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There are a few other minor improvements to mention in 2.5:
1. Some new cameras have been added to LibRAW:
FujiFilm X100VI Leica SL3 Pentax KF (Rioch) Samsung Galaxy S23+ Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra Sony ILCE-9M3 (A9 III) [improved] 2. As was requested in a few places before and on the last beta, when you have "Transform objects separately" checked and have a multi-selection, if you type a value in either the width or height field and precede it with an equals sign (e.g. H: '=100px') then it will set all objects in that selection to have that specific width or height value entered. This is opposed to scaling the other objects in your selection proportionally based on the key object which is he result you get without the equals sign.
3. DWG polylines import improvements
We have made some substantial improvements when importing polylines, which now ignores the cached points which AutoCAD creates. This simplifies the resulting curves substantially.

I seem to remember having to pay for 2.0 and being told it was a big upgrade for me and that Affinity was "setting new standards". If the differences here were between 1.2 vs 1.7, etc, I would almost certainly agree, they don't live on the same scale. However arbitrary it can seem, version numbers do give at least some indication to us as to how the developer interprets the current state of their own product. It would be very understandable for 1.x to be missing some very basic functionality. 2.x, we would expect their ducks to be in a row so to speak where at least 1.x's functionality is concerned, but here many of 1.x flaws and bugs made it into 2. Am I really supposed to believe the key bugs will ever be addressed when we have iterated through 2.x updates with no signs that even problems from 1.x will ever be addressed adequately? However if "version numbers mean nothing" then there is nothing left to discuss, frankly.

Your writing reminds me of my own writing when I was younger. I started on a typewriter. Then I moved to Word 6, which I used for "creative" writing also, but it became more "script-ish" (as in largely dialogue). Very interesting to see another person use a similar style. A traditional writing style can feel too precise. Writing is a lot like painting, which means it can take almost a lifetime to truly master.
I found your post interesting, so thank you for that. I think I tried Scribus way back when it was newly in development and supposedly it's seen big improvements of recent, or at least I've seen written by others by reading in passing. As for the context of the post you are quoting, it is in reference to the technical issue(s) with accurate vectors, hence the "shark bug". VS is not brought up to be a "tit for tat". We can suggest its relevant here because VS is only 1.2 and yet Affinity is 2.4... What Affinity has managed with their line is seriously impressive and current staff should be commended to have made all that possible. None of us would be here nor it possible otherwise. However, clearly there are quality issues with the updates that being put out and their inability to put out the resulting fires is heavily concerning. If Canva is actually listening, they will send Serif a big fat check to hire al the talent they need to fix the quality issues and other developmental obstacles. Otherwise, the horse is long dead...


Re: Inkscape, I want to love the app as it could have been a stellar piece of software, but its development speed is terribly slow (kinda expected with OSS) and its UI is a cry for help. Will more income help? I'm not sure, honestly. I suspect if others are like me, they may be skeptical that adding money to the equation will automatically lead to speedier development and that exacerbates the issues with raising money for long-term OSS projects. At least with companies, we know they rely on steady revenue and are required to make cash to sustain. There's a cash for value too, as what we pay is supposed to be proportionate to what we receive. I do use Inkscape for some things, especially Trace Bitmap, which works really well for converting delicate ink jobs. It's not as user friendly to me as VS, though admittedly that wasn't my first impression when I first tried VS. I can see VS becoming what Inkscape couldn't be in that regard, should it take on inspiration in the development of a solid "user flow" throughout the breadth of the application. Note: I didn't say workflow... nobody wants a UI filled with inflexible/dead end workflows.. *cough* Illustrator *cough*. Both are held back by some cumbersome UX and strange UI decisions. VS has better document management and that's important for my ability to stay organized creatively as it allows me to also work rationally... two things that can come into conflict for me when writing code.

This has been a general issue with the pressure feature since it was introduced in v1. 
In that sense, the new Line Width tool is apparently "only" a different front end to what's been there for a long time and only editable via the Pressure curve until now. But at least it's more convenient.
(Considering this, I can't say that I'm overwhelmed either… )

I love this! Works great! 
Only thing that's related to this tool that I hope gets improved is this panel:

It's too small. Being able to resize it and making the Profile feature more global so other features could reuse them, i.e. brush settings, would make it even better. It also needs an option to invert the curves.

Apps: Designer
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad
Affinity Designer now includes a new width tool which is available by default alongside the pencil tool in your toolbar:

The Line Width Tool gives you an on-document way of editing the pressure profile of any curve. For example the curve below has 3 pressure points (5 including the start and end pressure). While in the Line Width tool the position of those points are shown along the curve, and you have the ability to drag to change the width and position of them. 
You can also click to add a new pressure point, or double click to remove any pressure point on a curve.

