Sivadharshan

Hello!
I believe power photoshop users would know that there is a way to batch process files using data set from a txt or a csv file. Those type of options allow us to create large number of files say: ID Cards or Visitng Cards with different names with ease. It would be amazing if affinity people can add such possiblities to affinity suite, especially designer or photo.
I sometimes have to do such work and it is a big headache to create everything one by one manually. I know affinity templates can make your work easier but that is sort of a manual task too. I feel there is a lot more affinity templates can do with such dataset and variable connection capabilities. Hope this is the reason why affinity thought of implementing affinity templates since there isn't a great deal of difference between a normal file and a template file.
Hope this is a valuable input. (People who agree can react to this post and show support for the request of this feature!)
Have a great day!

Thanks for the Studio Presets feedback. I wondered about adding a Replace option too. So i will look at that. The dialog was supposed to be modal so thanks for that too.
 
Not sure why it's closed the document when switching. I will investigate.

Hello Mark!
Very excited about the next build.
Anyways, I found one bug while using the Studio Presets. The main view of the design closes automatically when I choose a newly saved preset. I've attached a video below.
I use Windows 10 Home version 1909. CPU: intel core i7 10510U with 8 GB of RAM and nvidia MX350 Graphic Card.
Regards.
untitled.mpg

Hello Mark!
Very excited about the next build.
Anyways, I found one bug while using the Studio Presets. The main view of the design closes automatically when I choose a newly saved preset. I've attached a video below.
I use Windows 10 Home version 1909. CPU: intel core i7 10510U with 8 GB of RAM and nvidia MX350 Graphic Card.
Regards.
untitled.mpg

Awesome template! Thanks

Hello, guys!
Just a quick post to share with you a template for designing iOS App icons. Icons come in different sizes and done with the last angle for corners set by Apple. The icons are symbols so you can see changes quickle on all of them.

Hope this be useful!
Best regards!
Template - iOS Icons - Share.afdesign

Hi there!
DISCLAIMER: First of all, this is not another "bring the Mesh Warp / Distort Tool right now!" Topic. I'm not asking the Team to give us an estimated time of arival... None of that. It's something different, hinted in the Title.
INTRODUCTION & INTENTIONS
The purpose of this Topic is to share my thoughts and considerations, specially with @MattP, the talent behind this and some other great Features, to keep in mind when developing this. Why? The reasons are simple:
Some of us are more than impatient to have this Feature available. It's been on the Roadmap for so long... Many need this and they are all in into Designer and lefting [Design Application] behind. There are high hopes and so much anticipation. And it's in the Dev Team plans. That's all good, but... is the gap between the Dev Team idea and the users need really been closed, even narrowed? When realeased, will it be what a lot of people are expecting? That's the key point that might turn things ugly here in the Forums.
So, I want to open a relaxed discussion to talk about needs, capabilities and workflow. I will do so by diving the kins of distortions I know in 3:
TYPE ONE
Miscellanous Specific Forms Distortions:
Topic 1: Arc Warp. @TonyB confirmed it will be doable as some other transformations. Said feature works like this for texts (but also for shapes), in Illustrator 2019 and on other Apps like PSE 10:

The other transformations available are this ones. Available on both Apps but they don't work exactly in the same way:

 
Now, the thing about these transformations (and the other Types) are these ones: Control and configuration. They are done through a set of parameters, not through a Mesh like the one in Affinity Photo. so, it's not just that it's doable, but that it's repeatable and done with a degree of presicion. And of course, it has to be editable and resetable, or as it's called nowadays: live. For example, trying to do it through a Mesh is not that great (the red one is done by hand after a lot of struggle, and it's no good):

That's the Arc Warp but imagine this for all kind of options known to man.
TYPE TWO
The next thing is about Perspective, whis is another popular requested feature.
Topic 2. This is really clear as what it has to do. Not just of one object, but for an entire Group, to do a pseudo 3D thing. On this one, DrawPlus does a good job and offers interesting options, like the slider on the Top part, and it gives the sens of working with a 3D object.

The one in Illustrator does its part, but once you transform an object, you can't have the original back, so it's a destructive effect (making this a live feature would be awesome).

If the angles of "rotation" can be in the form of parameters and mouse control, would make it cover all scenarios.
TYPE THREE
The last kind of Distortion people ask for in the forums is the Free Transform.
Topic 3. This is the one that sounds more like the one currently present for bitmaps in Photo or the Envelop Tool in DrawPlus. Personally, this is the least I am interested in, but it has its uses and would make this feature as robust as it can be.

