Affinity Photo Help - the good, bad, or ugly?

[Swoop]

Liking AP but as per my post in the forum about fuzzy Text rendering which does not seem to have been addressed with the latest update.

 

Heres hoping.

 

Peter

[WeiPhotoArts]

Good: I enjoyed going through a 5-10 min review of Help. I benefited from the Introduction & Personas (being new to Affinity products). While Help was oriented to people familiar to Photoshop, that was fine with me, as I'm in that category. Help was well-written and fairly helpful, although it didn't go into difficult problems (fine with me). I'm hoping that the videos and perhaps an example section will address another way of learning Affinity Photo.

 

Bad: Load time of Help was longer than I expected. Thought the program crashed, without an indication of it loading, but eventually everything worked out.

 

Ugly: Nothing, really.

 

 

[acapstick]

Help update for build 1.1.2.23923.

For UK Help only.

 

• Help has a new Table of Contents appearance while still maintaining the same book structure. This should give a more professional experience.
  
• We've tested and validated the help against Safari (back to version 5.1), Chrome (back to version 30), Firefox (back to version 25).
  
• Truncated text on window resize should be resolved for OS X Lion/Mountain Lion users. No more scrolling nightmares! 
  
• Responsive Table of Contents which collapses at smaller window sizes.
  
• Printing of displayed topic via Printable Version button.
  

 

For beta users experiencing problems when scrolling the help window, contents disappearing, etc. please have a re-test in UK locale and reply please. 

 

Please also test the truncated text issue and report in this thread.

 

If you'd rather wait for these Help changes in your own locale please wait for a build subsequent to 1.1.2.23923.

 

Subject to successful beta testing we'll go with this for Photo and implement into Designer from update 1.1.4. 

 

Thanks

Andy Capstick

[bobbd2000]

Unfortunately no joy. loaded the new version and changed my locale to the UK (I'm in Canada) and had the same problem with disappearing contents. Maybe I need to "really" be in the UK :-) I'm using Firefox 36 as my deafult browser with Yosemite.

[MikeFromMesa]

acapstick,

 

The one thing I keep finding in the documentation is that there are gaps in the entries on the US English side. That is, there may be an entry for UK English but no entry for US English for the same topic. Latest instance of this that I found was when searching for an entry for the Color Replacement Brush. No such entry, even though my system is set for US English. Searched for Colour Replacement Brush and there it was.

 

This is not a major problem for me as I am familiar with both versions of the language but I thought I should mention it. If I can set US English I think the Help File should contain all of the topics in US English as well as UK English.

[acapstick]

Bobbd2000,

 

Good to know..

 

1) Could you ensure the app is set to 'Default' in Affinity Photo>Preferences>General.

2) Close app down.

3) Clear your help cache in terminal with:

 

killall helpd

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.help*

rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.help*

 

3) Set your locale to English (U.K.) and Region to United Kingdom in Apple System Preferences.

4) Restart Mac.

5) Launch Affinity Photo

6) Try Help again.

 

Let me know how it goes..

 

\Andy

 

 

 

 

[acapstick]

MikefromMesa,

 

If you're using build 1.1.2.23923 the US help will be broken. We've just created multi-language help and still need to index the contents, including US, DE, FR and ES. This will be done in the next build after 1.1.2.23923.   

 

Have a great weekend. :-)

Andy

[bobbd2000]

Bobbd2000,

 

Let me know how it goes..

 

\Andy

Nope. By "locale" do you mean language? That's the only other option I could find. Set Language to English (U.K.) and Region to U.K. and everything else. Same issue. The TOC is there but disappears immediately. I can see it flash if I click the back button. Interestingly, the button to show the TOC is disabled (greyed out). Verified the version at 1.1.2.23923.

 

Maybe it knows I'm trying to fake the U.K.

 

If I'm the only one reporting this, maybe I should wait for the next beta version.

[James Ritson]

Nope. By "locale" do you mean language? That's the only other option I could find. Set Language to English (U.K.) and Region to U.K. and everything else. Same issue. The TOC is there but disappears immediately. I can see it flash if I click the back button. Interestingly, the button to show the TOC is disabled (greyed out). Verified the version at 1.1.2.23923.

 

Maybe it knows I'm trying to fake the U.K.

 

If I'm the only one reporting this, maybe I should wait for the next beta version.

