Hilltop
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Hilltop reacted to Ash in Place tool now available in Affinity Photo
Apps: Photo
Platforms: Windows and macOS
As has been requested you can now find the Place tool (previously only available in Designer and Publisher) as a customisation option in Affinity Photo (View -> Customise Tools) if you wish to add it to your main set of tools, making it more easily accessible than going to File -> Place.
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Hilltop reacted to Antje Müller in how to order pages without drag&drop?
I'm not used to forums. It's a quite strange appearance to me. But I guess tomaso is able to find his way. :-)
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Hilltop reacted to AffinityAppMan in REQUEST: Enable "Save" over imported SVG files
FEATURE REQUEST:
I use some applications that support the SVG file format and I open Affinity Designer from within those applications. The problem that I am having is the Affinity Designer will not save the UPDATED as SVG unless I export it as SVG. But if I export as SVG, I lose the connection from the other apps.
Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer support the Enable "Save" over imported PSD files which keeps the connection with other apps if you are working with PSD file and the workflow is very good.
It would be very helpful to have the same feature with SVG file support, Enable "Save" over imported SVG files option in preferences, since I am using Affinity Designer right now as my exclusive Vector App. This will improve my workflow and the workflow of users that us Affinity Designer and other apps together in this way.
Cheers!
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Hilltop got a reaction from myclay in Mark .affont Fonts in the Font Family List
@Tom Lachecki My request is not about licensing restrictions. It's about marking fonts that can only be used in Affinity apps and not in other apps, including font managers. This to make clear why some fonts don't show up in Family Font Lists of other apps.
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Hilltop reacted to Ash in Raster perspective and mesh warp live filters added to Designer
First off great artwork Stuart! Now to be honest what you are trying to do there is actually a reason as to why we have been a little unsure about including this feature. The use case we are trying to cover is not about warping artwork in that way with 1000s of objects. It is actually to more cover the cases of needing to warp embedded documents or images. And I can say that the only reason you are seeing pretty decent performance there is because you are on the Windows version and that in fact currently has the destructive version of the filters which is incorrect.
I've just recorded a quick vid of why we have included it. This is using Designer to create some mock up options of an iPad app, where the UI of the app itself is also a Designer document. You can place the multi-artboard UI file as an embedded document in your mock up. Apply a live perspective from pixel persona to place in the iPads. As it's non destructive after you've done that you can still choose which artboard you want to show in your mock up. You can even edit the embedded document, float the window and update the source file while the mock up updates in real time.
Obviously this is perspective, with live warp you could use it to warp an embedded document on something like an open brochure (where the page is curled a bit) or a bottle label or whatever. But yeah, for these cases it felt wrong we are forcing people to use Affinity Photo to achieve this, especially when the type of mock up or whatever you are doing is better suited to use Designer to create the other elements around it (or to have options on artboards and things like that).
While this I think offers a fantastic (and unique) workflow for this kind of thing, the possible issue is the assumption that could be made that this is some alternative to use like vector warp when that isn't the intention. We'll have to try to be very clear about this with our help / learning materials around it as best we can.
LivePerspective_2.mov
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Hilltop reacted to Ash in Raster perspective and mesh warp live filters added to Designer
The thing with this is that it's not just a case of being vector or raster data you are warping. Even vector data cannot necessarily be warped in the way you would like using the vector warp. For example if it has gradients, or strokes - like if you apply a perspective to a logo which has a stroke around it you might want that stroke to appear thinner when when it's further away. Generally with embedded documents in particular the sense we had from the feedback we were seeing is that in the main you always want the warp / perspective to give a visually accurate result, and the best / most reliable way to do that is using the raster based tools we have in Photo. They are non destructive so you can still edit the vector data within them, and you can still choose the resolution you want at output time.
There are ways we could do a hybrid tool in some way, but it is a huge amount of work - I guess we are wanting to figure out whether actually using the live filters from Photo do solve a lot of requirements that people have in this area, or whether we should still be looking to invest a lot more time in expanding the functionality of vector warp.
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Hilltop reacted to Ash in Drag / Drop bitmap fill to colour and swatch panel
Yes I understand what you mean. I think we want to consider this more fully - another aspect of things we want to sort out in future is being able to define the size of assets generally, and fills. And to be able to do it to scale too. e.g. if you had an asset of a plan view of a table, you could say it was 2m long then whatever document you drag it onto it would place it at that size, based on the drawing scale the document is set to. This will also apply to fills - so you could say a fabric texture swatch relates to 10cm x 10cm in real world, then the fill will be added at that real world size if that makes sense.
