Jörn Reppenhagen

Yesterday, there was a fierce storm.
Conclusion: There's fierce storms every single day, all year long.
Found the mistake?
At the points of time I looked for a PC version, there was no such indications in the "Hamburger menu", PC related links led to a Microsoft store restricting the use of Affinity to Windows 10. It's been all Apple and a tiny piece of PC.
And it's points of time because I looked for a usable PC version multiple times, using smartphones and tablets. And I love hamburgers.
Maybe I should also note I am no novice, am a former programmer since good old ZX-81 times, am still not allowed to enter the USA due to successful hacking activities way back in the Reagan era, worked as a web developer and IT tutor for years, am now creating contents including masses of web contents for global players, thus spend about 12 hours daily and up on the net.

So I impudently dare to claim not finding a suitable PC version hasn't necessarily been a problem of competence but a problem of contents.
As I also reflect on the initial lines of this post, I need to happily admit there had been changes, it's far easier to find a PC download, now.
That's a great relief as I would love to witness Affinity conquering the PC world.
By storm.

The official site given above is more like a joke. I agree with @Jörn Reppenhagenthat the information that I was looking for is hard to find.  It looked like an advert for the iPad versions until you wait, when information on the Desktop versions eventually appears. There is a hamburger menu but it is grey on grey and not easy to spot.
I did not have this difficulty when i originally bought AD and AP some years ago.
John

I have long experience in various user interfaces, old and new. I did not really have too much troubly finding the Windows version of AP, but I do wonder about a relatively inexperienced user. 
True, but I have to admit that I have only discovered it relatively recently. Put this down to my advancing years.
John

Also had a look again.
It's a bit different now, I also guess there's quite different versions shown according to browser, platform and locale.
For instance, I did not get the screen posted by Pšenda.
NOW I was able to spot a link allowing to buy directly after scrolling a bit down, looks like a direct purchase without the previous Microsoft nuisance. This had been different not long ago.
Feels far better!

Good idea - would really help deserting from Adobe applications and quickly feel comfortable in the enemy's lair.
Plus, the help section could need some brush-up. Would be helpful to have more pictures for showing the elements the texts refer to.
That way, a noob (like me) could clearly see "Ah, that's how it looks!".
Surplus, the help section could also need some more detailled explanations - like where to find items referred to.
Example: "Use Blend Ranges."
An experienced Affinity user will know it's that little cogwheel.
But a novice will start seeking and swearing because he just doesn't know where and what to look for.
Better: "Use Blend Ranges (the little cogwheel found in the Layers panel [picture])."
As a certified tech writer, I know writing documentation is a pain in the you-know-where.
But it would really help new Affinity affinitists doing the change.
 

When I hover over a control, it would be useful to have a hint that tells me a bit about the control. Perhaps is would be enabled in a beginner mode for those who dislike popups.
In Photo RAW, when I hover over a control, I get a hint displayed:

Note that the hint tells me why I might what to use the slider. This really helps when learning a product, especially for users new to image editing.

Thanks everyone. I did some experiments, and I think that I understand now.
 
What I found: when I check the "live alignment" option in the "new stack" window, Affinity Photo adds a perspective filter to each image. 
When reviewing alignment, I uncheck all the images but two, and set the blending mode from "Median" to "Range" so i can see the difference of those image. 
 
I use an image as a reference, and move the others. 
 
Then, for each image, I first use the Move tool to move the image, so the center of the image "disappears", and then double click on the Perspective Filter to change it, dragging the corners until everything disappears (if they are perfectly aligned, the resulting stack in "Range" mode is almost black). 
 
Unfortunately, when stacking photos taken with wide angle lenses translations and rotations aren't enough to align images, since lenses could cause several complex distortions. 
But I found that using the Perspective Filter I can almost always get a perfect alignment of the images. Awesome! 
 
regards,
gerlos

Good idea - would really help deserting from Adobe applications and quickly feel comfortable in the enemy's lair.
Plus, the help section could need some brush-up. Would be helpful to have more pictures for showing the elements the texts refer to.
That way, a noob (like me) could clearly see "Ah, that's how it looks!".
Surplus, the help section could also need some more detailled explanations - like where to find items referred to.
Example: "Use Blend Ranges."
An experienced Affinity user will know it's that little cogwheel.
But a novice will start seeking and swearing because he just doesn't know where and what to look for.
Better: "Use Blend Ranges (the little cogwheel found in the Layers panel [picture])."
As a certified tech writer, I know writing documentation is a pain in the you-know-where.
But it would really help new Affinity affinitists doing the change.
 

Or just have F1 bring up context sensitive help - no UI changes required .
F1 is the traditional Help Key on PC's. I don't know if Mac has something similar.
 

