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[Photo] Behavior of the snapshot function


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I often save different iterations of a file as snapshots for quick access and comparison. Of course, i'm used to the behavior of Photoshop, which is quick and painless (and even customizable).

Maybe it's my lack of understanding this new software, but the snapshot function seems unnecessarily cumbersome and slow. Please bear in mind that my critique is from a professional's standpoint with the premise of doing these things hundreds of times a day, where every click too much is weighing heavily.

1) Making a snapshot requires a confirmation. Why? I already tabbed into the snapshot panel, so i obviously really mean it :). That's one button press / click too much already.

2) Loading a snapshot should be as easy as double clicking on the list item, right? From an ergonomic standpoint, absolutely. But a double click does nothing in A.Photo. I have to select the item and then click on a symbol above to load the snapshot.

So, i gotta ask: Have i missed something obvious that can make this behave better, or is the snapshot function really this cumbersome? Should i make a feature request in the other forum?

 

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12 hours ago, sveto said:

1) Making a snapshot requires a confirmation. Why?

You are not just confirming that you want to make a snapshot; you are also confirming that either the default or your own custom text is what you want to use as its name. Personally, I always use custom text because the long date/time default text is meaningless. Since the default is highlighted, it is easy enough to type something, if only a very short text string like "1" if not something more useful & descriptive. And of course just hitting Return or Enter accepts the name & closes the window, whether it is the default or custom text.

What I do find annoying about this feature is there is no way to edit the name after closing the window. That brings me to your #2 item. I would much prefer if double-clicking on the name put it in editing mode, like is so common in many apps.

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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  • Staff

Hi sveto :)

Thanks for your feedback, I'm going to move this thread into our feature requests section of our forums for our devs to see and consider this!

As R C-R has mentioned, the first confirmation is also confirming the name, however there could perhaps be an 'auto confirm default name' to skip this step.

Secondly, I too agree that double clicking could be more ergonomic to jump to this selected Snapshot, this is a change we may implement in the future! :) 

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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1 hour ago, Dan C said:

Secondly, I too agree that double clicking could be more ergonomic to jump to this selected Snapshot, this is a change we may implement in the future! :) 

What I would like to see instead is double-clicking on the name text puts the field into text edit mode (so we can change the snapshot name if we later decide something else would be more descriptive).

Jumping to the selected snapshot could be implemented by double-clicking on the camera icon in Photo, & in the other 2 apps if the camera icon was included with the snapshot. 

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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Since this is being moved to the feature request section, for the record I would like to suggest yet another related feature, one I realize most users would seldom use (& complicated to implement!) so it does not have much chance of being implemented. But hope springs eternal & all that, so here it is:

Add yet another app preference (yeah, I know) for the format of the default snapshot name. Ideally, this would be something like in the Advanced section of the MacOS Language & Region > System Preference for the date & time formats. An easier to implement alternative could be a popup in the General or User Interface preference with a few choices (like a short form that omitted the weekday name & used 24 hour military style time) or maybe just a simple two or 3 digit auto-increasing name, sort of like the first part of the snapshot names included in some of the workbook files.

Failing any of that, it still would be useful if we could edit the snapshot name after creating it, even if it required a right-click & a new window like for some of the other rename features.

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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24 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Failing any of that, it still would be useful if we could edit the snapshot name after creating it, even if it required a right-click & a new window like for some of the other rename features.

Wasn't there a rename snapshot icon next to the delete snapshot icon at some point in the past?

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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13 minutes ago, carl123 said:

Wasn't there a rename snapshot icon next to the delete snapshot icon at some point in the past?

I don't remember seeing one, but maybe I just never noticed it.

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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51 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I don't remember seeing one, but maybe I just never noticed it.

