When_Subscription

If by Adobed, you mean providing fast, stable, feature rich industry standard apps, then the answer is no. If you're referring to screwing their customers over and likely heading toward a heavily cloud-based subscription mode, I would lean to yes on that one.

Being curious I thought I'd see what the Canva Pro offering is all about. So, on the main page I am presented with a trial button with the option to pay by the month for $19.99 AUD, yet once that start trial button is clicked, I'm immediately presented with a monthly cost of $39.99. A quick look online (Reddit etc) and it would appear Canva has done doubled their pricing at some point this year, and the pricing is currently "unintentionally" being misrepresented on the hook page. It's been like this for what looks to be a month or more. If that's how Canva does business, I want nothing to do with them. On the bright side, I managed to reinstate my Adobe student (All Apps) subscription for under $30, that of which trumps anything both Canva and Affinity are currently offering combined. I now look forward to the speed and reliability of Illustrator, even though I will miss Designer's simplified UI. Goodbye my fellow ex/Affinity supporters. It was fun while it lasted.

It's not so much about moving to a subscription for me if the software is deserving, it's more about WHO I would be giving money to. I hate Canva with a passion, they have no regard for the design professional and like most big companies are only in it for the money. So, if I'm faced with a decision of which evil to give my money to between Adobe and Canva, I'll just stick with the devil I know (Adobe), at least I know their software is up to snuff and their files are compatible almost anywhere.

The sad part is they actually don't. As both an Affinity AND Adobe user, I much prefer the user interface and consistency between Affinity apps, but that's about as far as things go. Personally, I've had many freezes, crashes and slowdowns in Affinity. There's a slather of missing functions in Affinity apps that have been in competitor (including free) software for years, file compatibility issues with commercial software etc. I honestly can't recall my last crash or instability issue with Adobe software. So, with that argument in mind, subscription or not, if the Affinity software doesn't receive a decent injection of functionally and stability under Canva, I'll gladly stop paying for it. Many of us are here simply because of Affinity's visions, and that one day the software might be close to perfect. I have no loyalty to Canva, and personally don't like them as a company.

You don't agree that hearing the news direct from the very company we have invested in and supported over many years would have been better than hearing it from somewhere else? It's not about quick cancel the trade, if it's going to happen it will, it's more about respect in my opinion. And yes, many users are upset to being sold to Canva, a company that set out on destroying the design industry for a quick buck.

Yep, as Ash said, nothing changes.... until it does.

It definitely feels like we've been played, lied to, burned, on sold if you will. But, unfortunately, it's a timely reminder that entire the world revolves around money. And as a business grows to the heights of Affinity, it's no longer about "satisfying end user", it all about satisfying the wants of investors, and lining the pockets of those at the top. Us mere peasants serve no purpose but to buy into the startup story, and consume, over and over again. The sad reality is, most won't switch to the competition, because they're just as bad, so instead we'll stick with the lessor of two evils. But only time will tell, I guess.

Canva announcement https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/affinity/

Well holy sh#t, I was about to post the old "what chu talkin bout Willis" line, but thought I'd do a quick Google first, and wow 😲 This is HUGE news, and I'm a little miffed we didn't hear it first from the company we have supported and trusted for many years. I personally hate what Canva has done to the design industry, however I can only assume they have the $$ and resources to actually give Adobe a run for their money, on top of that we may finally get image tracing!! Speaking of money, we should prepare for the inevitable subscription-based model, and / or price increase to return the unconfirmed billion-dollar acquisition to investors pockets. Overall, I'm quite torn about this news, yet not surprised. The honeymoon is over.

I’m happy to pay for quality feature complete software, that of which v2 is not. It might be fine for the average home user, but for professional use (which its marketed as) there’s still too much functionality missing, and unfortunately development is too slow.

It’s a steep price to pay for a couple extra tools (which should have already been included already) and a coat of paint done on a budget. I’m not sold on it unfortunately.

