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Posted

Hello!

I am trialing Photo 2 and the other products on Windows, Mac, and iPad.

I'm on Windows first because that's my primary working area.

My eyes can't focus on tiny text like when I was younger, and my monitor's native resolution of 2560 X 1440 is just not doable for Photo 2.

I can't seem to find the control that enlarges the text of the UI, and I've looked multiple times in the VIEW and SETTINGS dialogs, and elsewhere through the Photos 2 application.  I've also tried to go through the "help" content to find it.  But THAT is also too small for me to read.  I had to use the Windows Magnifier at 200% to read the help file, but I still can't find the setting.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

AffinityPhoto2UICharacterstoosmall.jpg.4e08d13bdb982291d1af7e798501a1e4.jpg

Posted

Hello @BIF and welcome to the forums.

I think it's the best time to admit that you need glasses. But yes, even I sometimes have problems reading the small text.
There are already a few posts here criticising the user interface, which is designed more for young people.
For example here:

 

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Windows 11 Pro on VMWare Virtual Machine (on Mac)
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No backup, no pity.

Posted

Welcome @BIF to these very helpful forums and to the dysfunctional User Interface of the Affinity suite. I wish you good fortune in adapting Affinity to your needs, for it is truly powerful. These forums are a great strength of the Affinity suite and one reason I keep using the software.

Your screen capture above shows the difference in readability between UI elements that use the Windows system font and those elements that use fonts hard-coded into the Affinity products. I call that baked-in font Affinity Minuscule.

As I wrote this past Monday, the UI deficiencies have become a tale as old as time. Some will say it is your fault you have problems with the UI, that you are somehow too old or too visually impaired or disabled to use Affinity. 

But Affinity's UI deficiencies are unique in my 45 years of experience using a myriad of software products on a wide variety off computers. No other software product I use causes these problems for me despite my advanced age and my complex eyeglass prescription.

I blame the Affinity UI usability problems on egregious design errors hard-coded into Affinity products and on Serif's refusal to even acknowledge that there could a problem that might benefit from software revisions in the future. 

The original designers failed to take account of human eyesight variation that has nothing to do with youth or age, human visual preferences, evolving higher resolution monitors, and changing artistic and design needs. A host of other ignored, ergonomic factors have been discussed extensively in these forums for at least a decade. Such discussions flourished in many forum threads two years ago when the UI was made worse by the release of Affinity 2.0.

All solutions for the UI deficiencies are personal as the Affinity suite is inflexible in this regard. Perhaps like me you will find the UI more usable as you gain familiarity with what is on the various displays you use most.

For some history and perspective on UI issues, follow the links in my post last Monday at

Affinity Photo 2.6.3 (MSI); Affinity Publisher 2.6.3 (MSI). Windows 11 Home Version 24H2
Dell XPS 8940, 64 GB Ram, Intel Core i7-11700K @ 3.60 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

Posted

@BIF: Are you running your monitor at the Display magnification level recommended by Windows? In Windows Display settings you have a choice, but though 100% would give you the full monitor resolution, that may not be what Windows recommends. On one of my monitors, for example, it recommends using 125%, and for another it recommends 150%.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.5, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.5

Posted
3 hours ago, Granddaddy said:

Welcome @BIF to these very helpful forums and to the dysfunctional User Interface of the Affinity suite. I wish you good fortune in adapting Affinity to your needs, for it is truly powerful. These forums are a great strength of the Affinity suite and one reason I keep using the software.

Your screen capture above shows the difference in readability between UI elements that use the Windows system font and those elements that use fonts hard-coded into the Affinity products. I call that baked-in font Affinity Minuscule.

As I wrote this past Monday, the UI deficiencies have become a tale as old as time. Some will say it is your fault you have problems with the UI, that you are somehow too old or too visually impaired or disabled to use Affinity.

Hi, @Granddaddy, and thank you for your understanding.  Thank you also for putting voice to the "elephant in the room", which is that people who don't understand will blame the person having the problem.

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

@BIF: Are you running your monitor at the Display magnification level recommended by Windows? In Windows Display settings you have a choice, but though 100% would give you the full monitor resolution, that may not be what Windows recommends. On one of my monitors, for example, it recommends using 125%, and for another it recommends 150%.

Hi, @walt.farrell, and thanks.  Yeah, I have other graphics-based software, and sure I could increase my settings.  But it increases for ALL software on that Windows computer, not just for this one or that one.  And that's the problem.  If I want to switch to a computer game, now I have to change my graphic settings back to this OTHER setting.  Or if I want to fire up a 2D design or 3D modeling package, now I need to go back to 100% or else it will throw off the perspectives so that geometry will no longer look true until I go back to "native settings" for that monitor.

I have 2 other monitors on this computer; one is set to 1080P and the other set to an even-lower resolution.  Neither of these improves things for Affinity Photo 2.

 

5 hours ago, Komatös said:

Hello @BIF and welcome to the forums.

I think it's the best time to admit that you need glasses...

Hey, @Komatös, I know that your post was an attempt at humor, and not a true attempt to blame me for anything.  Thank you for your understanding.

To put this into perspective for other readers, I just may be among the OG of UI complaints.  I've been appealing to software developers about their tiny text for over 20 years now.  Once the workplace went from that ubiquitous Dell 19" flat panel that everybody was using in every office in America in about 2000, that's when the problem gained visibility.  (See what I did there?)