Me neither but I assumed it was before my time

I was hoping to jog your memory into remembering one a while ago

On 4/19/2016 at 6:08 PM, R C-R said:

To use Snapshots in AD, first open the Snapshots Studio Panel (View > Studio > Snapshots). That panel has icons for the Add & Restore Snapshot missing from the main menus, plus Rename & Trash icons for managing the list of snapshots you make with the Add icon.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/19839-revert-to-original-file-designer/&do=findComment&comment=92252

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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2 hours ago, carl123 said:

I was hoping to jog your memory into remembering one a while ago

So I guess I must have seen a Rename icon back in 2016 but I really have no memory of it, or when it might have gone missing. :S

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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  • 4 months later...
On 8/19/2019 at 11:17 AM, Dan C said:

Hi sveto :)

Thanks for your feedback, I'm going to move this thread into our feature requests section of our forums for our devs to see and consider this!

As R C-R has mentioned, the first confirmation is also confirming the name, however there could perhaps be an 'auto confirm default name' to skip this step.

Secondly, I too agree that double clicking could be more ergonomic to jump to this selected Snapshot, this is a change we may implement in the future! :) 

Hi! It's good to see the snapshots topic is considered worthwile by you! I'm really looking forward to this functionality's further development.

Having done some extensive photo editing in AP recently where I needed different states of the file for outputting as separate JPGs I really missed 2 things:

– renaming snapshots
– updating existing snapshots (while keeping their names)
– changing order of the snapshots in the Studio panel

Then I was seriously confused for a while when working on my file and sort of "hopping" to and fro in my snapshots I suddenly missed certain layers I was sure I had before and hadn't deleted meanwhile.

After a while then I realized that snapshots are definitely NOT comparable to Photoshops "Layer Comps" (which I was obviously thinking) and that in my usage of snapshots I seemed to have mixed them up in my mind somehow.

So... If I'm right snapshots are just, well... snapshots and thus strictly bound to the time they are taken (and the document's state at this very time). So when I jump to a snapshot made early in the process I may indeed lose elements (like layers) which had been introduced to the file at a later time.
So if I want to modify a certain state of the file that's been saved as a snapshot AND I want to use elements which unfortunately have been added to the document after that snapshot had been taken they just are NOT present in this snapshot and I'm forced to add them all over again. Which very well might pose a problem or be at least time consuming as should be evident.

This said I strongly suggest that something like Photoshop's "Layer Comps" should be added to Affinity Photo (maybe even to Designer and Publisher as well). I you look closely to "Layer Comps" you'll see that it is actually quite different to snapshots as when you return to a layer comp made in an earlier stage of editing it always keeps additional elements which were added later but just deactivates them in the Layers panel – so you can just turn them on and integrate them in the "recalled" state you're working on. And you can even then just update your earlier Layer comp and so merge "old" and "new" seamlessly . This just is obviously not possible with snapshots where you actually move your whole document back in time when you  restore from an early snapshot...

 

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If you want to add something to a snapshot you could make a new document from Snapshot 1 and then go to Snapshot 4 and copy the layers/fx whatever it is you want and copy and paste into the new document from Snapshot 1. Just use the New Document part of the Snapshot panel from View > Studios > Snapshots.

I use them as an easier way to undo changes and to store good versions.

EDIT to add

I do wish we could rename them though.

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Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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  • 9 months later...
On 8/19/2019 at 1:48 PM, R C-R said:

Add yet another app preference (yeah, I know) for the format of the default snapshot name. Ideally, this would be something like in the Advanced section of the MacOS Language & Region > System Preference for the date & time formats. An easier to implement alternative could be a popup in the General or User Interface preference with a few choices (like a short form that omitted the weekday name & used 24 hour military style time) or maybe just a simple two or 3 digit auto-increasing name, sort of like the first part of the snapshot names included in some of the workbook files.

Coming a little late to this conversation I want to support this request as a future development of snapshots.

Precisely I'd could use a way to create own custom snapshot default names. Preferably not in the preferences but directly accessable from the snapshot panel. Also with a list of previously used snapshot defaults (e.g. in a drop down).

And yes, renaming snapshots would be most welcome, too 🙂

d.

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  • 1 year later...

Yes, the snapshot function really needs to be revised…

1. Instead of having to confirm a name when creating a new snapshot, why not set a default name and let the user edit it by double clicking on it. I often use Snapshots just for quick comparision without the need of naming it.

2. The "restore snapshot" button is redundant and only costs time. Why not loading the snapshot immediately when selecting it. Even better, give people the ability to use the arrow keys to quickly run through the list.

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