design.stuff

@MEB it appears that having a purchased license number is indeed required (no "may be required"), so there won't be trying it again, afterall. Please do us all the favor of letting us know when the feature is actually released into a trial version. And if you'd like someone to test against a large set of Photoshop and Illustrator smart objects and PSBs, please just ask.

That's great news @MEB. Where can I try the beta builds? I don't see them when I go to download trials.

Thank you for the response, @MEB. From what you've said, the take-away message is that my many years of work and experiments might not survive if I were to switch from Adobe to Affinity apps. I appreciate the honesty, though of course I'm disappointed that the migration process might prove impossible, just based on all those unknowns and moving target issues you mention. No doubt, Affinity is a great choice for someone just starting, or who finds themselves without complex Photoshop files. Seems like an easy choice, for those cases!

@MEB As the OP, will I be notified when the upcoming version is available so that I can test it? And as stated in my initial post, I was evaluating AD and AP back in early August when I encountered the problem. Now that my eval period is past, I suspect I won't be able to download and evaluate the update. Is that correct? If so, what do you recommend? Third, does Affinity have a fixed set of test files it uses to check each release before it goes out? If so, please give me some explanation of how the PSB issue came about. As explained earlier, I'm evaluating and would consider switching from Photoshop and Illustrator, but if PSB files were working in a previous release and then suddenly weren't, as someone reliant on my templates and such, I'd be furious and would consider the Affinity products a lost cause. I'd like to feel confident that the software QA process is better structured than it seems from this one incident.

I see this has been discussed in the past as "I have a PSB which doesn't open" with the common reply of "please send us the file". My situation is one in which not even one of my PSB files will open. Is there a file size limitation? A general Smart Object limitation? Or perhaps a Smart Filter problem? Attached is a PSB from another designer from a "give credit" stock site (IconFinder.com) as an example of something basic which won't open in AP. Thanks for any help and pointers. (I'm evaluating AP and AD as Photoshop and Illustrator replacements, but with so many years of files in my archive and among my current work, I need to feel certain that my work and experimental "idea" files won't be lost in the switch.) iconfinder_galaxy_3285297.psb