Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Saving Interface Layouts


Recommended Posts

  • 1 month later...

After a bit of a crash/freeze up  I now wish I saved my preferred Studio/screen layout -- "wish I saved" is really if I could save ;)
Just one of the little annoying missing bits :61_sob:. Yep; for me anyway it's bit like crying over spilt milk, but .................... 
Cheers :)
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

My Studio setup in Publisher just "disappeared" for no understandable reason -- lost 3 nested panels for some strange reason and the only way to get them back was to Reset Studio which destroyed about 15 minutes of arranging work.

I agree -- this seems like a VERY simple request to be able to save/name favourite layouts. 

--------------------

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020 i7 72GB) • AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 GB • macOS Ventura
MacBook Pro, 13", M1 2020 • 16 GB • macOS Ventura
iPad Air 2022

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

+100 for letting users save workspaces. Not everyone fits into a developer's mold of how things should be. We all use Affinity Photo differently but 99.9% of us don't come from Gimp we come from Adobe Photoshop and this is an almost critical feature we've used for years (me since 1996, with double monitors, using one monitor for the workspace and the other for tools--kind a obvious).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

As I've said before, the information is obviously stored somewhere, so why it is such a problem to be able to back it up and restore it is completely beyond me! :/

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/6/2019 at 10:09 AM, PaulEC said:

the information is obviously stored somewhere,

On Mac, for apps purchased directly from Serif it's in

~/Library/Preferences/com.seriflabs.affinity[app_name].plist

or for sandboxed apps from Apple's App Store it's in

~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinity[app_name]/Data/Library/Preferences/com.seriflabs.affinity[app_name].plist

Look for a key named

com.seriflabs.Studio.Data2[persona_name]-tab

The data strings of those keys are stored in hex format, not as text, so you need a hex editor to actually read or even edit them. Prefs Editor can do it.

It should be possible to backup and restore these data chunks via the "defaults" terminal command, but that's way over my modest programming skills.

However you can always restore the aforementioned keys from your Time Machine backup (you guys do back up, right? if not, I have no pity :P) by restoring a copy of the plist file to its original location (you can keep it there; as long as it has "copy" in its file name it won't do absolutely anything, it will just sit there), opening it with Prefs Edit (RTFM!), copying the old workspaces, and pasting them into the current plist. Or simply replace the whole current plist file altogether.

Happy tinkering. :)

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, raeyo said:

so I need to backup and restore every time when I reboot my PC?

I have absolutely no idea how it functions (or not) on Windows. I haven't used a Windows PC in… at least a decade or two…

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

Link to comment
Share on other sites

AFAIK, on a Windows PC, it's in the appdata, along with other user settings.

But the point is that you shouldn't have to poke around and back it up manually. It should be really simple to save several different layouts (for different purposes) and recall them whenever you want to. Serif's Plus/"legacy" software handled this very well!

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, raeyo said:

ANY UPDATE GUYS??

Getting this screen always after reboot PC... all settings lost!

pp_931.jpg

There is something wrong with the way the program or your system are behaving. Rather than piggy-backing on this topic looking for a solution to recover from the problem when it happens, you should be trying to solve the problem so you don't need to recover.

As it's an actual problem with the program misbehaving, you should post a new topic in the Bugs forum, where the Serif support staff will see it and track it. (But note that they are about to go on Christmas holiday, so they may not get to your problem until January 2.

Designer Bugs Found on Windows forum

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

couple of things I have learnt to do >make a screenshot of your screen layout -- that well help the reset >save or export your brushes/ macros and the likes so they can be imported.  
Being able to save /move layout to another computer would be great for some .
A big help would be the option >view >studio >click all apps required at the one time .
SS of my current layout with the temperature graph for yesterday [ 20-12-2019 ] --- .2c off the record  . 

All good ideas are only good if we do it NOW ; then they may become a great idea .  

ap work space save.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

We are a small college in Australia that has recently transitioned to the Affinity software suite. Our students have roaming profiles and change from iMac to duel monitor PC's on a very regular basis. Having a way to save the layouts would save a huge amount of class time for us. Please add a feature to save layouts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/29/2017 at 1:16 PM, Glyphs said:

Could you give us a way to save interface layouts, with customized toolbars and palettes layouts? 

+1

I recently reinstalled the three Affinity apps after upgrading my hardware, including an SSD. That was easy enough. However, I still have to customize the interfaces -- which, including the various personas, I all gave similar layouts where possible -- because I haven't found the time (or inspiration) to go through all the many steps again. This despite the fact that I made screenshots of the setups before upgrading my hardware. Complicating the process is also having to import all the assets, brushes, LUTs, macros, palettes, styles -- some of them for all three apps and sometimes one by one -- all over again.

The net effect is that I tend to avoid using the the Affinity apps even though I really like them. 

To make this process more user friendly, I could imagine a centralized facility that, while customizing the UI for one app, allows these settings to be also applied to the other apps where it concerns shared features and tools. Of course, such facility would also allow us to save these settings as presets, as well as contain a centralized app asset manager for the brushes, assets etc. 

The way Affinity conceived this 'suite' is brilliant but without integrating the manner in which the various apps can be customized and their assets be managed, it's sometimes too much of a pain.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I typically use designer/photo on two monitors -- one with the main work window and the other monitor has my frequently used panels (windows) like assets, color, effects, layers...... But sometimes I'm watching do tasks where it's more convenient to run designer/photo on on monitor and view a tutorial or another app on the other monitor.

The  programs (designer/photo) obviously store the positions of all the panels upon program exit, so it wouldn't seem to be that hard to add a "save view" and "load view" process. Really disappointed this option doesn't exist! 

(05mar2020) Ryzen 1800x, Gigabyte AX370 K7, Samsung 970 EVO+ 1TB NVME-M.2 SSD, EVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G2 PS, Corsair Vengeance 64GB DDR4 3200 Mem,  GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 442.50 (01mar20), LG Ultra HD (2), Win 10 Pro x64 18363.657, Affinity Photo/Designer 1.8.1.604 beta & Publisher 1.8.2.603 beta

Link to comment
Share on other sites

+1 for savable workspaces

... in particular for users with laptops + 2nd monitor which is plugged or unplugged. Currently it needs manual panels re-arrangement every time the used monitors are changed.

... also, especially on single, smaller screens, this option supports with various panel settings to focus on different tasks and workflows, e.g. mainly text or illustration/image/color.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.