[FORUM] We need separate sections for AP and AD

[Samoreen]

Hi,

 

The Beta Support section has separate sections for Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer and the Mac and Windows version are also separated but strangely enough, it's not the case for the Affinity Support section. Things are becoming very confusing here since users are using the term Affinity for both products. We now have a Mac and a Windows version for each product and, at least for Affinity Photo, both versions are at this time different. Many posters do not specify whether they are posting about the Mac or the Windows version.

 

I vote for a new forum structure.

 

Anyone supporting this idea ?

[Patrick Connor]

I think this could happen. Existing posts would take a while to move so we will need to think about how to make that obvious. Perhaps block this forum to new threads, but not new posts, and move them into the sub forums as time allows. Let us think about this, as I think that done right it would work, but done wrong it would be a mess

[Kodiak]

•

 

Moi! Je trouve la proposition séduisante…

 

I support the idea…

As a photographer in a designers forum.

 

I fell no discomfort as things are, many members designers

made me fell at home here but maybe properly identified as

Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo fora could be a cool idea!

[Richard S.]

It may be worth having a general chit chat forum also, otherwise some members may only ever visit the forum for the app they own.

Having a general chit chat forum makes a really great sense of community.

[R C-R]

I see two problems that are not going to be easy to mitigate with a new forum structure:

 

1. Lots of topics apply to both platforms and/or to both existing Affinity apps, so at the least we need one (or more?) general forums like DesignMeister's 'chit chat' idea.

 

2. No matter how many forum divisions there are or how clearly it is explained what is appropriate for each of them, in my experience getting users to pay attention to that on support sites works about as well as herding cats.

 

One thing I would like to see is a "Read This Before Posting" FAQ pinned at the top of each forum. It should cover the basics, like that there are in fact several different Affinity apps, that questions about betas should be posted to the correct forums (with links to them), & most importantly that "Affinity" by itself is almost never an adequate description of the application anybody has a question about.

[Michael Lloyd]

Breaking up forum sections is essential for usability and inevitable.

 

The primary code base for Mac and Windows applications is identical, therefore application capability and features are identical. Therefore much of the forum should not be separated by OS, as this would orphan valuable content from users of the OS where not posted. However OS specific sections are needed.

 

Though there are several sections listed below this will help keep valuable material from being quickly pushed several pages down the list. Over time these forum sections will explode with content. I believe the suggested forum sections and similar labeling will serve to keep the forum manageable and separate content in a meaningful and useful manner, with minimal redundancy and confusion.

 

Suggested Forum Sections:

News and Information

 

Support - Affinity Designer
Support - Affinity Photo
Support - Affinity Publisher

  [Each of the above should have an FAQ thread administered by Serif.]
Support - Applies to Multiple Applications  [Needed?]
Support - Affinity Mac OS Related
Support - Affinity Windows OS Related

  [The above 2 sections may benefit from an FAQ thread administered by Serif.]

 

Tools and Resources - All Affinity Applications

 

Training - Affinity Designer
Training - Affinity Photo
Training - Affinity Publisher
Training - Applies to Multiple Applications  [As needed]
Training - Affinity Mac Specific                    [As needed]
Training - Affinity Windows Specific            [As needed]
  [The last 2 (above - OS Specific) might be implemented as a thread in each previous section, as needed.]

  [include 2 (pinned) Tips and Tricks threads in each section - One administrated by Serif the other by users.]

  [serif provided training would be more organized and inviting if implemented as web pages.]

  [users should be able to submit Affinity training material and links not created by Serif.]

 

Share your work - Affinity Designer
Share your work - Affinity Photo
Share your work - Affinity Publisher

 

Suggestions - Affinity Designer
Suggestions - Affinity Photo
Suggestions - Affinity Publisher
Suggestions - Applies to Multiple Applications
Suggestions - Affinity Mac OS Related
Suggestions - Affinity Windows OS Related

Bugs - Affinity Designer
Bugs - Affinity Photo
Bugs - Affinity Publisher
Bugs - Applies to Multiple Applications
Bugs - Affinity Mac OS Related
Bugs - Affinity Windows OS Related

[R C-R]

Michael, that is a very long list (over thirty forum sections!) & it does not include the betas. Also, don't overlook that many people get here not through the 'front door' where they can see the existing ones but through a Google, Bing, etc. search, so they may not be aware that more than one forum exists.

[Butler To Cats]

I personally think only the Questions and Feedback section needs splitting, and into Designer and Photo parts.

 

(Anyone making a tutorial is more likely to identify the app if important, resources can be cross-app, when sharing work it's nice to also see "the other side", feature requests are somewhat more likely to be cross-app, news and information is sufficiently general and very low on threads, and bugs and betas are already sufficiently covered.)

