Graymare

Well, I'm not buying another version until at least some of these problems are fixed.  And it looks like none of them have been.
FFS, it shouldn't take six years to get a program to give users the option of defaulting to the original file location for saving!

Ok Dan, i will try not to explode...
Could you please (preferably fix them) read the bug reports in advance 😬
I allready spent some 2 hours to reproduce and post some meaningfull bug reports with screenshot and descriptions...
Look here:
and here
and here
and elsewhere for v1.x
💭

That doesn't help. (If you mean this thread.)
Making tiles in Affinity Photo is possible with Affine, that's simple.  But actually using them in Affinity Photo is the feature that's being asked for here. There's no easy way (that I've found) to automatically tile an image inside an Affinity Photo workspace outside of a vector shape fill, nor to paint with one as a seamless pattern with a pixel brush.  Photoshop has/had both of these features.

Yes please.
One of the features I'm most sorely missing having migrated from Photoshop is Pattern Fill / Pattern Layer Style / Pattern Brush.  There are workarounds (applying patterns to shapes, saving those as styles, etc.) but good pattern implementation would be very welcome.  Ideally Affinity Photo would be able to read PS's .pat files.  

I am very concerned at being completely unable to pull a window tab free so I could put two pictures side by side. Conversely separated mode is a battle to try and get everything sitting where it needs to be in order to work.  I'm no UI expert but I can tell you having recently transitioned from Photoshop, it doesn't feel good.  

Yes please.
One of the features I'm most sorely missing having migrated from Photoshop is Pattern Fill / Pattern Layer Style / Pattern Brush.  There are workarounds (applying patterns to shapes, saving those as styles, etc.) but good pattern implementation would be very welcome.  Ideally Affinity Photo would be able to read PS's .pat files.  

I could really use a destructive crop method that can be triggered by shortcuts for processing large numbers of files. I know that many people would say that having a  non-destructive crop is better...just not in all circumstances.
Here's the scenario.I am managing a hundreds of photos of students for our school database. The photos are all rapidly taken with lots of extraneous background and very poor centring. They are also just too big in file size and bloat the database if loaded as taken (yes I know, better source photos would be great, taken at a lower resolution...yes we have tried to train the staff)
This was possible in photoshop with a selection and a series of shortcuts:
Rectangular selection (based on a ratio) Crop (user defined key strokes) Image size (Shift-Command I) Save at a lower resolution (Command S and offered at save time) In photoshop I managed about 200 files in about 25 minutes.
This would take hours in Affinity - batch won't work because this would require the same selection to be made each time.
What do you think? I know others miss this too...
As a second best, the ability to click-drag to expand the crop selection (ie expand from centre not at edge or corner) would be very welcome

I cannot fathom how this is now 4 years in the making and still no action, considering this is such a hygiene factor. This is one of the reasons that makes it difficult to motivate a continuous use – of any kind – with Photo and I rather just revert to Adobe CC Suite DESPITE having both Affinity Photo AS WELL AS Affinity Designer installed.

I often even go for Designer directly without even bothering with Photo cause I know it will iron things like this out in the export. Number of times I have properly used Photo is zero (ok, half a time, does that count?) while Designer has helped me deliver year after year – and this is after 5 yrs with both licenses. Not once has Photo delivered due to stupid basic hygiene problems like this. 

That's why I constantly go back to the Adobe CC subscription anyway, at the end of the day it just gets the problem solved and the delivery out there, not like Photo where I have to struggle to get even basic stuff done.

FRUSTRATION.

For that reason I want to give this a serious bump up here in the comments.

I am very concerned at being completely unable to pull a window tab free so I could put two pictures side by side. Conversely separated mode is a battle to try and get everything sitting where it needs to be in order to work.  I'm no UI expert but I can tell you having recently transitioned from Photoshop, it doesn't feel good.  

