captain_slocum

RERPEAT: "Lets concentrate on getting AP the best it can be, not having pointless arguments"!!! I'm leaving this thread now as it's been hijacked by pointless nit-picking.

I didn't write that Alfred, you did! I wrote - "True". Meaning what you said was correct. Of course some people using Quark are serious users. Lets concentrate on getting AP the best it can be, not having pointless arguments.

True - I know someone who still uses it and loves it. I guess it's what you are used to.

I hope that now the Affinity suite is owned by a new company they will take notice. This is NOT a niche request. The lack of flowing tables (and also the lack of column spanning) is just about the only thing that stops me being able to recommend Affinity Publisher to all the people I teach DTP to. InDesign is still the only player in the game for serious publishing. Affinity Publisher could be a great publishing tool and knock InDesign off its perch, but at the moment it is just a very good leaflet and flyer app. I first posted about the lack of flowing tables in 2018, bemoaning the fact that Affinity did not seem to be listening to professionals who make their living at DTP. 6 years later, they are still not listening. I suggest here needs to be a dialogue at Affinity about what AP is for. Is it trying to be a market leader and professional tool (which it it could so easily be) or are they happy to stop developing it and leave it as a leaflet app?

I hope that now the Affinity suite is owned by a new company they will take notice. This is NOT a niche request. The lack of flowing tables in particular, but also the lack of column spanning is just about the only thing that stops me being able to recommend Affinity Publisher to all the people I teach DTP to. InDesign is still the only player in the game for serious publishing. Affinity Publisher could be a great publishing tool and knock InDesign off its perch, but at the moment it is just a very good leaflet and flyer app.

Thank you Return for the very helpful video. I was simply selecting the shape on the page or the layers panel, not clicking the disclosure arrow in the layers panel and selecting the shape within the shape. So all fine now. FYI, the information I was alluding to is in the Affinity Designer V2 Help section (From the main menu, Help/Affinity Designer V2 Help/Object Control/Symbols). It actually states: To edit a symbol instance: On the Layers panel, expand a chosen Symbol entry, then edit the objects within. [My italics]. I obviously did not read this carefully enough, assuming I just needed to select the shape.

BTW, by not working, I mean that what ever I do the other instances of the symbol do not not update. They show as symbols in the layers panel and have the solid red line by them, including when I alter an instance of one (no dashed red line, so not detached).

I have Affinity 2.2.0 on Mac OS 13.6 and have used symbols many times in the past, but cannot get it to work on 2.2.0. I have followed 5 different tutorials on symbols, including the latest official one in the V2 help file absolutely to the letter but nothing works. Is this a bug or is there a setting somewhere I have overlooked?

This thread has developed into an interesting philosophical discussion about the way a company is run, about tokenism ("Your custom is important to us") and about the way, as companies grow larger, they often become self-serving rather than customer led. Patrick, I am sure your heart is in the right place, and I have no personal beef with you I assure you, but your reply is very telling. In my posts I have given you every opportunity to say something like "thank you for your considered feedback, your remarks will be passed to our development team for consideration" but presumably that is not how it works with Serif. This is how the whole thread started, with bemused Affinity users wondering, why the secrecy, why no roadmap, why no apparent acknowledgement of our suggestions. It just seems a pity to me that you (the company) appear to be wasting an enormous asset - a group of real-world users who care about your products.

No doubt you replied to someone/something in the threads, but show me in one of my threads where you explicitly acknowledge to me that you are aware that flowing tables, text to table/table to text and spanning columns are an issue and that you are/are not considering them or that they are/are not important to you, and I will happily apologise. It's quite possible I have missed something. I don't know why you are so defensive. I am trying to help you here, not slag you off. Look closely at my posts and you will see I give you considerable praise where it is merited. So now this is your chance to set my mind at rest. Could you state categorically a) that you are considering the above features, and if so when might that be, or b) you are not considering them because... for what ever reason. That way I will get off your back (as you see it) stop being helpful (as I intend it to be).

So that explains a lot! FYI, I was not ranting about "one of my" suggestions, but pointing out how a golden opportunity to make Publisher a world beater has been missed. There a dozens of things I would like to see different in every bit of software I use - but I don't mention them because it is not about me. Apologies - I should have made it clear I was referring to the issues that I was talking about in this thread. Well I'm used to being patronised because I'm old, but really? You don't think I haven't tried? There is a work around of sorts to get flowing tables which is to put the table into Word, turn it into text using tab separated, copy it and paste into an AP text box. This preserves the tabs and the layout, but if you want to alter the tabbing in AP, you have to do it one line at a time. And of course you cannot show cell outlines.

