Teething problems in PSP 2018

[hartpaul]

I have started this thread as the "What I like in PSP 2018" thread was getting off topic.
For those trying to find File Locations in Edit mode this is my setup in emulating a posters setup.

1. File > Preferences Tabs

2. This shows the two mode tabs Manage and Edit at the top

02ManageEditTabs.jpg (12.64 KiB) Viewed 8953 times

3. Then if I check the File > Workspace I can see that Complete is also ticked

4. Lastly doing File Preferences shows the File Locations button.

[ADonahoo]

I'm not trying to be argumentative but I'll repost my screenshot here. I could take screenshots of my preferences and my workspace but they would look just like the ones above. I have no File Location in preferences in Edit Complete.



Edit to add: I just noticed that I also don't have Reset Preferences on that tab either.

[tomkinsrichard]

Seems to me that the folks at Corel have just missed the boat.

The ship set sail last year, called, the HMS Affinity.

Seriously, some menu changes that are now unpopular and less intuitive than before and a bunch of reduced capability, LITE versions of bloatware, some flashy feature bloat and a failure to address real customer requests for real features does not constitute an update worthy of $60 in an update.

Affinity does everything Paintshop does and so much more and it has real features, support and updates for only $70, full price. If you gave me the Paintshop update for $5, I'd still have a hard time considering it.

As is, Affinity is now a far superior product, completely engineered from the ground up and conforms to the standard Windows UI conventions.

As few years ago, Corel blamed their demise on trying to compete with Microsoft and the Microsoft people were bigger, so they lost. Not true. Corel didn't compete with Microsoft, they simply lost because of really poor management.

Affinity is going great all around the world now. Corel is falling down, all around the world now.

Going, going, going gone.

[Kathy_9]

That is strange. I've had my plug-ins menu item disappear from the Effects menu now and then but this is a new one on me. Did you try a reset by holding the shift key? Or resetting the menu through the Customize menu?

[JoeB]

You posted some time ago praising Affinity for some reason, and again in another thread. And another user (it could have been hartpaul or brucet) pointed out various issues with Affinity compared to PSP. Is there some reason you keep posting about Affinity in such glowing terms, and in threads that have nothing to do with what program users prefer? I don't see where your post has anything to do with the subject of this thread.

If you wish to use Affinity over other programs, then perhaps you should just use it and perhaps contribute to any forums they might have. This forum was never intended to be an advertising platform for competing programs but you seem to be using it as such for reasons I can't fathom. I'm sure (or at least assume) that you don't get any revenue from them (like for the number of visits their site gets, etc.) so why waste your time here if you're not a PSP user?

[Ken Berry]

ADonahoo -- FWIW I get what you get (i.e. no File Locations or Reset) only when using the Essentials workspace. They haven't yet disappeared when using Complete (as I usually do). But I acknowledge that the Essentials preset workspace colour is quite different from Complete, and indeed yours does look like the Complete preset colour...

[ADonahoo]

I haven't tried a reset but I will and see if that helps.

[hartpaul]

My reason for the posted images was to confirm that we are on the same page as I have seen so many long threads before that would have been much shorter except that the OP left out a small detail and as has been said in Under Seige 2 " Assumption is the mother of all @$*_)(&"

I have just looked in the customize dialog and under Commands > Category File I am seeing File Locations so it should be possible to add File Locations back into your Preferences group.

[ADonahoo]

My reason for the posted images was to confirm that we are on the same page as I have seen so many long threads before that would have been much shorter except that the OP left out a small detail and as has been said in Under Seige 2 " Assumption is the mother of all @$*_)(&"

I have just looked in the customize dialog and under Commands > Category File I am seeing File Locations so it should be possible to add File Locations back into your Preferences group.

I certainly understand the screenshots. And I have added those two commands to preferences from the Customize dialog box, closed and reopened, and they are still there. I would never have looked there for them. Thank you for that suggestion.

[JoeB]

I guess the question still remains as to why, with your installation and use of the Complete toolbar option, you would even have to add them from the Customize commands. For most of us, they are there to start with. Is it possible, for example, that if you actually start using 2018 with Essentials and later switch to Complete then some of the options that should be in Complete just don't show up for some reason? Also interesting is that nobody else seems to have reported that issue. Just a bit strange....

[ADonahoo]

For what it's worth, I never used Essentials. I looked at it once, saw there was no Manage tab and passed on it. That can't possibly be the reason why those items were missing from my preferences.

[tomkinsrichard]

I will respond.