I see there are two variations to this feature:
One with the handles, as seen on the previous pictures. One with "sharp" cornes, without the handles (it's almost like a Perspective Distortion, but I present it like a different one because with a perspective you should be able to maintain the aspect ratio, with this one you can go beyond that). In Illustrator, the Free Distort Effect does this in the "sharp corner" fashion, turning it to semi-curves in some extreme distortions:

As with the previous ones, the ability to reset and edit the effect on already distorted objects, would be gold.
SUMMARY
As I said, when talking about Distortions / Warping, most people have one or more of the three I showed. So, I leave some key points:
Having all of the three types listed above in Designer is the best thing that can happen in this regard to Serif and us the Users. Also, having the ability to reset, edit and have parameters in some of the cases, would provide absolute control (and enjoyment). If the Dev Team implements this one after the other and not all in the initial release, even if it's not desirable, is still a good path. Limiting to one or two of the Three Types "by design" would hurt the product. Very important: I'm not saying "copy this and copy that", I'm just showing examples of the possible use cases for a Tool like this; however it's implemented, as long as it's logical and feels natural, offering all of the capabilities presented, would be perfect. So, citing Matt himself:
I want our products to be good in their own right: It’s not good enough to be better than ‘x’ or ‘y’, you should just be really good and that be the end of the sentence
I expect from you what you have set as your own goal: the best possible Affinity Designer.
Finally, I invite anyone who wants to contribute by bringing examples or something they want for this Feature that I missed.
Best regards!

Hello!
I believe power photoshop users would know that there is a way to batch process files using data set from a txt or a csv file. Those type of options allow us to create large number of files say: ID Cards or Visitng Cards with different names with ease. It would be amazing if affinity people can add such possiblities to affinity suite, especially designer or photo.
I sometimes have to do such work and it is a big headache to create everything one by one manually. I know affinity templates can make your work easier but that is sort of a manual task too. I feel there is a lot more affinity templates can do with such dataset and variable connection capabilities. Hope this is the reason why affinity thought of implementing affinity templates since there isn't a great deal of difference between a normal file and a template file.
Hope this is a valuable input. (People who agree can react to this post and show support for the request of this feature!)
Have a great day!

Hello all!
Contrary to usual belief that only Adobe XD, Figma, Invision are great at UI design, I have a strong feeling that Affinity Designer has more scope to grow because it has a lot more to offer. Designer is intuitive, has WAY MORE control over curves than the popular UI design tools and is a complete design software while the others just barely are one. Affinity sure doesn't have prototyping, but otherwise it is a killer application for UI development, because I get to work with things as small as the pixel perfection of icons in the UI to something as broad as having symbols, constraints and even re-usable assets.
According to me, Adobe XD, Figma, etc., are "Tools" but Affinity Designer feels like a (end-to-end) "Solution" to all UI design needs.
But I believe there are two little things that Affinity Designer currently needs to do to make the life of a UI designer better:
1. Auto Layout: Affinity's Constraints feature is amazing. It is simple yet very effective when it comes to UI design in Affinity Designer. But it lacks when I add text, that will be changed at different instances, as an element inside constraint group. The text flows into the group and there is no option to set the basic padding beyond which the container resizes according to the height/width of the text that is set to auto layout. Same thing happens when I need any design element to resize according to the padding and not just as a relative size of the parent container.
2.Design System Library: This is a simple one. I'm not sure if this is very important but here I go. I know .afassets, .afpalatte & .afbrushes exist. But it will be awesome if we can combine those files and send it out as one file, a .aflibrary for example, that when loaded, loads up the .afassets, .afpalatte & more at once. This could also mean something to other designers as well. Say the designer develops a icon system, brush style, color palatte and a highlighting system (quotations and more) for a book, he/she, just has to send the ".aflibrary" file to a co-designer (or even if he/she sells that design system) that loads all the required assets into the respective panes at once.
Hope this is a usefull suggestion.
Have a great day everyone!
EDIT: Also, it will be great if the above mentioned ".aflibrary" file also gets saved along with the normal affinity file unlike the other asset files like afassets afpalatte and so on. This saving together could be an option like saving history.
 

Hello!
I believe power photoshop users would know that there is a way to batch process files using data set from a txt or a csv file. Those type of options allow us to create large number of files say: ID Cards or Visitng Cards with different names with ease. It would be amazing if affinity people can add such possiblities to affinity suite, especially designer or photo.
I sometimes have to do such work and it is a big headache to create everything one by one manually. I know affinity templates can make your work easier but that is sort of a manual task too. I feel there is a lot more affinity templates can do with such dataset and variable connection capabilities. Hope this is the reason why affinity thought of implementing affinity templates since there isn't a great deal of difference between a normal file and a template file.
Hope this is a valuable input. (People who agree can react to this post and show support for the request of this feature!)
Have a great day!

