[WINDOWS] Spaceman - Workspace Manager for Affinty

[gabriel_komorov]

Due to lack of native solution I present you Spaceman

It allows you to backup and restore workspaces of Photo, Designer and Publisher. There's also sync option if you want to have same UI in Publisher personas and standalone applications.

Spaceman is command line tool with very straightforward operation, backups are created in folder from where it is started.

Feel free to suggest further improvements and give me a shot if you found bug!

Edit:

There was a problem with compiled .exe so now I'm sharing .bat file instead (and also for peace of mind of @CLC )

 

Spaceman.bat

[hadiD]

Looks interesting!

Would you mind going into how you created this? I'm wondering if there's a way to create some custom things for my own use

[CLC]

@gabriel_komorov Nice.

However... You could just share the original .bat file instead

[gabriel_komorov]

1 hour ago, hadiD said:

Looks interesting!

Would you mind going into how you created this? I'm wondering if there's a way to create some custom things for my own use

All config files are stored in /AppData/Roaming/Affinity what you do with this knowledge is up to you

 

1 hour ago, CLC said:

@gabriel_komorov Nice.

However... You could just share the original .bat file instead

Damn, you mean you can't run it?

I planned to share .bat but whole thing was hacked in a rush, so it's not prettiest piece of code. Besides is better to give useres something that just works, no questions asked. Oh and this way it can have nice icon too

[CLC]

13 hours ago, gabriel_komorov said:

All config files are stored in /AppData/Roaming/Affinity what you do with this knowledge is up to you

 

Damn, you mean you can't run it?

I planned to share .bat but whole thing was hacked in a rush, so it's not prettiest piece of code. Besides is better to give useres something that just works, no questions asked. Oh and this way it can have nice icon too

Of course not, check the compiler's homepage, it clearly states you have to licence a PRO version to distribute your exe.

Just install an OS to a Virtual Machine (ie Oracle Virtual Box) and check for yourself...

To your plans: Users don't care if they run .exe or .bat - they're after its functionality. Also compiling a .bat into .exe means you're hiding something. Maybe something mailicous. It could easily be harvesting Affinity licence files and calling back home sending them to you. Or whatever.

I don't care, ran this in a airgapped VM, just to check out. Could run filemon, regmon and wireshark to spot what it's actually doing around but didn't do that yet. Maybe later

[gabriel_komorov]

2 hours ago, CLC said:

Could run filemon, regmon and wireshark to spot what it's actually doing

Hold your horses boy, and take a look at this ugly bat

[CLC]

@gabriel_komorov I didn't say it does nasty stuff, but that it could be doing nasty stuff.

Anyway, sharing original .bat is always way better than anything compiled

[FunStorm]

Many thanks, @gabriel_komorov, this is a pretty cool application! Now I might actually spend time customising the Affinity apps to my liking (so far I found it a waste of time since it would get rewritten any time I switch PC).

For those that are a bit confused (as I was) about what happens when you backup: The app takes the configuration files from desired Affinity software and saves them into a folder structure locate wherever the Spaceman.bat file is running from. I.e. If I (1) place the Spaceman.bat in D:\Affinity_backup and (2) take a backup of Affinity Photo named "testBackup", then (3) the resulting backup will be stored in D:\Affinity_backup\Workspaces\Photo\testBackup.

[timhuynhis]

Does this .bat file work with update 1.8? I can't seem to restore my last configuration. Does the .bat file have to in C drive?

[v_kyr]

On 3/14/2020 at 6:40 PM, timhuynhis said:

Does the .bat file have to in C drive?

Depends on if Windows resolves the %APPDATA% system environment variable correctly system wide also from other locations than from drive C:\. - There may be some seldom circumstances where %APPDATA% may not be resolved to the appropriate user application data folder: see for example here.

However, you should also check and validate that the the various xcopy command related used paths in that BAT-file, aka things like ...

Quote

xcopy  %APPDATA%\Affinity\Photo\1.0\Workspaces\Photo\*.*  %APPDATA%\Affinity\Publisher\1.0\Workspaces\Photo /s/y

... etc do exist and are correctly setup.

[megalofauna]

Thanks, @gabriel_komorov!

This is fan-freakin'-tastic. 

 

💝

[JH1]

Thanks for this. It's a really useful tool. I wish this was built into the Affinity suite of apps already (like many others). Having the ability to save different workspaces is so vital (and being able to back them up). It takes hours (if not days) to setup add-ons, assets, macros etc. and all the window presets etc. for each.

Is there a Mac project with the same or similar features?

[Asfak Mahmud]

How does it works? Could anyone attach screen video?

[Wosven]

3 hours ago, Asfak Mahmud said:

How does it works? Could anyone attach screen video?

Hi,

You need to put the file Spaceman.bat in a new folder where it'll be able to create new folders for the backup files.

And you run it clicking on it or right clicking and choosing "open". It'll ask you which operation to do, for which application, and report the results.

[Asfak Mahmud]

What does it actually do? 

[D_WW]

@Asfak Mahmud it seem to copy the current workspace layout from photo or designer and save it, so you can then use the same file to restore it later.

 

:BACKUPPHOTO
~
xcopy %APPDATA%\Affinity\Photo\1.0\Workspaces\*.* "Workspaces\Photo\%photobackupname%" /s

:BACKUPDESIGNER
~
xcopy %APPDATA%\Affinity\Designer\1.0\Workspaces\*.* "Workspaces\Designer\%designerbackupname%" /s

:BACKUPPUBLISHER
~
xcopy %APPDATA%\Affinity\Publisher\1.0\Workspaces\*.* "Workspaces\Publisher\%publisherbackupname%" /s

As you can see it grabs the current info from the source you choose and saves it as the name you choose (some code removed for clarity of this reply - do not use this to replace code in the .bat file)

Cheers

[Asfak Mahmud]

@D_WW It wouldbe reall really great if you make a video explaining everything start to finish. 

[D_WW]

4 hours ago, Asfak Mahmud said:

@D_WW It wouldbe reall really great if you make a video explaining everything start to finish. 

Why? Download the spaceman.bat and follow my instructions. They are simple enough. The rest of the instructions show up when you launch the file. It asks you what application you want to save, then it asks for a file name. 

You can figure it out for yourself if you actually got the file and tried it, by the time you've waited for someone to do a video...

[XGDragon]

Great tool! Some suggestions:

• Detect whether Publisher/Photo/Designer are installed (and if only one, skip the "back up which" question, and remove sync option)
• Allow for a default back up name, useful for people who just intend to have a single configuration. (enter no value for the backup name)

A bug:

• When doing a backup on the same name, it asks for me if I want to overwrite. I can't say (y)es!

 

[Mariusch]

Thx for this app. Do you plan to update your app so it supports Affinity V2?