OzNate

Same. I think I started in '95. At first I thought CC was cool, but that didn't last long. My only regret was not upgrading to CS6 perpetual and staying there. I went from 5.5 to CC.

Not going anywhere yet. I think it's way too early to tell how it will all pan out, but if the most dreaded things happen, then we'll for sure be back to looking for alternatives.

Ooh, you're right!

I'm sorry to be like this but the first thing I did was to run a comparison of the EULA from before and after. Given recent developments. They are the same.

Exactly

I support that

I feel like I've been here before. Adobe bought Macromedia, who made my favourite software. It didn't end well. That was before subscriptions, which is worse and why I'm here. I'll still be a user for now because you're still the best option but I will be keeping an eye solidly on open source and other alternatives. I think it's fair to say many of us feel no enthusiasm at all whatsoever about this.

FYI, yesterday I allowed Windows 10 to run an update and today I had this problem again. 🤔 After resetting in Publisher (via holding Ctrl and choosing to reset including "Deactivate" option), it would no longer start or show a splash screen, but Photo and Designer gave a splash screen, then an error: "Sorry, there was a problem launching the application. Cannot communicate with other Affinity apps. Please ensure the app is up-to-date and that your firewall isn't blocking local network traffic." Restarting the system fixed the error message and apps now work again (obviously had to reactivate). So it seems to be a problem with activation, and brings back nightmares we used to have with a certain other creative software company's products, so I do hope this can be fixed. 🙏🏻

Solved my issue by choosing the last option when you hold Ctrl while starting up - "Deactivate Affinity 2 apps" After this I was able to step through reactivation and the apps started normally.

I'm having this issue but it's not newly downloaded for me, I have been running V2 for some time. I don't know if it's related to the other threads about files opened from server but I sometimes do work with Photo files on a server. But all three apps are not responding upon attempting to open them. I have tried uninstall/reinstall and clearing settings via holding down Ctrl. I have also updated from 2.03 to 2.04. No success so far. I have installed from MSIX and I'm on Windows 10.

Thank you, this was the issue that brought me here to the forums. Typing in font selection box causes immediate crash.

I agree that placing multipage PDF would be great as we used to do in InDesign.

Hi, I came here looking for solutions and I do see that Layer > Convert to Picture Frame works for me to restore a lost outside stroke as long as I don't then crop it again. Let me just say that this should all be a bit more intuitive. Pixel vs Image object is a distinction that I'm going to have to get my head around. I am laying out a newsletter where I am dragging images in from a file browser and applying a style to them, and sometimes cropping where necessary. I just want it to work. :-) Cheers, hope the developers can help us out a bit. :-)

The way I understand it, the only thing that makes a Designer file different to a Photo file or a Publisher file is the filename extension. Inside they're all the same. You can try it if you like. All apps will open all files. The difference you'll experience is how each program works with that file and the options and tools it exposes. So that's why it's tricky to add something to Publisher, because you're also simultaneously adding it to Designer and Photo, and on all platforms.

That quote from Affinity in Peter's post above is what has me worried. A killer feature for Affinity apps is that they are so interoperable across all apps and platforms, with the same file format for everything. I am just hoping that as we move into more Publisher-specific features like footnotes, data merge, etc, that this killer feature doesn't become the achilles' heel.

+1

I came here because I am laying out a book and needed the feature but couldn't find it. Couldn't read all 19 pages of comments but now I know what I have to do for now. I was an early adopter of InDesign and from memory it didn't have footnotes when it came out. So I'm not too worried to be honest. Serif have been smashing it with their development speed, really. Meanwhile I'm really happy I'm not paying Adobe club fees so all good. 🙂 🙂

Me too, I need this capability. :-)

Wow! I was wondering what was happening over at Serif. I can see you've been busy. :-)

I understand that possibility but the fact is that other software does not exhibit that behaviour when something is exported. If you use save or save as, I would expect it, but not export. Rarely after export do I want to open the exported file in the same application. That's what the Recent feature is for - reopening files that were previously opened. As an end user I am not so concerned about the goings on in code and Windows API - the fact that this is annoying and other software is able to get it right is enough for me to class this as a BUG

Also occurs with other formats. I exported also as SVG and now that's there as well.

Ok, so whenever you export a PDF it also shows up in Recent files (right-click on the Designer icon on the taskbar, you get a list of recent files). If you exported it with the same name as the Designer file, then you have two identical entries in the Recent files list. It's not very useful for the PDF to show up here. If I wanted to open it I would probably do so in a PDF reader, not in Designer. Not only this, if I want to reopen the Designer file, I have no way of knowing which one it is. Can this be fixed?

Sorry, I should use precise language. Yes, I meant embedded. I see what you mean. It would be useful to be able to create an embedded document file out of an embedded image file. Anyway I am further experimenting with embedding JPEGs and using the basic functionality. With Photo persona you can pretty much do anything you want.

As I posted elsewhere on this forum, there is an interesting twist that I hadn't seen coming. Because of StudioLink, I have found I don't need to link a folder full of PSD files. That's an older way of looking at it, which is not always necessary now. A JPEG stock image can live in the Publisher file, with all live effects applied, and may therefore not increase the file size that much. I haven't fully tested this but I'm just putting this comment here because Affinity are going in a whole new direction. I still think full linking without massively increasing the file size should be an option, because that is the way people are used to working. But I'm starting to rethink my approach.

Coming from the InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator trio, I had a very set way of working - create your elements in Photoshop and Illustrator, bring them in and place them in InDesign. Images are pre-sized to correct resolution in Photoshop. Anything too tricky such as gradients and shadows can be built into the Photoshop file background, etc. All in CMYK of course, unless you were one of the people that saves RGB to CMYK conversion to the output stage. I would routinely have a folder full of huge PSD files to support a given publication. Watching the StudioLink announcement and working with it a little, I realised that we can probably be more free to mix and match, and there's no particular reason to have every single image live as its own layered file. If you're just placing a stock photo, why not place the JPG directly and do your minor edits right in Publisher. I don't see any need to go to all the bother of creating a separate file (PSD equivalent) for a lot of that work, unless it's a special composition or something that will be reused elsewhere. David Blatner suggested something similar with InDesign a few years ago, but I never really took that up because I wanted really clean files going to pre-press, plus InDesign had limited tools for image manipulation. But with StudioLink, I don't think it really matters anymore. Provided the RGB to CMYK conversion is going to be straightforward and predictable at the point I make a press-ready PDF (haven't delved into that yet with Affinity), I'm really starting to reimagine how to build a publication. Artists coming from other software or workflows may already be in this mindset but I've come from a background in serial publications where it was very much a folder full of linked images that are all prepped and managed in Photoshop, nothing embedded (only linked), nothing RGB, nothing straight from JPG or not appropriately resized prior to placement, etc. Interested to hear what others think. Cheers.