I understand you are not asking that specifically and probably just want to see in the fill tool what px dimensions the texture tile has been scaled to (and perhaps % scale too) similar to a placed image like below?
But think my point is more that we want to consider this in the round of accounting for scaled assets too so will be something in a future update.
However, one bit of news which might help: we are adding to the new vector flood fill and option to add bitmap fill as non-scaled. So if you have an asset set up at the correct size you want it to be then every shape you add it to will be added at that size, without auto scaling to fit. This will hopefully be in an update in the next week or so so will definitely be worth checking out.
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Hilltop reacted to Tom Lachecki in Mark .affont Fonts in the Font Family List
We'll take your feedback on board
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Hilltop got a reaction from walt.farrell in Mark .affont Fonts in the Font Family List
And it wasn't clear to me where you were coming from. 🙂
I hope I made myself clear in my later posts.
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Hilltop reacted to AffinityUser2023 in Examples of school project work (split)
I have been using Affinity Designer 2 recently for a school project and it has been great so far.
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Hilltop reacted to G13RL in Install .affont files?
For Windows :
C:/users/MyName/.affinity/Designer/2.0/AffinityFonts
Delete the "AffinityFonts" folder to uninstall all fonts or open the folder to select only the ones you want to uninstall.
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Hilltop reacted to Patrick Connor in Install .affont files?
Because they aren't licensed to use in all software. They would be much much more expensive to us and to you if they were distributed as TTF
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Hilltop got a reaction from myclay in Why SERIF delete the V1 from App Store?
This is not true and it's definitely not Serif's intention to force v. 1 users to purchase v. 2:
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Hilltop reacted to albertkinng in [Designer Issue] I'm getting a Curve file with Raster characteristics. Why?
@firstdefence @Dazmondo77
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Hilltop reacted to Dazmondo77 in [Designer Issue] I'm getting a Curve file with Raster characteristics. Why?
I have fully editable halftone screens and hatching fill patterns set up this way which has always worked great for me, as whatever you place inside your data merge layout box, effectively acts as a symbol.
For halftone screens, I've found the quickest way is to place a data merge layout box inside a data merge layout box (see grab) as it seems more repeats start to slow things down but you still have the benefit of only one nested graphic to edit
Screen Grab 2.mov -
Hilltop reacted to Dazmondo77 in [Designer Issue] I'm getting a Curve file with Raster characteristics. Why?
I'd recommend using this cheeky workaround which works great as a substitute for vector fills for me, but can only be done in publisher using the data merge layout tool - super quick and simple, but does the job until we get proper vector fills.
Screen Grab 1.mov
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Hilltop reacted to edee in WHY is AD2 changing the orientation of my presets????
@Pšenda
I Don't Need 2 presets. I need it to be Preset the Way I Set It.
For example - my preset for a simple screenshot is Always 1366x768 landscape. It will Never Be portriat- Never. See that is 1 Preset.
BUT NOW I have to remember to click landscape every time I want to use that ONE preset. It's No Longer Preset!! If it were Preset it would Always be 1366x768 landscape.
Yes, I did have presets for landscape and portriat size for paper - So what? Regardless - it is Not Preset if the Preset changes between landscape and portriat.
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Hilltop reacted to GarryP in Which format to use to export a document that contains hyperlinks towards local files
Welcome to the forums @Laetitia974
The first thing to do is to check to see if the layers you have added the hyperlinks to, or any of the parent layers of those layers, have Layer Effects or Adjustments applied to them. Layer Effects and Adjustments cause the contents of the layers they are applied to, and their child layers, to be rasterised and therefore the hyperlinks within those layers will not be exported.
Next, make sure that you are exporting to a file type which can handle hyperlinks, such as PDF.
Then make sure that, in the export options, you do not have the “Rasterise” option set to Everything.
Then make sure that the “Don’t export layers hidden by the Export persona” is not checked.
If none of these things work then we will probably need to see your export settings and, if possible, the document itself and the exported file.
Note: Hyperlinks to local files will probably not work on other peoples’ machines unless they have the same drive/folder structure as you. In other words, if you link to a local file such as C:\Work\MyFile.jpg and the other person’s machine does not have a MyFile.jpg file inside a Work folder which is on the C drive then the hyperlink will not work.
Note: If you tell us which version of Publisher you are using (full version number) and which version of OSX/macOS you are using (full version number) then that might help with the problem diagnosis.
