Top menu bar with options ('File', 'Edit' and 'Object') are missing in XD on windows.

[henryyjjames]

Hi,

I recently became very interested in Adobe Xd and I just discovered this problem. Mine does not have the bar at the top of the page with the File, Edit, Object View, etc.... This is annoying and is very hard to work without. It is also hard to work with tutorials on projects. I noticed this in a youtube video on how to do something. Here is a screenshot from my computer:

Here is a screen capture fro youtube:

I don't know if this has to do with it being in Beta stage or windows vs. mac, but this is highly annoying.

Thanks,

H.

<The Title was renamed by moderator>

[natashac3005764]

Adobe XD is only good for PCs because for MAC Sketch is the best! Why would anyone use Adobe XD when they have Sketch? Only if they are stuck with working on PC! Adobe should make it their absolute priority to update this application to be stellar on PC platform before anything else. it's 2019, PC users still don't have top menu. And I am a paying client.

[jadynb1481988]

Seems to me like Adobe XD is more interested in garnering Sketch's market share on the Mac platform vs trying to make it usable for PC users. Oh the irony of user experience software that's supposed to help designers create usable products and yet it is unusable itself?! And after many years of comments from frustrated users, you'd think Adobe would have come up with a solution and have remedied its user's paint points by now. SMH. 

[robwagner]

this is a total JOKE that you can't access the menu items from PC. And please don't respond ADOBE that you can access most of the menu items by right clicking or opening the hamburger menu - FALSE! they are not there!

Why would you even bother releasing a POS like this without those options available?

Terrible.

[MBrad90]

When I right click on anything--be it an object, asset, whatever--I get no right click menu at all. My only option is to know all of the keyboard shortcuts from memory? What about all of the cool stuff that XD can do that I don't know about yet? I guess I'll never find out because there are no menus!

[HARSHIKA_VERMA]

Hi there,

We apologies for the frustration. We have a similar discussion going on this thread: https://community.adobe.com/t5/Adobe-XD/Right-click-on-Windows-is-not-working-in-XD-v23-1/td-p/10662.... We would request you to please try the solution mentioned and let us know if that helps.

Thanks,

Harshika

[siangboon]

i see the first post is on 2016, reason was to complianced to UWP design... but after years.... still can't see the features such as mask is missing in the app not even right click nor in the hamburger menu....

[BlockedMonkey]

This case has aged and until now Adode can't make solutions for Window user. I should use other platform instead of Adobe... 😞

[kaylag50825411]

Agreed, but Adobe has the monopoly on this so there is no need for them to improve based on user feedback, because we all HAVE to use it

[Peter Villevoye]

Wait, excuse me for laughing out loud here...

Adobe has the monopoly in this area ? HA !!

They wish they had !!

The whole industry of web and app design tools is a decade old, 6 foot deep, steaming jacuzzi with lots of hot parties and players enjoying the bubbles and making waves. Only a couple of years, Adobe decide to dip into this boiling turmoil and introduce let their XD puppy take a dive.

If you're watching this industry from a graphic designer's viewpoint, then I understand this initial assumption. But then it's also time to expand your sight, and note that Adobe XD is just one tool among many...

[Jessica.Dyer]

Booooo!  Not a fan of minimalism.  Having File, Edit, etc. tabs is a format everyone is familiar with.  It works.  I am brand new to XD and I just watched the tutorial, which showed how to use it with those tabs in place and I make my first attempt - no File.  Not cool.  I don't have a touch tablet, so your suggestion is not at all helpful to me.  Please stop designing for the cutting edge users and consider the rest of us.

[HARSHIKA_VERMA]

Hi Kelly,

Welcome to the Adobe XD Community!

Thank you for reaching out and using Adobe XD. If you are on windows machine, you will find all the option under the hamburger menu. Please see the attached screenshot below.

Hope it helps.

