Addition of an option to change default page background color in support to photophobic designers and editors.

[Alessio Principe]

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone, I'm a user of the Affinity V2 Suite and, as you might have guessed by the title of this topic, I suffer from photophobia. 

I'll attach a link to the National Library of Medicine for you to have a look at and understand a bit more of the problem: Shedding Light on Photophobia - PMC (nih.gov)

Due to my condition, to which, there's no clear and practical cure, I have to use some workaround to do what I love. I need to keep my lighting settings down as much as possible and screen in shades of grey for most of the work I do, especially because I have problems with bright white light. I use all the tools I have at my disposal to gain as much time as possible in front of the screen before headaches and other not-so-pleasant goodies start happening. I bought the Affinity Suite to work on my projects and it's been doing everything I needed, but I sense it misses a basic feature:

That is giving the user the possibility to change the standard background in the three programs.

I mostly use Publisher and Designer, since I'm not that much into photoediting, but I guess that in this case the problem is trasversal.

I usually work around it putting a rectangle layer on the background, but on large scale documents (75+ pages) is something that makes me loose a considerable amount of time, both in production and in post-production, as much as it risks to disrupt my workflow.

I'm writing this post in order to understand if I'm the only user having this kind of problem or if there's more people like me out there needing some kind of support like this.  

I attached two images in order to briefly give you an idea about the workaround I do and what I meant by this message. 

Keep up the good work Affinity Team, you're doing great and I wish you the best for the upcoming future. If you need a more clear and effective feedback, don't esitate on e-mailing me, I'll provide the team with the best evidence and suggestions I have grown in my experience.  

Have a nice day, 'noon or nite ya'all.

[walt.farrell]

I can see the benefit of your suggestion (though I do not have that condition), and it does seem it could be useful.

Given your comment about the time it takes in Publisher with a large document, I suspect you're not using Templates, which I think would provide a good workaround for you for now, when you create new projects. With a template, rather than starting with a simple white canvas or page with no content that you have to modify, you can have a standard set of content present automatically. For example, the gray background layer you prefer. This can work in any of the applications.

Help: https://affinity.help/publisher2/en-US.lproj/pages/GetStarted/templates.html

[Alessio Principe]

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I can see the benefit of your suggestion (though I do not have that condition), and it does seem it could be useful.

Given your comment about the time it takes in Publisher with a large document, I suspect you're not using Templates, which I think would provide a good workaround for you for now, when you create new projects. With a template, rather than starting with a simple white canvas or page with no content that you have to modify, you can have a standard set of content present automatically. For example, the gray background layer you prefer. This can work in any of the applications.

Help: https://affinity.help/publisher2/en-US.lproj/pages/GetStarted/templates.html

Thanks a lot, I'll try Templates and see what I can get off of them. 

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.

Also, welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, which I forgot to mention earlier.

[Oufti]

And in that template, you could put your gray rectangle on a Master page, so that you can have it on many pages and hide it at once for all the pages, should you need to print it for example. 

[Old Bruce]

16 minutes ago, Oufti said:

And in that template, you could put your gray rectangle on a Master page, so that you can have it on many pages and hide it at once for all the pages, should you need to print it for example. 

@Alessio Principe,

In addition to Oufti's excellent suggestion I would go a step further and make a Master Page and name it Grey Background consisting of the coloured background rectangle only and apply that Master page to all my Master Pages. Then it is a simple matter of going to that one Master Page (at export time) and turning off the grey layer. Automatically all your pages will have the grey layer removed for printing or export or whatever.

[GripsholmLion]

I kind of feel your pain, @Alessio Principe. Sometimes literally. There is only so much time that I can safely spend working each day before I might pay for it later.

I really wish that the entire UI had greater customisation of lightness and contrast levels, especially a wider range of adjustment (dark mode is a bit too dark, but light mode is much too light). Maybe I've been spoiled by IDEs and code editors, most of which have extensive theming options.

[Alessio Principe]

11 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

@Alessio Principe,

In addition to Oufti's excellent suggestion I would go a step further and make a Master Page and name it Grey Background consisting of the coloured background rectangle only and apply that Master page to all my Master Pages. Then it is a simple matter of going to that one Master Page (at export time) and turning off the grey layer. Automatically all your pages will have the grey layer removed for printing or export or whatever.

Thank you both for the suggestion Oufti and Old Bruce, I'll try that route as soon as possible.

[Pšenda]

12 hours ago, Alessio Principe said:

and Designer

In ADesigner, you can use Artboards for which the background color can be set directly.

[Alessio Principe]

Thank you all so much, I created a basic writing template that people like me can adjust and use at their will in Publisher, I'll upload it here. As suggested I used a Rectangle in the Master Page and gave it the HSL value of 0, 0, 55 to get a grey that would not harm the eyes and still provide a decent contrast.  Here it is

Grey model to mitigate intense lighting - Optimal for writing&reading for sustained periods of time.aftemplate

[Old Bruce]

@Alessio Principe,

Here is my take on your template, not saved as a template though, you can alter it if you want. It is to show how master pages can work together, so it is more complex than yours. One big change I did was to link the two text frames from your Master A.

more complex.afpub

[Alessio Principe]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

@Alessio Principe,

Here is my take on your template, not saved as a template though, you can alter it if you want. It is to show how master pages can work together, so it is more complex than yours. One big change I did was to link the two text frames from your Master A.

more complex.afpub

Way more complete than mine, thank you Bruce!