Affinity, aka Serif, realizing that their product offering was getting very long in the tooth and stumbling under it's old technology heritage, decided that it was best to use their engineering knowledge / resources and create a new modern product, unencumbered by old and poor design decisions. Thus, they moved sharply ahead.

PaintShop Pro was designed virtually at the dawn of time, around the Windows 3.0 era if you will. Corel, in purchasing the product from JASC, has failed to modernize it. It carries design flaws left over from the early days, in its UI, in it's technology, in it's interface, and in it's underlying core. Instead of creating a new product a few years ago, they have continued to milk this product, piggybacking on stuff that is not well integrated into the main product, and adding bloatware (Ultimate), in an effort to retain a dwindling customer base. A simple example, CTRL+W is Close in every other Windows application, except for Corel.

There is a super amount of engineering knowledge and experience in the team at Corel, but management will not set them on a path to become future proof. I make loud noises about the shortcomings of PaintShop Pro for the following reasons,
[*]I live in Ottawa
[*]I am a High Technology person
[*]I want High Technology jobs to stay, thrive and increase in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
[*]Corel is essentially a Canadian company that is being run into the ground

If you doubt what I have said about the company being run into the ground by management, stop and look at the Corel Product Offering. The Product Offering at Corel is so heavily stratified that it smacks of Zellers, K-Mart, Target, Eatons, and Sears, it's really bad.

I want Corel to succeed, I want them to thrive, I want them to turn around and build a company with jobs for the future.

I speak of Affinity as a company that saw where things were not going in a solid direction, not for thier employees (engineers, sales, support, testing ...) and not for their customers.

Corel needs a wakeup call, the 21st century is here, and they should be smart, re-engineer their product set for native 64 bit operating systems, with modern UIs and good solid features that cusomters want.

Corel has been badgered for compositing images and focus stacking for the past 5 major (their idea of it) version releases, and all they have offered are stop gap releases, a pretty face, some added bloatware, still the 16 bit limitation on image processing, and many other shortcomings.

If it were my company, I'd turn it around. It's not my company, so I use the only voice I have to shout loudly at the Corel Management and implore them to look around and step into the future, like all the other well managed solidly run High Technology companies have already done.

Cheers

[tomkinsrichard]

What do you like in PSP 2018?

Indeed!

[photodrawken]

(...)
PaintShop Pro was designed virtually at the dawn of time, around the Windows 3.0 era if you will. Corel, in purchasing the product from JASC, has failed to modernize it. It carries design flaws left over from the early days, in its UI, in it's technology, in it's interface, and in it's underlying core. Instead of creating a new product a few years ago, they have continued to milk this product, piggybacking on stuff that is not well integrated into the main product, and adding bloatware (Ultimate), in an effort to retain a dwindling customer base.
(...)

I couldn't agree more.

Those thoughts are exactly what I thought when I was using PSP (X2, X3, X5, and X6). Fortunately, a few years ago I also found a spectacular image editor (PhotoLine) that suits me, and I never looked back.

Not trying to "sell" one program or another program, just saying that these days we're lucky to have multiple modern options for image editing. You pays your money and you makes your choice....

[JoeB]

(...)
PaintShop Pro was designed virtually at the dawn of time, around the Windows 3.0 era if you will. Corel, in purchasing the product from JASC, has failed to modernize it. It carries design flaws left over from the early days, in its UI, in it's technology, in it's interface, and in it's underlying core. Instead of creating a new product a few years ago, they have continued to milk this product, piggybacking on stuff that is not well integrated into the main product, and adding bloatware (Ultimate), in an effort to retain a dwindling customer base.
(...)

I couldn't agree more.

Those thoughts are exactly what I thought when I was using PSP (X2, X3, X5, and X6). Fortunately, a few years ago I also found a spectacular image editor (PhotoLine) that suits me, and I never looked back.

Not trying to "sell" one program or another program, just saying that these days we're lucky to have multiple modern options for image editing. You pays your money and you makes your choice....

The problem with Tomkinsrichare's posts is, that unlike yours, he doesn't extol the virtues of using the best of various image editing software. All of his posts in this regards have simply been trashing PSP and - to an even larger extent - extolling (selling) the virtues of Affinity. If, as he claims, he's trying to get Corel's attention, then this forum isn't the place to do it - dealing directly with Corel is the correct way. This is a user forum as everybody knows, and rarely visited by Corel unless they post a specific subject to update us on a product or asking for suggestions.

Perhaps I'm one who does not appreciates having shills not contributing to the purpose of the forum, which is helping people using PSP, not trashing the program to sell something else. It's a pretty low form of trolling IMHO.