Thanks,

Harshika

[martint97956919]

Notably missing from this new hamburger side menu is the VIEW tab, which I have spent most of my $#&*ing afternoon trying to find!

[andreaac]

Object>Mask is also missing, along with Object>Path. 

[Schickeria1900]

Please could you screenshot or post a tutorial how to find the "View" tab? 🙂 

[Peter Villevoye]

Many seemingly missing commands are expected to be accessed by using a contextual gesture, like right-clicking an object, or using press-hold on a touch device. To zoom in/out or on all artboards or selection, you definitely need to use the Zoom tool or know the shortcut keys (Ctrl +/- and 0 and 3), and on a touch device you're expected to pinch the canvas. No commands for that.

Still this rigid departure from menubars and floating panels is not working out very well on smaller Windows screens. You often need to scroll through the hamburger menu and Properties panel, just to see all commands and options.

[Schickeria1900]

Thank you. This is very complicated, especially for someone who's been using other Adobe programs and is new to this one and most tutorials vidoes are for Mac users. Hopefully they will reconsider this design, since it's not functioning. 

[Miroslava5EF3]

I just started learning XD on PC and I'm so frustrated! All the tutorials are on Mac with that toolbar that we don't have. Takes me f**** forever to find and learn every little thing. And I cant find most of what I need since there are almost none tutorials on PC. I'm so pissed that I'm tinking to just drop it and learn Figma instead! I keep reading comments and complained here about this issue since 2016! So Adobe had 4 years to fix this or give some kind of solution to windows users and they just chose to ignore it! 

[Peter Villevoye]

The whole debate about whether or not a menubar should be banned or shunned and replaced by a hamburger, is just one of the doubtful considerations. The idea of having buttons and contextual tabs in stead sounds nice, but we already see how current incarnations of this paradigm are gradually returning to something that looks like... a menubar !!

A flawed one, though. Because the hamburger requires an extra tap to explore, and the initial menus (Design, Prototype, and Share) are on the far left, with their corresponding tabs appearing on the far right. Now that's a silly case against the Gestalt Principles (Laws of Proximity and Mapping) and other principles of interface ergonomics (Fitts' Law), isn't it ?

But besides these interface shenanigans, I'm more worried about the way how developers and applications completely confuse users with their cloud based workflows and storage. Libraries, Components, Creative Cloud Files, Cloud Files, Published Files, Shared Links, Linked Assets, etcetera. And all these workflow tools like Zeplin, Slack, Jira, and other cloud storage services like DropBox and iCloud, are only making it worse. I bet that within a few years, no one has any clue anymore where their 50+ copies of their files and fragments reside...

I noticed that many UX and UI designers spend a good part of their day just shoving around files and fragments through a myriad of networks, trying to cater for everyone, anywhere. No my dears, unfortunately it's not "one size fits all". There's always some crucial co-worker or tiresome tool missing out on something, so redundancy is abundant and ubiquitous, leading to mass-confusion. And I don't trust companies like Apple, Adobe or Microsoft to prevent or solve this problem. They're all still touting their own half-baked solutions.

[Sissyvel]

This is ridiculous, I mean this is software for UX Design, and this is a bad example of if, most of us are using laptops for our work, and you are showing a bar in your tutorials that doesnt exist in windows, then I go into the so stupidly call hamburguer menu, to look fot this copy paste interaction and I found nothing, even if it was there, that is more effort, more innecesary clicking.

Ok, after more research, I found it in the right click option, that is nice, to think that my fustration could have been avoided if the tutorial would have explained this.... is in itself fustrating.

[Peter Villevoye]

Yes, it's irritating and worrying, how mainstream developers like Apple, Microsfoft, Adobe, Google, and many others are (re)inventing ways to offer users overview and clarity in the features and functionalities of an application. Their tendency to focus on task-based workflows (features and functions becoming available when needed and/or appropriate) sounds like a good idea. And users have habituated to panels appearing and disappearing again, so there's no need anymore to keep all UI elements always in sight, even if they're not applicable.

