Adjustments order

[ronnyb]

How about adding some kind of logical order to these, perhaps simple alphabetical order? Right now it's just random, non-sensical order... this sucks for workflow/productivity, i've reported it years ago... you have to hunt through a long list of items. Really alphabetical order is not that hard to implement...

I REALLY hope you guys get a real UI/UX person in there... there are so many bad decisions being made all over the place, it's pathetic.

 

[Oufti]

4 hours ago, ronnyb said:

Really alphabetical order is not that hard to implement...

It would be a nightmare for those using the app in different languages. 
At least with the current setting, everything is always on the same place… 

[Meliora spero]

Rubbish. It is a nightmare for everyone now. There are always solutions to problems. That's the most obvious lousy problem that shouldn't exist in a commercial program from the last three decades. 

Just an example – but see how quickly you can find the elements in a setup like this. Apparently, it was possible in blend modes, but perhaps the 'brilliant' architecture works against the concept.

Tonal and Contrast Adjustments (Exposure and Light Control)
Brightness and Contrast
Curves
Exposure
Levels
Shadows / Highlights
Threshold

Color Adjustments (Correction and Balancing)
Black and White
Channel Mixer
Color Balance
Gradient Map
HSL
Recolor
Selective Color
Split Toning
Vibrance
White Balance

Technical and Professional Tools (Advanced and Print-Ready Adjustments)
Invert
Lens Filter
LUT
Normals
OCIO
Soft Proof
Posterize

[Meliora spero]

Adobe Photoshop 2025:

[PaulEC]

Having Adjustments in a more logical order would certainly be a good idea, although I suppose there would always be some debate about the exact order they should be in. For example, are "Invert" and "Posterise" really any more "Technical, Professional or Advanced" than some others? Surely "Lens Filter" is a "Colour Adjustment"? (I don't want to start a debate about details, I'm just pointing out that an order that seems logical to one person may be no better than a random order for someone else!)

The Photoshop ordering certainly "feels" more intuitive than in APhoto, but alphabetical order is pointless unless you are going to order them differently in each supported language.

Ideally it would be nice if it was possible to rearrange the list for oneself (drag and drop) and hide any Adjustments not used.

[GarryP]

This isn’t a new discussion.

See also:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/78428-adjustment-panel-order/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/212844-feature-request-ability-to-rearrange-the-adjustment-panel-items/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/180780-adjustment-panel-order-split/

etc.

Some of the above mention the Adjustments Panel but I think the same would apply to the Adjustments menu also, since it would make sense to me if the Adjustments were in the same order in both (whatever that order was).

[PaulEC]

2 hours ago, GarryP said:

Some of the above mention the Adjustments Panel but I think the same would apply to the Adjustments menu also, since it would make sense to me if the Adjustments were in the same order in both (whatever that order was).

I think it is essential that they are both in the same order, it would be confusing and pointless for them to be different! If you could rearrange one, then the other should automatically be the same.

[NotMyFault]

A user friendly app would allow users to easily arrange the list in any self-chosen order, and save / export / import them in an human editable format.

instead of fancy UI to sort them and save presets (which gets it always wrong and bogus, see PT filter presets etc), just allow export / import to an a ascii txt file or UTF8 csv, maybe json or xml.

Apps taking hostage of UI configuration in undocumented and un-accessible internal structures of config files are not state of the art.

This applies to all UI lists globally. 

The menu structure should be architecturally independent from the app and its functions.

[walt.farrell]

16 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

A user friendly app would allow users to easily arrange the list in any self-chosen order, and save / export / import them in an human editable format.

It sounds like you have experience with such apps. Which ones allow that, and thus demonstrate "state of the art"? I don't think I've ever used any.

[NotMyFault]

42 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

It sounds like you have experience with such apps. Which ones allow that, and thus demonstrate "state of the art"? I don't think I've ever used any.

My comment is based on the principal ideas from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model–view–controller

No the best example, but even MS Offices allows to customize the UI and export or share it (add or remove menu items, assign shortcuts) https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/customize-the-ribbon-in-word-c4b6051a-7a70-43c8-a527-932917dec682

I developed own apps long time ago, used in call centers by >2000 agents in parallel where every keystroke cost money (agent hours) and our apps where optimized to the extreme to save clicks and movements. The apps where used to collect response based on radio and TV spots. You need to get as many callers processed in shorted possible time, because nobody would call again later. 
 

The apps had a 100% predictable sequence of input fields. You could go fwd/back by tab/shift-tab., and pos1, end, pup, pgdn had all consistent functions in every UI form. When entering addresses, the app used a DB of all streets to automatically fill in depended parts like city from post code, post code from city, list of streets filtered by city / post code etc.

Similar, we checked all bank accounts for validity (check digits).

a small team of devs continuously optimized the UI based on the feedback of users, often within hours or days. 
 

[NonoGG]

Perhaps simply an option where you can specify how the list should be displayed:

• Legacy
• Grouped by Functions
• Alphabetically
• Grouped by Functions Alphabetically
• etc.

[Chris B]

I am happy to log an improvement. Being broken up with dividers into categories would be nice as it matches Blend Modes and Filters. It's already been done somewhat in Layer > New Adjustment Layer so we could probably do it from the Adjustments button on the Layers Panel too

[Meliora spero]

12 hours ago, Chris B said:

I am happy to log an improvement. Being broken up with dividers into categories would be nice as it matches Blend Modes and Filters. It's already been done somewhat in Layer > New Adjustment Layer so we could probably do it from the Adjustments button on the Layers Panel too

You can safely be happy, as it will spread joy. 🙂

Exactly, the consistency across the application will make the elements even easier to navigate.

[KLE-France]

My enormous "+1" for here and everywhere else this has been suggested... again and again and again.

And for very good reasons: the adjustments panel layout is currently just... nonsense.

To Chris B, thanks! although this isn't the first time it's been logged.

Indeed at Layer > New Adjustment Layer there is some grouping...? Vaguely most-frequently used, maybe?

But I do think the thing to do is to take PhotoShop as the example (see Meliora spero's posts above) and group adjustments by "families": everything that’s predominately tonality (exposure, levels, curves, highlights/shadows, etc.); everything that’s predominantly color (white balance HSL, selective color, color balance, etc.) and so forth.

I can't imagine that grouping adjustments in that way would be that hard to do.

Creating the ability for users to set up the panel as they see fit would be awesome, but I do imagine that would be more difficult in the programming.

Alphabetical would already be an improvement, but Oufti's comment concerning your multi-language user base is legitimate, unless it's possible to very simply instruct the adjustments panel to automatically organize itself alphabetically regardless of the language? Maybe that's middling difficult?

In any case, add me to the list of people who would really, really, really like to see this implemented.