There are various modifiers available which you can see in the status bar:
Shift + Drag - allows you to modify the width at any point without adjusting it's position
Cmd (Mac) / Ctrl (Win) + Click - manually enter the width required at the chosen point
Ctrl (Mac) / Ctrl (Win) + Drag - move the point position without adjusting the width
Double click - remove pressure point
Additionally you will find some other options in the context toolbar when using this tool:

Adjust Line Weight - if this is turned on then should you drag the width of any point to be greater than the current line width (i.e. greater than 100% pressure) the line width will be increased to allow you to drag the width unrestricted. If it is turned off then the maximum width you can drag to is 100% of the set line width.
Allow point reordering - This option allows to you to specify whether you want to allow the tool to drag one point past another along the curve, effectively swapping their order, or not.
Snap to curve nodes - This will show any nodes on the curve as small white dots and will snap any pressure points to those nodes
Snap to widths on same curve - this will snap the width at any pressure point on a curve to other widths which already exist on that curve. This only applies when holding shift (i.e. you are adjusting the width without altering the point position).
Snap to curve geometry - this will snap the width to the geometry of any selected curves (again if you are holding shift). 

Hoped for a solution in 2.4.2, but this bug still exists. This makes layer states obsolet for my current project, though I could really benefit from it.

It's really a terrible bug to have in a release version for so long. Bugs that so recklessly remove data from documents should be fixed asap, and as someone else says, it's not reassuring or confidence-inspiring that it can happen at all. Then the architecture behind is seriously shaky and insecure.

Hello @CM0,
obviously this is for Tim and the team to answer but from what I understand the UI controls are going to be part of the release.

Thanks! Always appreciate some brief insights into progress even if they aren't necessarily "exciting". Sounds like Affinity went all in for making sure we have access to about everything! Fun times ahead :-)
BTW, as part of the initial release of scripting, can you comment on whether there will be UI controls available to pass parameters to the scripts. Like sliders, entry fields etc? BTW, would love to have a curve input control as a parameter, like that is on blend ranges etc. Could do some really cool stuff with that :-)

Hi @Seneca,
I don't really have anything specific to say other than the team is still smashing out APIs! We've also had to go back and do some of the less interesting "that can wait" tasks, such as dealing with shut down properly e.g. you start running a script and then decide to shut down the app halfway through its execution - we need to make sure things like asynchronous ops are properly aborted / synchronous waits end gracefully.  We've also been re-evaluating the high level JS layers to make sure they were intuitive and usable. We went hell for leather to get bits of the app exposed, but didn't do them in a particularly good way e.g. this kind of sucks:
let clrData = new RGBA8(0, 0, 255); let clr = new Colour(clrData); and should be something much more concise like:
let clr = RGB(0, 0, 255);  

import {app, type Document} from 'affinity/app' import {ArtisticText} from 'affinity/tools' const doc: Document = app.documents.current doc.insert(new ArtisticText('Affinity Scripting API, let\'s go!!!🔥🎉👀😍👏'))  

I've been in the graphics business since the early 90s and have seen a few of these takeovers. Experience teaches us not to trust the acquiring company, because these companies are primarily interested in the customer base of the acquired company and the money of its users, not in making the products better.
And the announcements about the pricing model are just as similar as the statements made by the CEOs of the acquired companies. "A great future in a great partnership with the new partner. Great things are already shining on the horizon." And so on, and so on. All heard umpteen times before. And the real development has been seen umpteen times.
And the contributions to the discussion are the same every time, including the call to have a little faith in the companies. It's all been done before.

I've been in the graphics business since the early 90s and have seen a few of these takeovers. Experience teaches us not to trust the acquiring company, because these companies are primarily interested in the customer base of the acquired company and the money of its users, not in making the products better.
And the announcements about the pricing model are just as similar as the statements made by the CEOs of the acquired companies. "A great future in a great partnership with the new partner. Great things are already shining on the horizon." And so on, and so on. All heard umpteen times before. And the real development has been seen umpteen times.
And the contributions to the discussion are the same every time, including the call to have a little faith in the companies. It's all been done before.

My fist reaction to this announcement – which I got a few minutes ago – is » The end of a brilliant era.
I think the main reason for this opinion is that Canva is such a popular tool for marketers and individuals. To me, this means that it's not aimed at professional designers, graphic artists and artists, but at people who want to be creative by accessing ready-made templates. - I have often feared that this day would come, because I could not imagine that Serif could achieve at this price level what many professionals (often excessively, imho) demand in order to replace the forced subscriptions of the top dogs.
Somehow this development seems unavoidable - and there is still the faint hope that this time things will be different than usual - because Serif is Serif. And because the people at Canva perhaps don't have the greed that is generally assumed.
So I’m looking forward to the lots of cool updates that will come for the 2.x versions, wish all the best for the serif team members and stay tuned!

I've been in the graphics business since the early 90s and have seen a few of these takeovers. Experience teaches us not to trust the acquiring company, because these companies are primarily interested in the customer base of the acquired company and the money of its users, not in making the products better.
And the announcements about the pricing model are just as similar as the statements made by the CEOs of the acquired companies. "A great future in a great partnership with the new partner. Great things are already shining on the horizon." And so on, and so on. All heard umpteen times before. And the real development has been seen umpteen times.
And the contributions to the discussion are the same every time, including the call to have a little faith in the companies. It's all been done before.

