RE: TRANSITIONING FROM SERIF TO AFFINITY

[CJT963]

To all,

 

 

RE: TRANSITIONING FROM SERIF TO AFFINITY.... :( 

 

 

Although I've used SERIF PAGEPLUS for some years now, I'm not a heavy user, perhaps once a week or so. I mainly use it for my own small business with created forms & imported pdf forms for text insertion & the odd bit of created dtp on architectural floor plans, being my main business.

 

I've find serif quite easy to navigate & really good with importing pdf files. Although I realise AFFINITY products are now taking over from SERIF products, I never realised that there would be an equivalent suite of AFFINITY products. I confess not to be paying too much attention in this regard, but when I first purchased AFFINITY DESIGNER, I thought this was a one stop product so to speak. i.e. dtp, photo editor & draw etc. in one.

 

Anyway I've been switching backwards & forwards between SERIF PAGEPLUS (x8) & AFFINITY DESIGNER for a while now, but unfortunately moreover residing back to SERIF PAGE PLUS. It may be me, but I'm just finding AFFINITY not as intuitive to use as PAGEPLUS. I know I voiced a post on this forum when I first got AFFINITY, my issue at that time was just finding basic things on the help menu. However the help menu, like most products is vital to learning a product, this is perhaps where I think the help menu could be improved. I was also wondering if there was some further tutorial info out there that looked at comparing the basics in SERIF PAGEPLUS & how we achieve like for like in AFFINITY, just a thought.

 

I know AFFINITY PUBLISHER is on the cards soon, so perhaps this product will be better aligned to SERIF PAGEPLUS USERS such as me. But in the meantime, I think I might just buy SERIF PAGEPLUS X9 & stick with that, if AFFINITY PUBLISHER isn't going to be more intuitive to use, or at least a better help menu.

 

Over & out,

CJT963 

[Alfred]

Affinity Designer is essentially a vector drawing application like DrawPlus. Affinity Publisher will be more suitable than AD for those looking to replace PagePlus, but it will be several years before it matches PP's capabilities.

 

Now that PagePlus is a legacy application there is no official support for new purchases. However, the price reflects that, and you can still get plenty of help via the CommunityPlus forum.

[thomas.dahl]

I have to agree.  There are many things about the affinity products that drive me a little nuts.  The lack of "save as" file format options and "redo and undo" buttons are pretty fundamental gripes.  I know I know, serif now has an export button etc. but I am old school..  The lack of "redo and undo" does however make me crazy..

 

I keep finding myself going back to Photplus to get things done as I cannot find things in Affinity Photo and the help system is pretty useless.  I usually end up looking in YouTube and this takes way to much time..

[R C-R]

It may be me, but I'm just finding AFFINITY not as intuitive to use as PAGEPLUS.

I am not a Windows user but for me, it is never particularly easy to transition from an app of any kind that I am very familiar with to one I am not. What I have found is it is considerably harder to do if I fall into the trap of expecting everything to work in the same "intuitive" way. 

 

I put intuitive in quotes because I do not believe there is anything instinctive (which is basically what intuitive means) about any of these apps, or for that matter about the OS or the UI it provides. No one is born with an innate understanding of any of this -- we don't even know that a crayon can make a mark until we play with one.

 

Because of that, I try to approach learning to use a new app in much the same way: I devote some time to playing with it, seeing what happens when I try this or that. I don't consult manuals, guides, or other teaching aids until I have doe that, & I certainly don't start any serious projects until I feel reasonably comfortable using the tools & UI the app provides. I guess according to the current usage of the term you could call that intuitive, but I don't.

 

I know this is not a practical approach for everyone but for me it works pretty well.

[Alfred]

I do not believe there is anything instinctive (which is basically what intuitive means) about any of these apps

 

I don't think I would go as far as to equate "instinctive" with "intuitive". If something is truly instinctive, you have a natural ability to do it without having to learn anything, but if it's intuitive then it fits in with the way you've become accustomed to doing similar things. That aside, I completely agree about playing with a new app in order to learn how to use it: even just exploring the menus and mousing over the tools to see their tooltips will tell you a great deal about the range of features and how to access them.

[R C-R]

I don't think I would go as far as to equate "instinctive" with "intuitive".

To some extent Merriam Webster & OED do go that far. The "easy to use and understand" meaning seems to be relatively new, & used almost exclusively in reference to computer & other advanced technology that was almost nonexistent a century ago. Even now, there are a lot of people that complain that anything more complicated than clicking on a button is not intuitive.