 

The Questions and Feedback section has the largest number of threads (and is likely to continue in this vein), many of the posters are raising questions specific to their application (Photo or Designer), many are new users, and while some are not always clear about which app they are using in the thread title nor in the question itself, many are clear when asked directly.

 

As R C-R notes, splitting appwise does not guarantee questions will end up in the right forum, but I suspect it increases the chances and proportions of questions that will be correctly directed, and helps focus the users and Serif employees who are most interested and most likely to reply, while the forum is friendly enough to either answer an out-of-place question or point the poster to the area where they are more likely to get appropriate help.

 

I think a general chat section which can catch general, confused, or off-topic threads would be useful, although I don't know if it would be essential.

[john7]

It needs something as its totally confusing as it is!

[brunzenstein]

Hi,

 

The Beta Support section has separate sections for Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer and the Mac and Windows version are also separated but strangely enough, it's not the case for the Affinity Support section. Things are becoming very confusing here since users are using the term Affinity for both products. We now have a Mac and a Windows version for each product and, at least for Affinity Photo, both versions are at this time different. Many posters do not specify whether they are posting about the Mac or the Windows version.

 

I vote for a new forum structure.

 

Anyone supporting this idea ?

I find AD & AP functionality overlapping in some key areas - Mac & PC versions are not so much apart to separate them - I find the current chaos refreshing as one can learn new things apart form a beaten track e.g.

Things that are sometimes easier to construct on the other App - so "don't change what isn't broken"

[R C-R]

Things that are sometimes easier to construct on the other App - so "don't change what isn't broken"

Indeed. We must consider that one of the unique features of the Affinity apps is a single file format for all of them, making it possible to edit any native file format document with either existing Affinity app on either a Mac or a Windows PC. Presumably, this will remain true when Publisher is released, & possibly also when the iOS versions are released.

 

Besides, many of the questions are of the 'how do I do this' kind, so the best way may depend on if the user has one or more of the apps.

[Aammppaa]

Instead of splitting the forums is there a mod to the forum software that would enforce tagging of posts from a list of existing options.

 

Users would have to select application and OS, before the post could be created?

 

Searches could then be filtered using the tags to limit results.

[Alfred]

Besides, many of the questions are of the 'how do I do this' kind, so the best way may depend on if the user has one or more of the apps.

 

The problem being, of course, that the question is often posed as "How do I do this in Affinity?" Respondents are then left to choose between either (i) asking which app the OP is using, or (ii) trying to give a general answer or a two-part one. Aammppaa's suggestion of enforced tagging would address this, but I don't know if it's possible.

[brunzenstein]

Instead of splitting the forums is there a mod to the forum software that would enforce tagging of posts from a list of existing options.

Anything is ok as long as there is no splitting because, as I mentioned, there are often solutions to problems easier to tackle in another (the other) app. And as all Affinity Apps share the same file base its simple to work with the one with the most proper solution to a dedicated problem.

A fixation in the forum to one App only would be limiting the horizon - thought.

[MEB]

I believe splitting the Question & Feedback and the Feature Requests sections in two subsections - Photo and Designer - would be enough as obtusity suggested. The more subsections we add the more confusion we create as users fail to post in the correct sections/subsections. The existing structure is relatively easy to understand/straightforward, apart from the Question & Feedback and the Feature Requests section where most of the posts are mixed between the two apps. It also works better than tagging because it clearly defines a structure at the forum level rather than having to rely on user input/filtering to select the appropriate posts. Although it requires some work to move posts, it doesn't mess too much with the whole forum structure - seems a reasonable compromise.

[R C-R]

The problem being, of course, that the question is often posed as "How do I do this in Affinity?" Respondents are then left to choose between either (i) asking which app the OP is using, or (ii) trying to give a general answer or a two-part one.

That is not necessarily a bad thing. It can help users who have only one of the apps understand the potential benefits of getting the other(s). It can also get some of us who do have more than one thinking about new ways to do something by using them together that we may not have considered before.

 

Enforced tagging might help but I think there would have to be many standardized tags for that to be very useful, minimally ones for each OS & each app, & probably ones for buying/licensing & perhaps other issues. Tags also apply only to the OP, not to those replying to an existing topic, so there will likely be some uncertainty in many topics about which app or OS someone is talking about.

 

Adding version & platform info to your sig can help with that but you have to remember to keep it current & some users will ignore it, just as they ignore the FAQ's & other stuff that would eliminate the need for a lot of the new topics or putting topics in the wrong forum.

 

Regarding that, yet another complication is that a significant number of Affinity users looking for or offering help are not native English speakers & may have to rely on imperfect translation services like Google to participate in the forums. I don't think it would be fair to them to enforce anything on them that would make that any more difficult than it already is.

 

There do not seem to be any easy or straightforward ways to solve this.

[catlover]

I agree with MEB, too much splitting only creates chaos.

 

I DO support the "Tagging" suggestion, albeit with a twist :

enforce tagging by the user having to choose,  but make the chosen tag appear automatically as a prefix to the subject line typed in by the user.

This would create uniformity. Surely this would be possible to program ????

So : (example) 

AFD-Mac {subject line}

AFD-Win  {subject line}

AFP-Mac {subject line}

AFP-Win  {subject line}

[voom]

Instead of splitting the forums is there a mod to the forum software that would enforce tagging of posts from a list of existing options.

 

Users would have to select application and OS, before the post could be created?

 

Searches could then be filtered using the tags to limit results.

This is a really good idea - tags are already there and could maybe enforced. As Serif is so much about UI design, the possibilities of the forum could be visualized in a better way. Large colored buttons for tags as a row on the top that would filter the output of a search instantly etc. Maybe it would even make enforcing the use of tags obsolete, if tags would be more prominent in the UI...

[R C-R]

So MEB, catlover, et al:

 

What, if anything, do you think should be done about questions, feedback, or feature requests that apply equally well to multiple apps and/or platforms?

[Aammppaa]

With compulsory tagging, I'd just tag the post with both apps and both OSes :)

[Butler To Cats]

What, if anything, do you think should be done about questions, feedback, or feature requests that apply equally well to multiple apps and/or platforms?

 

Keep the feature requests as one forum.

 

Assuming app features are kept mostly identical or very similar across platforms (with version variations or minor exceptions e.g. Mac floating panels), I do not see a reason to tag or split by platform - in most cases, a user can happily answer another user's question, without knowing or caring what platform the other is using. Answers that are platform-specific are probably going to be referring to external software/problems, not Affinity-specific features. Platform-specific tracking is most appropriate to, and already covered by, bugs and betas.

 

If there is a question that applies across both apps, assume the asker has the app that relates to the section/tag they asked in, and answer accordingly.

If it can't be done in that app (or is irrelevant to that app), that's the opportunity to (if answerer has the other app) explain how it can be done (or done easier/better) in the other app, or (if they don't) explain the difference between the two apps  and suggest the asker repost/retag to the other app section of the forum (or, if a Serif employee with forum superpowers, move the question to the other section).

 

I suspect tagging might be a useful feature to consider when selecting forum frameworks, but might be difficult to post-implement on an existing forum framework, unless it already exists as an option.

[voom]

I suspect tagging might be a useful feature to consider when selecting forum frameworks, but might be difficult to post-implement on an existing forum framework, unless it already exists as an option.

There is tagging already, you can enter tags when opening a new thread. Tags are shown in the lists and can be clicked to show only threads with the respective tag. So the feature would only have to be spiced up a little, visually and maybe in function, and many old threads could already be filtered by tag as well as new ones. 

[DavidMac]

This has come up before and this will not be first time I have come up with the following suggestion. But I think it bears repeating.

 

One of the basic philosophies of Affinity is complete transportability between Designer and Photo. I don't think these should be segregated. However I do think posts that apply to one or the other need to be clearly flagged. It is very frustrating to find half way through that a post isn't what you thought it was or even leaves you completely unclear at the end to which app it refers.

 

I wonder if posting were equipped with check boxes for Designer and Photo one or both of which must be checked before the post is allowed and that such flags be clearly displayed in the post header, then posters must distinguish for which app they are posting and readers are alerted as to which app is being referenced. It really needn't be more complicated than that and it preserves a unified community within a single forum. Obviously there is a risk that some posters will be lazy and simply click both by default but the mere fact that a selection must be made would make this willful rather than forgetful or unknowing and would mean that posting should become more focused. I really don't think it need be more complicated than that.

OS is irrelevant to 'creative' and methodology posting but not to bugs and technical problems. Here I would suggest a separate technical problems forum, in which similar OS checkboxes would be mandatory.

 

Division of app forums into technical problems and general questions and observations is normal practice for almost all app related forums. Nothing is going to be ideal but I think two core forums structured like this would cover most bases.

 

Other forums like betas, chat, resources, links, etc. could be added by Serif as they wish. But the above two properly and clearly flagged in each post would preserve a unified community and avoid the nuisance of reading irrelevant posts.

Of course it's easy for me to say. I have no real idea how practical it would be for Serif to implement ........ but it strikes me as a relatively simple solution ........