This. Affinity was already becoming so painful for my work. I've opened so many bugs over the years I've lost count. How many have been fixed? Zero! No bug I've ever opened has been fixed. I Agree most acquisitions have negative consequences, but the development pace of Affinity had already almost come to a stop.
As such, I've already been in the uncomfortable position that moving to Adobe might be necessary anyway. So in that respect, I can only hope with more resources available development pace will accelerate. Of course it will probably be worse initially. It will take time to build a new team, train them etc.

Sounds more like a "Goodbye" message rather than an optimistic one or rather like a ransom video of a kidnapped victim that tries to assure the family that everything is OK so please send the ransom money.
He looks more disappointed than us by this "joint operation".  

I've been in the graphics business since the early 90s and have seen a few of these takeovers. Experience teaches us not to trust the acquiring company, because these companies are primarily interested in the customer base of the acquired company and the money of its users, not in making the products better.
And the announcements about the pricing model are just as similar as the statements made by the CEOs of the acquired companies. "A great future in a great partnership with the new partner. Great things are already shining on the horizon." And so on, and so on. All heard umpteen times before. And the real development has been seen umpteen times.
And the contributions to the discussion are the same every time, including the call to have a little faith in the companies. It's all been done before.

I've been in the graphics business since the early 90s and have seen a few of these takeovers. Experience teaches us not to trust the acquiring company, because these companies are primarily interested in the customer base of the acquired company and the money of its users, not in making the products better.
And the announcements about the pricing model are just as similar as the statements made by the CEOs of the acquired companies. "A great future in a great partnership with the new partner. Great things are already shining on the horizon." And so on, and so on. All heard umpteen times before. And the real development has been seen umpteen times.
And the contributions to the discussion are the same every time, including the call to have a little faith in the companies. It's all been done before.

I've been in the graphics business since the early 90s and have seen a few of these takeovers. Experience teaches us not to trust the acquiring company, because these companies are primarily interested in the customer base of the acquired company and the money of its users, not in making the products better.
And the announcements about the pricing model are just as similar as the statements made by the CEOs of the acquired companies. "A great future in a great partnership with the new partner. Great things are already shining on the horizon." And so on, and so on. All heard umpteen times before. And the real development has been seen umpteen times.
And the contributions to the discussion are the same every time, including the call to have a little faith in the companies. It's all been done before.

I've been in the graphics business since the early 90s and have seen a few of these takeovers. Experience teaches us not to trust the acquiring company, because these companies are primarily interested in the customer base of the acquired company and the money of its users, not in making the products better.
And the announcements about the pricing model are just as similar as the statements made by the CEOs of the acquired companies. "A great future in a great partnership with the new partner. Great things are already shining on the horizon." And so on, and so on. All heard umpteen times before. And the real development has been seen umpteen times.
And the contributions to the discussion are the same every time, including the call to have a little faith in the companies. It's all been done before.

My heart truly sank with this news. I've seen a lot of acquisitions like this, and the time from "we don't have any changes planned, everything will stay the same" to "we are excited to announce we now offer pro features on a subscription basis" is usually about 1 year.
I have some amount of trust in Serif. I thought their transition from V1 to V2 was done very well from a business perspective. It's clear paid upgrades are the model its customers want, and it's certainly a requirement for me. But like others have said, I have no love for Canva. In fact, I don't have any feelings about them at all. I heard about them a while back, checked them out, "oh, it's a subscription service, not for me", and never looked again.
I'll say, as long as Serif produce standalone perpetual-license desktop software, at the quality they are known for, I will continue to be a customer. If Canva think adding such a product to their portfolio is a good investment, good luck to them, I'll be their customer too. The moment that they stop that — by seeking rent, or by pivoting to online SAAS or AI or whatever — I'll look elsewhere. It was very painful to extract myself from Adobe, and all the other little software products over the years which have been acquired and changed to suit the business models of their new owners. But I did every time, and I'll do it again if I have to.

I've been in the graphics business since the early 90s and have seen a few of these takeovers. Experience teaches us not to trust the acquiring company, because these companies are primarily interested in the customer base of the acquired company and the money of its users, not in making the products better.
And the announcements about the pricing model are just as similar as the statements made by the CEOs of the acquired companies. "A great future in a great partnership with the new partner. Great things are already shining on the horizon." And so on, and so on. All heard umpteen times before. And the real development has been seen umpteen times.
And the contributions to the discussion are the same every time, including the call to have a little faith in the companies. It's all been done before.

I've been in the graphics business since the early 90s and have seen a few of these takeovers. Experience teaches us not to trust the acquiring company, because these companies are primarily interested in the customer base of the acquired company and the money of its users, not in making the products better.
And the announcements about the pricing model are just as similar as the statements made by the CEOs of the acquired companies. "A great future in a great partnership with the new partner. Great things are already shining on the horizon." And so on, and so on. All heard umpteen times before. And the real development has been seen umpteen times.
And the contributions to the discussion are the same every time, including the call to have a little faith in the companies. It's all been done before.