Roqoco

I think MEB is from serif.

"Save failed due to an internal error. This should be reported to the development team." In case anyone might be having a similar problem: It seems that my project had become corrupted probably by a glitch/crash in 1.9.0. To fix it I created a new project and copy pasted the shapes from my old file into it. Since doing that the new file has worked reliably (on 1.9.1 that has some fixes) for several days and I'm reasonably sure this was the right diagnosis.

Yes - Thanks for the input, you made some interesting points and got me to clarify, which is all good. And it is nice not to feel one is firing one's posts into a vacuum especially during lockdown, when I sometimes think I'm living in a sensory deprivation tank.

@walt, @dominik yes I realise you can do that, but I haven't found a way of simply dragging stuff between the two views (obviously copy pasta is going to work, but it never pastes where you want and will probably put it in the wrong layer so that is a hassle) and it is pretty messy as it always covers up UI elements I need to see. Would much prefer to split the views... I also find that the views you make this way are strangely connected - try opening a master in one view and a page in another, not sure exactly what is going on there... Feature request #3 :).

This would be really handy if there was a way of showing both the views at the same time in split screen, rather than in different tabs, so you could drag and drop between them. At least I haven't found a way of doing that if there is one?... Feature request #2 perhaps?

Sure, but as spreads are so much more useful than artboards, if you have to choose, then I think "deprecates" is fair. But, maybe I didn't make my suggestion clear: The *suggestion* was that it would be nice to have *both* in the same document, especially if Serif made the implemention of artboards a little more flexible, so that you can drag them over your main design window and so use them as a palette. Actually, that is what I expected from artboards when I first saw them in Designer on day one - what a great feature! I thought for putting work in progess in... In general, although I am finding Affinity to be excellent (I wouldn't bother to comment if I didn't plan to use it) I think it still lacks some features for working on large projects with lots of separate elements, that are related to each other. Studio link is a great start...

Yes Walt's idea of using master pages is a work around for stashing stuff: But, obviously master pages were not designed for this or as scratch pads and have limitations. In particular it takes you away from the context you are working on. When I design a new element I want to see what I am working on and to be able to pick colours and other elements from the surrounding design. Like you want your tool bag near the ladder you are working on, not in the garage :). And moving things between windows/pages takes more steps and context switches than just dragging shapes into place from a palette. Using the master pages is little different than opening a scratch file in a new window, except it keeps things in one place. As to whether it would be easy to implement, that is a question for Serif. I am just suggesting that since they have already implemented something not so different, that isn't being used any more in studio link, that it could be the basis for something I and maybe others would find very useful. The idea of scratchpads, viewports etc. is something that works well in a lot of other applications and contexts, you don't have to look any further than a good file manager, such as Qdir. That is how windowing UIs should work!

Thanks for replying! Yes, I do in fact use the asset panel, but you can't directly edit shapes there, it is just a repository. All I am really getting at is that I missed artboards because they were quite useful as scratch pads before they were deprecated in favour of spreads, for those who use studio link and Affinity publisher (which is itself an awesome feature), even though they were not really designed for that. And given that the code for artboards has already been written, it might not be very hard to add the ability to make them float on top and then they would be useful alongside spreads as scratch pads. That is the basics, but there are all sorts of other things you could put on your scratch pads in the same way that an artist uses a palette board and maybe you could load and save scratch pads independtly. Another consideration is that when working on very large projects, the layer tree can become very convoluted and it is easy to forget and insert stuff all over the place or even lose it entirely, so it is often simpler to experiment on new ideas with a blank slate layer setup and then drag into your project when complete. Or am I the only one who spends lots of time refactoring layer trees? Reminds me of my days writing code. M

Can you be more specific and say what you were doing at the time? Is the program freezing or exiting to desktop? Also have you upgraded to 1.9.1, released a few days ago?

I had thought/hoped this problem was solved in 1.9.1, but it has just recurred. There are some signs that it may be related to a memory leak, given it tends to happen when my system has been on for a long time. That is something to investigate, I think.

I did not install the beta of 1.9.1, even though I had problems with 1.9.0, because of possible registry mix up, which still sometimes happens with windows. It might be a good idea then to completely remove all serif applications, then take a checkpoint on your registry and run a registry cleaner such as the one in CCleaner to improve the chances of removing registry traces. Also check that no file/directory traces remain. Then do a clean reinstall from scratch. But, maybe you tried this already.

In affinity photo?