Since you are writing a new retail version of Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher anyway, please consider this:
Place a Help button on the lower left corner of each tool/feature pane that links to/cross-referenced with contextual help on the features included in that tool pane, like:
-Definition of each feature in the pane with icon representation when available.
-Strategies on how to use each feature in that tool pane. 
-When to use each feature in that tool pane.
-How to use each feature in that tool pane.
-Effect of using each feature in that tool pane/effect that changing the value to certain parameters has on the photo. (In other words, if you increase the border width, it will have so and so effect on what you are selection, or, if you increase the brush size, it will have so and so effect on your intended selection, or, if you increase the "ramp" value, it will have so and so effect on your intended selection, and so on, and so forth.
-Recommendations on most commonly used values for each feature in that tool pane; a good default value to begin with.
(Just me spinning my head off with whatever comes to my mind concerning this topic).    

Some willows in Haldern, Germany, taken a month ago.
Fujifilm X-T20 + Fujinon XF 18 – 55 mm , cheap (7,50 €) Neewer IR filter, 720 nm

Some willows in Haldern, Germany, taken a month ago.
Fujifilm X-T20 + Fujinon XF 18 – 55 mm , cheap (7,50 €) Neewer IR filter, 720 nm

Yes, this is infrared. I'll attach a small version of the original photo right out of camera.
I found it highly interesting as I realized all that intense colors were still in the photo.
Fujifilm X-T20 + Fujinon XF 18 – 55 mm , cheap (7,50 €) Neewer IR filter, 720 nm
 

I was told this is a horrendous picture. Depends on the point of view.
I find it quite interesting for two different aspects:
1) Original photo was pretty blurred, still it was possible to recover a lot of details.
2) The blueish background makes the motive appear like warm-colored - while it's pure b/w grayscale.
Fujifilm X-T20 + Fujinon XF 18 – 55 mm , cheap (7,50 €) Neewer IR filter, 720 nm

Just for fun I made some photos of German signs and converted them to hard black-and-white. I even made some book-mockups (10 points if you can see which book I used as stand-in ).
Looking forward to hear your feedback! The mockups are made with affinity, some black-white conversions where done with the Apple-Photos plugin of Affinity.
I've added the mockups below, some more info is in my blog-post and all black-and-white-photos are here.

I was told this is a horrendous picture. Depends on the point of view.
I find it quite interesting for two different aspects:
1) Original photo was pretty blurred, still it was possible to recover a lot of details.
2) The blueish background makes the motive appear like warm-colored - while it's pure b/w grayscale.
Fujifilm X-T20 + Fujinon XF 18 – 55 mm , cheap (7,50 €) Neewer IR filter, 720 nm

The "Battenbergturm", one and only landmark of Haldern, Germany, taken about a month ago.
Fujifilm X-T20 + Fujinon XF 18 – 55 mm , cheap (7,50 €) Neewer IR filter, 720 nm

Some willows in Haldern, Germany, taken a month ago.
Fujifilm X-T20 + Fujinon XF 18 – 55 mm , cheap (7,50 €) Neewer IR filter, 720 nm

Yes, this is infrared. I'll attach a small version of the original photo right out of camera.
I found it highly interesting as I realized all that intense colors were still in the photo.
Fujifilm X-T20 + Fujinon XF 18 – 55 mm , cheap (7,50 €) Neewer IR filter, 720 nm
 

Some willows in Haldern, Germany, taken a month ago.
Fujifilm X-T20 + Fujinon XF 18 – 55 mm , cheap (7,50 €) Neewer IR filter, 720 nm

Some willows in Haldern, Germany, taken a month ago.
Fujifilm X-T20 + Fujinon XF 18 – 55 mm , cheap (7,50 €) Neewer IR filter, 720 nm

(Hope this is no repeated suggestion - quick use of the search function didn't reveal anything; at least not to me.)
There's some lengthy operations like stacking.
(I do some astrophotography at novice to intermediate level, so there's masses of RAW files to process for checking out if Affinity might replace Deep Sky Stacker. At present, DSS seems to be a bit better suited for that task.)
Now there's no progress indicator. I need to listen if my lazy cooling fans wake up, or fire up Windows' task manager for having a look at the CPU load.
Otherwise I wouldn't have any idea if Affinity is working, twiddling thumbs or taking a guru meditation in crash country.
Thus a progress indicator would be a fine addition.
 

A blue bird, where the bottom shadow shape though somehow reminds me to something completely else.

Recovering some old cliparts into vector with the help of AD ...

Hello, Chris and Mark.
I don't regard this as a big deal, just mentioned it in case it's of any use to you.
Romans 11, verse 33: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of the Developer! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!"
I guess we just cannot expect software to be compatible with any future developments unless we get hold of H. G. Wells' lost plans of that time machine.