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Option to disable the Splash Screen on Program Launch


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Hi,

 

please add an option to allow me to disable the splash screen that appears during launch of the application for a second and an unnecessary felt delay (the one that looks identical to the Aboutbox; not talking about the welcome screen that can be launched via Help menu.) I don't mind typing a 'default' command in Terminal to do so (doesn't have to be a UI option). For some reason I recall such option existed in the past, but I'm unable to find it in the Preferences now.

 

The pictures are nice and everything (though I'm not such a big fan of the new simple square icons/logos w/o defining outline) and I get the desire to do some "branding", but for me as user it also gets quickly boring and then the 3rd or 4th time it gets annoying. Just showing up with the UI, so I can quickly get started with my work, would be best, IMHO. :)

 

(this goes for all 3 apps, not just Designer, of course)

 

Thanks.

3D and 2D hobby(art)ist. You can follow me on Twitter: @binaryriot or Instagram: binaryriot

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2 hours ago, tokai said:

Just showing up with the UI, so I can quickly get started with my work, would be best, IMHO. :)

I am not arguing your request to turn off the splash screen but I think you are wrong in thinking turning it off will speed up the start of the application. The splash screen is displayed while several things are performed that are neccessary to run the program. This will take the same amount of time, wether the splash screen is visible or not.

Cheers :)
d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

Windows 11 64-bit - Core i7 - 16GB - Intel HD Graphics 4600 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
iPad pro 9.7" + Apple Pencil

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14 hours ago, dominik said:

I am not arguing your request to turn off the splash screen but I think you are wrong in thinking turning it off will speed up the start of the application. The splash screen is displayed while several things are performed that are neccessary to run the program. This will take the same amount of time, wether the splash screen is visible or not.

Cheers :)
d.

 

That's why I wrote "felt" (as in "it feels like"). It's definitely a psychological thingy and (probably?) not an actual delay thingy. If you got an idea in your head and just want to get started and then you get this… hmmm... what is essentially a popup window in the middle… you know. Half the thoughts are lost at that point already (chicken brain syndrome) :) 

The launch is so quick (on my rather slow and old machine) the popup doesn't feel really necessary as a progress indicator either… not sure how this acts on much quicker machines (I doubt the user should be able to read anything in that short time… unless there's a forced delay, of course ;)

 

(I'm someone with muscle memory on Cmd+Q when I'm done with a task, so applications get launched frequently rather than sitting and waiting there all day in the Dock and eating memory, so I see those splash screens like 20 or 30 times a day… at least.) 

3D and 2D hobby(art)ist. You can follow me on Twitter: @binaryriot or Instagram: binaryriot

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6 hours ago, tokai said:

 

That's why I wrote "felt" (as in "it feels like"). It's definitely a psychological thingy and (probably?) not an actual delay thingy. If you got an idea in your head and just want to get started and then you get this… hmmm... what is essentially a popup window in the middle… you know. Half the thoughts are lost at that point already (chicken brain syndrome) :) 

The launch is so quick (on my rather slow and old machine) the popup doesn't feel really necessary as a progress indicator either… not sure how this acts on much quicker machines (I doubt the user should be able to read anything in that short time… unless there's a forced delay, of course ;)

 

(I'm someone with muscle memory on Cmd+Q when I'm done with a task, so applications get launched frequently rather than sitting and waiting there all day in the Dock and eating memory, so I see those splash screens like 20 or 30 times a day… at least.) 

Well, I won't comment on your feelings :)

I've seen in many other software an option to turn off the splash screen during startup. For some (you) this option would be nice to have.

Cheers,
d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

Windows 11 64-bit - Core i7 - 16GB - Intel HD Graphics 4600 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
iPad pro 9.7" + Apple Pencil

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  • 7 months later...
10 hours ago, Fritz_H said:

@tokai

1. stop closing applications you need frequently. RAM is made to be used, not remain empty.
 

 

That's a silly misconception, IMHO. Might work for you if you have really lots of ram (32GB? or more) and only use a handful of applications. Else the OS eventually will start compressing the memory or start swapping your stuff to disk and then things get slow and you push pointlessly tons of writes onto your disk (OS X is bad enough with that anyway, no need to force it.) I rather have the "empty" RAM used for disk buffer caches (which then makes launching frequently used things faster w/o having the drawback of "used" memory getting swapped out under normal circumstances.) Additionally any open application blocks screen space in the Dock or in the Alt+tab task switcher, etc. and making navigating more time consuming than necessary (I know people that have like 50 open apps in their dock and then they spend 10 minutes searching for the app they need… I couldn't be productive with clutter like that). Just to name a few reasons why you always should quit applications you don't use.

3D and 2D hobby(art)ist. You can follow me on Twitter: @binaryriot or Instagram: binaryriot

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  • 10 months later...
On 6/20/2019 at 7:03 AM, tokai said:

Hi,

please add an option to allow me to disable the splash screen that appears during launch of the application for a second and an unnecessary felt delay (the one that looks identical to the Aboutbox; not talking about the welcome screen that can be launched via Help menu.) I don't mind typing a 'default' command in Terminal to do so (doesn't have to be a UI option). For some reason I recall such option existed in the past, but I'm unable to find it in the Preferences now.

