Larger font and tool icon size

[chaoskcw]

Hi

 

I am currently evaluating AD for purchase as a vector based drawing tool.

 

Is there a way to get a larger tool icon and font size in Affinity Designer? I already have the "large" font in the prefernce pane on UI, which isnt very large. This font is barely acceptable. The icons as well for all the tools are a tad too small. 

 

I use two 4k Dell monitors in their native resolution on a Mac Book Pro. The UI is just too small to be really workable. 

 

For a graphics based product, I think a little scaling of the UI should not be too challenging and thus am struggling to believe there is not already some way to alter this ... ? 4K and even now 5K monitors are becoming common place. 

 

Thanks and regards,

 

 

[PixelPest]

Have a look here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/19598-ui-too-small/

 

Cheers

P.

[chaoskcw]

Hi 

 

Thanks for the link. So the answer is no way to increase the UI display for the font or tool bar icons beyond the obvious preferences and no plans to despite many posts on the topic.

 

This answers my question: AD, despite being a very nice tool, is not appropriate for a 4K display or above and so I wont be purchasing beyond the trial. 

 

Regards,

[A. J.]

I have only recently begun using AP, and was just searching the forums for an answer to the very same question. I am using a 27" 2560 x 1440 monitor, so the UI should be larger than what appears on your monitors. However, I find them (icons and fonts) to be far too small. It's a shame there is no way to enlarge them beyond those changes available in Preferences. Why this option will not be made available to us is a puzzle to me.

[chaoskcw]

Yeah pretty adismal really. What even more shocking is the lack of response from affinity. They just ignore it and continue releasing dozens of other features when the core product itself, the platform has a serious flaw. 

 

Not what you expect from a "leading" software provider in this space. 

[MEB]

Hi ajd1170, chaoskcw,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

This was already discussed extensively in other threads. Implementing UI changes (including a lighter interface) involves a lot more than just creating the icons in bigger sizes. All interface must be adjusted/balanced which implies more work than it may look at first. We are already working on improvements for version 1.6.

 

If you are using Windows you can change the interface's elements size changing the scaling of the whole UI provided by the OS itself (right-click on the Desktop, select Display settings and change the first slider to 125% or more).

[graf]

It is great to hear this is being addressed for version 1.6. I purchased Affinity Designer (MAC) and have a difficult time with the visuals being so small. I downloaded a trial of the photo program and it seems even worse. I will wait for the next version before purchasing photo. Looking forward to SEEING the changes! It's tough to see small indistinguishable icons/text when you have Macular Degeneration - even with strong glasses. 

 

Looking forward to the next upgrade for this great program!

[Mr.Mick]

I've recently purchased the latest Affinity 1.6.11, and with reference to the above comments I too am frustrated by the size of fonts and toolbars, most noticeably the size of toolbars. If this is an improvement over previous versions, I shudder to think of the viability of those versions. Hopefully the next version will further improve the sizing.

[HarpyG]

Add me to the (long) list of Mac users who have no idea what the tool buttons are due to the ridiculously small size of the buttons. It’s a lottery when using Affinity to select the correct tool and a surgical procedure to align the cursor over it. It’s all very well saying that it is a lot of work to redesign the interface but if you stack that against the number of users who are finding it a lot of work to use the interface then it pales into insignificance. Stop whinging and get the job done.

[Sheila Finch]

I'm a newbie here and also think the tool icons on the left side are hard to see... I just changed my preferences to show the word for the tool as I scroll over each icon. 

So far I've found Affinity Designer to be such a great, fun, easy app to use compared to other products out there (including Illustrator which gives me a migraine headache every time I try to learn how to use it as I paid my monthly exorbitant $50) so just add the words for the tool. 

Sadly, I'm such a newbie that I couldn't go back and figure out how I added the words for the tools, so at least here's a photo of what I mean. 

[MEB]

Hi Sheila Finch,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
The tooltips (names of the tools) appear after you mouse over them a few seconds. You can set the time you want in Affinity Designer Preferences, User Interface section Tooltip Delay slider. Move it to the left to display them immediately.

[kiff]

I too would like to be able to get a larger size for the UI icons and text. Also to have assts I have created appear at a larger size on a 4K monitor. My OS is Windows 10.

[Granddaddy]

13 hours ago, kiff said:

I too would like to be able to get a larger size for the UI icons and text. Also to have assts I have created appear at a larger size on a 4K monitor. My OS is Windows 10.

This frustration has been discussed in many threads and seems to be a widespread complaint about many Windows applications, not just Affinity.

 At least since the advent of Windows 10 version 1809 you can increase the size of some, but not all, of the text elements in Affinity Photo.

Perhaps my post from March 30 will be of some help to you as well as a source of humor because of my spelling error that is also discussed.

I have hope that Serif will eventually add larger icons, as they did for the layer thumbnail icons in version 1.7.

[RalfL]

I just installed Affinity Photo for the first time and with the current icon and font sizes it is totally unusable for me. If there's no way to change them, this ends the trial for me. Will try again once the UI can be scaled up.

[Earlio]

I also do not understand why the tool sizes are so small, I get by OK with my MacBook Pro, but with the two monitor set up, I also have the same issue.  My experience with Serif so far is that the pressure for a UI change has to be pretty big before they are prepared to change anything.  Complaints on the forum seem to get some attention, but not enough to get action from Serif.

I would suggest that anyone who wishes for this change to add to the Feature Requests section.  https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/52-feature-requests-suggestions/

If there are enough of us pushing for this, we may get a solution.  Frankly, I would have thought that it would not be a huge coding job to do this, so more user requests may get the changes you wish for.

I'm off to do that now.

[Lisa45]

Think I figured it out for the Mac to get a larger display for the 4k screen on a Mac. Font was way too small for me. so I went to System Preference on the dock, chose display, scaled and chose larger text the first and second choice gives you the best for working in the program. I have not had this issue in windows, but only for my new 4k Mac, but these steps fixed it. Working with Mac OS Catalina 10.15.6

[appearsharmless]

Nice tip, @Lisa45.
If anyone's using Firefox, and @Lisa45's  tip messes up your browser's formatting, you can tweak it pretty easily (from https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1258673)

"(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the filter box, type or paste devp and pause while the list is filtered -- there should only be one preference left

(3) The layout.css.devPixelsPerPx normally has -1.0 which follows the system Text Size.

Double-click to open a small dialog where you can type a new value.

If you have a Retina display (double-density): try 3

If you have a standard display: try 1.5

That should give an effective "150%" zoom compared with the base size.

If you would like larger, you could repeat the test with 4 and 2 respectively (200%).

If something goes wrong, you can right-click (Ctrl+click) the preference and choose Reset (or tap the R key) to get back to where you started."

Note that you may want/need to select this option in FF menu to fine-tune the appearance: