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Default place location impacted by export


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I think there are three issues with Affinity's default file locations, at least on macOS. I know everybody keeps asking for a way to set the default locations manually and while I'd like to be able to manually set the defaults, I do like the automatic file locations and appreciate how it was designed. But these issues make it frustrating and perhaps fixing them would reduce the requests for a preferences option.

  1. Create a document and choose Save - select folder 1A
  2. Choose Place - it defaults to folder 1A but save to folder 1B
  3. If you choose Save As it default to 1A and if you choose Place it defaults to folder 1B - good
  4. Choose Export - it defaults to folder 1B but export to folder 1C
  5. Choose Place - it defaults to folder 1C - I think this is a bug, exporting resets the import location - switch back to 1B
  6. Choose Place - it defaults to folder 1B because you just reset the default location for placing - good
  7. Choose Export - it defaults to folder 1C - the export location really is separate from the place location

I think the above is a bug, exporting changes the default location for placing which it shouldn't do. It doesn't seem like this is how you intended it to work.

  1. Choose Place and switch back to 1B
  2. Leave Document 1 open and create Document 2
  3. Choose Save - it defaults to 1A which is good - switch to 2A
  4. Choose Place - it defaults to 2A - switch to 2B
  5. Choose Export - it defaults 1C - this is inconsistent, if Place defaulted to 2A, Export should, too - switch to 2C
  6. Choose Place - it defaults to 2C - switch to 2B so that all of the locations are set correctly
  7. Switch to Document 1
  8. Choose Save As - it defaults to 2A instead of 1A where the document is located

I think the above is a bug because the save as location for Mac apps is supposed to default to the document's current location, but if this is how it's intended to work it really should be changed

  1. Choose Place - it defaults to 2A instead of 1B (which the user would want) or 2B (which would at least be consistent with Save As)
  2. Choose Export - defaults to 2C instead of 1C (which the user would want) - at least it's consistent

The above may be design issues and not bugs but I think each document should have its own save, place, and export locations. It's difficult to work productively on two documents with resources stored in different locations because each time you choose Place you never know where it's going to default to, and it's confusing if each document has a similar folder structure.

Thank you

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  • 2 months later...

For me (on Windows 10), Affinity Publisher always tries to export to the last directory referenced. For example, if I add a photo to my document from my Photos directory, then it will default to export my pdf file to that Photos directory.  I have just replaced a photo from three different directories and, in each case, my subsequent export defaulted to each of those directories.  This is incredibly frustrating and could cause a costly error if I then sent the wrong pdf to be printed.  Surely there should be a default option that will always send my export to a specific directory, or to the same directory as the afpub file, or to the same directory that it was last saved to. Or something logical!  As it is, the behaviour is utterly ridiculous.  I do hope you can tell me that such an option exists somewhere and that I haven't spotted it or, at the very least, that something is in the pipeline to rectify this issue.

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Of course there are many different workflows or use cases, but Affinity *could* look over the fence and see what other *ahemn* Creative Suites have done for years:

"Handle these locations as belonging to the document and not to the app."

Which means:

If I open a document I created 2 weeks ago from Folder_A and try to save a modified version of it... 
     ->then don't offer Folder_X which was the last folder the app saved to (you could call it app centric)
     -> but use Folder_A as this originating document belongs to this folder. (not because it was the last folder _used_)

When I then export several slices or PDFs -> remember each documents last export target folder. 

I imagine it would require an addition to the affinity file format to save such (relative) destination or source paths inside the document. So excuse if I sound like that would be "easy to implement". But as I said: My dusty old CS5 was able to do this in 2010.

Also: when looking for missing linked images why not suggest a relative folder path, eg. current_document_directory / images / *.jpg ?

  • Main machine: iMac 2019 (21,5-inch 4k, 6core), 64GB RAM, 1TB nvme + 2TB ssd, running on Mac OS 14 Sonoma;
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