I heard some talk a while back about the possibility of them being bought out down the track, and at that time I was like no fricken way, but as things currently stand I would gladly welcome such news.

I think the lack of resources thing is just a cop out. Serif claim to have millions of people using their newest products, not to mention the money they made from the old ones. Now I don't know about anyone else, but I've purchased 3 products on PC and another 2 on the iPad, so in terms of revenue these guys have done very well for just a small team. Honestly I've lost all hope in Affinity products ever reaching the claimed "professional" software status. Development seems to have just stopped and loyal customers have been left in the lurch for quite some time now, no updates or teasers on what's to come, no highly requested features being released, nothing, not a peep. I think they've made their retirement money, and now they're simply milking as much coin from the current release until it fizzles out, which it very much is. I'm not even bothering to install Affinity on my new computer which is sad because the products had a lot of potential.

You should download and install 1.8.2 as they have fixed many boolean operation bugs.

It's really not a great look for those who rely on the software for work. I'm just hoping Serif sort these issues out quickly and we don't see a repeat in future updates. Sadly if we do, I'll regrettably have to switch back to Adobe and will no longer be able to recommend the products, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on this.

I was responding to haakoo's "are you sure you got the latest beta" comment. Next version is fine, but really it shouldn't be broken at this stage in the game.

Thanks for the response Mark, yes I'm a Windows user. I understand these things can be difficult to catch so I won't be too hard on you guys, I just wanted to share my thoughts on things as someone who relies on the software for work. While I haven't used the beta versions previously, I might have to give them a go from time to time and do my part reporting any issues I encounter. Again, I love the software you guys have created, and like yourself I really just want the best out of it.

Like many, I have come across a variety of issues / bugs in 1.8. So my question is, why do we have so many bugs in the public release considering the lengthy beta testing that goes on? I just don't understand how so many bugs could have gone unnoticed during the testing phase. I absolutely love Affinity products, but it kind of makes me wonder if I've made the right choice in switching from Adobe software, even more so when much needed tools keep getting pushed aside with every release. Anyway, I hope future releases are much more production ready when they reach the public, because I really don't want to have to fire up my Adobe subscription again.

Happens for me too 😕. BTW, not everyone is using the beta version.

Yep, do it already.

That's a shame. I wonder why the global colour function worked as expected for the first group of objects, but not for the second group, the process was exactly the same.

Here's a video of what I'm talking about. It's strange that it works fine for the first lot of objects (the green squares), but then acts differently for the second lot. As I said, if I had 100+ objects all using the same colour, based on my testing it would seem I could add that colour as a global swatch after the objects were created, but I would then need to select every single layer that uses that colour and re-assign the colour in order for global changes to occur.

Thanks Jowday, I have been playing around with it and it still seems very hit and miss. I get different results every time I do it. It seems weird that you could have say 100 objects in a particular colour, add that colour as a global swatch only to have to re-apply that colour to all 100 objects in order to get global colour changes to work. That seems broken to me. Personally the way it is doesn't seem to be very useful unless you've 100% created your global colour palette before commencing work.

One thing I'm still confused about, is that right clicking on an object and adding it's fill colour as global, does absolutely nothing when you change the colour of the swatch. I feel like changes to the swatch should do something in this case 🙄 Edit, this function seems very hit and miss. Sometimes it will change just one objects colour, in some case two out of three, and at times it won't change the colour of any objects, only the swatch. BTW, I'm just using the square tool if that makes any difference. To replicate, draw 3 squares in a colour of your choice, right click and add it as a global colour, now edit the global swatch. For me in this case, all 3 squares seem to update. Now draw another 3 squares in a different colour, add as global colour and adjust the global swatch for that colour, for me only the last square updates, the other two remain unchanged.

Well I'll be damned, it works lol.I had looked everywhere for a tutorial explaining how to use global colours but didn't find anything useful. Thank you guys, I appreciate the help.