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defaultprc6709fta88
Participant
September 23, 2022
Answered

Question: 'move object' speed in InDesign

  • September 23, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 472 views

So. I'm about to retire and am thinking about buying a Mac Studio.  Having no background in graphic design, only an interest, I have started preparing artwork for a community group I am in,  My current Laptop, while it's an awesome Lenovo ThinkPad (been a ThinkPad user since about 1993), it isn't particularly spec'd for the Creative Cloud apps, I believe.  The main products I use from CC are Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator.  This question is relevant to all those apps, but my main focus is InDesign.

 

Let's say I have an A4 page and on that page I have a full size background image, a number of text elements and a few other things thrown in.

 

If I then select all of those objects at once, because I want to move them at once, I'd like to see the whole set of images/elements move as a single image, if you like, not sure how to describe it, rather than just seeing maybe the outside outline/frame.  Sometimes, if I wait long enough I'll see the entire image, but not most of the time.

 

I assume this is because my PC doesn't have enough grunt to immediately show the whole image while I'm moving it.  Is this correct?  I want to confirm this before I go out and spend my money on a Studio and whether a Mac Studio M1 Max/Ultra would perform better because of all those lucious sounding CPU and GPU cores etc?

 

I hope I've asked my question in an understandable way.

 

Thanks.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Peter Spier

Actually, this is a feature in InDesign. If I recall correctlyy it's called Patient User Mode. Click and hold for about 3-5 seconds before moving to see the image move rather than thye outline.

2 replies

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
September 24, 2022

Just to make it clear, the Adobe Suite runs equally well on both platforms (with very few differences except in some details of file and color management), and will run on surprisingly modest systems if you don't habitually work with very large files, images, documents etc.

 

That is, you don't need a Mac to use it, despite a few decades of culture war on the point. And you don't need the most fiery CPU/GPU combo money can buy this week. If you're seeing somewhat slow graphics response, it probably has more to do with your laptop having a "business grade" graphics subsystem than anything else.

 

If you decide to upgrade to a more powerful computer, it can be either platform, and I would mildly suggest you stay with what you know. You would get more out of a moderately powerful laptop with a good graphics subsystem and a very large external monitor (27" 4K) than most other combinations. But you'd lose nothing if it ran Win11. 🙂

 

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defaultprc6709fta88Author
Participant
September 24, 2022

Thanks.  I must admit I have been pretty surprised, and happy, with how CC performs generally.  Of course, there are other reasons for the Mac, such as:

- I'd like to be able to iMessage from the wdesktop instead of that little keyboard on the iPhone

- I've never had a Mac and was always a PC person (man I wish OS/2 had continued to take over the world), but then my sister got a Mac and I was impressed (that was early 2000's)

- Just because I can and my retirement 'package' would allow me ot have this one splurge

 

On the other hand, I think you are probably right and that a suitably configured Windows PC would be more familiar generally.

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
September 25, 2022

One of the nice features of most mature apps like the Adobe set is that besides adapting to the available hardware, most have many settings for UI and user performance like this. If you have enough horsepower, you can do smooth "live drags" and have the convenience of seeing your content. But you can crank down this system-intensive feature so that it all runs on more modest hardware, losing only a small amount of convenience. There are several settings of this type in InDesign and you can tweak their balance between performance and convenience/prettiness to suit your platform and needs.

 

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Peter Spier
Community Expert
Peter SpierCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
September 24, 2022

Actually, this is a feature in InDesign. If I recall correctlyy it's called Patient User Mode. Click and hold for about 3-5 seconds before moving to see the image move rather than thye outline.

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    defaultprc6709fta88Author
    Participant
    September 24, 2022

    Holy cow!  Fantastic.  Thanks @Peter Spier.  That was awesome and a very unexpected answer.  I do think it should be called 'Impatient user mode', however!  Made my day.

    Conrad_C
    Community Expert
    Conrad_CCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 26, 2022
     

    I assume this is because my PC doesn't have enough grunt to immediately show the whole image while I'm moving it.  Is this correct?  I want to confirm this before I go out and spend my money on a Studio and whether a Mac Studio M1 Max/Ultra would perform better because of all those lucious sounding CPU and GPU cores etc?

    By @defaultprc6709fta88

     

    They’re right, showing frame outlines first on a drag comes from a time when most computers had one or maybe two CPU cores, and no GPU acceleration. That situation persisted into the last ten years, when most computers had 4 or less CPU cores, and minimal graphics hardware. You couldn’t assume a computer had enough power to buffer shapes into memory as soon as you wanted to drag them, so applications from that era went to outlines first.

     

    But more recently, especially over the last 5 years, demand exploded for viewing and authoring computationally intensive media such as 4K video and 3D animation. In response, it became more common for computers to have 6 to 12 CPU cores, and very powerful GPUs. In current Windows PCs and Macs, there is now so much CPU and GPU power on board that many new applications don’t have options for dragging outlines vs rendered shapes. They just render them all the time without much effort. To understand just how powerful the CPU/GPU hardware is now, next time you drag something on a current smartphone, notice that you’ll drag a rendered object, not an outline.

     

    You do still find outline dragging on the latest computers, but now it’s mostly useful for complex 3D objects or 2D objects with lots of effects added. But for simple 2D graphics and photos like you would use in InDesign, dragging them fully rendered is no problem on current PCs and Macs. 

     

    I have an M1 Pro MacBook Pro, and I leave all the InDesign settings at High Quality because it’s very responsive. If you buy a Mac Studio with an M1 Max processor, that’s a step up from what I use. And the M1 Ultra…you probably don’t need to blow the budget on that unless you will constantly be editing 4K+ video with effects, 3D, or batch processing in Lightroom Classic.

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