Here are my results: https://photos.app.goo.gl/dEwfH1CwhkDsU56K8 I notice that my results for 1.9.1.979 release version are similar to your beta results (with a few anomalies, my processor is now > 6 years old and GPU several gens old). This suggests (captain obviously) that something went wrong on your setup between beta and release, but my results I think suggest that it isn't necessarily a problem with the Affinity release itself. BTW a new Nvidia driver was released on the 25th. I used this in the benchmark. Just a random thought - I know that Windows pro has some quirks, for instance they recently released a restrictive safety extension that some users found hard to completely eliminate... Anyway, it seems to me that given the experiences of others with the windows version your problem is most likely due to some incompatibity or glitch with something in your specific configuration. Not easy to tie down what that might be. my system: Core i7-3770 (this is old now around 2014), 16gb, GTX 1080, Windows home.

Have you upgraded to 1.9.1? If not try that first and see if the problem persists.

Is also working on my nvidia 1080 late jan driver. Also 1.9.1 appears faster and more stable (failure to save and other problems appear to be fixed). Might be worth posting your specs.

As has already been noted you can chop up shapes by running lines through them, selecting both with line on top, then pressing divide, but it is easy to miss some of the details: 1. Draw a line or lines through your shape 2. The default setting in preferences/user interface decimal places for points is 1, set it to 3 or more. 3. set the stroke size for the line to 0.001 points (best for accurate snapping according to Loukash) 4. With the line selected choose layer-->expand stroke 5 Shift select the shape as well as the line. 6 press boolean divide. That works well for the cases I have where this functionality is useful. Probably Serif will implement knife tool sometime, as it was on their roadmap, but there is no way of knowing when that will be (next major version, ie 2.0?), since they are keeping future development plans under their hats, as users don't always understand the primary law of software development, Hofstadter's law: "It always takes longer than you think it will, even if you take Hofstadter's law into account"!? In the meantime reintroducing requests for these features doesn't serve a lot of purpose, unless it is to clarify work arounds.

Hi Walt Yes, am aware of the pasteboard area... I like your idea of using master documents as a place to dump stuff in. I was looking for a way of adding pages that don’t interfere with the publication pages, but can be used for reference, linking, tracing etc and hadn’t thought of that. For this use case though I was thinking of something a bit more like a post it note that you can pin where you are working. Admittedly artboards don’t really work like that, because they don’t stay on top. Thanks M

Spreads are much better than artboards for documents with separate parts, IMHOP. But, I liked artboards as a palette for objects i am working on, colours, proto styles... so as not mess up the document. This functionality, could be sort of like an artists palette - Ideally though you would want to have it in a floating window on top of your document that you could keep close to the place you are working so you can easily drag stuff between the document and the artboard.

Image trace isn't a repetitive operation. As such is isn't a huge disadvantage having it stand alone. I think it was on Serif's roadmap, when they had one. But there are plenty of other things there that they might consider more pressing than adding complex functionality that is already quite straight forward to do in several other ways. If it was me I wouldn't rush this out, but would be looking to add some value that isn't just directed at making workflow a little more convenient.

Generally there will be a learning curve whatever software she starts out with, just because it will have a different user interface to what she is used to and probably a lot more features, which she will not yet be familiar with. That can be frustrating until one gets over the hump - it is the same for all of us. I would suggest that if you have already bought both Affinity photo and designer, that she starts out with photo, because it is a general painting application (as well as a photo editor) designer on the other hand has a steeper learning curve and in any case is more specialised in it's uses. Affinity photo is as good or better than anything else for this purpose, and easier for beginners than some other programs, so you are unlikely to find anything more suitable elsewhere. It is important when viewing tutorials on youtube to actually work through the examples and experiment, you don't learn a lot by just watching videos on their own. And if you search for "affinity photo tutorial" on youtube there is plenty of good material to work through.

Hi E9B6 there is a menu option for most of these panels in the top right hand corner, next to the close button. If you click on that you will find a range of different view sizes.

The problem isn’t just eyesight it is that what looks the right size at 1080p looks way too small at 1440p and above.

Just enable the node editor and drag out the nearest node to each of the endpoints. Then curl z to undo. It’s easy to get somewhat misleading shapes with expand stroke, for instance.

Could these composites of boolean operations be handled by implementing a macro language? That could be useful for many other things... and would prevent the UI becoming cluttered with commands that are aimed at particular niche areas. Would also be a major feature for AD 2.

"Save failed due to an internal error. This should be reported to the development team." I have, however, managed to save (export) the separate parts of the document I am working on to .svg now and don't appear to have lost information... I still have the original document open in AD. Any ideas?