The fact is that I do wear glasses or contacts, and have needed vision correction since age 13 or so.  But it's just nearsightedness, which millions of people have.  The real problem is that I'm unable to make the user interface elements larger on these big monitors with high resolution settings.  And it would be silly to go back to low-res monitors...if such things even exist natively.

Status:

I am convinced that the ideal for customization in this area is Blender.  I recommend that every software designer should seek Blender's level of configurability; not just in text, but in EVERY element of the interface.

I wanted to stay with Affinity.  And I still have 6 months to decide.  But for right now, it's really a no-go for me.  I really only need a DAM for photos "right now", so maybe that's lucky for me that I don't have to feel like I'm forced to compromise on this one thing for three products.

The good news is twofold.  1)  Every photo DAM product out there allows for a trial period and at least one (DigiKam) does allow the UI text to be reconfigured.  But maybe it's because that example is open source.  I do hope to find others as I trial more software.  And 2) Maybe by voicing this problem in the forums, I'll be helping to get it prioritized by Serif for a future version.

But for now, I think I need to move on.

Thank you all for the input.  Maybe I'll see you again in a few years.  😁

Posted
10 hours ago, Komatös said:

There are already a few posts here criticising the user interface, which is designed more for young people.

A few??? There are a ton of posts criticizing the readability of the UI, going back as far as the earliest Mac-only versions of AD! And it isn't just older folks or those with vision issues doing it. There are far too many instances where low contrast between items & their background, or the difference in contrast between selected/enabled & unselected/disabled makes it difficult to tell at a glance what the UI is showing,

Even if the text was larger, this would still be a problem for many of us, & unlike making the text larger, which would necessitate major changes to parts of the UI to prevent text from being truncated in some items, it would be relatively simple to boost the contrast, yet this has never been done well enough to make much of a difference.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.6 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
A
ll 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

  • 4 months later...
Posted

The interface finally pushed me back to Adobe and Sketch. Periodically for the last 4 years, but permanently shortly after V2. The Affinity experience never fully materialised in my opinion, mainly because of the poor interface but also because of lesser user-experience and features compared to apps like Sketch, Pixelmator Pro, and even a handful of electron apps I use regularly. What we have now, on Mac especially, with Affinity is a one-size-fits-all legacy Windows-centric application which I don't feel has much advantage over practically everyone else aside from price mainly and when it comes to Gimp/Inkscape a bit more stability.

I wish the Affinity team all the best. 

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Posted
7 hours ago, R0bw said:

The interface finally pushed me back to Adobe and Sketch. Periodically for the last 4 years, but permanently shortly after V2. The Affinity experience never fully materialised in my opinion, mainly because of the poor interface but also because of lesser user-experience and features compared to apps like Sketch, Pixelmator Pro, and even a handful of electron apps I use regularly. What we have now, on Mac especially, with Affinity is a one-size-fits-all legacy Windows-centric application which I don't feel has much advantage over practically everyone else aside from price mainly and when it comes to Gimp/Inkscape a bit more stability.

I wish the Affinity team all the best. 

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Yeah, sorry to hear you have also been affected.  I still have not made a long-term choice.  It's just a shame that my 34" LG monitor is inadequate for seeing what I'm doing in so many software applications.

Posted
2 hours ago, BIF said:

Yeah, sorry to hear you have also been affected.  I still have not made a long-term choice.  It's just a shame that my 34" LG monitor is inadequate for seeing what I'm doing in so many software applications.

I took out my tape measure and tried to imagine using a monitor of that size. I can't see how you can do it. You'd almost have to walk over from the right menu to the left or if you have wheels on your chair like I do you could roll back and forth. I wonder if the monitor size and high resolution is the key to the division between people who can't work with Affinity because of the UI vs. those who do not have a problem. I don't have a problem. 

I have a 23 inch monitor which I think I'm going to have to replace. I would not consider one that's larger. I prefer working close to the screen since I mostly do vector illustration. I am getting another one of the same brand and size. 

Posted

This is one of several hopeless dead ends coded into Affinity from the very beginning — not as serious as the primitive, vulnerable file format, but ultimately blocking once you get a high-resolution monitor. The jaunty launch of Affinity, which became hopium for all those unwilling or unable to pay for a subscription, quickly revealed critical flaws in both the product and its execution. And soon, we won’t even be able to see on a modern screen just how much the software still can’t do.

If you’ve seen the job postings at Canva, where they’re looking for 20 new developers to redesign and recode Affinity and its file format from scratch, along with 50 hires with industry experience — beyond Canva’s web-based RGB graphics for amateurs, and into the professional realm Adobe has built — then there may be hope. If not… well…

I honestly just can’t take it seriously that a company that’s been in the graphics industry since 1987 failed to grasp the importance of this. And if their judgment was — and still is — this poor on something so elementary, then what other catastrophic misjudgments have they made… beyond the file format, usability, and shortcomings… oh dear.

Serif, did you foolishly fill the usability specialist role you advertised internally? If so, be transparent with your customers. Continuing without proper UX expertise both insults and affects your entire customer base.
Posted
12 minutes ago, Meliora spero said:

If you’ve seen the job postings at Canva, where they’re looking for 20 new developers to redesign and recode Affinity and its file format from scratch, along with 50 hires with industry experience — beyond Canva’s web-based RGB graphics for amateurs, and into the professional realm Adobe has built — then there may be hope.

Link?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.6 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
A
ll 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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