Keyboard Shortcut + Mouse Wheel Customisation? (Alt + Mouse Wheel to zoom on Windows)

[Gibsonion]

In Affinity Designer I've found the options to change the keyboard shortcuts for the zoom function on their own, but can't seem to find an option to alter the "Ctrl + Mouse Wheel" to match, coming from being a photoshop/illustrator user I'm used to it being Alt + Mouse Wheel to zoom, it's a small thing to change, but it's a very vital part of the work flow and that one key switch when everything else is almost identical is just plain irritating. Is there a way to change this that I'm not seeing or should I put in a feature request? Surely I'm not the only one that this bothers?

Kind Regards

[MEB]

Hi Gibsonion,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

In Affinity Designer Preferences, Tools section there's an option/checkbox to Use mouse wheel to zoom (without pressing CTRL).

[MikeW]

And I wish I could change AI/PS/CD to ctrl+scroll.

 

But I cannot.

 

I bounce in and out of those plus AD and QXP every day. Which modifier key for zoom is the least of my issues. I've gotten use to it.

[Gibsonion]

Thanks MEB, but that's not the solution I was hoping for. Not pressing a button at all is even less comfortable to transition to. I wasn't aware Adobe couldn't switch it's default of the ALT key, so likewise MikeW, but if anything that just emphasises my point. When 99% of the other short cuts are identical and there's no need to change them in terms of transitioning, but one of the only changes they do make, is one you can't customise and possible the most frequently used? That's just someone's idea of a practical joke, surely. Like Serif has just done it to annoy people for the LOLZ,

But honestly if one or the other of the programs allowed the switch I'd be happy to make the adjustment, It's the regular switching back and forth that makes it hard to get used to, it interrupts my workflow and wastes time, maybe very small amount at a time, but something used that frequently is gonna pile up fast and causes unnecessary frustration and mistakes when under pressure to meet deadlines, when time is money I think it unprofessional to not just fix it and make everyone's life easier, it's just one of those dumb things, that would probably take a programmer all of 5 minutes to resolve if they wanted to, my understanding of advanced programming languages is fairly limited, but I'm fairly sure I could find a YouTube Tutorial that could walk me through how to do it in less than an hour. Hell there's probably someone who's gone to the trouble of making a mod for it, if they have I'll get that, but I do find it laughable that looking through Adobe's forums people have had the opposite issue for various reasons going back to 2011 and probably further that one of these two big companies that have been around since before the Internet was much more than a social experiment and dozens of tiny gripes like these that could be fixed in a heartbeat just never get addressed.

Affinity tackles a lot of bigger issues I've had with Illustrator since day one and could easily become my goto design tool over my adobe suit if they address a number of fairly important features that I'm bewildered are missing, like a bullet point styling system, it's like such a basic necessity with text design that it's been included in even the most basic of WordPressors for 30+ years, how someone decided that it was so far down the todo list it's still not been included after what 2 or 3 years, with no signs of it being anywhere on a priority list? I'm ranting now, but that's just... I have no words that adequately describe what a monumental oversight that was.

Affinity is on the right path to becoming the next king of the hill, but they need to learn from Adobe's arrogance when it comes to addressing the little things as well as their big ones if they want to have the best product on the market.

I'll be disappointed if Serif just choose to act like Adobe have by focusing primarily on new fancy features that sell more copies with the wow factor, over addressing the far more practical minor updates effecting existing customers who've already parted with their money so aren't as important as bringing in new business. 

 

[R C-R]

At least for me, not having to use any modifier key to zoom with the scroll wheel has saved me more time than any other feature of Affinity. As a Mac user it also involved no learning curve because there are already many Mac apps that work that way (for example Apple's & Google's map apps) & it is also a common feature supported on interactive web sites that display graphics content, regardless of the OS or browser app used.

 

Regarding writing the code to enable customizing/enabling the modifier keys for this (or anything else), it is nowhere as quick or easy as it might seem. Each OS has its own requirements for doing this via its built-in API's, & some system level keyboard shortcuts are difficult or impossible to override without causing several kinds of usability (& sometime stability) problems.

 

More generally, UI/UX design is in a constant state of flux, driven in large part by what new technologies like various kinds of touch sensors & ever more powerful CPUs can enable. Because of this "legacy" interfaces are increasingly less efficient than new ones. They may take some time to get used to in the short term but that can pay off handsomely in the long term.

 

If an oldster like me who has been using various graphics apps for well over four decades can adapt to these changes, I am fairly sure almost anyone can do the same.

[MEB]

Hi Gibsonion,

I understand your points, they were already raised by other users as well and we have adapted/changed a few shortcuts previously - where possible - to make life easier from those transitioning from other software. This however is a Windows specific issue. On the Mac it works exactly like you want (that is, alt + scroll zooms in/out) but on Windows, due to the lack of a modifier key (the Mac provides four modifiers whereas on Windows we only have three available) we had to make some adaptations, some of which didn't work that well for some functions. We are considering rethinking a few changes but this is not as trivial as it may look at first: not only we will have to rethink other shortcuts that may conflict with those changes, there's also all documentation, from video tutorials, Help files, Official Guide etc that must be changed as well. No matter the route we take here there will be always someone which will not be happy with the modifications because we have users from different backgrounds/apps/workflows. I'm moving this thread to the Feature Requests section and will raise this issue with the dev team, then it's up to them to decide the best solution for it.