 

Hi bob, would it be possible to post a screen grab of what you're actually seeing? We're not using the TOC feature in Apple Help (I think that's what you're referring to when you say it's greyed out?), we have our own TOC that becomes off-canvas navigation if the help window is small enough. Do you have a "Show Menu" option in the top left at all?

 

Another thing to try, if you find Affinity Photo Beta in Applications and Show Package Contents, then drill down to Contents/Resources/ and find AffinityPhoto.help, do a Show Package Contents for that file. Would you be able to try loading index.html found in Contents/Resources/English.lproj and see if it displays properly for you?

 

Thanks!

[bobbd2000]

I've attached a screen capture of the Help window and the help in Firefox if I open index.html in AffinityPhoto.help. I've used AffinityPhoto.help to get at the help in Firefox. I'm actually going through it that way to send comments.

 

I've tried resizing the help window from the smallest it can be up to a very large window and no luck. Is it possible that there's a setting to disable a TOC somewhere? If no one else sees this, It might be me.I've had UBFs (User Brain Failure) from time to time.

[James Ritson]

I've attached a screen capture of the Help window and the help in Firefox if I open index.html in AffinityPhoto.help. I've used AffinityPhoto.help to get at the help in Firefox. I'm actually going through it that way to send comments.

 

I've tried resizing the help window from the smallest it can be up to a very large window and no luck. Is it possible that there's a setting to disable a TOC somewhere? If no one else sees this, It might be me.I've had UBFs (User Brain Failure) from time to time.

 

Bob, could I just check what version of Mac OS you're running? That is very odd for it not to be displaying the menu at all. In terms of backwards compatibility issues I would expect the menu not to hide when you make the browser window smaller (I take it the responsive functionality is OK in Firefox?).

 

I noticed you've got grey window buttons (top left) - is that from the OS version or something else?

 

Thanks

[bobbd2000]

Yosemite 10.10.2

 

Everything's fine in Firefox. It's the Apple Help window that comes up when I click Help>Affinity Photo Help.

 

As for the greyed out buttons, it's probably because I was taking the window shots with Preview. When you navigate away from the Help window to Preview, the buttons grey out even though you focus on the window to take the screen shot.

 

I am running Moom and Hyperdock, but I quit both and had the same problem.

 

Maybe we should take this issue over to the bug forum?

[bobbd2000]

If you've 5 mins to tour the Affinity Photo Help (Help menu), i would be very interested to know your views.

Andy Capstick

Remember you asked :-)

 

I'm approaching this as a newbie. While I've used photo editing tools before, I'm no expert. I basically looked through each topic to see if things were easy to use and as expected and for the most part they were. What follows are the things that caught my eye.

 

I would very much like a cross-linked pdf version. I would put it on my iPad and have it open beside me as I work through the program.

 

I'm using the help in Firefox by opening index.html. Otherwise the TOC disappears. I don't know if this is peculiar to the way I'm using it, but I find myself constantly clicking an arrow to expand and contract a section rather than clicking on the title.I don't know if there is an OS X standard but I am used to clicking arrows in the Finder.

 

When I started at the top, I expected a description of the workspace. I suggest putting Workspace>More>At a Glance in the Get Started section and call it Workspace Layout or something descriptive. I'd also like to see the image annotated so we know what sections the text refers to.

 

I sugggest moving Workspace>More>Preferences to it's own section so it doesn't get lost.

 

I found Preferences>Tool UI Size to be misleading. To me, it implies that the tool icons can change size but they can't. Or maybe it's referring to different tools.

 

In Preferences, move the To Set Preferences section to the top before General Options.

 

For checkboxes, list the text from the Preference pane followed by the explanation. That way the user doesn’t have to interpret the explanation ot count lines to determine which checkbox it's referring to

 

I'd like to see a list of Menus and menu commands with a link to the section that describes them.

 

The Appendix section "Import and export file formats" is titled three different ways that I saw. The title in the Appendix, the actual title in the topic "Opening and exporting file formats", and there are links that use "Supported file formats". I prefer the latter or the Appendix topic name.

 

I'd like to see the Affinity types supported especially for those of us new to Affinity apps.

 

In the section Get Started>Opening a raw image, the comprehensive list of raw image files should point directly to the Supported Develop (RAW) Cameras on the web site rather than the import and export file formats.

 

Will plugins and presets be documented in the help or did I miss them.

 

Thanks for listening.

