Dangerous

After more testing on new photos I am impressed at the performance. Yes it is what I would call slow but that is not Affinity, it is the slow computer. I was able to work faster than with 2.0 without the not responding issue and even with a 12 image pano (total size of the 12 files 300mb) and creating a 650 .afphoto file it was quicker than I expected. Even a 21photo (total 800mb) pano worked as expected. Bearing in mine a single photo was crashing 2.0 last week after the Windows update this is a fantastic result. So from me it is a WELL DONE SERIF.

I've had the msi install since it was released and I did the check for updates the 3rd time, result exactly the same as the 1st & 2nd times, tried to download the msix.

forgot to say I am on Win 10 Home 22H2 build 19045.2965 installed oct 2020 and AFAIK fully up to date. 64bit OS

I use chrome. When I started AP2 I got a small serif box saying ver 2.1 was available with options download & cancel. I clicked download and immediately the msix version started to download. NO WEB PAGE, NO OPTION, NO LINK TO SERIF. Ver 1 used to do exactly the same but it always downloaded the exe (no app version) so for me the sequence was EXACTLY the same as for ver 1 with the exception it downloaded the msix.

It did not take me to any page at Serif, all I had was a update & cancel. Update started an auto msix download with NO OPTIONS. I tried 3 times with AP and after that I just went to the download page via my account and went for the exe versions.

There wasn't

No, I got the download box, clicked download and it automatically started to download the MSIX version. It did not autorun (fortunately) but I did have to go to my account, navigate to the msi download page and manually download it then manually install it. I'm not bothered about doing it manually but why did it automatically download the msix version. What would be great would be it downloaded the exe or almost as good if it took me to the msi exe download page.

I use the MSI exe versions of the programs. I do not like apps on Windows and although I know it shouldn't make a difference it seems to run better on my system. My When it came time to update from 2.0.4 to2.1.0 the automatic update routine attempted to download & install the MSIX app version despite being called from the MSI exe version & I had you find the exe downloads again. Good job I remembered where to find them as they, IMHO, are tucked out of the way rather than easy to get to like the MSIX app versions. Would it be possible for the MSI installed version to download the exe file?

First tests with version 2.1 is looking good. One file that often causes 'not responding' is working without issue, slow but that is because the processor is old in computer years but actually seems as fast if not faster than it ever was. Up to now I am happy.

When Ver 1 got to 1.10 I started to have the program go 'not responding' then freeze and not recover. I blamed so on the processor/computer build as it is getting on in years. I did much searching the web and came up with a couple of tweaks to Windows 10 and Affinity (MSI install and got rid of the app) which stopped the crashing but not the 'not responding' until I did the 22H2 windows update which at the time was optional. That almost fixed the 'not responding' and I only had it happen once every 2 or 3 weeks . Don't ask me how the MSI version improved things as theoretically it should not have mad any operational difference whatsoever (but it did seem to) 10 days ago Windows 10 updated and the 'not responding' immediately started again. That suggests to me that Windows is partly to blame. I have just updated to 2.1 today so I don't know what will happen now. I would just like to add that, for me, the 2.1 update wasn't automatic as it attempted to download and install the MSIX app version.

I often need to position elements of a drawing around a circle (or several concentric circles) and although I usually power duplicate a group of them (as a group or a symbol) I often need position guides to work out the best size or rotation angle to suit the design. For me radial guides would be great and if possible rather than radiating from the document centre if they could radiate from a movable 'centre' spot, that would be even better.

Neat trick, I often want Artistic Text that has been converted to curves to appear in the layers panel in 'word' order.

Adjustment layers are mask layers in their own right, normally you will not add a mask layer but as NOTMYFAULT says if you have even the smallest area selected a mask will automatically be added. Another way is if you have a shortcut set to add a mask you may be accidently pressing the key combo to do that?

