Tools Fonts are Too Small

[Geronimo52]

I am a new user and just started the 30-day trial.  I would like to buy the Affinity Photo software but I spend most of my time leaning toward the screen trying to read some of the text in the user interface.  Some of it is fine, but other areas are ridiculously small.  I just spent a lot of time reading similar complaints going back about three years and never found a useful suggestion.

Since the issue persists I'll just ask whether there's any actual effort under way to make this software usable.  If it isn't going to be fixed I can just cancel and move on.

Thanks

[Affinityconfusesme]

they acknowledged the accessibility issue but they did not announce plans to add it.

[walt.farrell]

If you're on Windows, @Geronimo52, the only workaround I know of is to increase the Display Scaling in the Windows system settings, which will affect all applications. 

On Mac, there are Affinity application Settings that may help.

Serif generally will not comment on whether they are working on a particular function, or not.

[Granddaddy]

21 hours ago, Geronimo52 said:

Since the issue persists I'll just ask whether there's any actual effort under way to make this software usable.  If it isn't going to be fixed I can just cancel and move on.

Welcome @Geronimo52/

There is absolutely no evidence to indicate that Serif has any plans to modify the UI to make it less dysfunctional, nor that they even recognize the existence of a problem other than that some users are grumpy just because they don't have the vision of 25-year-olds.

In fact the release of APhoto 2 made the interface worse as a plethora of posts have documented. With Affinity, what you see is what you should expect to get in the future since that has been the case for more than 8 years during which time all requests for improvement have been ignored. 

It is never a good idea to scale the entire Windows interface. Windows Accessibility options let you scale the size of APhoto text elements that use the system font, but most text elements seem to be hard coded into the software.

My post at
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/189371-high-dpi-settings-on-windows-increase-tools-font-size/&do=findComment&comment=1107381

will lead you to other discussions if that really matters. It matters to me, of course, because I have to regularly remind myself why I put up with the Serif Minuscule font and the tiny icons.

There are helpful links in my post at
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/171054-accessibility-customising-the-ui-font-size/&do=findComment&comment=1075020

In that post I link to another post where I gave my personal reasons for upgrading to Affinity 2 products.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/177444-upgrade-i-still-can-not-decide/&do=findComment&comment=1021782

Best of luck in finding a photo editor that meets your needs for power and usability.

 

[Geronimo52]

Walt and Grandaddy - Thank you both for your comments.  EIGHT YEARS!  I saw complaints going back two or three years.  I had no idea.  Anyway I have been working exclusively on video for a long time and decided I wanted to learn more about photography.  I had a similar problem with Davinci Resolve and spent way too much time adjusting the display settings in Windows so I could manage the UI.  I use a laptop and that doesn't help, but I have a second monitor and that helps a lot.  After struggling to get Resolve usable (for me) I was reluctant to start that process again, but I started making small adjustments and keeping written notes.  I finally hit on a combination that made Affinity easier to read and (here comes the miracle!) Resolve looks better too!  This text I am writing is too big, but I can live with it.

I'm going to leave my display settings in case they are useful for anyone else.  My display resolution is 2560x1440 and my custom scale is 190%.  As I say it isn't perfect, but this may be a workable starting point for someone who would rather edit photos than mess around in the Windows settings.

As for why the devs at Serif haven't solved this problem in EIGHT YEARS! (sorry - I couldn't help myself) maybe they just don't know how to do it.

Regards from a total noob.

[anto]

5 hours ago, Geronimo52 said:

As for why the devs at Serif haven't solved this problem in EIGHT YEARS! (sorry - I couldn't help myself) maybe they just don't know how to do it.

Here is a sample of how others work