 

Bob

[James Ritson]

Yosemite 10.10.2

 

Everything's fine in Firefox. It's the Apple Help window that comes up when I click Help>Affinity Photo Help.

 

As for the greyed out buttons, it's probably because I was taking the window shots with Preview. When you navigate away from the Help window to Preview, the buttons grey out even though you focus on the window to take the screen shot.

 

I am running Moom and Hyperdock, but I quit both and had the same problem.

 

Maybe we should take this issue over to the bug forum?

 

Hi Bob,

 

I'm trying to investigate the issue you're having with no TOC being displayed; I've tested on several setups (all Yosemite) with different screen resolutions and they all display fine. I'm looking into any potential settings that could effect the behaviour of Apple Help.

 

Could I ask a favour - do you have Designer? If not, the beta version will run for 10 days before expiring - I just wondered if you could test whether or not a similar issue happens with Designer's help (which still uses the old layout)? There's a link to the latest beta build in this thread: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/6567-affinity-designer-customer-beta-rc3-11223834/

 

Thanks

 

[Edit]

 

Also, could I check whether you're running any additional plugins with Safari (such as Adblock, Noscript etc)? I don't really see Safari affecting Apple Help but it never hurts to check.

[bobbd2000]

If anyone else has the issue of the disappearing Help table of contents, please post a "Me too". I'd like to know that it's not just me.

 

Downloaded the Dssigner beta (I do hope I can trial Designer again when I have the time to play with it) and I have the same issue. The TOC is displayed for less than a second. Enough to know it was there, and then disappears.

 

I use Firefox as my default browser. The only extension I have in Safari is 1Password. I also tried unchecking the Block pop-ups in Safari but it didn't help.

 

On the off chance, I unchecked Block popups in Firefox as well as disabling AdBlock in Firefox, but that didn't do anything.

 

Bob

 

[Edit]

 

Do you know of any other apps that use the type of Help that you do with a TOC off to the side? I'd like to see if they have the same issue.

[James Ritson]

If anyone else has the issue of the disappearing Help table of contents, please post a "Me too". I'd like to know that it's not just me.

 

Downloaded the Dssigner beta (I do hope I can trial Designer again when I have the time to play with it) and I have the same issue. The TOC is displayed for less than a second. Enough to know it was there, and then disappears.

 

I use Firefox as my default browser. The only extension I have in Safari is 1Password. I also tried unchecking the Block pop-ups in Safari but it didn't help.

 

On the off chance, I unchecked Block popups in Firefox as well as disabling AdBlock in Firefox, but that didn't do anything.

 

Bob

 

[Edit]

 

Do you know of any other apps that use the type of Help that you do with a TOC off to the side? I'd like to see if they have the same issue.

 

Hi Bob, interesting that the Designer TOC disappears as well, as the coding behind it is completely different to Photo's. I've also tried a variety of plugins with Safari and none of them interfere with Apple Help.

 

It's a bit of a stretch, but are you running any kind of web server or service that uses localhost (or 127.0.0.1)? Any apps of a similar nature that run a service or share files? Additionally, are you running any extra security software?

 

Also, I've checked for other apps that use a similar TOC system but haven't found anything yet.

 

Thanks

[bobbd2000]

Additionally, are you running any extra security software?

You figured it out!

 

I run Avast Anti-Virus. I disabled the Web Shield, but not the file and email shields, and low and behold, I see the table of contents.

 

The Web Shield can exclude servers from scanning but I have no idea what to specify. I thought the help was local to the app.

 

Thanks

 

Bob

[James Ritson]

You figured it out!

 

I run Avast Anti-Virus. I disabled the Web Shield, but not the file and email shields, and low and behold, I see the table of contents.

 

The Web Shield can exclude servers from scanning but I have no idea what to specify. I thought the help was local to the app.

 

Thanks

 

Bob

 

Hi Bob,

 

Thanks very much, I've reproduced the issue using Avast successfully and identified what the issue is, I'll take it over to bug reports!

[bobbd2000]

I wonder whether other anti-virus apps do the same.

 

Bob

[bobbd2000]

I switched to Sophos anti-virus and have no problems with Photo or Designer.

 

Bob

[James Ritson]

Hi Bob, thanks for testing with some different security software, would it be possible to move any further discussion to the thread in the Bug forum (it's easier to keep track of in a separate bug thread)? I'll update the thread with that new info.

 

Thanks