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Hilltop got a reaction from PaulEC in Why SERIF delete the V1 from App Store?
This is not true and it's definitely not Serif's intention to force v. 1 users to purchase v. 2:
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Hilltop reacted to Ash in Crop Tool improvements
Yeah, think I agree - there are some rare circumstances where it might be useful, but in the main we've probably introduced something which is annoyance most of the time in unconstrained mode. We'll change it!
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Hilltop reacted to Ash in 2.1 Beta Build 2 (1709) release notes
Hi All,
We're happy to make the second build of the 2.1 beta available today - 2.1.0.1709. This should now be available for you on auto update.
Here's some of the main changes in this build:
Guides
Had a lot of great feedback on guides - thank you. In this build we have:
Added Alt-Click to delete a guide Made Alt-Shift while dragging snap to delta. We had already made holding shift snap to ruler units from page origin. What this new option gives is if you have a guide placed at, say, 35.3mm from the page origin and you want to move it 10mm - you can now drag while holding Alt-Shift to snap to that difference. Of course this also works if you have alt or cmd dragged a duplicate of the guide If guides are currently set to not visible, then dragging out a new guide from ruler (or moving an existing guide from indicator on ruler) will automatically turn guide visibility on in all OSs Crop Tool
Enter as well as return now commits a crop Escape now resets the crop Brush Panel
Generally tightened panel up somewhat so less vertical space was being used. Brush names if you have chosen to show them are now justified to left Light UI should now hopefully look correct Modifying a brush using drag shortcuts (e.g. ctrl+alt+click drag left and right) keeps brush selection in panel (and shown as modified as appropriate). Raster mesh and perspective live filters in pixel persona
Now added correctly in Windows version so the live versions of these filters are available Have now added to pixel persona in the iPad version of Designer. You will have two new options under the + button in Layers panel where you can choose to add either of these live filter layers. Vector flood fill
New icon has been added for tool to distinguish between the raster flood fill tool in Affinity Photo When you are in tool you can now drag and drop swatches directly from the swatches panel into any area the fill tool recognises from your selection If you are in "In Between" mode the additional shapes / fills which are created are automatically added to your selection so if you subsequently change the fill of them again additional shapes are not created. Bitmap fills are now supported. This means you can pick a bitmap fill swatch from swatches to use as your fill colour (or drag and drop a bitmap fill swatch into the appropriate area). Few notes on this: Currently if the bitmap fill has transparency this will be added as an additional fill (in appearance panel), so can be added as a texture over an existing colour fill. It's a cool feature, but we probably need to add a modifier / option in context toolbar about whether you want that to do that vs. replace the fill altogether. You will notice in the context toolbar some new options for min, max and stretch to fit. These options are only relevant for bitmap and gradient fills and determines how the gradient or bitmap are scaled within the new fill being created. A nice thing to try is when you are in fill tool you can drag from assets into your active colour on the toolbar to automatically create a bitmap fill to use - as shown in the video below. Texture Fills.mov
Blend mode shortcuts
Erase bend mode now available to configure on macOS and iPad Ordering of blend mode list and default keys should now be consistent between operating systems Close All
Apply to all check box now been added to macOS dialog if you have currently open unsaved / modified documents.
Various bug fixes
Of course there are also various bug fixes - you can find the list of these on the second post in the fix list thread.
Thanks again for all your help.
Ash
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Hilltop reacted to Patrick Connor in 2.1 bug fix list
The Improvements in build 2.1.0.1709 are found in this post
Here's a list of some of the bugs which have been fixed in 2.1.0.1709.
Please reply in this forum only to comment on any fixes which are in this list (in particular to let us know if you notice that something we say is fixed isn't!) To report any new bugs please do that against the relevant new feature post, or if unrelated to new functionality in the Other bugs & issues forum.
