Reset Icons to default shape in Styles Panel

[Steven Casey]

Recently I received some vector art  files from a friend, including his  Assets, and Styles FILES. After viewing them in Affinity Designer, I noticed that the standard icons in the Styles panel had been customised into a cat shape, rather than the COG shape that is standard in my version of Affinity, version 1.6.4. I have tried holding down CRTL while loading, and then selecting the reset options in the dialog, and that did not work. Has anyone had a similar issue and resolved it. If so, can you run me through the steps to fix it.

[R C-R]

The steps to fix it are as follows:

1. Wait until Saturday the 14th. 

2. Restart the app.

 

(The cat shape in the styles panel is an "Easter Egg" that will appear every Friday the 13th.)

[Alfred]

5 minutes ago, R C-R said:

The steps to fix it are as follows:

1. Wait until Saturday the 14th. 

2. Restart the app.

 

Be prepared to do the same again in three months’ time!

[Steven Casey]

19 minutes ago, R C-R said:

The steps to fix it are as follows:

1. Wait until Saturday the 14th. 

2. Restart the app.

 

(The cat shape in the styles panel is an "Easter Egg" that will appear every Friday the 13th.)

Thank you for the prompt response, RC-R and Alfred. So essentially it's just a bit of fun the programmers put in, and all users will experience the altered icons?.  It really obscures some the Origami styles I use, and I was unaware of the feature. I wonder if I could have that feature removed! I deleted some of the imported styles my friend sent me, and re-installed the program, and lost a fair bit of time trying to work out why the panel changed. I guess that could be an issue in a commercial situation. A bit of warning or a message would have been great. So now hopefully there won't be any more surprises. Thanks once again.

[RocketRoll]

On 4/13/2018 at 9:39 AM, Steven Casey said:

Recently I received some vector art  files from a friend, including his  Assets, and Styles FILES. After viewing them in Affinity Designer, I noticed that the standard icons in the Styles panel had been customised into a cat shape, rather than the COG shape that is standard in my version of Affinity, version 1.6.4. I have tried holding down CRTL while loading, and then selecting the reset options in the dialog, and that did not work. Has anyone had a similar issue and resolved it. If so, can you run me through the steps to fix it.

I read your post before going to sleep and woke with an idea, I changed the date on my computer and it fixed it 😂. The cats are annoying, I couldn’t see the design properly. Just wait for tomorrow and we can live Saturday over again.

Edited June 13 by RocketRoll

[Alfred]

The problem would go away if we had user-selectable icons in the Styles panel. Then it wouldn’t matter whether they initially appeared as cats or cogs by default, since the user could opt to replace them with petals, polygons, or whatever standard shape best suited their purposes.

[GarryP]

<old-codger-grumble>

Having the shapes in the Styles Panel change to cats on Friday 13th might be a cute thing for kids to find in some kind of ‘my first painting with colourful shapes’ application, but it’s not something I would expect to have to deal with as part of a “next-level experience” in “top tier creative software”.

And I think we can probably do without the Cat Tool too.

Now I’m going to clear those pesky neighbourhood kids off my lawn… darn youngsters having fun and whatnot… was never like that in my day...

</old-codger-grumble>

[Ali]

Quote

And I think we can probably do without the Cat Tool too.

Don't even go there, human!

[Alfred]

11 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Now I’m going to clear those pesky neighbourhood kids off my lawn… darn youngsters having fun and whatnot… was never like that in my day...

 

[Alfred]

On 4/13/2018 at 9:12 AM, Steven Casey said:

A bit of warning or a message would have been great. So now hopefully there won't be any more surprises.

At least this Friday the 13th is the only one in the current calendar year. Just to make up for that, there are three occurrences in 2026.

[PaulEC]

I'd rather have a Cat than a Cog any day!

 

[Alfred]

4 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

I'd rather have a Cat than a Cog any day!

I’d rather have a choice! In the old Serif ‘Plus’ applications, the standard icons were a variant of the QuickPetal which yielded a solid shape with a relatively uninterrupted preview of the effect or style. No odd shapes like a cat’s tail or ears, no holes like the one you get by default in the middle of a cogwheel.

[Ali]

The Quick Petal was amazingly versatile!!!

[carl123]

21 minutes ago, Alfred said:

In the old Serif ‘Plus’ applications, the standard icons were a variant of the QuickPetal which yielded a solid shape with a relatively uninterrupted preview of the effect or style. No odd shapes like a cat’s tail or ears, no holes like the one you get by default in the middle of a cogwheel.

I thought they were cogwheels as standard?

Where do you change them to "QuickPetals"?

[PaulEC]

32 minutes ago, Alfred said:

no holes like the one you get by default in the middle of a cogwheel.

If you are applying the style to something with a hole it can help!

I'd agree that it would be nice to be able to choose the icon, but, whatever it is, you're never sure exactly what a style will look like until you apply it to the actual shape that you're using!

[Alfred]

9 minutes ago, carl123 said:

I thought they were cogwheels as standard?

They certainly are cogwheels in PagePlus X9 and DrawPlus X8. They may have been petals in older versions, or in other applications such as CraftArtist 2 Pro and its predecessors.

13 minutes ago, carl123 said:

Where do you change them to "QuickPetals"?

I don’t think we can, any more than we can get shoo away the cats in the Affinity apps today.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, Ali said:

The Quick Petal was amazingly versatile!!!

 

46 minutes ago, carl123 said:

I thought they were cogwheels as standard?

Where do you change them to "QuickPetals"?

 

32 minutes ago, Alfred said:

They may have been petals in older versions, or in other applications such as CraftArtist 2 Pro and its predecessors.

 

Here are some examples of the QuickPetal in DPX8:

The shape at the top (with nine petals) is what I got by default. The icons that I remember from CA2 or one of its predecessors were like the example at bottom left.

[PaulEC]

It was quite versatile, you could also use the Petal QS for more complex designs, (here, with a couple of circles behind to fill in the "holes" in the "petals"). I doubt if you could do this with any of the Affinity Quick Shape Tools. (Of course, you probably wouldn't want to, but that's beside the point 😄)

 

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, PaulEC said:

I doubt if you could do this with any of the Affinity Quick Shape Tools. 

So is the Cog Tool kind of a stripped down version of this?

[PaulEC]

15 minutes ago, R C-R said:

So is the Cog Tool kind of a stripped down version of this?

They are similar, but the Quick Petal Shape seemed to be more versatile, especially as you could adjust the "petals"  to overlap each other to make "pretty patterns"! 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pšenda]

23 hours ago, PaulEC said:

but, whatever it is, you're never sure exactly what a style will look like until you apply it to the actual shape that you're using!

Therefore, it would be great to have the option to preview with the actual/selected object you want to apply the style to.

[Ali]

Just out of interest, can anybody tell me how to access the cat if it's NOT Friday 13th???

[PaulEC]

Hold Shift when you open the shapes.

[Ali]

OK - thank you. 

[Alfred]

18 minutes ago, Ali said:

Just out of interest, can anybody tell me how to access the cat if it's NOT Friday 13th???

 

17 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

Hold Shift when you open the shapes.

There are also three cat shapes in the assets file attached to this post.