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Does Affinity support touch on the interface?


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  • 1 year later...

Sorry to negromance this thread, but has there been any changes to this? Is the Surface tablets still considered as Windows apps for the future?

IMHO if it would be easy to port the iPad interface to Windows when it is in Tablet mode, it could boost the Affinity even more among artists who use Windows tablets. 

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1 hour ago, paristo said:

IMHO if it would be easy to port the iPad interface to Windows when it is in Tablet mode...

Considering that Windows & iPadOS are completely different operating systems, 'porting' the iPad interface to Windows would be extremely impractical, a lot like trying to convert an ocean liner into an airplane.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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3 hours ago, R C-R said:

Considering that Windows & iPadOS are completely different operating systems, 'porting' the iPad interface to Windows would be extremely impractical, a lot like trying to convert an ocean liner into an airplane.

 

First of all, nothing that Serif programs doesn't include about operating systems, in fact all these applications are very high level programming and closest they really get operating system is to use the GPU drivers and even that is higher level with metal etc.

Secondly, "porting" doesn't mean that you have difficulties or not, as it is depending your own programming that how well did you isolate your interface (it can be well made independent from the program core features and easily portable across different systems) and they already are using lot of same functions, so much that the OS X is closer to Windows version and both are different from iOS interface. After all if you are supporting multiple platforms, you want to share as much as possible.

If the program is well designed, well programmed etc, it is fairly easy after all to port around depending the scale of your application.

The main question really is that would it be possible to port the iOS interface to desktop version and so on get two separate GUI's switchable depending the usage (even if requiring reboot), but I consider that the main challenge really is that the Windows doesn't support such a touch screen interface support as required, why even Microsoft has severe problems to make their Windows Explorer work with touch screens as everything is still designed like mouse input is primary method.

 

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1 minute ago, Lagarto said:

Porting does not need to be interpreted literally ...

True, but there is usually a big difference in the amount of work that has to be done to port existing code from one OS to another vs. writing the code separately for each OS, while properly using its low level drivers, obeying its security restrictions, etc. Thus the ocean liner to airplane analogy.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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1 hour ago, R C-R said:

True, but there is usually a big difference in the amount of work that has to be done to port existing code from one OS to another vs. writing the code separately for each OS, while properly using its low level drivers, obeying its security restrictions, etc. Thus the ocean liner to airplane analogy.

 

Your analogy just goes wrong, as nowhere it is discussion to port the Affinity from iOS to Windows, because that is already done. It is called Affinity Photo for Windows. 

The wish was about the interface, and the interface is not at all as complex as is the overall application like would be porting Affinity Photo for OS X to Windows (if that wouldn't have been already done). 

The Affinity Photo for iOS has own small features, but it is from its core the same code.

If you have well done GUI, then you can port it cross different platforms. That example is the idea of the Qt and Java how you can fairly easily move apps across as you have one platform.

The real limitation really is Windows touch functionality, it simply is terrible. But if it can be somewhat overcomed by the interface changes

Affinity_Photo_43.jpeg

To make it simply better to be used touch (larger icons, functions how pop-up menus etc are shown, docked panels, new tool adjustment panels etc, there is no need to write new ways how you process image data, how filters and other functions work etc. It is after all mainly the graphical user interface change.

If one has not used the iOS version, 9-to-5 mac site has fairly good presentation: https://9to5mac.com/2018/03/21/affinity-photo-for-ipad-guide-25-getting-started-tutorial-tips-video/

 

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13 minutes ago, paristo said:

Your analogy just goes wrong, as nowhere it is discussion to port the Affinity from iOS to Windows, because that is already done. It is called Affinity Photo for Windows. 

It is only partially a port. There are enormous differences in the application level code & how it interfaces with the API's, frameworks, libraries, & other OS features provided by these two very different operating systems.

EDIT: If nothing else the considerable difference in application file sizes should make this obvious.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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1 hour ago, Lagarto said:

Exactly. Surface Pro is nothing like iPad (does not have to be even Pro) but even little improvements make it completely useable

Perhaps if there is enough interest in some of these improvements voiced in the Feature Request forum, Serif will consider adding them.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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