Bugs affecting all platforms
Adjustments fail to show Preset Names when category is displayed. AFP-5944 File exports to EXR with artifacts/alpha issues. Mesh Warp can break when adjusting warp. AFP-4863 Warp Group exported to PDF results in clipped objects. AFD-6306 Page hyperlinks don't shift when pages inserted. Guides - + snap to units based on delta rather than origin. Insert index does not create a new break if not inserted at the beginning of a paragraph [Publisher] Bugs affecting Desktop (Windows and macOS)
Vertically flipping a copied Pixel selection retains bounding box from original Pixel layer, incorrectly flipped with the new layer and visually clips pasted pixel layer. AFP-5946 Luminosity Mask gives incorrect results due to clipping range. AFP-5840 ISO Value from EXIF data is capped at 65536. AFP-4990 Pixel brush in use loses focus when resized using ctrl+alt+L click drag. Exporting a specific file to SVG shows no progress bar. Docx - index entries not being imported. Creating a table and then placing an XLSX file will cause the cell text to inherit the previous table's stroke width. AFB-7158 No Undo step for autoflowing text when frame is on a master [Publisher]. AFB-7111 Some custom formulas aren't importing correctly [Publisher]. AFB-7027 Bugs affecting Windows
Windows pixel persona has warp group button on layers panel. Layers Panel: If a nested layer is collapsed with Alt held down, it collapses the nested layer below. Live perspective / Warp - added as destructive version on Windows. UI needs spacing adding between each input box on Colour Chooser. Unable to use Ctrl click to select objects on Windows with the Vector Flood Fill Tool Show as list/Show Brush Names missing from Designer on Windows. Crash when Shape builder tool is selected. AFD-6239 Adding a preset to an Adjustment Layer will cause the app to crash. AFB-7306 Export as PDF icons overrun the Anchor panel's default width. Bugs affecting macOS
User issue: Gets error when apps are first launched showing, prevents apps from opening. HUB-220 Missing font dialog prevents the other apps from opening. Frequency Separation, destructive Gaussian Blur and High Pass: corruption/thin colored lines. AFP-5936 High Pass filter rendering issue. AFP-5858 Attached file crashes Publisher on open. AFB-7285 Large area occupied by tickboxes in AutoCorrect preferences prevents scrolling Preferences [Publisher]. Bugs affecting iPad
Changing adjustment category on an iPad crashes the app. Send anonymous usage information has no toggle on iPad beta. AFB-7307 -
Hilltop reacted to debraspicher in Thank you, Serif
Thank you for taking all of the feedback from the forums and making strides to be more accessible during development. (I haven't seen any other threads on the topic, so I had to make one)
The "new" Beta forums work better than the "old" forums, imo. This is a winning formula. It is more organized. The context provided regarding each feature add/decision makes it much easier for me to see where to prioritize feedback. I've appreciated the peek into the development process, but more importantly, that we can participate in the process.
I can only speak for myself, but thank you for this. For taking the time to open up the process and more importantly, being awesome. I'm genuinely excited to see where things are heading and I think that V2 will be more awesome than V1 given some time.
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Hilltop reacted to Ash in Alt / Option - drag to duplicate in layers panel
Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
With any layer(s) selected in the Layers panel, you can now hold alt (Windows) or Option (Mac / iPad) and drag to create a copy of the selected layers. The duplicated layers will be inserted into the layer stack in the position you have dragged to.
Note: on iPad you will need a keyboard attached, or use the command controller to access the option modifier for this operation.
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Hilltop reacted to Ash in Brush panel improvements
Apps: Designer and Photo
Platforms: Windows and macOS
A few improvements have been made to the brush panel on desktop...
1. You can now choose to show brush names
In the brush panel burger menu you can now optionally choose to display the brush name in the panel.
2. Alt-drag now duplicates a brush
3. Brush panel now always highlights the current brush
Previously when you first selected a brush it would be highlighted in the panel, but as soon as you made any change to the brush from its default settings (e.g. change the width) then it would no longer be highlighted. The new behaviour is as follows:
1. When you first select a brush it should be highlighted blue
2. If you change any temporary settings for the brush (e.g. width, hardness, etc.) the brush will remain highlighted but highlight colour changed to red
3. If you change brush tools (e.g. between paint brush and eraser) which have different brushes selected, the panel will now automatically switch categories if needed, meaning you can immediately see your selected brush for the tool you have just switched to.
4. If you have changed any of the temporary properties of a brush you can choose to update the brush to use those as the default settings of that brush. This is available from a right-click on the brush -> Update Brush.
5. Alternatively if you want to reset the brush back to default settings you can choose Reset Brush.
4. Nozzle preview visibility improved
In V2 we added the ability to view your brushes as a grid of nozzle thumbnails without the preview of the stroke (panel burger menu -> uncheck "Show as List"). However, the contrast of the nozzle preview in this view could sometimes be very low, depending on the nozzle itself. We've made some tweaks in 2.1 to hopefully improve things.
Please note: These are mostly just desktop only improvements, although iPad versions do now show a brush as being modified with highlight colour changed to red. While it's not available yet, iPad versions will also have the ability to update a modified brush (from t left swipe menu on the brush) in a future build.
