Studio peculiarities after upgrading to MacBook Air

[colindun]

I upgraded from an old iMac to a new MacBook Air over the weekend. Since then, my studio configuration has gone wonky.

I've activated my panels preset, but this only works when I toggle 'full screen'. I don't like full screen, but in 'non-toggled' view the tool panel on the left vanishes (and sometimes the studio panels on the right also) and the 'show rulers' setting doesn't work.

I'ver tried resetting to no avail. I've tried dragging panels in fullscreen view then de-toggling, but the panels then seem to disappear offscreen.

It's as though Affinity Photo still thinks I'm using a larger iMac screen and places the various panels offscreen.

I'm maybe being very dense? Is there a simple way to resolve this?

Oh, and I have searched the forum but though there are similar issues none seem to match my particular problems.

[v_kyr]

17 minutes ago, colindun said:

I upgraded from an old iMac to a new MacBook Air over the weekend. Since then, my studio configuration has gone wonky.

How? Via a fresh install, or copying the app over, or restoring from a time machine backup ...? - Also check the macOS internal & external display settings.

 

[colindun]

I use Time Machine to transfer my data from my old retina iMac to a new MacBook Air. Under display on the MacBook Air resolution is set to default which is 1710 x 1107. Changing that doesn't seem to make any difference to Affinity Photo.

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, colindun said:

I use Time Machine to transfer my data from my old retina iMac to a new MacBook Air.

That's probably why your Studio presets are trying to position some items on the larger iMac screen. I suggest on the MBA deleting all the presets that do that & creating new ones for it.

[colindun]

Thanks, I'll try that, but it doesn't explain why everything in my preset works OK when full screen is toggled, but not when it's not.

Update: Nope, that's not working. I deleted my preset and chose 'reset studio', but even though I have 'show tools' selected, they are missing and not on the screen, and the rulers are also missing though I have those selected in the View menu also. Both are visible when I toggle full screen, but neither is when de-toggled.

This is getting serious. I can't work in AP with this odd behaviour, and may just have to revert to my old iMac to get work done ;0(

[v_kyr]

Try an app reset to defaults ...

 

You can also check APh app system defaults, in order to see if some window & panel sizes are different dimensioned on an iMac. One can do so to list (read out) those via Terminal.app and performimg there ...

Quote

> defaults read -app "Affinity Photo"

 

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Try an app reset to defaults ...

The OP said "I'ver tried resetting to no avail" but I don't know if that means resetting the app defaults or resetting something else.

[v_kyr]

12 minutes ago, R C-R said:

The OP said "I'ver tried resetting to no avail" but I don't know if that means resetting the app defaults or resetting something else.

I would, if not already tried, also "Reset Doc & Window States" and if that doesn't change anything then all.

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

I would, if not already tried, also "Reset Doc & Window States" and if that doesn't change anything then all.

Where is that reset found?

[v_kyr]

5 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Where is that reset found?

See the FAQ above ...

[R C-R]

19 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

See the FAQ above ...

Thanks. I wasn't sure if that is what you meant because I thought "Doc" might refer to the Dock instead of "Documents."

So let's see if that is what the OP meant about resetting....

[colindun]

Thanks. By 'reset' I meant 'Reset Studio. I'll try resetting AP back to default and see if that does the trick.

Frankly, though, I'm puzzled that AP doesn't recognise the change of screen size. Changing devices and screen resolutions via a time machine upgrade to a new Mac must happen a lot, yet this apparent glitch happens 😳

[R C-R]

32 minutes ago, colindun said:

By 'reset' I meant 'Reset Studio. I'll try resetting AP back to default and see if that does the trick.

So for future reference it helps if you use the same terminology as in the app to avoid confusion. But regardless, let us know if "Reset Document & Window States" works for you.

[v_kyr]

21 minutes ago, colindun said:

Frankly, though, I'm puzzled that AP doesn't recognise the change of screen size.

The Affinity apps do store a bunch of things in app related prefs and plists, also in a macOS systems apps defaults db. So when you restore a time machine backup which also contains any of those settings from a previous computer, then the settings of the previous computer will be restored and taken into account.

