chessboard

As far as I can see, there is a "show bleed" option in Designer in the View menu. Curiously it's missing in Photo. So no way to work in the bleed area in Photo, what is really annoying. Thus a +1 from me for this bug.

@ReturnThanks! I never understood this "Sync"-Button. Some things are so uncommon in Affinty, at least when comming from Adobe Illustrator. I alway thought of symbols as exact clones.

@Mark Daniel Thanks, that's cool! Would you mind to explain, how you did this? How did you get the three instances of the symbol to have different fill colours, and what do these dotted orange lines in the layers panel mean? For now I thougt all instances of a symbol are absolutely binded to the same appearance and that you can change the appearance only for all of them at once. But it seems that you can change the fill colour for example and keep the rest of the instance in sync with the symbol definition. Or am I wrong here?

Many good suggestions have already been made. For me, it would be nice if scripts were generally able to replicate (automate) workflows that I do "by hand" but have to repeat multiple times (20, 40, 60 or more times depending on the project). Therefore, it would be nice if scripting was able to control every part of the applications, such as making selections, arranging layers, applying filters, creating, duplicating, moving and deleting objects, opening and saving documents, switching between open documents, applying or changing object styles and so on. It would also be very helpful if scripts allowed the user to make adjustments while the script is running. For example, you could open the dialog for a filter and let the user make adjustments, and then after pressing "OK", continue the script taking into account the user's input. Or, even simpler, let the user select files using the open or save dialog. It would be even nicer to be able to create custom dialogs for scripts.

@Rick G Sorry, but you know who you are talking to, do you? 🤨

For me, as a user of Affinity applications, scripting is much more important than plug-ins. Scripting means that I am able to define a specific task myself that the software performs on its own (for example, batch processing a batch of graphic designs). Extending the software with plug-ins may be nice and even effective in some cases. But in my experience, plug-ins in Photoshop or Illustrator are far less important to my daily work than the ability to automate tasks by actions and scripting (in fact I really don't use the plug-ins I once installed at all). Often, plug-ins just provide a streamlined workflow or automate tasks (just what scripting is made for) rather than truly extending the software with new functions. Or on the other hand they are almost stand-alone software packages that would work better as separate applications (what they exactly do in some cases). Therefore from a users view, if we can't get a sophisticated macro or actions system in all the Affinity apps (like in Photoshop), scripting is all the more important. Way more important than plug-ins.

I think the most important thing is that the scripting works in the first place. Whether the language used for it satisfies the aesthetic demands of all users is secondary. JavaScript may not be a particularly attractive language for purists, but in the end, all that matters is that I, as a user, can tell the Affinity apps what to do, and they will do it. Everything else is an ivory tower discussion in my eyes. At least for the tasks that I expect a scripted graphic & photo design software to do. For other projects this discussion about the quality of programming languages may make sense.

I'm really excited to read all this about the upcomming scripting! I think this will take the Affintiy apps to a whole new level. Can't wait for the first release 😃

I would like to bring this up again. Double tap to Undo and/or Icons for Undo/Redo and Delete in the toolbar would really help and would be appropriate for a pen and touch device like a Surface. At the moment a keyboard is still needed when using Affinity on a Surface. That's counterproductive for a mobile device.

@stokerg thanks for the link! I tested the MSI/EXE install and I must say, that AD now feels so much snappier! I didn't test long (just 10 minutes for now, because of other things to do), but my first impression is, that the MSI-Version runs much more smoothly (even with OpenGL turned on). At the moment I can't see almost any delay between clicking an object on the canvas or in the layers palette and the object being highlighted. Even without real lagging, the MSIX-Version felt much stolid. I hope that this impression will be confirmed as I continue to work.

Hi @stokerg, my processor is an Intel i7-11370H in a Surface Laptop Studio. I turned off OpenCL now, but for the next days I don't have jobs to do in AD. I was testing yesterday for ca. 15 minutes and didn't see any lags. But when I turned in on again, there where no lags either, even with the documents that caused them before. Just selecting and moving objects around doesn't seem to produce lags, even with large documents. Sadly I am to busy at the moment to test further. Edit: I see, 2.0.4. is out! I will check this and stop testing 2.0.3.

Hi @stokerg , I would like to jump in here because I have exactly the same problem with AD V2.0.3. The problem that AD starts to become extremely slow is not dependent on specific files in my experience. It happens with very simple documents as well as with more complex ones. Unfortunately, I can't contribute actual files, as all my projects are custom work and subject to secrecy. These delays affect all areas of AD in my experience, but especially the selection of objects, whether on the canvas or in the Layers palette, but also painting, adjusting colours, applying effects and more. Some actions take seconds to be done. Strangely enough, other actions show no lags again. The lagging can occur instantly when starting to work with a document. In other cases it can take some time to see the lags. I suspect it may have something to do with the nesting of the objects. For example, painting on pixel layers often goes more smoothly when they are on the top level of the hierarchy. If the pixel layer is subordinate to other objects, delays are more likely to occur. The same is for selecting objects. But there is no strict rule to that. When I work with the same documents in Affinity Designer V1, I don't see these lags. Something crucial must have changed between the versions. Can this possibly affect the memory management?

Exact the same here. I gave Designer and Publisher a few chances, but now that I have to finish my projects, I can't do any more experiments, so I did the whole layout again in Illustrator and Photoshop. At least it was pleasingly easy to export from the Affinity programs. I think the idea behind the Affinity apps is still great (and I will surely come back), but that doesn't help, if the apps aren't absolutely reliable. I very much hope that a lot will improve in the foreseeable future.

To be fair: If the option "show lines in points" is enabled, you can still enter the value in millimeters in the input field for the line width, if you add the unit "mm" to the numerical value. It's just that you can no longer read the value in millimeters, but only in points. However, it is no problem to set a line to a line width of, for example, 10mm. I just realized that I have never changed the units in the fields to mm in version 1, but have always worked with pt.

I would like to suggest the following small change to the Layer Palette UI: The hierarchy lines on the left side should not be displayed in gray but in the darker selection color. This would make the layer staggering easier to read and the whole thing more logical.