Elbowes
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Posts posted by Elbowes
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1 hour ago, Elbowes said:
I have discovered a propriety, pro-level, cross-platform DTP application in the form of VivaDesigner.
It's nowhere near as intuitive as Affinity Publisher though. Has the main features you'd expect from a modern DTP application, but still quite frustrating to use (early days of testing). Ho hum.
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Greetings,
I have discovered a propriety, pro-level, cross-platform DTP application in the form of VivaDesigner:
http://www.viva.us/en/products/desktop-publishing/vivadesigner-desktop-version
It's not priced as competitively as Affinity Publisher. The personal version is priced £99, though this version misses key features.
The commercial version costs £280, which pushes us back into InDesign territory. There is a free version, but it is very limited.
In any case, it may prove a viable alternative for serious Linux users desperate for Affinity-quality apps on their platform (particularly if someone else is paying the bills).
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The gentleman who taught me typesetting used to say much the same. He began his career using hot metal typesetting, until phototypesetting came along. He reckoned it all went downhill from the 1980s on, when everything began to transition to computers. 🙂
- SrPx and AdamStanislav
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10 hours ago, SrPx said:
Even so I prefer functionality and solid function, bug free, over UI excellence.
True. And I guess UI comfort also has a lot to do with familiarity.
In my first attempt to use Mac as a Windows 7 user, I just couldn't get on with it and ultimately went back. There was nothing wrong with OSX... I just wasn't used to it.
I've now been using Mac for 5 years, so find Windows 10 jarring at times. But again, that's really just because I've got used to one more than the other.
As for Linux, yes, I've been through a multitude of distributions and desktop environments over the past 15 years to find one that suited me. Finally settled on a constant, simply because I'm getting too old and grumpy tinker anymore.
Looking back, it's also good to remember how I got here. Funny to see how picky I've become...
- Stop Press on an Amstrad PCW.
- Serif Page Plus on my first Windows desktop.
- Adobe PageMaker 5 at college.
- Adobe PageMaker 6.5 at university.
- Adobe PageMaker 6.5 + Photoshop 6 + CorelDraw 10 in first job.
- QuarkXpress 4.1 (second-hand licence) in second job.
- Adobe InDesign CS3 in next job.
- Stuck on Adobe CS5 Design Premium for a decade, originally on Windows then on Mac, until MacOS conclusively dropped 32bit app support.
- Switched to Affinity Photo and Designer at work.
- Added Affinity Publisher this year.
Really, I'm spoilt today!
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In the past week, I've begun experiencing high CPU usage in Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher on a powerful 2.9GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 MacBookPro with 16GB RAM.
I assumed it was another bad MacOS update (Catalina has been rather like Vista for me), so interesting to read people are experiencing as similar issue on Windows.
I will investigate further.
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21 hours ago, fde101 said:
You missed GIMP, Inkscape, and sK1, at least.
GIMP... I've never got on with. Same with Scribus. I feel like I'm driving Adobe PageMaker 6.5 circa 1997.
Inkscape.. I actually quite like this application and have used it cross-platform in the past, though again it reminds me of CorelDraw 8.
SK1 I hadn't come across -- so thanks.
The UI is my big gripe with a lot of Linux apps. They often feel so dated, though I'm glad that's beginning to change. e.g. OnlyOffice vs Libre Office.
A graphics app really ought to have visually pleasing interface. Serif does this really well with Affinity.
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14 hours ago, msdobrescu said:
@fde101, Blink is a fork of WebKit's component WebCore.
You did not answer the question, as long as Edge is based on the same as chrome, why not Chrome? Why Edge?
Cor blimey, this has run away and I was only gone a few hours. I'm the one who mentioned MS Edge, then someone else responded instead of me. And simply because I really like it. It's now my go-to browser on MacOS. Has better memory management than Google Chrome. May not be the same on Linux, of course. Will wait and see.
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Thanks @mokry for compiling that list.
I'm a big Affinity fan, utilising Designer, Photo and Publisher extensively on Mac at work.
Outside work, my go-to OS is Linux due to:
- Affordability: a new Mac, Surface or XPS laptop is way outside by budget.
- Performance: an old Mac that barely runs MacOS can be given a whole new lease of life.
- Sustainability: see above.
- SaaS: propriety software is increasingly moving to the web browser.
I think the reason some of us have embraced Linux is similar to the reason some of us former Adobe CC users embraced Affinity. It's not that we are averse to paying for excellent software, it's just that it has to be affordable and fair. Propriety applications such as Insync are invaluable, proving that people will pay for software if it meets their needs. And, shock horror, yes I will be using Microsoft Edge on Linux when it is released (MS Teams and Defender already in preview).
Sadly, in the non-3D graphics space, our options are limited to the likes of these:
- Pixeluvo: http://www.pixeluvo.com/
- Krita: https://krita.org/
- Gravit Designer: https://www.designer.io/
- Vectr: https://vectr.com/
- Mockuuups: https://mockuuups.studio/
They're passable for amateur/hobbyist use, but none are on a par with the Affinity apps.
As for the publisher space, there's really nothing that cuts the mustard natively, though I guess the like of Lucidpress, Canva and Pagination are trying to fill a gap from a SaaS perspective.
I completely understand why Serif won't develop for this platform --- clearly it has to make economic business sense, and at present it doesn't.
There is however an opportunity here for some bright sparks, who recognise what is going wrong in the dominant software-hardware ecosystem... extremely expensive hardware, crippled by increasingly poor OS updates... as well as the huge gap in the market in the 2D graphics space on Linux.
- Snapseed and msdobrescu
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Affinity products for Linux
in Feedback for the V1 Affinity Suite of Products
Posted
I've given up on Linux for any kind of publishing work. Managed to get myself a newish Mac Mini on clearance. Linux is passable for many things, but this isn't one of them.