Thus it's partly a difference, if a time machine backup stems from one and the same used computer or not here, especially if certain settings files haven't been excluded previously/before, when a time machine backup was performed.

Further, in order to get always a fresh install on a new different computer, I personally would always install an app newly if possible and then only copy & restore (aka take over) just the personal once added extra things, like macro, styles, assets files ... over to/for the new app installment.

Another point is changed macOS versions, so for example if now running let's say Sonoma on a new machine and before from another computer before maybe Ventura. Especially also if before an older Affinity version was used and in the meantime there is maybe a newer one, which has been better adopted to the latest/newest macOS version.

[colindun]

I have now 'reset' (*proper* use of the term this time) AP defaults as advised but it hasn't solved the problem. Tools panel and rulers still not visible within the window unless I toggle full screen.

Looks like I'm going to have to uninstall and then reinstall to see if that solves the problem. <sigh>

Rather ironically, I still have a copy of Affinity Photo 1 on my hard drive and when I launch that the windows and studio panels work fine 🤔

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, colindun said:

Looks like I'm going to have to uninstall and then reinstall to see if that solves the problem. <sigh>

That is unlikely to do anything but you might as well give it a try.

[v_kyr]

3 minutes ago, colindun said:

Tools panel and rulers still not visible within the window unless I toggle full screen.

Which macOS version do you use on the MBA and which one before on the iMac?

[loukash]

I've never used the Migration Assistant or Time Machine to copy my data to a different Mac, for a reason. It smells trouble – unless you've been using only Apple apps, that is.

That said, while migrating from old MacBook running El Capitan to new MBA with Ventura, I was too lazy to set up Affinity v1 anew and I simply copied all its Library App Support/Container folders to the new Mac.
Troubles.
Eventually I fixed it by trashing some *.plist or *.dat files, don't remember which ones. A possible cause might have been that the apps got confused by reading Intel based preferences on an Apple Silicon Mac.
For Affinity v2, I copied some preferences from my old Catalina partition which mostly worked OK, as far as I remember. 

In general though, on a new Mac it's usually the best to start setting up all 3rd party apps from the scratch, even though it can take a few days or – in my case – even weeks. It also clears all the junk that one hasn't been even using in years. Been there done that many times in the past 30 years…  

[colindun]

19 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Which macOS version do you use on the MBA and which one before on the iMac?

I was using Big Sur on my iMac and the MacBook Air has Ventura 13.6

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, colindun said:

I was using Big Sur on my iMac and the MacBook Air has Ventura 13.6

Then I would perform a fresh install for the MBA and taking only the APh resources (macros, assets ...) over (not the prefs) from the BigSur installment.

 

[colindun]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

Then I would perform a fresh install for the MBA and taking only the APh resources (macros, assets ...) over (not the prefs) from the BigSur installment.

 

Fresh install of the OS? I've tried deleting AP and then reinstalling and that didn't work. Problem persists.

[colindun]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

 

 

I tried deleting these preferences manually as a last resort. No luck.

This is now proving a *major* hurdle to my getting work done. Going to have the revert to my iMac as AP on my new MacBook Air is unusable ;0(, and I can't spare the time to reinstall the OS and do a clean install of AP just now. Very frustrating and disappointing. Very.

Thanks for the generous help from members 👍. Disappointed that a member of staff hasn't followed the thread and offered advice.

[v_kyr]

23 minutes ago, colindun said:

I've tried deleting AP

How? I wouldn't just remove it from the Applications folder, additionally I would remove the APh folder under "~/Library/..."  and also it's "~/.affinity" files, before performing a new fresh install.

So I would also remove certain APh related things from...

• ~/Library/Group Containers/6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs/v2/user/
• ~/Library/Containers/Affinity Photo 2/Data/Library/Preferences/com.seriflabs.affinityphoto2.plist
• ...

[colindun]

OK, I'll try that, thanks.

 

Update: I *think* that's done it. Had to do it twice because I missed some preference files, but I think that may be it.

Thanks for the help. I was pulling what little remains of my hair out ;0) What a palaver, though. None of the other apps I use had this issue. Even Pixelmator happily remembered my palette layout.