FX Layer Effects Bug or Settings Issue

[KCP]

I'm experiencing a problem with the FX panel in Affinity Designer. When I try to add a new layer effect, the following happens:

1. I open the FX panel to apply a new effect.
2. Regardless of which effect I choose, Bevel/Emboss is automatically applied.
3. If I uncheck Bevel/Emboss, the effect I actually wanted doesn't work.
4. The only way to apply my desired effect is to click the plus sign next to it.

ChatGPT has informed me that Bevel/Emboss isn't supposed to be on by default. This leads me to believe I may have accidentally preset it to behave this way without realizing it. My question is: How can I reset the FX panel so that Bevel/Emboss doesn't automatically apply whenever I try to add a layer effect?

Please see the attached Video.

Thanks,

KC

[NathanC]

Hi @KCP,

Bevel/Emboss is at the top of the FX list, so when the dialog is opened it will be highlighted and show the options for it by default. To view the relevant settings for the correct FX adjustment you'll need to left click on the effect name (E.G Outer Shadow) once to reveal that effect's settings, this will highlight the effect in blue to indicate it's actively selected and you're viewing it's settings.

In the recording at 2:18 you enabled 'Outer Shadow' by checking the box, but didn't click on the name to view the and adjust the Outer Shadow effect settings, so when you moved the Radius slider with Bevel/Emboss this automatically checked and enabled the Bevel/Emboss adjustment instead.

[KCP]

39 minutes ago, NathanC said:

Hi @KCP,

Bevel/Emboss is at the top of the FX list, so when the dialog is opened it will be highlighted and show the options for it by default. To view the relevant settings for the correct FX adjustment you'll need to left click on the effect name (E.G Outer Shadow) once to reveal that effect's settings, this will highlight the effect in blue to indicate it's actively selected and you're viewing it's settings.

In the recording at 2:18 you enabled 'Outer Shadow' by checking the box, but didn't click on the name to view the and adjust the Outer Shadow effect settings, so when you moved the Radius slider with Bevel/Emboss this automatically checked and enabled the Bevel/Emboss adjustment instead.

Thank you, Nathan. I don't know whether to feel stupid or that it feels unintuitive. It's been a while since I left Adobe, so I can't remember if clicking on the effect tab was required there as well. In any event, you solved my problem, so thanks again! Happy holidays!

[GarryP]

It has been suggested elsewhere in the forums (somewhere) that clicking on the checkbox to turn a particular effect ON should automatically show the settings for that effect.

I don’t know if that suggestion was in a Feedback thread or not and I don’t know what to search for to find out as the search keywords that I can think of for this are so vague that I just get a boatload of non-relevant possibilities which I can’t be bothered to trawl through. Hopefully someone else can find it and add a link here.

[Alfred]

16 minutes ago, GarryP said:

It has been suggested elsewhere in the forums (somewhere) that clicking on the checkbox to turn a particular effect ON should automatically show the settings for that effect.

Am I imagining that it used to work that way but was changed for some arcane reason?

[GarryP]

I’m not entirely sure myself.

I've just checked 1.10.6 and that works as the current version does and I can’t remember it working any other way, but I only started using Designer at 1.5 or 1.6 (or thereabouts) so it might have been different at some point earlier than I started to use it.