Or how about this situation?  Here's what happens to my carefully straightened and cropped shot when I Resize the Canvas to try (unsuccessfully, of course) to add a white mat-like border around my image!  A snap in Photoshop; endless frustration in Affinity Photo.  This is the point where I throw up my hands, export as a Tiff to freeze the crop, then re-open the Tiff and finish in APhoto.
 
<Large file removed>

Add a layer above your picture.  Set it to Screen or Overlay.
Add a Mask to this layer.  With an appropriately sized brush, mask just the cable sections that are too dark.  You may need to blur/smudge the areas that softly gradient out.  Click on one end of the cable, and shift-click on the other to draw straight lines with the Brush tool.
Back on the normal layer set on Screen/Overlay, use a white brush to blend out the shadows. Go back and refine the mask as needed.
Alternately you can adjust a copy of that image so the dark cables are the correct brightness and reverse-mask them onto the original, however it looks like some of the areas are quite variable in darkness so I'd feel the former method would yield a more controlled end result in less time. 

Ok, let's address these separately:
No, I do not have a video example yet, and unfortunately I shall not be doing one of those until after the 24th, as I have a keynote presentation to make, hundreds of pages to print and annotate and a few books and papers (including my entire dissertation) to review yet again. But I'll try and do a few after that, in between sending out CVs and going on vacation.
As for the second one, it depends on the app; Safari, Finder, etc., (i.e. apps that open multiple windows, but which aren't necessarily documents) allow you to open new windows in a “old-school” way (usually cascading, though when they are full height they open side by side) by pressing Command+N, and tabbed, by pressing Command+T, whereas Photoshop allows you to set the default as a global preference. In either kind of app and default setting, you can always dock and undock windows from tabs (though in the Finder and Safari, to dock single windows to a different window you must have “Show tab bar enabled”.
Now, the entire CS suite, traditionally, worked in a Application Frame-less state, with docked/floating toolbars, toolboxes and panels, and floating document windows that, when zoomed, would automatically fit the available space, as long as the Workspace (i.e. the Studio, in Adobe's parlance) was fully docked. The intermediate step, if I am not mistaken, was the addition of tabbed windows. And the ultimate step was the addition of an Application Frame, which looked and worked precisely like all versions of Adobe apps since Illustrator v.1 on Windows, Corel on Windows, and Affinity's default mode since its inception on both OSes. But, to this day, you can still work with Adobe CC's DTP portion (the old Design Standard/Premium subset of the larger Master Collection, which equates roughly to Affinity, except for the added bonus of Acrobat Pro) in that “classic Mac” mode.
I've since stopped working in that mode in Illustrator and InDesign, mostly because of the advent of Affinity (so I would get used to the Application Frame, because Affinity's Separated Mode was and still is suboptimal), and also because I get spoiled with my 27'' iMac with 40 GB of memory and open too many windows for Exposé/Mission Control to be useful (though I usually work around that by using a dedicated desktop just for DTP apps) but I keep working in that mode in Photoshop. There's no other way to easily move entire layers across documents, period. And there's no split document view/automatic tiling on Affinity Photo, either, so… Yeah, things look a bit bleak. I tested Affinity Photo the other day for a pro bono project (basically I was recreating a vaporwave filter a friend of mine used on some Android app, except on a proper photo editor and with the original, full-res image), and I did have to compare two files side by side, which forced me to fidget with window resizing operations to get my views just right, something which, on Photoshop, would've been a breeze. Now imagine if I had to an operation across four different files at the same time or something? Imagine if I had to do that every day, for 8 hours?
So, in a nutshell – and, unfortunately, only in screenshot form, and not video screen capture –, this is what I wish for. I would like to see toolbars docking to the edges of the screen, and windows not sliding behind them (whether when performing the Window>Zoom/Option+Green button command, or when manually dragging the title bar behind them), just like in Adobe CC and other old school Mac apps. Seriously, try it out on any Adobe app on a Mac (you have to turn off the Application frame first, though; it's akin to Separated Mode, except… it's functional, useful and most definitely intuitive and not frustrating in the least): when the viewport zoom level is small, the windows will neatly wrap around the content, when it's high and makes the canvas exceed your screen size the windows will neatly snap to the docked UI elements, and then you try and drag the windows behind them, no matter how far you push them, their titlebars will always snap back into full view. And this is good, well-researched UX. Is it too much to ask?

