UI too small

[Andy05]

18 hours ago, Granddaddy said:

On the other hand, some reviewers think APhoto is the best for professionals.
https://twitgoo.com/best-free-photo-editing-software/

Sure, very professional "journalistic research"... *sigh* What version did they test "in 2021"? They moan about one couldn't save the workspace (which one can for quite a while now) and that there's no lens based correction (which there is in RAW development for ages, probably since the first release?). 

It's not that I want to argue about their review in general, but if you test 2021, take the latest version, not one from 2020. 

[Granddaddy]

21 hours ago, v_kyr said:

UI size? - It's always also highly a matter of personal taste and of getting used to.

Specialists in typography, readability, usability, ergonomics, and efficiency will be surprised to learn their disciplines are no more than a matter of personal taste.

At least in its early years, Microsoft had usability labs where ordinary people were observed using variations of Microsoft products to determine which designs were most effective at enabling users to do their work. 

As for getting used to things, my mother was sustained through 96 years by saying, "Oh well. What can you do? You just have to put up with it I guess."

On the other hand, Lucy van Pelt gained fame for saying, "It is better to have crabbed and fussed than never to have crabbed at all."

The problem for a commercial enterprise is discerning exactly how much their customers are willing to put up with. They should hope their customers care enough to crab and fuss rather than simply walking away. When Adobe charged me for a PSE "upgrade" that had fewer features than the four-year-old version I had been using, I did not crab and fuss, I simply walked away.

[GyroGearloose]

In the meantime I tried to set my windows system settings to a display size of 130%.

Unexpectedly that works for the Affinity UIs although everything else is a little bit big and some icons are a little bit blurry.

Nevertheless, since that changing of the setting takes only a few seconds it may be a workaround for some users.

It's not perfect but maybe ok until a better solution is available. At least it makes the products usuable again for me. 🙂

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, Granddaddy said:

Specialists in typography, readability, usability, ergonomics, and efficiency will be surprised to learn their disciplines are no more than a matter of personal taste.

Well, I did not want to reduce the discipline of the designers here usually, some things from their domain have undoubtly hand and foot. - But as a developer, I still look quite a bit different on some of these things and can therefore say, that there is also a lot of scrap and fashionable ruffles there, as well as is in my domain, too. - Not everything that shines (or doesn't shine) is always gold worth here.

[MadTyper]

14 hours ago, GyroGearloose said:

In the meantime I tried to set my windows system settings to a display size of 130%.

Unexpectedly that works for the Affinity UIs although everything else is a little bit big and some icons are a little bit blurry.

Nevertheless, since that changing of the setting takes only a few seconds it may be a workaround for some users.

It's not perfect but maybe ok until a better solution is available. At least it makes the products usuable again for me. 🙂

I have mine set to 115% and it doesn't do a thing for Affinity Publisher. I found 120% a bit too big for most things and it doesn't work for some software, in that words get cut off. Thanks for the suggestion, though. I guess I'll keep plugging away with the accessibility magnifier. 

Edited November 24, 2021 by MadTyper
adding information

[OOLONG-PHOTO]

I'm using Affnity on with macOS and 4k monitor, the icon and font are way too small even choose the large UI option in the preference.

[NotMyFault]

4 hours ago, OOLONG-PHOTO said:

I'm using Affnity on with macOS and 4k monitor, the icon and font are way too small even choose the large UI option in the preference.

On Mac you can adjust the scaling in System Preferences.

I actually reduced the scaling, you may want to use larger text.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

On Mac you can adjust the scaling in System Preferences.

Yes, but that affects all apps, so apps that have well sized UI elements at the default resolution get bigger ones & there is less screen space for everything else.

[NotMyFault]

8 hours ago, R C-R said:

Yes, but that affects all apps, so apps that have well sized UI elements at the default resolution get bigger ones & there is less screen space for everything else.

And maybe @OOLONG-PHOTOreduced the UI size globally (as i did intentionally) to get more real estate, before he installed Affinity apps?
 

Then setting it back to default would be the way to go.

 

[ymugmike]

While there is a Font UI option to large, which seems to be adequate, there Is no additional option for the toolbar on the left hand side. 27 inch iMac running a default resolution for built-in Retina display.

[R C-R]

10 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

And maybe @OOLONG-PHOTOreduced the UI size globally (as i did intentionally) to get more real estate, before he installed Affinity apps?

Maybe, but I have not done that & like many others have long complained about many of the UI elements being either too small or too low contrast when using a large screen Mac. Changing the screen resolution to a scaled value is not a good solution for this problem; it is just a lame workaround that adversely affects other apps.

[GyroGearloose]

I really wonder why this is still a reason for complaints.

I am a software developer myself and I am aware that changing the UI size is a topic where you have to consider many things.

BUT: It is really really not soooo difficult to implement it.

It has been an issue for a much too long time now.

So please do something about it. It's  not as difficult as you think.

