Julian23

I think it should be possible to drag a slice with the ALT key being pressed to duplicate it. It would make it much easier to create equally sized slizes for GUI projects.

I agree - I would really like to switch off the preview since it is not only too big but also pretty slow. 
But I miss gerneral naming  templates, both for directory and file name. Having to go to the "Save As" dialog to export is just to time consuming.
There could be a pathname field which is used unless empty - with placeholders such as 
NAME   (the filename)
DIR   (directory of source)
DIRRAW (directory of first linked RAW image)
DATE
TIME
WIDTH
HEIGHT
So export can be done with just one click and I do not think this is too difficult to implement. 
Without Preview, I  prefer the new export dialog over the old.
 

I think it should be possible to drag a slice with the ALT key being pressed to duplicate it. It would make it much easier to create equally sized slizes for GUI projects.

I looked for that quite a while until I found the dialog to set the "coverage map". The help does not list it.
In case somebody else is also looking for it, that dialog is visible after click on the gear-wheel in the layer list where you can also select mix mode and opacity.
 
Maybe this can be also added to the context drop down menu of the layer (right mouse button / ctrl+click).

+1 for linking files. This also makes especially sense for files which are masked by vector elements and which use adjustment layers.
 
It would be even better to create blank image placeholders which can be filled automatically by drag&drop of multiple files. 
 
Reason: When you drop an image file it is inserted at that position at its maximum size and I have to resize it.
When I first create some image placeholder, I can drag&drop the images and they will be resized automatically to fit the placeholder.

Just a little thing really but  - currently, as soon as artboards are cloned they appear in the layers panel under the same name, and it's difficult to know which is which without clicking around the place. Of course they will eventually get proper names, but it would be lovely if they just named themselves Artboard 1, Artboard 2 etc when cloned.
 
That is all. 

I recommended a friend AP to do photo editing and printing. 
 
He wanted to crop a picture and print it on a DinA5 page. 
 
I told him - the best is to create a new DinA5 document and drag the image on it.
Yes, that worked, but how should it be cropped?
 
The cropping tool which offers cropping unter Affinity Designer always crops the complete document, not the current layer. 
To crop a layer according to the manual I am supposed to create a new layer and move the image layer into it. 
 
Well, it is good that this work - but it is more complicated for somebody who does not use this program very often.
 
Why does the layer cropping tool available in Designer does not work like this in Photo?

I think the second option would be better. As with most Mac apps, Designer should not close when you close the last document. Showing the studio when you click the app icon in the dock would be really nice though.

More transparency types would be a nice thing to have such as bitmap and noise based transparencies.

Affinity Designer is incredible well thought out, it amazes me every day. Congratulations!

I think it should be possible to drag a slice with the ALT key being pressed to duplicate it. It would make it much easier to create equally sized slizes for GUI projects.

Sorry, if I'm missing something, but is there a way, how to duplicate an existing slice in the Export Persona?
 
There's so many things that may be defined within a slice, so duplication would really speed things up...
 
Thanks for info :)

Did you try to find a good value for the shadow value without a slider? There is a lot of trial and error involved. It is not very user friendly if numbers have to by typed.
 
I think most surprising is that Affinity is using pixels in some dialogs  -  PIXELS! What is a pixel in modern layout design? That unit has no meaning.
A pixel can be visible in 72dpi and is almost invisible at 300dpi. 
 
Above I am suggesting a work around - even better would be to use relative values here - switchable between resolution (point) and object size relation (%).

1) The PDF Import only uses the Mediabox property of the imported PDF pages. It should also use (and preserve!) the cropbox, trimbox and bleedbox.
 
Ideally when exporting a PDF file which was imported before mediabopx, cropbox and bleedbox remain unchanged. For professional printing this is mandatory.
 
2) When I define the croppjng area in the document properties (they are not imported from PDF) they are not exported to PDF. This is also a critical problem when doing professional printing.

I'm working on web design a lot and I love Affinity Designer. This week I had to create an icon (favicon to be precise), which I obviously designed in Designer.
 
So far so good, but there seem to be no way of exporting an image as *.ico.
 
Are there any plans for adding support for ico files?

It *kind of* already does what you want, but it's based on the DPI of the document. If your @3x asset that you've been handed is set up properly, it will have 216dpi or 288dpi (72*3, or 96*3) and if you open it you should then find you can tick the 1x, 2x and 3x buttons and the export will sample down for the 1x and 2x exports as you'd expect. Either this isn't working as expected, or your original asset has the incorrect dpi set in it? (or we're reading it incorrectly!).
 
We are currently rewriting the Export Persona to include greatly improved export capabilities - from being able to specify multiple export options for each object/slice to specifying many export resolutions or specific width/height configurations for each slice too, so hopefully you'll be pleasantly surprised when you see it :)
 
Thanks,
Matt

I use affinity for game development, and having the option to set an export path for each slice is very convenient.
Currently i have to manually move each file for each slide each time i do an export, just to reorganize it inside my game engine.
If each path export is associated to each slide it would be a single click operation, currently is a bit painful.
Great tool it made me switch from illustrator and never look back!
Regards

Hi,
 
Right now the export Persona assumes that you are always doing the @1x resolution, and only allows you to scale UP to @2x and @3x and complain when anything is not vector.
 
