed on the actual canvas. 

 

Other similar apps may behave differently such as PS, as they are created by different development teams from different companies.

 

Many thanks,

Lee @ Affinity Support

 

My reply:

I just don’t remember having this before. Is there a way to shrink or remove that area?

Support:

Apart from changing your zoom level as suggestion in the forum post. There aren't any options within the apps to control the size of that area.

 

Many thanks,

Lee @ Affinity Support

 

 

Hopefully, they will get back to you and, at some point, realize if they want to attract Adobe users, it might be a good idea to give them a somewhat familiar interface - particularly with respect to the gigantic sea the document is forced to float in.

[R C-R]

30 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

Hopefully, they will get back to you and, at some point, realize if they want to attract Adobe users, it might be a good idea to give them a somewhat familiar interface - particularly with respect to the gigantic sea the document is forced to float in.

As has been mentioned, if you want this feature you can post a request for it in the forum dedicated for that. As for how many Adobe users it would attract, it is hard to say if the addition of that feature (which as has been explained above would complicate some workflows in which users want or need to use that area) would net Serif more users.

IOW, Serif has to consider what works best for the greatest number of users & potential users for all 3 Affinity apps on three different operating systems, so it isn't as simple as it might seem.

But regardless, you should post in the feature request forum if you want them to consider it.

[uburoibob]

11 minutes ago, R C-R said:

As has been mentioned, if you want this feature you can post a request for it in the forum dedicated for that. As for how many Adobe users it would attract, it is hard to say if the addition of that feature (which as has been explained above would complicate some workflows in which users want or need to use that area) would net Serif more users.

IOW, Serif has to consider what works best for the greatest number of users & potential users for all 3 Affinity apps on three different operating systems, so it isn't as simple as it might seem.

But regardless, you should post in the feature request forum if you want them to consider it.

I've placed the request. As has been mentioned, the huge sea of pasteboard isn't friendly to the vast majority of DTP users, most of whom choose to use Adobe products. I know if I were trying to make money in this segment selling a competitor to the Adobe CC suite, I'd be courting them instead of repelling them. Certainly, giving users the option of a friendly work space (to them, whoever they are) would be no skin off the nose of existing Affinity users - which is why I don't understand you and the tiny handful of people bristling at the suggestion. 

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, uburoibob said:

As has been mentioned, the huge sea of pasteboard isn't friendly to the vast majority of DTP users, most of whom choose to use Adobe products.

Again, if you or any other DTP user doesn't want to use or see that area all they have to do is not scroll or zoom to where it appears in the workspace window. There are already  multiple ways to quickly & easily (re)set the workspace view to show just one page or one spread or one artboard or just the canvas or any part of any of those things to avoid displaying all the extra workspace area.

Personally, I think that should be friendly enough for anyone who wants to use the Affinity suite to its full potential, but of course ultimately it is up to Serif to decide if what you suggest would increase their market share or not.

[uburoibob]

24 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Again, if you or any other DTP user doesn't want to use or see that area all they have to do is not scroll or zoom to where it appears in the workspace window. There are already  multiple ways to quickly & easily (re)set the workspace view to show just one page or one spread or one artboard or just the canvas or any part of any of those things to avoid displaying all the extra workspace area.

Personally, I think that should be friendly enough for anyone who wants to use the Affinity suite to its full potential, but of course ultimately it is up to Serif to decide if what you suggest would increase their market share or not.

Again, I’ve explained why I don’t like having to do extra keystrokes and other cumbersome things to work around it. For catalog work, where we are producing hundreds of pages per month, it’s simply an imposition that makes the workflow more difficult. And again I ask - what difference is it to you if there’s a way to adjust it to make the majority of potential users happy? YOU can always have it just the way it is. OR, dare I say it, might find your workflow throughput is made more efficient without that gulf at the top. And another thing reiterated but not answered - if there’s at the top of the first page for whatever reason, then why is the spacing between the pages so tight? No room on top of page 2 or any subsequent page for anything for the pasteboard. In general, I think we both want to make sure our point is understood. Mine is for more flexibility. I am still not sure I understand yours.