Miljac

I am  checking a trial version of Affinity Photo on Windows 7. I immediately realized that I am missing a full screen preview mode. Every now and then during the edit I am used to quickly switch to a full screen, so to preview my work and escape back to continue editing. In a full screen mode I would expect an easy option to quickly zoom to 100% and back, as well as to compare "before" and "after" images. I think that many Windows photo editors support this function, such as Capture NX-D, Photoshop, Elements ... 

The main reason for a DAM really is to have some trust that integration with the SW you love and have invested time to master (e.g. affinity photo) is given. You want to work within the look and feel of the SW you use for most stuff. IMHO a DAM can start out very basic and add features as requested. But it would keep you within the affinity universe, speeding up your workflows and reduce learning time for people working with/for you. 
Why buy affinity if your DAM from another vendor already does much of the job? Many photographers don't really use Photoshop all that much and do most of their work with Lightroom. So why buy Affinity and invest learning time when you already spent much on LR or C1 etc? Yes, freaks and experts posting here may know the strengths of each product and master them all, but those will not be the lot paying for licences who makes investment worth while.
So my pledge to Serif: Please give us a simple, robust DAM to start with, that integrates well with Affinities products. Take aperture of even mac's photo app functionality as a start, but keep it open so we can migrate in- and out easily. Get our workflows into your world starting from managing the photos, and keep us within. I am so sure this will pay out for all of us. 
 

I don't think that serif needs just a DAM.

I think it would be interesting for serif to develop a C1/LR like program. I see affinity photo as a PS competitor, but the develop module doesn't allow for easy non-destructive adjustment iterations. For example, one can infinitely edit images in LR and C1 before exporting to PS if at all. I find that it is not so easy to just go back in the development module to tweak, requiring a reset.

I have some 20k-30k photos in my photos library. For this reason I use LR, since I can manage all of them, edit them mostly non-destructively without going to Photoshop, print them, and geo-tag them all in the same program. Only very "special" images ever make it to PS, since doing so moves you away from RAW files and thus you loose some leeway in terms of editing or you end up with tiff files which are 3x the size of raw images.

I think a DAM that at least allows the develop module to be run (and those settings remembered), which can be integrated directly in affinity photo can also be useful/desired if the integration and the work flow are properly thought out. Then one can use the rest of affinity photo editing via layers to truly end up with some none destructive edits that won't cause a ballooning of space taken on our drives with multiple copies of images (tiff like files being very large). With virtual-images/snap-shots one can truly use their images very broadly.
Of course the whole eco-system would be much more powerful if the DAM was somehow also integrated/available between the other software of serif.

For example... You open affinity photo. If you have the DAM and affinity designer installed tabs for them would also appear.
1. Go to the DAM and select the image you want to develop
2. Developing the image can be completely non-destructive and dynamically adjustable. As in even when you have layer edits from affinity photos or designer, adjusting the image in the develop section would allow the user to see that bottom layer adjustment even with the overlay of the photos or designer (or both) layers shown.
3. The user can either enter photos or designer to do whatever edits they want.
4. By working with layers, when adjusting photos layers the UI would adjust accordingly and same with designer layers.

I think such a tightly integrated environment would give users not only a powerful tool, but would go a step beyond what photoshop offers. After all, photoshop edits are baked in when you want to go back to LR, while on the affinity side the develop module is what bakes into the image that is then "exported" for use in photos. One example of why one would want to be able to tweak the image in the develop module are for things like shadow and highlight adjustment, where it is ideal to manipulate the RAW, and not the image in the other photo module.
 
cheers

Not so.  A folder structure only gives you one way to select.   "I remember a festive dinner with Aunt Edna.  I think it was Christmas, no Thanksgiving"  "No John it was easter"  
"What year?  "I think it was 4 years ago.  Might have been 5"  "Oh, at least 5,  Uncle Bill was still with us."
So if you have date organized folders you now have to check 3 different months in 3 different years.  Yuck.
 
In a decent DAM you can search for People:Aunt Edna & Event:Holiday Dinner