The reality of UI design is that you need to deal with raw images in your design, and even if they are sent as a maximum resolution, Affinity Designer doesn't let you say you are working at @3x and request scale DOWN version of @1x and @2x for example.
 
Please consider this feature. Having to downscale by hand is time consuming.
 
Ideally you would tell the layer in which resolution you are working (@1x, @2x or @3x) and then the slices view would create all the views to be exported based on it.

The Export Persona is a good idea, however I miss some functionality:
 
a) the slices are not scaled when I scale the document
 
B) Copy&Paste does not work for slices
 
c) I miss a feature to create slices automatically, i.e. x columns in y rows of size w * h
 
d) move slices pixel wise with cursor keys
 
e) change size with cursor keys + modifier key
 
f) export with other, no even scaling values, i.e. 0.6, 1.5 etc  - the list should be an editable list.
 
g) export to a specified width or height with automatic scaling
 
The list for (f) and (g) could be a simple memo filed with text such as: 
 
NAMEA@w=640
NAMEB@1x
NAMEC@2x
NAMED@h=640,w=200
NAMEE@w=w/3*2
 
The specified names can be used as prefix for the export.
 
I think this would solve most problems most effectively and would be relatively easy to implement.
 
 
 
 

Maybe this is a Publisher feature but I think it should work as well in Designer:
Images should also be placeable as mere references. Embedding is fine for convenience in some use cases but I see many cases where it is the less desireable way to deal with pixel images in a vector environment.
 
With non-embedded images I can change a picture externally and have it updated automatically as long as its name hasn’t changed. But more importantly: This would keep file size small.
 
Today I am working on a package design with lots of imported images – the AD file size keeps on growing. But this is redundant as I have to keep my original image files anyway.
 
 
Best
Matthias

I don't miss a selection persona, but I think it should be possible that a mask may consist of several layers, including vector layers and groups. 
 
Right now it is very easy to place an image inside a vector or text layer to be masked according to the outline. But I did not find a way to do use a group of layers for the same. I need a group if I converted my text into curves or if I want to combine text and vector forms. 
 
I only found the possibility to render my vectors into a pixel mask - but doing so, I cannot modify the vectors or the text anymore.
 
So if the "selection persona" would make it possible to work with all tools, vectors and effect on the mask only that would be perfect. Switching back to regular persona would hide all vectors and just use the rendered pixel mask - until I change to selection persona again, than I would see my vectors again.

In AFFINITY PHOTO, EXIF date shot lost on export
I cannot find the date and time of shot after exporting the image .psd or .jpg. Date shot is OK when saving in .afphoto format — see screen shots. How can I keep date and time of shot in other formats? Thanks for the tip.

Here's something to consider to enhance UX on Affinity products:
 
Current situation: Currently all objects have 2 ways to be rotated: the blue handle at the top of the bounding box via hovering near a corner handle. Currently there exists no way to adjust a shapes Stroke attributes directly on the object itself.
 
Idea: Remove the rotation functionality, since it is redundant, and turn the top handle into a UI control for setting Stroke weight, or perhaps a pop-up for any number of Stroke or even Shape attributes, DIRECTLY on the canvas object.
 
Benefit: Working directly on the object and not having to rely on palettes makes the workflow much smoother and quicker, specially on mobile devices with smaller screens, where physical size is still a limiting factor, as well as for editing while in full screen, hidden studio palette mode. As professional creative apps transition into a multi-touch and stylus enabled operating systems (iPad Pro, ahem), users will be expecting to interact with objects directly on screen, not via abstract palettes. This setup will be friendly for Pencil input. However, this same directness of on-canvas edibility while on limited screen real estate is of benefit on current laptop workflows as well with traditional mouse and Wacom0style input as well.
 
Thanks for your consideration.

Is there a way to transform only selected nodes within a shape? I can select nodes, but I can't figure out how to scale, rotate, or skew them, though I can apply those functions to the entire shape.
 
In Photoshop (for example) I can select any number of nodes within a given shape, then hit Command-T to enter Free Transformation mode. From then on, any transforms will apply only to the nodes I had selected.

I've attached an example. I just want to know if this is (yet) possible in AD, as it's something I actually find myself doing quite regularly. (Apologies if I've missed something!)

I love the corner tool, and the range of corner options.
 
Is it possible to add another option for corners based on conic sections, e.g., ellipse, where the length and width of the ellipse can be adjusted? Something along the lines of the rounded corners of the iOS icon mask.
 
It would be great if this could also be added to the rounded rectangle tool as an option for creating icons. Although Apple apply the mask to the icon, it's useful to be able to reproduce it when designing, to see how the finished icon will look.
 
Also, an offset tool would be useful for offsetting or insetting, similar to what CAD apps can do. The expand stroke tool is one way to achieve this, although it does break the curve up into lots of smaller curves.
 
This explains the elliptical corner curves and what I mean by insetting:
http://www.designbygeometry.com/ios-icon-mask-corner-curve-study/
 
Thanks