About Resetting Affinity apps

[R C-R]

Reseting an Affinity app to factory defaults is often suggested as a cure for various problems. While that may work, it is a very destructive step that wipes out all user customizations for keyboard shortcuts, the layout of the Tools palette & the main menu bar, fills, styles, brushes, etc. & returns just about everything to the new user defaults values.

 

Some of these things, for example keyboard shortcuts & Styles categories, can be exported/saved prior to the reset & imported/loaded back into the app afterwards, which can reduce the considerable amount of time & effort sometimes needed to return the app to the previous highly customized state.

 

However, there does not seem to be a comprehensive list of all the things that could be exported or saved for this purpose, or any mention of which (if any) should not be imported or loaded back into the app to reintroduce some problem the reset was meant to cure. For many of them, exporting/importing each category individually would be required since there is no global 'export/import all categories' feature in their menus, so even with a comprehensive checklist this can be a tedious & error prone process.

 

Any guidance on this would be appreciated, as well as if or when less destructive alternatives would suffice.

 

One example of this is I have noticed than on a Mac, some problems can be resolved by trashing the ~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner/Data/Library/Caches files or the equivalent path for the other Affinity apps (including the betas & possibly for the Photos extensions as well). Note: for anyone wishing to try this, it should be done only while the app is not running.

 

In particular, this seems to resolve unusually long launch times & some other sluggish behaviors, but only when the contents of the Caches subfolders have become large, at least more than 1 or 2 MB.

[Chris B]

Hey R C-R,

 

I think a list of what to backup and where would be nice. We try and avoid suggesting this when possible as not only does it nuke any customization, it also prevents our development team getting hold of the files that they could take apart to find the root cause of some issues.

 

I could put this forward to our documentation team to see if this is something they would be interested in making available. I don't believe we formally speak of doing a ctrl runup anywhere else other than the forum so I couldn't tell you if this would belong in the Help file or not.

 

Thanks

[R C-R]

Chris B,

 

Thanks for your comments. I don't think this necessarily needs to be a part of the help files, but it would be nice to see this in the forums, perhaps in the Tutorials section as part of a comprehensive article about the reset feature?

[Madame]

Yes, or in a video for those that doesn't have all the necessary vocabulary to read all the technical stuff in english, please! 

[R C-R]

Yes, or in a video for those that doesn't have all the necessary vocabulary to read all the technical stuff in english, please! 

I wonder if this is the kind of thing that lends itself to a video tutorial. What I would like to see at a minimum is a list of every user customization & every addition or change to Studio panels (like Assets, Brushes, & Styles) that is discarded by resetting the app to factory defaults. Ideally, it would also include what if any steps could be taken to export/save these items so they could be imported/loaded back into the app after a factory reset.

 

That seems like it is better suited to a text format than a video one, so perhaps there could be different versions for each language Affinity supports?

[Madame]

Well, I still wish for a video.

I think that amount of text is too overwhelming for a not native English speaker (or at least for some).

 

I don't use the help menu very much, because of the reasons mentioned above. -And I don't use my language on an application because all the useful tutorials (videos) are in English, and are easier to follow when the tools and everything else are  in the same language. 

[R C-R]

I think that amount of text is too overwhelming for a not native English speaker (or at least for some).

I understand that. But I was thinking about some of my online friends from other countries who tell me they can't get much out of English language video tutorials because, while they can read & write in English fairly well, they do not understand spoken English very well, so the narration in English language educational videos doesn't do them much good.

[Madame]

I see. Nobody is alike. ;) I'm just the opposite. 

[Chris B]

The documentation team have agreed this is a good idea and will hopefully be adding some sort of tutorial at some point which will cover safely backing up/exporting your settings etc. 

I'm not sure if it will be written or as a video or even both. I'll try and dig this thread out and let you know once it has been done. Cheers :)

[R C-R]

Thanks!

[Madame]

 Good! Thanks so much! :)

[nravenlock]

The documentation team have agreed this is a good idea and will hopefully be adding some sort of tutorial at some point which will cover safely backing up/exporting your settings etc. 

I'm not sure if it will be written or as a video or even both. I'll try and dig this thread out and let you know once it has been done. Cheers :)

 

To complement Leigh's fantastic run down of the Clear User Data panel, we have released a video (complete with subtitles) which discusses the ways you can export your user settings from within the Affinity apps, Exporting User Settings and Keyboard Shortcuts.

 

Hope this helps.

[R C-R]

Thanks very much for this!

[Madame]

Perfect! Just what I needed. :)

Thanks so much!