The pictures are nice and everything (though I'm not such a big fan of the new simple square icons/logos w/o defining outline) and I get the desire to do some "branding", but for me as user it also gets quickly boring and then the 3rd or 4th time it gets annoying. Just showing up with the UI, so I can quickly get started with my work, would be best, IMHO. :)

(this goes for all 3 apps, not just Designer, of course)

Thanks.

I second this request. I often start programs and let them start in the background while I continue work on something else. I am not sitting like a statue waiting, ever. Affinity splash screens are fortunately not blocking much; I just don't need them and the two interruptions they make.

Unfortunately I think the Designer 1.9 splash screen is FUGLY. Unbearable to watch. It is not colour managed or saturation is turned up. On a wide gamut screen on Windows it looks awful.

Hiding it entirely would be nice.

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
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Warning:
Kids, don't try this at home on your dad's computer!

On Mac:

  1. quit Designer
  2. navigate to /Applications/Affinity Designer.app/Contents/Resources/DesignerSplash@2x.png
  3. make a backup copy of the file
  4. if you bought from the App Store, you need to have admin privileges to do that; even better if you know how to sudo mv and sudo cp via Terminal!
  5. put this blank transparent PNG in there instead:
    https://forum.affinity.serif.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=167826
  6. launch Designer

Voilà.

Downside: "Affinity Designer > About…" will be blank, too.

Edited by loukash

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

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4 minutes ago, loukash said:

^ Yes, that's the PNG image!

Forum hint: Zip the image before uploading it :)

-- 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

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2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Zip the image before uploading it

Yep, or "display as link". I thought I could do that directly while posting, but I can only get the link to my attachment after posting it first.

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

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4 hours ago, loukash said:

Warning:
Kids, don't try this at home on your dad's computer!

On Mac:

  1. quit Designer
  2. navigate to /Applications/Affinity Designer.app/Contents/Resources/DesignerSplash@2x.png
  3. make a backup copy of the file
  4. if you bought from the App Store, you need to have admin privileges to do that; even better if you know how to sudo mv and sudo cp via Terminal!
  5. put this blank transparent PNG in there instead:
    https://forum.affinity.serif.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=167826
  6. launch Designer

Voilà.

Downside: "Affinity Designer > About…" will be blank, too.

No such thing in Windows folders. 😞

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
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1 minute ago, Jowday said:

No such thing in Windows folders.

It's not a folder, that's the application package. But yeah, strictly technically speaking it's a directory and would appear as such if viewed from outside the Mac universe.
No idea how the Windows apps are structured, whether "monolithic" or somehow "intersectable".

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

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21 minutes ago, loukash said:

No idea how the Windows apps are structured, whether "monolithic" or somehow "intersectable".

Different. Not an app package. My guess is that the image is stored in a DLL file - dynamic link library.

I replaced the not quite as horrible - but still a close second - splash screen in CorelDraw yesterday that I found with a though search tool.

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
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On 6/20/2019 at 11:42 PM, tokai said:

 

That's why I wrote "felt" (as in "it feels like"). It's definitely a psychological thingy and (probably?) not an actual delay thingy. If you got an idea in your head and just want to get started and then you get this… hmmm... what is essentially a popup window in the middle… you know. Half the thoughts are lost at that point already (chicken brain syndrome) :) 

The launch is so quick (on my rather slow and old machine) the popup doesn't feel really necessary as a progress indicator either… not sure how this acts on much quicker machines (I doubt the user should be able to read anything in that short time… unless there's a forced delay, of course ;)

 

(I'm someone with muscle memory on Cmd+Q when I'm done with a task, so applications get launched frequently rather than sitting and waiting there all day in the Dock and eating memory, so I see those splash screens like 20 or 30 times a day… at least.) 

Because the popup screen does not delay loading, as you mentioned it's just psychological. A popup screen is preferable to nothing, no feedback. This has been known in UI design for decades now since software got progress bars. No need to re-invent the wheel or discuss things that have been taken as a standard for a very long time.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/23/2021 at 11:51 AM, loukash said:

Warning:
Kids, don't try this at home on your dad's computer!

On Mac:

  1. quit Designer
  2. navigate to /Applications/Affinity Designer.app/Contents/Resources/DesignerSplash@2x.png
  3. make a backup copy of the file
  4. if you bought from the App Store, you need to have admin privileges to do that; even better if you know how to sudo mv and sudo cp via Terminal!
  5. put this blank transparent PNG in there instead:
    https://forum.affinity.serif.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=167826
  6. launch Designer

Voilà.

Downside: "Affinity Designer > About…" will be blank, too.

I would like to try this, but with the most recent Designer on mac I don't see the above png in the Resources folder. I don't see any png that corresponds to the new splash screen. Can anyone inform us of where to find the splash screen pic in the most recent versions of the Affinity apps? Thank you!

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33 minutes ago, amorla said:

with the most recent Designer on mac I don't see the above png in the Resources folder

Yeah, it appears they have changed the package structure, and the splash screen – along with the tool icons etc. – is now buried somewhere in a monolithic dynamic library file inside Frameworks…

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

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  • 1 year later...

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