 

[timfg]

I'm new to Affinity Photo (not quite so new to editing tools, but I thought I'd start over from scratch with a new application and actually take some time to learn things properly, rather than work it out myself, badly. So I also signed up to a Udemy course, which has yet to teach me much, but soon will I suspect...)

And I thought I'd check out all the other resources available, including this forum. And the SINGLE THING I felt it worth posting about is THIS TOPIC... but I see I'm not the only person to make the observation...

Really disappointing that this has been the case for so long.  My main monitor is a 23" running at 2560 x 1440 - not even 4K - and I really struggle to distinguish the icons in the toolbar.  This really, really needs addressing, it makes using the software PAINFUL

[dfunk]

It really needs an Extra Large UI font
I can barely see some elements on a 32" 4k screen.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, dfunk said:

It really needs an Extra Large UI font

I would also like to see a larger UI font option, but that would mean widening a lot of the UI dialog fields to make room to fit all of it, so it is not as simple to implement as it might seem. As it is, there are already a few places where the fields are not quite wide enough to show all of the field's content when the Large option is used.

[Jawbones]

Whilst I concur completely with most posters about the size of the icons for me it would not be so bad if when I hover over them they were not obscured by the cursor.

[ymugmike]

We await the next iteration of Affinity products - and hope that the option to increase the icon size will be included. It is not the first piece of software to have this option.

[Peter Keogh]

I am using an iMac 4K screen and thought that I was alone in having a problem seeing the tools clearly.
Obviously not alone, and given how long this issue has been highlighted, I am surprised that the developers seem to have little interest in fixing it.

 

What say you SERIF?

 

 

 

[Empress Kvetcherina]

Add me to the Kvetcher List. Playing with trial versions - intended to purchase, rather than pay Adobe's extortion fees, but after following this thread, I'm not so sure. This issue has been going on at least since 2015! Same complaint - icons too small, plus dark grey on black background. I'm an intermediate PhotoShop user (retired, volunteer PR for several nonprofits) I don't need to make my life any harder. So I'm going to keep looking. Too bad, it seemed like the solution...

[ymugmike]

We can all live in hope. Don't forget how well all three of the Affinity programs work together at a very reasonable price. For most users like yourself - not top end business in a large corporation - and myself, Affinity serves its purpose in getting work done.

[ymugmike]

ON1 has a Small, Medium or Large option in their Preferences to change the size of ALL toolbar fonts along the top and sides. is it that difficult to achieve?

Affinity Photo has Font UI Default or Large, but nothing to increase the size of the tools down the left hand side - only Icon style.

Still not quite there yet.

[Granddaddy]

Thought I'd post something new here just to bring this ancient thread to the surface again as some newer users concerned about Affinity's dysfunctional interface don't realize the discussion has been going on for more than eight years. I had totally forgotten I once contributed to this thread. Thanks to @R C-R for mentioning this thread in a more recent discussion of UI scaling where he points out the nearly 5000 hits you will get when searching the forums for UI Scaling after a new user claimed there are only one or two hits.

Affinity's UI provided the compelling reason that I now do routine, simple retouching and adjusting with another photo editor, though I do return to Affinity for some specialized purposes. Affinity still has the best implementation for non-destructive editing approach when it comes to even simple tasks like cloning that are destructive in other editors despite claims of using layers for non-destructive editing.

[Reboog711]

Caveat: I did not read through the FULL thread.

But, here is my 2025 story. I'm looking for a "more modern" replacement to my copy of Photoshop CS6, which I primarily use for editing screenshots for books / articles.  On paper, Affinity looks exactly like what I'm looking for!  

I installed it today.  These are the specs:

• Windows 10
• 40 inch, 5K2K monitor. Resolution  5120 x 2160 pixel resolution
• System --> Display --> Scale set to 150% (In This is actually what Windows recommends)
• Ease of Access --> Display --> Text Cursor Size set to 145%

This works for most of the programs I use (Photoshop CS6 being the main exception).

In Affinity, things are still slightly too small.  Menus are okayish, but I wish they were a bit bigger.  The settings dialog is too small.  I wish the left toolbar had bigger icons. (Tooltips on them are fine).

I cannot find a "Font UI Size" option in settings, despite others having shared screenshots of it.

 

Edit:  I've now read through this full thread.  And so far I've only used the software for <10 minutes.

 

 

 

Edited May 23 by Reboog711

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Reboog711 said:

I cannot find a "Font UI Size" option in settings, despite others having shared screenshots of it.

This should be in the User Interface section of Settings. Please make sure you have opened the application's Settings menu & clicked on User Interface on the left. If this does not work, try quitting & restarting the app.

[walt.farrell]

15 hours ago, R C-R said:

This should be in the User Interface section of Settings. Please make sure you have opened the application's Settings menu & clicked on User Interface on the left. If this does not work, try quitting & restarting the app.

You're responding to a Windows user, @R C-R, where the Settings are different than for macOS users. The Windows Display Scaling setting is the only one applicable for Windows.