location of view menu . not windows standard

[kenfhill84083]

In every other windows program I use, the View menu is 2nd or 3rd from the left (File - Edit - View  OR  File - View).

 

In Affinity Designer it is closer to the right on the toolbar.  Is this some kind of Mac standard?  Is there a logical reason for this positioning?

 

I found it confusing.  Can it be moved to a more windows-standard position?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Agreed. It will be confusing for Windows Serif users. 

 

This is the kind of thing that should have parity with other Windows products, not the Mac version of the Windows product. 

 

As I pointed out elsewhere. only a few Serif Windows users will buy a Mac to use Affinity Products, and not many Mac owners who use Affinity Designer will also buy Affinity Designer for Windows. 

 

The best of all options, of course, is to allow users to customise the menus. That belongs in the Feature Requests forum, but this lack of parity with Serif's Windows products should be considered a bug. The same goes for shortcuts. The default shortcuts should match Windows applications, while there should be an option to select a Mac compatible keyboard. 

[Mark Ingram]

We aren't aiming for parity with legacy Serif products, this has been stated many times before. Affinity isn't a continuation of the Plus range.

 

Feel free to make a Feature Request, as I don't class this as a bug (100% parity with the Mac version is our aim).

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

If you're not going to listen even when the obvious is stated many times by loyal Serif users who have been using your products for decades there seems little point in porting the Affinity products to Windows. Just insist that everyone buys a Mac and concentrate your efforts on improving the Mac products. 

 

Parity of feature sets and file formats is essential for document exchange. For ease of adoption for Windows users, parity of shortcuts, GUI themes, menus, and studios is important. Most of it is already there, it doesn't take much effort to rearrange a few menus or modify shortcuts. I also doubt if it woult take much effort to provide menus sets since Personas already do this. You could have a DrawPlus Persona as the default and a Mac persona for those weird folks who use two different Operating Systems in the same office. 

 

The great strength of Serif's Plus series of products is that if one knows how to use one, e.g. PagePlus, one can pick up DrawPlus or WebPlus and be using them comfortably within hours rather than days or weeks. 

 

Users have been asking for a long time for even greater parity between the Plus series products re Quick Shapes, etc., so that it's easier to switch back and forth between products. 

[Mark Ingram]

Bhikkhu, I suggested that the OP create a feature request for this, I don't think that's unreasonable. And as I've mentioned in many other places, we aren't aiming for parity with the Plus products, we're aiming for parity with the Mac version. However, the point about the View menu normally being after the Edit menu on Windows is valid, I just have to weigh up whether it's more important to be consistent with other Windows applications, or with our own applications (the View menu isn't so much of an issue, but generally you have to think about all the tutorial videos that have been created, our help files, etc).

[kenfhill84083]

Bhikkhu, I suggested that the OP create a feature request for this, I don't think that's unreasonable. And as I've mentioned in many other places, we aren't aiming for parity with the Plus products, we're aiming for parity with the Mac version. However, the point about the View menu normally being after the Edit menu on Windows is valid, I just have to weigh up whether it's more important to be consistent with other Windows applications, or with our own applications (the View menu isn't so much of an issue, but generally you have to think about all the tutorial videos that have been created, our help files, etc).

 

Feature request: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/22304-location-of-view-menu-not-windows-standard/

 

I just joined the beta today so I've missed out on previous backstory on this.  As Bhikkhu Pesala pointed out, Serif has many longtime customers using the Plus products.  I started with PagePlus 3 and have pretty much the full product line, several versions of each.  One of the selling points and advantages of Serif products was not having to endure a major re-learning process across products and versions.  Now the attitude seems to be "It was fun while it lasted, but that was then and this is now" (or "that was PC, this is Mac").

 

In general, as a consumer, I seldom worry about production issues, behind the curtain, to produce products I use.  The fact that tutorial videos, help files, etc. might be a problem for Serif (or any supplier) doesn't bother me as much as how much hassle I have to put up with to use a product.  The product has to be extremely useful and valuable to me before I agree to jump thru too many hoops to be a customer.  Product and company loyalty only goes so far.

 

I think the suggestion -- to ship Designer with easily-accessed profiles allowing PC users to feel comfortable and productive -- is an excellent and commonsense one.  I think users could use Mac-like documentation about feature functionality even after swapping in a PC profile.  But how much effort would it be to go thru the Help adding footnotes like "If you use the PC profile, press ctrl-shift-down arrow instead of Ctrl-["?

[Mark Ingram]

But how much effort would it be to go thru the Help adding footnotes like "If you use the PC profile, press ctrl-shift-down arrow instead of Ctrl-["?

 

There are significant costs involved that may easily be overlooked in this situation - the person to go through each help page checking, then adding that footnote. Then QA testing to ensure it's correct. And then shipping off to translators, and then checking the translations when they come back.

 

I think a community created "DrawPlus Shortcuts" file could be a useful thing to create for some customers, but Serif won't be creating one.

[Chris B]

Agreed. It will be confusing for Windows Serif users. 

 

 

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. The View menu has moved a few places to the right and I'm failing to see why that would cause confusion.

 

Affinity isn't solely targeting Plus range users. There have been bigger changes in the Plus range and everyone just got on with it. I'm sure this will not be an issue to the vast majority.

 

In fact, Photoshop has it placed to the far right as well so one could argue it may confuse them by moving it to the left. Unfortunately we won't be able to please everyone.

[Dave Harris]

One of the selling points and advantages of Serif products was not having to endure a major re-learning process across products and versions.  Now the attitude seems to be "It was fun while it lasted, but that was then and this is now" (or "that was PC, this is Mac").

 

We aim to have the same kind of consistency across the Affinity range (Designer, Photo, Publisher) as we have across the Plus range. Actually more, because all the Affinity apps share same document format and much of their code. Being able to open an Affinity Designer document in Affinity Photo and be able to work on it with the same UI is very important to us.

 

However, Affinity is a different suite to Plus, not an extension of it, and having a clean break is part of what enables us to innovate and make Affinity the best we can.