[Scaling during copy 'n pasting between documents]

I have 2 Designer documents open. I copy a vector object in one document, go to the other document and paste it in. When I paste it, the object shrinks by about 20%.

 

What's causing it, is that the two documents have different PPI settings so my object is maintaining its dimensions in pixels.

 

Is there any way to keep the paste scaling based on physical dimensions (millimeters) rather than pixel dimensions (PPI)?

 

I understand that this is best practice when copy 'n pasting between AP documents because it's primarily a pixel editor and we don't want objects resampling without our knowledge, but AD is a vector editor and vectors, by their very nature, are pixel independent.

 

Please tell me there's a setting somewhere in the preferences I can change to get this corrected. It's really quite frustrating and it's a problem when trying to keep elements consistent across multiple documents.

[What is this blue line in the layers panel?]

I opened a PDF into Affinity Designer and saw something I didn't recognize or understand its purpose. There is a thin blue line between 2 layers. I can't select it, right click on it or any other number of alternate keyboard modifier key clicks. I also can't see any difference that it might be making to the document. It's not like everything above it is locked or invisible or indicating a clipping layer. It also seems to be attached to the layer above it as it moves when I drag layers around.

 

Please can someone educate as to what it's for. Hopefully it's some awesome hidden feature I know nothing about, and not just a glitch from the PDF.

 

[Affinity Photo Customer Beta (1.5 - RC1)]

Agreed!

[Create Guides from shapes]

However, I realise that using my own argument in another thread (view here), I shouldn't actually be using Designer to do a flyer layout – I should be using Publisher, so creating advanced guide layouts shouldn't really be a feature request at this stage.

 

Of course, if Publisher doesn't deliver advanced guides like I need, I'll repost my feature request.

 

;)

[multiple strokes and fills, 3d]

Different folks, different strokes...

 

:D

[[AD] Dedicated pattern tool]

Not a bad idea, considering that good repeat patterns are useful in web design.

[Glyphs please]

You know, OSX has a Glyphs panel built into the operating system – the character viewer. Just double-click the icon you want and it inserts it wherever your cursor is, in any application.

 

It works in Affinity applications perfectly. The perfect solution while you wait for a prettier interface from Affinity.

[Hide bounding box / transform handles]

Ah, right... because the space bar is also a character. Got it.

 

I have the exact same complaint with InDesign – press the spacebar to pan around the page, but if you're typing, you just add dozens of spaces into your text box (it's a layout tool so of course you're going to be typing, duh).

 

Quark has it right: Press the Alt key instead. It's not a character, just a modifier key.

 

Caps Lock would be a good idea to hide/show the bounding box. Perhaps it could hide/show other guide elements like guides, handles, selection marquees, text baseline & frames, margins, bleed etc. all in one go – a temporary preview.

[Creating Animated GIFs?]

I've just made an animated GIF to explain a comment in this forum and I realised how simple it is to do in PhotoShop. Unfortunately... I had to go to PhotoShop to do it.

 

I know animated GIFs probably fall into the animation category, but it would be great to able to export layers as frames in the same way Illustrator does when it exports an animated SVG. No massive feature set, just a few simple settings at export stage.

[multiple strokes and fills, 3d]

Apologies on the duplicate post – I can't figure out how to delete one of them (Mr Moderator... can you kill one off for me?)

[multiple strokes and fills, 3d]

Multiple strokes are really useful when drawing road maps. Just drag you end point around and the outline & dashed line follows. (see attached animated GIF)

[multiple strokes and fills, 3d]

Multiple strokes are really useful when drawing road maps. Just drag your end point around, and the outline & dashed line follows. (see attached animated GIF)

[[WISH] Better polygon lasso tool]

I generally find the lasso tool difficult to use. I can't quite put my finger on it. It's not the feature set, but rather how I just struggle to get a good selection without cursing, pulling out my hair and banging my mouse.

 

I think the marching ants (marquee) is too thick, or not positioned where I expect it to be (inside the section, outside the selection... ?).

 

It just seems clumsy. I love PhotoShop and Pixelmator's marquee selection tools. They feel crisp and and give me a sense of control.

 

Sorry, I wish I could be more specific.

[Create Guides from shapes]

+1

 

Before doing any layout job, I always create very detailed guides grid that margins and columns just don't allow. A simple example is a DL leaflet. Using strokes, I create:

• Fold guides
• page margins
• panel margins
• top of paragraph guides

 

I select all and paste them onto a second, third fourth artboards for consistancy

 

I then select them all and convert to guides.

