Colour Chooser Panel off screen

[PaulEC]

Hopefully someone may have an idea how to solve this! My wife has recently decided to try out the Affinity Suite. Somehow, in APh, the Colour Chooser Panel (which normally pops up when clicking on a colour well) has ended up opening so that the top of it is off the screen. no matter what we try we can't get it to move or reset it so that the whole panel is on screen. (i.e. The top of it is off screen, so can't be clicked on to move it!) I can't reproduce this on my PC, the top bar is always at least partially visible. We both use Windows 10, (with the latest release version of APh) but one difference is that she uses a Huion Pen Tablet as a second screen. (I don't know if this has anything to do with the problem.) She has tried resetting the app but that has not solved the problem. I'm not sure if she is selecting the correct options, can the UI be reset to default positions, without affecting user settings like installed brushes etc? (It's not something I've ever needed to do myself!) 

 

[Return]

Window>Studio>reset studio 
Nope didn't work.
Perhaps ctrl+runup only using the first 3 items.
Yup that worked.

[PaulEC]

Thanks, that solved it!

We have also discovered that the problem seems to be connected with the Huion. If APh is opened on it, rather than on the monitor and then moved across (which is what she was doing before) the panel opens within the screen, rather than off it.

[Return]

Yes some floating panels may appear somewhere else when using a displaytablet or even when a second monitor with probably a different resolution or scaling factor.

[thomaso]

30 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

solved it!  (…) Huion. If APh is opened on it, rather than on the monitor

Once you solved it, does it help if you use saved Studio Presets to toggle between the devices?

[PaulEC]

Thanks for that, I'll suggest she sets up some Studio Presets. 

At the moment it's a bit of a learning curve for her to transition from Adobe, but she does seem to be able to do everything in Affinity that she needs to do, (albeit often in a different way), and says that some things are easier!

[thomaso]

32 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

a bit of a learning curve for her to transition from Adobe

I was rather asking because I am not sure whether Studio Presets prevent from such a misplacement of an interface item, especially since the Colour Chooser is not a panel but rather a dialog window (like Adjustment dialogs and the various Manager dialog windows).

The Affinity preference folders contain – apart from custom Studio Presets (folder "presets", file types ".preset") – also a "preferences.dat" or a "personas.dat" for instance. I did not test in what file in particular such dialog window positions get saved and don't know whether the ".preset" files are aware of the monitor resolution for instance.

Nevertheless, Studio Presets are worth a try … but may confuse her, too, e.g. if they don't maintain the position of every interface item. (e.g. 'window' positions might get saved independently from 'panels'.)

[PaulEC]

We haven't tried it straight away, she's in the middle of a project at the moment, so doesn't want to "mess" with anything until she's finished and saved it!

[R C-R]

9 hours ago, thomaso said:

I was rather asking because I am not sure whether Studio Presets prevent from such a misplacement of an interface item, especially since the Colour Chooser is not a panel but rather a dialog window (like Adjustment dialogs and the various Manager dialog windows).

I don't have a second screen to test with but I am fairly sure that Studio Presets do not include dialog window placements.

[thomaso]

26 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I don't have a second screen to test with but I am fairly sure that Studio Presets do not include dialog window placements.

I agree, these dialog window positions seem to be saved in another preference – but I wonder if a Studio Preset is 'somehow' aware of either the available screen size or at least of the screen space used by Affinity for application / document window + panels … and thus might prevent from a misplaced dialog window when a different Studio Preset got selected with a different monitor.

[R C-R]

22 minutes ago, thomaso said:

I agree, these dialog window positions seem to be saved in another preference...

FWIW, not that it means much but I moved around the Color Chooser window on the one builtin screen I have for my Mac & noted that the newdocumentpanelstate.dat & mru.dat AP 2 support files each showed an updated modification time so maybe one of them stores some of that info?

EDIT: I was a bit surprised to see that where I moved the Color Chooser window to in AP 2 was 'sticky' & retained that position even after restarting the app. Same for the adjustment dialog windows. I don't think it worked like that in V1.