That's a great suggestion.

Hello all!
Contrary to usual belief that only Adobe XD, Figma, Invision are great at UI design, I have a strong feeling that Affinity Designer has more scope to grow because it has a lot more to offer. Designer is intuitive, has WAY MORE control over curves than the popular UI design tools and is a complete design software while the others just barely are one. Affinity sure doesn't have prototyping, but otherwise it is a killer application for UI development, because I get to work with things as small as the pixel perfection of icons in the UI to something as broad as having symbols, constraints and even re-usable assets.
According to me, Adobe XD, Figma, etc., are "Tools" but Affinity Designer feels like a (end-to-end) "Solution" to all UI design needs.
But I believe there are two little things that Affinity Designer currently needs to do to make the life of a UI designer better:
1. Auto Layout: Affinity's Constraints feature is amazing. It is simple yet very effective when it comes to UI design in Affinity Designer. But it lacks when I add text, that will be changed at different instances, as an element inside constraint group. The text flows into the group and there is no option to set the basic padding beyond which the container resizes according to the height/width of the text that is set to auto layout. Same thing happens when I need any design element to resize according to the padding and not just as a relative size of the parent container.
2.Design System Library: This is a simple one. I'm not sure if this is very important but here I go. I know .afassets, .afpalatte & .afbrushes exist. But it will be awesome if we can combine those files and send it out as one file, a .aflibrary for example, that when loaded, loads up the .afassets, .afpalatte & more at once. This could also mean something to other designers as well. Say the designer develops a icon system, brush style, color palatte and a highlighting system (quotations and more) for a book, he/she, just has to send the ".aflibrary" file to a co-designer (or even if he/she sells that design system) that loads all the required assets into the respective panes at once.
Hope this is a usefull suggestion.
Have a great day everyone!
EDIT: Also, it will be great if the above mentioned ".aflibrary" file also gets saved along with the normal affinity file unlike the other asset files like afassets afpalatte and so on. This saving together could be an option like saving history.
 

There are enough examples of organizations that grew too fast, could not manage to establish a solid core from all that and in the end failed miserably. +1 for making the existing customers happy instead of sailing off to new shores. Happy customers draw more customers.

Thank you!

Hello everyone!
This is a simple gradient set '.afpalette' I created to share with the community. Let me know if it was of any help to you in your projects!
Great places to use will be Website and App UI development (loading bars, background etc) and logos if you'd like.
Have a great day

Sivadharshan Affinty Pallette - Gradient Set 1.afpalette

Hello everyone!
This is a simple gradient set '.afpalette' I created to share with the community. Let me know if it was of any help to you in your projects!
Great places to use will be Website and App UI development (loading bars, background etc) and logos if you'd like.
Have a great day

Sivadharshan Affinty Pallette - Gradient Set 1.afpalette

Hello everyone!
This is a simple gradient set '.afpalette' I created to share with the community. Let me know if it was of any help to you in your projects!
Great places to use will be Website and App UI development (loading bars, background etc) and logos if you'd like.
Have a great day

Sivadharshan Affinty Pallette - Gradient Set 1.afpalette

That is some amazing work man! Kudos to the effort! So Realistic.

A new try to integrate two different meanings of one word into one design.

That is an amazing initiaive. I've been dying to have native affinity mockups because currently the psd mockups don't work really well when imported.
Wishing you the best!

A new try to integrate two different meanings of one word into one design.

Hey everyone,
 
I am creating an website just for mock-ups of affinity files. Every file that is uploaded must be free of any CC to ensure everyone can use the files without and issue. I will be uploading all of my mock-ups there and I will be allowing user submitted content to help grow the affinity mock up community. The site will be similar to graphic burger, mock up world, etc.
 
I am personally looking for some people to help me test the website to ensure there is no issues before launch (end of August launch).
 
I'm currently working on a custom post type and taxonomies for user submissions right now but everything has been going super smooth. If you'd like to help let me know!

Thanks for the inputs man, appreciate it

Interesting ideas. I particularly like the ‘Nail’ one (although if I’m allowed to be picky a nail that you hammer doesn’t usually have a groove for a screwdriver).
I’m afraid the flag for ‘Post’ doesn’t really work for me. A flag flies from a pole, not a post, and in any case the flag would have to be at half-mast to make it look like a ‘t’.

A new try to integrate two different meanings of one word into one design.