 

I can't leave them as strokes because as guides they are:

• Non-printing
• Easy to hide/reveal with keyboard shortcuts
• Snappable (Is that a word? I can snap to them)

 

 

If I try do this with regular ruler guides, the guides only display on the selected artboard. TIt's a fight to get them nicely positioned since I find when I drag them onto the artboard, they snap to guides on other artboards – even though I can't see them.

 

Attached is a screenshot showing my preferred set up versus what I currently have to do.

 

Even if my workflow is rare, the addition of this feature allows for creating diagonal guides, curved guides, short guides and a general ability to copy-n-paste guides onto other artboards and even other documents. All are super useful.

 

 

[[Multi] Need to "see" bleed]

Nice solution.

[Hide bounding box / transform handles]

Not sure I follow you completely., but have you tried pressing the space bar to temporarily hide the bounding box?

[[ADe] Dimension tool]

I own a copy of iDraw (now called Graphic) from Autodesk for the sole purpose of using its dimension tags on its paths (it's not actually a tool, but rather a stroke style that automatically adds a label showing the length dimension and arrow heads at either end. It even has a document scale so you can draw something 10mm wide, and the label can automatically display 10m if you've applied a 1:1000 scale.

 

It's an absolute joy to use (it's just a pity that the rest of the application is so horrid) so pleeeeeeeaaaaaase add a dimension tool. Your awesome scaling, snapping and massive zooming has already set the groundwork for it. It seems like a natural progression.

[An obvious way of seeing the document's colour format]

Is there anyway to open a document and immediately see if it's an RGB or CMYK document?

 

In Designer, I have to click the Document Properties button and then click on the color tab.

In Photo I have to go to the Document menu and select Colour Format.

 

These are really hidden, and the worst mistake I can make is sending an RGB document to print. I need some way to immediately see my document's colour format so if I think it's CMYK, but it's actually RGB, I should be able to stumble across it and be made aware of it.

 

In illustrator, the colour format is in the file name, along with the zoom scale. This would be a simple solution since you already put the scale in the file name in both applications.

 

What would be very nice, is to have a small RGB icon next to the Preferences button. This could change to a CMYK icon, and then a grey icon. (As added functionality, could it also be a conversion button?)

 

Attached is a screenshot of my proposed icon.

[PDF Export Markers]

Exactly as I described – You've built a page that includes bleed resulting in a page that's too big and has no bleed settings.

 

Have a look at my screenshots of your document showing your settings and my version of your document (how it should be, along with an exported PDF with the crop marks in the expected place.

 

I've also attached your corrected document as well so you can use it and see what I was talking about.

8x525_Book_Final-Fixed.afdesign

[PDF Export Markers]

Oh, it's adding [what Adobe calls] bleed marks instead of crop marks?

 

If I make an A4 page, my artboard shows me an A4 artboard. When I add bleed, my artboard doesn't change at all – I still see an A4 artboard. If an object lies off the artboard edge and into the bleed, I can't see it. I just have to trust it's there. The bleed area only revels itself in my exported PDF.

 

When you add bleed, does your artboard change? Do you see the bleed area reveal itself?

 

Attached are 2 samples. 

 

1 - No bleed. A4 document's corner in Designer looks like this – the same as the exported PDF with cropmarks.

 

2 - 5mm bleed. The A4 document's corner looks exactly the same as before, but when it's exported, the bleed reveals itself.

 

Apart from the difference in the final PDF, are you experiencing the same thing as me in Designer?

I suspect you might've created a page that incorporates bleed into its dimensions.

[Affinity Video Editor?]

Noooooo, don't do it... please don't make a video editor. Keep focussed. Make your design/print/layout/photography apps the most awesome apps out there. You know what you're doing in those fields. Continue along your development path and own these fields. Video is a totally different beast, and I really doubt you could make something better than Final Cut Pro, anyway. Then what next? You'll have to add 3D modelling, motion graphics, color grading and sound editing to that video editor to be considered serious player in the video scene.

 

Also, Affinity apps are professional-level apps. You can't go into video with a consumer, or even pro-sumer level application. If you do, it will water down the current line up of apps.