I think this thread about communication is an important one. I don't get the feeling that Serif moderators really read the the posts in a meaningful way to sort the wheat from the chaff and reply to the posts that address really important concerns. I have been posting for years and never once have I had a reply from a moderator addressing my concerns. I must make a very clear distinction here between things that it would be nice to have (trace in Designer eg) but are easily realised by third party apps and trivial issues (UI concerns, colours of icons, etc) that an be lived with, and things that make Publisher unusable for professionals (no flowing tables, no text to table/table to text, no column span). There has been much sneering in some posts about using the word "professional". Let me explain. I'm a professional but that doesn't mean I'm better than you. It means I derive all or some of my income from using DTP software. So let me give you a real life example of why I can't use Publisher yet and have to keep subscribing to Adobe InDesign. Last week a client sent me a 16 page catalogue to design. The items in the catalogue with their specs and prices, were in a Word table. In InDesign I imported the table and it flows across the pages, simple. If (when!) the client sends me an extra line to add near the front of the table, everything will flow through and adjust. I also publish a monthly magazine with a calendar, usually spanning 3 or 4 pages, sent in a table format – same issues. These are is just not possible to do in Publisher in a way that makes economic sense. This is not some arcane or idiosyncratic feature that only a few people want. This is essential. Yet over the years I have never had any one from Serif acknowledge this and reply with a "we're never going to do this" or a "It's on our roadmap coming soon", and I am certain they won't now. Why do I bother? Because I'm old school, I was in at the beginning of WP and DTP and later the internet and still believe in helping worthwhile projects. I have said many times that there is much that is excellent about the Affinity Suite (I use Designer and Photo all the time), hats off to Serif. Which is why it is all the more frustrating that there is this blind spot with Publisher - it's like watching a loved son or daughter making some poor decisions in life and feeling powerless to help.

Hi David, This is getting pretty off topic so I have private messaged you.

David, you have put this very succinctly and explained perfectly why this is such an important feature. If you now apply the same argument to flowing tables and table to text/text to table – which is the way information is often presented in many documents, especially technical reports, something I do a lot of – you can see why APub would be advised to take our comments onboard. Just last week I had to produce a document which had information in table format flowing over 6 pages. The editor sent me an amendment which added 6 rows near the front of the table. I was using InDesign so it was a trivial job. In APub I would have had to redo all 6 pages from scratch. Another example – a magazine I produce has a calendar sent to me as a table which spans the centrefold. It is often the case that items are added at the last moment. David, forgive me if you feel I am hijacking your thread, but to me the two issues of column span and flowing tables are linked, indeed, I have been requesting both these features regularly on this forum for years, which is why it is so disappointing that they have missed the boat with ver 2 for these essential features. I understand perfectly the argument expressed here by others that many people have features they would like to see but are trivial or have easy workarounds, or are pleading special cases, but these two things are not in this category, they are DTP staples, for which there is no sensible alternative. Being old school, I care about good software at a reasonable but sustainable price, which is why I spend time on this forum and have paid for the v2 suite (they need revenue to continue) and daily use Designer and Photo. From a selfish point of view, if span columns and flowing text (and maybe GREP and find & replace customisable presets) were added to APub, I could finally ditch my need for the Adobe suite! (a hundred smiley emojis!)

To answer the points one by one: 1. Professionally means earning the larger part of your income from DTP. 2. You may be right, but it doesn't feel like it. 3. (ignoring the insulting quote marks) we are not talking here about whether we like the colours of an icon or a hundred and one things that don't matter/have easy work arounds. We are talking absolute deal breakers that anybody who uses DTP extensively for technical reports, books, magazines, company prospectuses, exam papers, etc etc etc cannot do without. 4. I don't use it, because I can't yet, but I do support it because I believe in it as a worthwhile project that I want to see succeed (yes, I know that's old school, but then I'm very old). 5. No there are not - not for macOS anyway. Or does the ellipse signify sarcasm? In which case the implication is that there are not any other such options, in which case it is more important than ever to make sure APub is fit for purpose.