Up to now I haven't really had an issue with where layers are inserted within the stack but now it can be annoying. For example when a new layer is inserted it is positioned above the current selected layer in the stack. Lately I have had need for new layers to be inserted 1: at the bottom of the stack 2: at the top of the stack 3: below the current layer 1 & 2 can be achieved by setting the insertion point to top or bottom but this has to be done for EVERY new layer as the setting reverts to default (layer above current selected) after one insertion. Am I missing something? I can't see an option to insert below current selected layer or to alter the default. Ideally a list such as LAYER INSERTION POINT Top of stack Above current selected Below current selected Bottom of stack and have the options 'sticky' so it did not revert back to a default would be great.

In a batch job I can resize an image proportionally by entering either the height or the width and the other dimension will calculate correctly ie a 1000 x 600px image will resize to 500 x 300 if I only enter the width as 500. If one of the images is 600 x 1000px it will resize correctly to 500 x 833.3. It doesn't matter what the actual dimensions for each image the height will adjust proportionally. If I use DOCUMENT RESIZE or CANVAS RESIZE and enter the width as 500px it will resize correctly as above. That is exactly what I would expect. The problem lies when RESIZE is used in a macro. When creating the macro enter 500 for the width and the height will be calculated to 300 correctly and when ran on any 1000 x 600 image is will resize correctly. Run the macro on a 600 x 1000 image or a 1600 x 1600 image then the issue rears its ugly head, the image is resized to 500 x 300 as the macro remember the 'fixed' size and the image is resized out of proportion (squashed or stretched). This is not good especially when you want to add a fixed amount additional canvas around a number of images which are a mix of landscape & portrait format, have been cropped by varying amounts (or stitched) or from cameras with different pixel dimensions etc. It hasn't been a real problem as up to now I have only needed to do a handful of images at a time but today I wanted to apply various adjustments to 700+ images and although I can write a macro to do what I want to image 1 it can not be applied to the rest via a batch file. The adjustments would have to be applied via 2 batch files and even then I can't figure out how to add the fixed amount of canvas around the images other than doing them manually to all 700+ files. I had assumed that the macro would have entered the assigned number (500) in to the width and calculated the height rather than set the width & height to 500 x 300 (fixed size when macro created), I was wrong

I downloaded & installed the MSI versions as soon as I was aware they had been released (within 3 days) and have had few if any issues which I can not say was the case with the MSIX install. I would say that everyone should give the MSI version a try.

Not baseline grid but I do have an image on the page with the the JUMP wrapping option set. It seems that the numbers go wrong when the image is bottom of the page with no text below it on that page. Looks like you have sorted it for me, thanks.

Just found out the missing number is actually there but is 'off the page'. It is hard to see but is just visible on the background outside of the page.

The problem I am having is I add a text box to master A (master A is assigned to all pages), insert a page number. Centre vertical & horizontal in the text box. When I check all the pages most are numbered correctly but on a couple of pages the number is missing from the text box, on about 5 pages the vertical alignment is wrong with the number being part out the text box. Any idea what is going wrong?

If on Windows system have you got the Windows 22H2 update installed?

That is what I do but I don't use Ver 1 for my files anymore.

Yeah, I keep forgetting you can crop bigger as well as smaller but it can go wrong if you have some vector work in the document that extends beyond the canvas and you don't want to lose the vector stuff by using 'rasterise & trim', that is ok if it is all raster. You have the same issue with resize canvas but in either case you can always create a rectangle, make the stroke the width you need for the border and make it white so it hides any vector work that was off canvas.

As Joe says it is the 'Resize Canvas' you need to do, That increases the canvas and leaves the document size as it was. Works perfectly on Windows.

metadata readers I have tried can't open native Affinity files. Easiest way is try & open in Ver 1 and if it does not then it is a Ver 2 file. Either that or stop using Ver 1 (or Ver 2).

Yes, the old school method only works with msi installed programs, apps have to be uninstalled from the start menu list or from the 'page' if pinned to start.