 

If you think designers are critical about your software and its [currently missing] features, wait until you try win over the video editing industry. Have a look at the backlash Apple experienced when it launched Final Cut Pro X. It was missing a few features that I'd hardly considered critical, and yet they nearly lost the entire editing industry to Premier over night. They even had to return Final Cut Pro 7 to the app store to quell the anger. Only now, with v1.3, is FCPX finally clawing back its lost user base.

 

I have both Premier and FCPX on my Mac. I love using FCPX, but I keep having to go back to Premier just because of one missing feature – it can't export an OMF any more. This means I can't send my project to an audio engineer for a final mix. This oversight is simply criminal and reduces FCPX to my "fun to own" list of software, and not a pro tool I use for paying clients.

 

Don't be tempted to become Adobe and try shovel a tool for every industry onto your customers. Stick to what you're good at and continue to make it utterly brilliant.

 

Thanks Affinity.

[Please keep Design, Photo and Publisher separate, focused apps.]

I see lots of typography-based feature requests for Affinity Designer. This is not surprising since a lot of us are designers using very mature Adobe software and text wrap, linked text boxes, bullets, columns etc are all essential features for layout.

 

However, we have Photo for photo editing, Designer for illustration and [hopefully soon] Publisher for layout.

 

I think a lot of these "essential" typo features are being requested because Publisher has not yet been released. Designer should not get these advanced type features because they are aimed at layout, not illustration. Typo features that should be in Designer, should be limited to artistic effects like envelope distortions for warping and advanced text on path. My rule of thumb would be "if I can use the feature to design a logo, then it should be in Designer, if it's needed for a brochure, then it should be in Publisher".

 

If we look at the Adobe line-up... sure Illustrator has got a truckload of text features that allow you to do typographic layouts, but I think that's part of Adobe's failings. I have designers who work for me who make me tear my hair out when they insist on using Illustrator for a 20 page brochure – it's possible but it's not the right tool for the job. Then they go and design a logo in PhotoShop – again, possible, but not the tool for the job. (Illustrator REALLY lost the plot when they added multiple pages/artboards)

 

I think this comes from the fact that for many years, Adobe has been adding features from other applications and calling them "upgrades". Instead of innovation and reworking old tools, we just get shared feature sets. This is exactly what I consider to be "application bloat".

 

I hope the developers at Affinity don't give in to all the requests to add missing features to Designer, when these missing features are actually a request for a missing application.

 

Please Affinity, keep your apps focussed, efficient, streamlined and well-considered. Please don't turn all of them into a Jack-of-all-trades. Your pricing is low enough to force me by Publisher if I need typographic features.

 

I'm concerned that when Publisher comes out, customers will pick and choose which, single app they want based on a collection of broad features that satisfy 70% of their needs, and then complain that it's missing features. Rather, we should buy the suite and get all the features we need, than try to get one app upgraded to the point where we don't need the others.

 

I guess my post could also read "Please speed up delivery of Publisher", or at least give us a few more  teasers – even just a full feature list of version 1.0 so we can stop asking for what is already on its way.

 

Thanks guys for great software. I'm very optimistic for the future – a future without the need to have Adobe software on my computer. (and great typographic tools in Publisher is the last stepping stone to that future)

 

:)

[Ghost Preview: Publisher]

I agree – a fantastic feature.

 

Quark Express does the same thing, but it's not an option – it instantly does it the moment you resize the frame. 

 

To really knock this feature out the park, can you give us the option in the preferences to define the opacity of the cropped image? (I'd like it really light when working on a white page, but quite strong if I'm on something complex like a layered collage or a black background.)

[PDF Export Markers]

Hmm, can't see your screenshots, but when I export a PDF in Designer, I find my crop marks sitting on the edge of the bleed as I'd expect them to be, not on the edge of the page.

 

If I have 3mm bleed defined in my page preferences, then the crop marks are 3mm off the page.

If I have 10mm bleed defined in my page preferences, then the crop marks are 10mm off the page.

 

Are experiencing something different, or am I just not understanding you correctly?

 

 

[Export Preview]

Good news, Plasmoid... you don't have to deselect the object to hide the bounding box. Just press and hold the space bar. While it's down – no bounding box. This also applies when using the perspective tool, both in Designer and Photo.   :)

 

I was happy to find this because I find the bounding box in Affinity to be very intrusive and hides too much. Maybe it's beautiful on a retina screen but it seems to be thicker than a single pixel on my traditional screen. Perhaps it's jus positioned where I don't expect it to be...