chrisA Posted October 6, 2016 Share Posted October 6, 2016 When I start a new document, I have a list of presets. Those presets have the strange unit of "inch" - whatever this may be. I can than change the document units to something meaningful like centimetres or pixels. 1) It would be nice, if the presets would reflect this change. 2) When I change to a different preset, the document units revert to "inches". This is a behaviour, which is only meaningful, if you have the intention to annoy the user. While the British people have decided to stay away from Europe, please respect at least, that other people prefer to stay away from British units of measurement. Horacenerosstob 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Ben Posted October 6, 2016 Staff Share Posted October 6, 2016 The unit types have been chosen that are appropriate for the document preset, and appropriate for the common use of the presets. The US paper sizes and photographic paper sizes are the only ones expressed in inches - and the US is still quite stuck in the imperial system. All the European paper sizes are expressed in mm (such as A4, A5, etc). Inches are also tied to the original purpose of DPI and Points (which are expressed in terms of Inches). This has history with print types. They may have been hijacked for the modern era, but Inches still have relevance to a large number of people. So, unless you are in the US, why would you be starting using a US standard paper size? Pick a european size, and it'll be measured in mm. Pick a web preset and it'll be measured in pixels. The appropriate unit for the purpose of the preset. SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer Software engineer - Photographer - Guitarist - Philosopher iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395 MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300 iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted October 6, 2016 Share Posted October 6, 2016 ... the US is still quite stuck in the imperial system. All the European paper sizes are expressed in mm (such as A4, A5, etc). Yeah, but I wish it wasn't as regards paper sizes. I do have jobs for which metric sizes are specified. These are mostly International companies do this with me, as well as some US businesses that have a goodly percentage of mailings to European countries. Funny thing is when there is feedback about the sizing, most of the USA feedback indicates they are dumber than a rock and think we designed the work at a "not normal" size to stand out... Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisA Posted October 7, 2016 Author Share Posted October 7, 2016 First thing: If you select New Document - Photo all sizes are in Inches. Nothing else. You only have a choice for "Print" documents. Why do you offer to change the units after selecting the document, when you expect that the user will work with the units of the preset? This is inconsistent. Even if I have to work with a format, which was originally defined in inches, I would prefer to with metric units, because I think this way. And my real world tools are that way. I don't want to use a calculator to get from my understanding of the world to something the program forces me to use. BTW. There were satellites lost, because some people still don't use metric units. Achim63 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 ... BTW. There were satellites lost, because some people still don't use metric units. Well, there was a satellite lost because of US engineers making stupid assumptions when working internationally with other engineers. A little different than this issue... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonBusing Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 I agree that photo presets in cm would be adequate. They do exist in real life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Ben Posted October 10, 2016 Staff Share Posted October 10, 2016 I don't understand the problem. The presets are initially expressed in the unit that they are historically measured in. When you pick a preset, the unit type will change to the type associated with that preset. There is nothing stopping you picking a preset, then changing the unit to the one you intend to work in. It will still work. The physical size of the document will still be the same, but everything will be shown using the unit type you chose. All the presets that use inches do so because their sizes are nice round numbers - they are based on inches after all. I think most people get "4x6 in" rather than "152.4x101.6 mm". Much more readable in inches, and way more easy to understand the ratio of dimensions. You can change the document units at any time in the Document Setup dialog. Changing the unit type will only change the way the values are shown in the UI - the document will still be the same size, unless you change the DPI value or edit the page width or height. A_B_C 1 SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer Software engineer - Photographer - Guitarist - Philosopher iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395 MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300 iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Ben Posted October 10, 2016 Staff Share Posted October 10, 2016 Why do you offer to change the units after selecting the document, when you expect that the user will work with the units of the preset? This is inconsistent. We don't expect the user to do anything. You are not stuck using the unit type that the preset is defined in. It's fully customisable. But, a preset is just that - just a set of predefined data describing a document setup. It's not set in stone, and you are free to customise your document settings. SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer Software engineer - Photographer - Guitarist - Philosopher iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395 MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300 iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VIPStephan Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 I like the variety of measurements. How boring would the world be if everything was standardized? Ben 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oval Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 It would be nice, if the presets would reflect this change. You need* something in preferences that would lock your preferred unit(s). Perhaps you try it with a feature request, chrisA? Some hope is here. *Instead, you can use an app (script) that automatically switch to your unit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts