Long delay when opening layer groups + "jumpy" list

[Raptosauru5]

I would like to bring this to Serif's attention, since it is frustrating me for a very long time. It might not be considered a bug, but I don't think it is "intended" either.

Please notice the long delay when opening/closing any of these group dropdowns in the following example. Also please note how confusing it is, when the whole layout jumps up/down.

2023-12-09 16-04-47.mkv

A) I think that the Layers window needs some performance optimisations (maybe some memory caching) for large scenes. I am doing my best to optimize my scenes, but when you are developing UI for a mobile app, you will always end up working with dozens of artboards, like in my example (unless you want to design each app screen in a different file). This is not a problem in a fresh empty scene, so a large complex scene must be the performance problem. It is however a problem even for Group with a single empty layer in it (I mean, there was really nothing to load). It also takes the same amount of time when I am closing it and when I am opening the same group again. This means there is some complex calculation happening under the hood. 

I am not in position to judge how complex or not the program can be, but can you please look into it?

B) I would be really glad for some rework to help user not to "get lost" so easily (at least on Windows). I have seen Affinity on Mac has a nice dropdown unwrapping animation, which greatly helps user to keep track about what moved where. A 1s flash of coloration of just opened layers could also help. I am getting lost in my layers every day, all the time, because everything I do in layers is instant "jump" instead of smooth transition...and the 1.5 sec performance delay does not help.

Thanks for attention and thanks for giving Affinity all the love it received so far!

[Dan C]

Hi Raptosauru5,

I've moved from Bugs to Feedback, the long delay appears to be approximately .4 seconds which is well within expectations on a large project and is mostly system dependant. 

Using the Apple slide UI slide mechanism would likely extend this time.

If you click on a group before expanding the layers, your group will remain selected and highlighted once expanded, making it easier to track.

Lee

[Raptosauru5]

@Lee_T Thanks for your reply, but I feel like you are dismissing my post too early without considering that this is actually a problem.

I am using Affinity for my work for about a year actively and I am really happy with it and I am ok with some little bugs. However, this is such a basic thing - the core of the whole application. I think Layers window should really REALLY be polished as much as possible.

 

On 12/11/2023 at 1:01 PM, Lee_T said:

delay appears to be approximately .4 seconds which is well within expectations on a large project and is mostly system dependant

However, my system should be an overkill for this task: Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor 3.70 GHz, 32 GB RAM, RTX 3080 (this is roughly double the processing power than the newest Macbook pro). I still think that more optimisation could be done in this area.

 

On 12/11/2023 at 1:01 PM, Lee_T said:

Using the Apple slide UI slide mechanism would likely extend this time.

Can we have an option to add it anyway? Maybe with faster animation? This would greatly improve the eye tracking!

 

On 12/11/2023 at 1:01 PM, Lee_T said:

If you click on a group before expanding the layers, your group will remain selected and highlighted once expanded, making it easier to track.

From many hours of experience, I must say this is really not good enough. Especially when the list is jumping. I mean I lose what I was just working on, even when I am watching the list very closely.

 

@Lee_T Please note these points and feel free to ask me for more info. I would be happy to help with improvement.

[Raptosauru5]

@Lee_T

-BUMP-

This is getting worse!

I currently have ~30 app design pages on separate Artboards + some extra Artboards for work and couple of screenshots. 30 is not that many!

And I can't group my Artboards (to optimize or something), because that will cause Measure Tool to stop working.

If this is being ignored, I can't rely on Affinity Designer to be able to do anything on a reasonable scale.