Hi guys. Once again, I'm sorry for overusing my “CRITICAL & OVERDUE” “tag” of sorts, but… until the end of the v.1.x cycle, better get used and pay attention to it. I'm reserving it only for the most glaring omissions, especially those which damage Affinity apps' reputation the most as professional tools.
Anyway, I digress; what I'm asking is: please make Affinity apps (especially Photo, where it makes the most sense) under Separated Mode behave like all Adobe apps when the Application Frame is disabled, FontLab 5.x, Microsoft Office X/2004/2008 for Mac, AppleWorks, and pretty much every classic Mac app with floating UI elements since 1984. Nineteen-freaking-eighty-four; those are thirty+ years of muscle memory for some users (in my case, it's only a respectable 16, but still).
Floating palettes and other UI elements have a reason to exist, but they also should work in a sensible and intuitive fashion, otherwise you might as well not have them at all. If you decided to implement a “Separated Mode”, at least take the time to fully learn, understand and respect Apple's Human Interface Guidelines (and, by extension, Mac users). Don't make the same mistakes Microsoft did with their infamous, universally-hated Microsoft Word 6 for Mac (source: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/rick_schaut/2004/02/26/mac-word-6-0/ ).
As it stands, the Separated Mode is very cumbersome, forcing users to painstakingly resize windows by hand, one by one, so that they fit on the screen and fit their content, aren't obscured by the floating UI elements (which forces them to switch to another app or toggling the Studio just so they can grab their titlebars), etc. Making them dockable and properly coding the document windows and Zoom behaviour to prevent those scenarios would allow one to open several windows in cascade, side by side, tiled, etc.
I should add that the Window>Zoom command/green “+” titlebar button is not MS Windows' “Maximize”!!! We all know that Serif devs come from a Windows background, and this is a common misconception former Windows devs have, and a common error they commit, when porting their apps to the Mac. To make matters worse, the Affinity apps actually started out as Mac-only but never even behaved properly as such, ever. Please make that button behave precisely like in Photoshop, Preview, TextEdit, Pages, etc. Will it be inconsistent with the Windows version? Maybe, yes. But it should, first and foremost, be coherent with the host OS. On the Mac, that command/button should be a toggle between a default/custom size and a “fit-to-content” size (which can be very useful in Affinity Photo, and which I constantly use in Photoshop, Preview, etc.), and not a “maximise button”; for that, we have the default Fullscreen behaviour.
Better yet: under Separated Mode please disable Fullscreen for the green button and make it Zoom (properly, please) by default. Seriously, try activating Separated Mode and opening a document window in Fullscreen; it's not very useful and doesn't bring much to the table, functionality-wise, over opening the app in regular mode and making it Fullscreen am I right? I'm willing to bet that maybe 0,0001% of your users ever turn to that particular combo… At least, please allow the user to set the default behaviour under Preferences.
Yes, I know this is no longer the default “green button” behaviour in macOS, and that Apple is pushing us heavily towards Fullscreen mode. But seriously, until Apple disables it altogether (and I reckon they never will, as they keep selling huge iMacs and now will start selling the even bigger Pro Display XDR, which will be a massive hit with pro photographers), please implement it correctly for the users who still use the Window>Zoom command. It's the least you can do as a self-respecting Mac developer.

Yes please, this is a basic and constantly used function for almost all my workflows.  Not having Transparency Lock as a possibility for layers is very perplexing.

I can't find any easy way how to *really* crop the whole document.
The crop just changes the size of the canvas but it keeps the bigger layers intact. That's usually fine but my documents tend to become rather messy so I often want to get rid of all leftovers beyond the edges of the canvas. As far as I know I have to use Layer - Rasterize & Trim on each layer and that's rather tedious.
It would be really nice if you could add a new option "Trim" directly to Crop.