But still, that good-old menubar has served us well for many decades, and for mouse/keyboard-operated tasks and environments, its consistent shape and reliable position still trumps all these other floating ribbons, extra bars, panels, pallettes, and pop-ups.

Moving – back – to the elegance of simply working with our fingers poses real challenges to modern interface designers and developers – hey, Adobe XD caters for those designers ! 

[WFarrow47]

This is beyond ridiculous, I just wasted half an hour of my time trying to figure out how to copy & paste guides. Only to find out that you have to right-click the bar just above the artboard (where you drag down a guide) > Guides > Copy Guides.

I fully understand Adobe's decision to completely embrace the UWP design paradigm but for those of us who are not on a touch-based windows computer or have specific workflow requirements, it would be wise to allow us the option of having the top bar menu. It's absurd that I have to fumble around with an application that is supposed to help make my workflow faster and better, yet it's doing the complete opposite. I'm now sitting here contemplating abandoning XD. It's a shame because I was very fond of XD when I first started using it on my Mac. However, now that I've switched to Windows, I'm sitting here completely dumbfounded that there isn't some type of similarity between both devices.

I will remain optimistic in Adobe. However, for the sake of my workflow and business, I must reconsider using XD.

[Peter Villevoye]

Well, that right-click is a typical knee-jerk reaction of many routined Windows user, and it is actually a nice contextual approach for anything important or dedicated to a specific selected or otherwise involved item. And for those who don't know or don't like to explore an application in such a way, there probably will be some "Hidden Gem & Secret Tip" video by an Adobe evangelist, pointing it out with much fanfare...

However, I also find the dogmatic omission of the menubar a bit far-fetched. And it's actually re-appearing in a different and less consistent form, just look at the row of tabs/buttons in the top bar of the window, becoming the entrance to a mix of modal states and extra panels on the right. It's astonishing to experience how quick your fingers find their way on a touch screen. But with a mouse, you first need to tick the Share tab on the left, and then go to the far right panel to make your subsequent choices in a panel.

It would probably be better if the interface would sense if the device is used in a touch-only state (like a Microsoft Surface with a detached keyboard/trackpad), and offer its interface modes as a preference.

[WFarrow47]

I agree, 

I'm sure Microsoft would have implemented a way for the developer of a UWP application to detect what pointing device was used or is being used upon opening of the application. For example, in C# there is an event handler to detect what device was used upon "PointerPressed".

With a little research, I was able to find this posted by a Microsoft Employee.

private void OnPointerPressed(object sender, PointerRoutedEventArgs e)
    {
      switch (e.Pointer.PointerDeviceType)
      {
        case Windows.Devices.Input.PointerDeviceType.Touch:
          break;
        case Windows.Devices.Input.PointerDeviceType.Pen:
          break;
        case Windows.Devices.Input.PointerDeviceType.Mouse:
          break;
        default:
          break;
      }
    }

This particular switch statement will perform tasks based on what PointerDeviceType was used upon "pressing". Here we have three device options, Touch, Pen and Mouse. So there's no lack of ability.

My assumption is (and I may be incorrect, but..) that it wasn't Adobe's decision to not implement a changing interface based on device, rather Microsoft's UWP design paradigm mainly focuses on touch-based devices and that Adobe was simply following that.

Nonetheless, I completely agree that there should be a changing UI that is relative to the input methods used.

[andreaac]

I understand having a change in design and the theory behind it, but there are menu items that can't be found in the hamburger menu or in the menus on the right side of the screen.

[oPryzeLP]

Hey Adobe, it's been over 3 YEARS. Still no way to Mask with Shape from a menu.

And there's no way whatsoever to ungroup a mask from shape.

I dragged an image into a circle.... now I changed my mind. THERE'S NO WAY TO GO BACK?!?! Get ur s*** together