[PeanutsA]

Breaking up forum sections is essential for usability and inevitable.

 

The primary code base for Mac and Windows applications is identical, therefore application capability and features are identical. Therefore much of the forum should not be separated by OS, as this would orphan valuable content from users of the OS where not posted. However OS specific sections are needed.

 

Though there are several sections listed below this will help keep valuable material from being quickly pushed several pages down the list. Over time these forum sections will explode with content. I believe the suggested forum sections and similar labeling will serve to keep the forum manageable and separate content in a meaningful and useful manner, with minimal redundancy and confusion.

 

Suggested Forum Sections:

News and Information

 

Support - Affinity Designer

Support - Affinity Photo

Support - Affinity Publisher

  [Each of the above should have an FAQ thread administered by Serif.]

Support - Applies to Multiple Applications  [Needed?]

Support - Affinity Mac OS Related

Support - Affinity Windows OS Related

  [The above 2 sections may benefit from an FAQ thread administered by Serif.]

 

Tools and Resources - All Affinity Applications

 

Training - Affinity Designer

Training - Affinity Photo

Training - Affinity Publisher

Training - Applies to Multiple Applications  [As needed]

Training - Affinity Mac Specific                    [As needed]

Training - Affinity Windows Specific            [As needed]

  [The last 2 (above - OS Specific) might be implemented as a thread in each previous section, as needed.]

  [include 2 (pinned) Tips and Tricks threads in each section - One administrated by Serif the other by users.]

  [serif provided training would be more organized and inviting if implemented as web pages.]

  [users should be able to submit Affinity training material and links not created by Serif.]

 

Share your work - Affinity Designer

Share your work - Affinity Photo

Share your work - Affinity Publisher

 

Suggestions - Affinity Designer

Suggestions - Affinity Photo

Suggestions - Affinity Publisher

Suggestions - Applies to Multiple Applications

Suggestions - Affinity Mac OS Related

Suggestions - Affinity Windows OS Related

 

Bugs - Affinity Designer

Bugs - Affinity Photo

Bugs - Affinity Publisher

Bugs - Applies to Multiple Applications

Bugs - Affinity Mac OS Related

Bugs - Affinity Windows OS Related

 

 

Michael, that is a very long list (over thirty forum sections!) & it does not include the betas. Also, don't overlook that many people get here not through the 'front door' where they can see the existing ones but through a Google, Bing, etc. search, so they may not be aware that more than one forum exists.

The list, with which I fully agree, as do I the first 'bold' line of Michael Lloyd's post, needs not be as long as it first appears as the 'Training sections' could be incorporated into the 'Support sections'.

 

Things are only going to get worse/more confused/more confusing with the (eventual) release of Affinity Publisher.

 

Despite what others have said regarding the shared feature of two OS's I firmly think, and wish, that there could be some way of making clear which OS is being used in any post.

 

As for people who do not arrive through the 'front door' not being aware of there being more than one forum there is the simple solution of the addition of "s" (Forums) indicating the existence more than one forum.

Perhaps those who have never used it should have a look at the way the forum(s) for the 'Legacy products' is set out, covering a much larger number of products

 

I will take this opportunity of saying, with respect, that some of the 'advanced members' (and I'm not even sure what that indicates) & some other 'advanced' but not acknowledged as such members are not very understanding in their answers towards those of  'less advanced abilities'. At times it is almost as if we of 'less advanced abilities' need a section of our own, to 'wade through the jargon'.

 

Again, with respect, having used every Serif product over many, many years, and greatly appreciating the hard work that must have gone into developing both Affinity products, and the setting-up/ running of this Forum, I have to say I think this Forum in its present 'chaotic' form does not do justice to that hard work.

[Richard S.]

PeanutsA,

 

When you say:

 

I will take this opportunity of saying, with respect, that some of the 'advanced members' (and I'm not even sure what that indicates) & some other 'advanced' but not acknowledged as such members are not very understanding in their answers towards those of  'less advanced abilities'. At times it is almost as if we of 'less advanced abilities' need a section of our own, to 'wade through the jargon'.

 

 

Am I correct in understanding that sometimes the answers given are a little too complex for beginners to understand?

I personally, usually try to point out the exact steps required so as to cater for beginners / inexperienced members, as I know how frustrating getting an answer, but not understanding it can be!

I'm also a software developer and trust me - some of the coding answers I get required a degree in rocket science to understand :) :)

 

If you have anything you do not understand, please do not hesitate to private message me, and I will do my best to give a clear explanation of any terms you are unfamiliar with.

Hopefully this will help you a little bit.