F+C

Sweet jesus - how hard can it be to write RGB values to a plist file?

A huge part is that for pre-press / manufacturing things need to be exact, so not doing things by eye.
We often need to step and repeat
object = 3.5"x2"
Repeat horizontally: 20 x @ 3.5"
Repeat Vertically: 20 x @ 2"
An even small discrepancy can be quite off at the end causing the need for a reprint and lots of lost money.
It would be great (and much MUCH faster) if you could just select "Step and repeat", plug in the numbers and go
Especially as computers are so much better at that type of thing as humans and we didn't loose a war so computers should do the stuff they are good at

I remember back in the early days of the Mac, I thought it was weird that every new version of PageMaker required that old documents be "converted" and how the UI was "just a bit odd" from release to release. (The company I was working at was a Quark user due to it's superior kerning abilities).
I read an interview with someone who was part of the PageMaker team at Aldus, he said it drove them crazy. Everytime they tried to add a simple feature (I remember something about adding a new measurement option or something like that) the whole thing would break. So every new version of PageMaker was almost a re-write of the program (a problem with first to market products). I think it really held them back.
Perhaps this is the case here? This seems to be a feature that would be easy to implement, but I didn't write the code.
I do wish they'd bring on an experienced print production person on their team. They would understand why these little things are so important to people trying to use their products in a professional setting.

very true.
In fact, most professional design work is pretty boring. After the conceptualization it's really about execution, and that's the difference between pro's and normals.
A pro is more interested in speed of layout, stability.
It's more about getting 15 ad's out by 5, or that 75 page AR that the client has been slow at getting the source material to you so you're 2 weeks behind and it needs to get to proofing next morning and it's 3pm.
You don't get a chance to do all the wacky things that the programs allow you to do in real-life.

very true.
In fact, most professional design work is pretty boring. After the conceptualization it's really about execution, and that's the difference between pro's and normals.
A pro is more interested in speed of layout, stability.
It's more about getting 15 ad's out by 5, or that 75 page AR that the client has been slow at getting the source material to you so you're 2 weeks behind and it needs to get to proofing next morning and it's 3pm.
You don't get a chance to do all the wacky things that the programs allow you to do in real-life.

I take it you haven't been in the industry very long. You'll learn kid, you'll learn....

It does seem odd - I can't imagine that it's that hard a feature to add.
Affinity is very frustrating - I really want to love their stuff but it always just falls short of truly professional applications.
I think the big issue is their programmers have never really worked in a production industry role - the kind of "crap, I have to get 10 ads out by 5pm and sent to San Francisco" kinda world. they probably look at our requests and think "why the hell would you want that?". Us old industry folks know why we need them.
I think they're going for the pro sumer market, which is a shame but perhaps a bigger market than trying to appeal to Advertising, Marketing agencies and printers.
I think someone will go after the same market as Adobe CS, but probably won't be $70!

Thank you for your feedback. As package function is available in 1.9 beta I think there is no reason to continue arguing this.

Great!
Please add an option to generate the folder automatically, because it will be annoying to package multiple projects when we have to create a folder for each project manually. Folder name could be the project name.

Readers of this thread may be interested to try the first beta implementation of Package in the latest Affinity Publisher Beta
You can find Affinity Publisher Customer Beta 1.9.0.796 for macOS HERE and for Windows HERE
If you are coming to this post late the latest customer beta can be found in the last post in the relevant one of these announcement threads on macOS or Windows

Hi. I tried the collect solution via Resource Manger and it's not the same.
Look, lets' all be honest. We all need the same functionality that the "Package" has in InDesign. No "do this and then it asks you for that" type of thing. Just the same thing. We don't want Affinity to try and re-invent the wheel.
The reason is that is the way professionals need their files handled. Full stop. You may think it's overkill or not a big deal, but if you're dealing with many staff (and some freelancers who have differing amounts of experience), you need a proven system that will work -- even after a year or more where the original machine might have been reformatted or changed.
I'm not sure if it's legal concerns preventing this seemingly straight-forward feature but perhaps they don't want to raise the anger of Adobe, but that's what the pro market needs.
 

yeah - totally
I think they'd have to get some "older production folks" to consult on their application to get it to be a real pro level application.
 

Hi. I tried the collect solution via Resource Manger and it's not the same.
Look, lets' all be honest. We all need the same functionality that the "Package" has in InDesign. No "do this and then it asks you for that" type of thing. Just the same thing. We don't want Affinity to try and re-invent the wheel.
The reason is that is the way professionals need their files handled. Full stop. You may think it's overkill or not a big deal, but if you're dealing with many staff (and some freelancers who have differing amounts of experience), you need a proven system that will work -- even after a year or more where the original machine might have been reformatted or changed.
I'm not sure if it's legal concerns preventing this seemingly straight-forward feature but perhaps they don't want to raise the anger of Adobe, but that's what the pro market needs.
 

It does seem odd - I can't imagine that it's that hard a feature to add.
Affinity is very frustrating - I really want to love their stuff but it always just falls short of truly professional applications.
I think the big issue is their programmers have never really worked in a production industry role - the kind of "crap, I have to get 10 ads out by 5pm and sent to San Francisco" kinda world. they probably look at our requests and think "why the hell would you want that?". Us old industry folks know why we need them.
I think they're going for the pro sumer market, which is a shame but perhaps a bigger market than trying to appeal to Advertising, Marketing agencies and printers.
I think someone will go after the same market as Adobe CS, but probably won't be $70!

I take it you haven't been in the industry very long. You'll learn kid, you'll learn....

I take it you haven't been in the industry very long. You'll learn kid, you'll learn....

Yep - it's there. Using the Find/Change, selecting "Format", then select "Missing Fonts", that does the trick!
Huzzah!!

Hi
Packaging is critical feature for Publisher to be used in professional production environments.
Back in the day, before Quark had this feature, there were many utilities that would do this and they sold well as it's really important when you're in a company that creates 100's of projects a year.
I guess this depends on how Affinity wants to position their products. They may want to leave the pro users to Adobe (and Quark - they're still kicken!) which is fine, but if they want to go for the pro market there are a still couple of things they need to add not be the just little brother to the pros that gets used by hobbiests (although a great solution for that).
At this point in time, Affinity stuff is "ever so close, but not quite there" for pro use (I've now done 5 projects using all the products so I have some idea of what I speak).
Keep it up Affinity Folks! - great stuff over all just not for agency use at this time.

I want to add my hope for better font management in AffPublisher. The problem is that the "Font Manager" shows the extent of font problems but does nothing to manage the fonts in the "substitution" and "subsitution style" columns. For a program like Publisher, changing fonts after opening publication and pdf files that someone else created is critical.

Yep - it's there. Using the Find/Change, selecting "Format", then select "Missing Fonts", that does the trick!
Huzzah!!