Unfortunately, there is still no level-based transparency protection function. Some tools like the paint brush have this option ("Protect transparency"). For other tools like the Gradient Tool this option is missing. This option should be independent of the tools in the layer panel and should apply to an active layer.

First of all, I must congratulate you because your software is (almost) perfect!
But I would strongly, STRONGLY suggest to do something with gradient tool. This thing does not remember settings - each time I use it I have to go trough process of setting up of what I want. In addition, instead of just painting a gradient on active layer it creates an object (rectangular box that is completely useless) with a gradient, it behaves like a tool in vector program, not bitmap editor.
It is basically not possible to quickly paint several gradients on a layer. When I try to paint second one, it immediately erases previous one.
Also, in gradient tool there is gradient editor (quite complete and functional) in top context menu, but for some reason there is no such function on the dockers? It should be easy to move the same thing to color editing window/docker.
 
PLEASE, make gradient tool behave like in Krita or Photoshop, ie like a kind of brush (after we paint gradient we should be able immediately create new one without any confirmations or clicking). Ability to 'dynamically modify gradient' is something that should be reserved to Designer, not bitmap editor. Also the direction in which we paint the gradient is counter intuitive (ie opposite of all other programs) - the gradient ends with chosen color instead of starting with it.
 
 

If you search for "tiles using affine" (including the quotes), you should find some helpful threads.
John

Yes please.
One of the features I'm most sorely missing having migrated from Photoshop is Pattern Fill / Pattern Layer Style / Pattern Brush.  There are workarounds (applying patterns to shapes, saving those as styles, etc.) but good pattern implementation would be very welcome.  Ideally Affinity Photo would be able to read PS's .pat files.  

I would like to request that Affinity Photo add the features of pattern tile creation and fill.
One should be able to define a rectilinear selection as a pattern tile, and be able to use that as a repeating fill. The pattern tile might be a repeating graphic motif, suitable for a wallpaper pattern, or it might be a material texture used to render surfaces.
In the case of creating seamless texture pattern tiles, it would also be useful to build an offset filter that would allow one to offset a tile diagonally and wrap the edge pixels so that a clone stamp tool or an in-painting brush tool could eliminate visual seams for the repeating tile pattern.

Hi Affinity,   As a member of the Affinity converted with Designer and Publisher, I have used Affinity software for my digital agency and there are presentations of mine in the exec offices of some global automakers. This work used to be done with InDesign but I switched over to Designer two years ago and used multipage artboards to work on my projects. When Publisher Beta came out I was on cloud nine, and then when StudioLink came out I really needed psychotherapy to cure my OCD with Publisher. Such an amazing, groundbreaking workflow.   I also took a very deep dive on Photo, the latest store version and also the beta. I have a collection of thousands of Photoshop files and many of them opened up flawlessly. I also love the refined UI. And now rotating brushes are amazing! I seriously don’t know why Photoshop hasn’t done that yet, but consider that it took them many years to enable CMD-Z. You guys had live preview first but they soon adopted that, so it is clear they are watching what you are doing. I would like to come over 100% to Affinity but I have several issues that prevent me from doing so. Also, I do realize that this is a monumental task - Photoshop really is Adobe’s flagship, more so than any of their products. It was easy to switch over to Designer from Illustrator, really easy even with features missing (perspective warp please! - although doing that in StudioLink). Right now I am adept enough at Photo as and use it within a StudioLink context but not standalone and here’s what’s preventing me:   Smart Objects. Before I begin, I know Adobe is never going to let you in on Smart Objects. PSD documents that include them will open up with these layers rasterized. But let’s consider that your embedded documents are pretty much there. I can add a Photo or Designer file to Photo or Designer or Publisher and I can edit the document just as I would a smart object, and see live updating on the master document - which is ahead of Photoshop in that regard.  Also if it’s a Designer file in Photo I can edit in Designer without leaving Publisher or Photo.) In Photoshop you can only edit a vector with Illustrator). Then with the embedded document I can add a few live filters such as Distort>Perspective - which is a favorite in working in a mockup scenario. As a live filter I can go back and change the settings. I can also add some live blurs and a few other things.  Sadly, the other Distort live filters don’t work as they have no effect on the embedded object. If you apply a non-live filter then the embedded document rasterizes, and then this gets destructive especially when placing a vector in a Photo document. I don’t mind converting my Photoshop PSB files (smart object files) to PSD then placing as embedded documents.  This way I can have my entire core design and logo files standardized as Affinity vector and raster files, but the inability to do pinching and liquifying and other types of warping and shading stops me from doing this.  Also there is no way to take a group of layers in Photo and convert easily to an embedded document. I really love how this works in Photoshop. It’s essential to my work, and this is the main thing keeps me on Photoshop. Hopefully Affinity can continue development here.   Brushes. While I was praising brushes in Photo there is one simply itsy bitsy thing that is absolutely essential to my work. I need the brushes labeled with their actual names, as they are done in Photoshop. Photoshop has brush flyout panels - if you extend the panels. I have over two thousand brushes and it’s just too difficult to know what’s what in Photo.  Even if there are groups, I can’t tell what the individual brushes are if there are two many.  I can hover over the brush and then see if I’ve selected the correct one - this works well if you have a few brushes but not if you have so so many.   LUTs. I love the live presets on LUTs. But honestly it is a chore to import them as presets.  Also it takes too long to load the adjust layer presets. Photoshop allows you to add all the LUT files to the programs preset folder. Restart photoshop and they are all there.   Pattern fills. Oh pattern fills. I keep reading in the forum that this is a badly needed feature and so I am throwing myself into this group. Yes I can work around this and have done so… but why? It’s so easy in Photoshop and I have a library of so many .pat files that I would love to use in Photo, just as I have converted my brushes, color files (with online converters) and gradients.   Blend Options. I love your layer blend options UI - really easier to use than Photoshop.  But shouldn’t it be part of Layer Effects?  I want to add color fills for instance and select the blend options right then and there, so I can see what I’m doing as I can in Photoshop.   Feathered masks. If I want to feather a mask in Photoshop I simply go to the mask properties and then adjust the feathering. In Photo I can’t feather a mask that’s been applied to an adjustment effect directly. I have to move the mask to a layer above, then apply a live filter, and then move the mask and its filter under the adjustment effect.  I have to do these things all the time and this seems oddly cumbersome.    

The biggest problem isn't, when you create vectors, but when you need read vector pdf. You have really great pdf read features, but when it come to patterns, its useless. I work as architect and I often edit vector based sheets (plans, views...), and when I edit these pdf's, Designer doesn't convert pattern, worst is that it destroys them!! I had pattern of concrete and voila - i have dirt... Maybe you think, its not important, but for us - architects, designers, CAD users - its really huge problem... The same as missing selection by parameter (up to fill, color...)

One solution could be to keep the current "Affinity on Desktop Questions (Mac and Windows)" section but when a user is submitting a question they have to choose from a pull-down titled "Choose relevant product" that includes 'Designer', 'Photo', 'Publisher' or 'All', and this automatically places (for example) an [Affintiy Designer] tag in front of the person's question. Colour code these tags for easy browsing.

Well, I  support this for the full 100%.
This has been suggested several times ...

e.g.
 
Sorry, but I'm tired of struggling through all these discussions that I'm not interested in ! 
And that is why I have stopped trying to be helpful for the time being.
 

I see the same issue in Affinity Photo 1.7.1 on my Mac. Even if enable "Use ⇧ to cycle tools", even if I set the keyboard shortcut for the Gradient Tool to something not used for anything else like "K" (which shows in the tooltip & works to switch to the Gradient Tool), or set the keyboard shortcut to nothing, G continues to activate the tool.