MikeTO

I suspect the Context bar issue is connected to the latter bug (no size handles for selected object) and that one turned out to be simple to replicate. I've attached two test docs and a screen recording of the following steps: With no other documents open, open file test3 which had the placeholder image selected prior to saving. It will have no size handles after opening. To illustrate that the image is actually selected, shift it around the page with the arrow keys. There are still no size handles. When I drag on the trackpad to shift the page in the viewport the size handles will appear. Keeping test3 open, open file test5b which had the insertion point in the text frame prior to saving. It will have no size handles after opening. To illustrate that the text frame is actually selected, shift it around the page with the arrow keys. There are still no size handles. When I drag on the trackpad to shift the page in the viewport the size handles and text frame bounding box will appear. Here is where it gets interesting. Close both documents and open file test5b on its own. Now it will have size handles after opening. This is 100% repeatable for me - test3 and test5b both have this issue but test5b will only exhibit the issue if test3 is already open. What a fun bug. 🙂 test3.afpubTest5b.afpub Screen Recording 2022-01-27 at 11.06.49 AM.mov

That's a good idea but it's not that - changing the style so next style = same style doesn't change the behaviour of the bug.

Oh thanks, now I can't un-see this! 🙂 Same on macOS.

Hmm, it appears to depend on which text style was in use when creating the new text frame. Using the default styles in a blank document: If you are using Body, Box, Bullet 1/2/3, Drop Cap, Initial Words, Line Above, Line Above/Below, or Numbered 1/2/3, the next text frame will have the same style. If you are using Optical Alignment, the next text frame will have Optical Alignment + Optical Alignment:Non But if you're using Heading 1 or 2, the next text frame will have Heading 1 or 2 + Font Weight: Normal; Font size: 12 pt. Something is strange here.

This is incredibly low priority but sometimes when I open a document the Context bar looks like this with stacked spacers and missing buttons: instead of looking this as it should: Selecting an object solve this so it's very minor. It's not specific to the beta, I just took these screenshots while banging on the new beta. I haven't been able to reduce this to a test case with a blank document but obviously the Context bar is thinking there's an object selected when there isn't one, so a null value is being saved for selected object sometimes. I can fix the problem temporarily by doing some things to the document, such as deleting a page and then saving, but after a bit more editing the problem returns. There is a separate but possibly related bug - if there's a selected object when saved, it should have size handles when you reopen the document but sometimes the selected object will lack size handles upon re-opening. In this case the Context bar will look normal and you can perform actions on the object such as choosing Replace Image from the Context bar or nudging the object around the screen with the arrow keys - I've shown the latter in the attached movie. If you want a document to duplicate this I'd need a dropbox link and it would be over 500MB. The linked images aren't needed to see the problem and there are no embedded images but the file size is inflated due to the other file size bug with some TIFF images that I've been reporting. Screen Recording 2022-01-26 at 1.48.54 PM.mov

This is cosmetic but could confuse a new user. Create a text frame Type some text and make it Heading 1 Create another text frame Type some more text and it will be Body of course, the default, but the Text Styles studio panel will indicate that it's Heading 1, the last style used in the previous text frame Attached video shows the issue. Screen Recording 2022-01-26 at 1.06.11 PM.mov

You can change your region by clicking the link in the bottom right corner of the screen.

I wouldn't expect for field text to be found during a find and replace, that's not the way most programs work. Find has to highlight the found text in your document so you can decide whether or not to change it.

Apologies, I was confused by somebody else's reply to you

I was just pointing out how to do it in Publisher without causing yourself grief. IMO, having the master page dependent on the presence of a paragraph formatted with a style is unfeasible. Would that master override all of the masters already applied to a page or would it be applied in addition to the potentially multiple masters already applied to that page? Would that master be at the top or bottom of the layer stack? (The user should never be able to override this since the master would keep floating between pages.) What if there were 10 paragraphs on one page each with a different master page applied automatically, would all 10 masters be applied to the page or would just the first or last one be applied? That might sound silly but what if there were 2 such styles one and the user intended them to be applied together but due to the way the text was edited they wound up on successive pages. What if some of the applied masters were portrait and some were landscape, or some were A4 and some were A3? Most of this could be avoided by a different approach. What you really want is the ability to insert a section break and then specify in the section manager which masters should be applied to the first page/spread in that section and whether those masters override or add to the manually applied masters. That still leaves the issue of the layer stack order but it's a much simpler approach. Publisher has a brilliant approach to multiple masters and layers but it makes implementing a robust chapter/section feature more complex than in older apps. I'm sure Serif has a plan but until then I'll just break the text flow between chapters and avoid all the issues.

Yes, but only if the entire book is one big story. I recommend creating a separate story (series of linked text frames) for each chapter. In a nutshell: Create masters for your chapter titles and for regular pages Apply the chapter title master to the first page/spread of a chapter. Add one more page/spread and apply the regular master to it. Paste the text for the chapter into the first text frame. Shift click the overset text indicator on the last text frame and Publisher will create as many pages of linked frames as required. Add another page/spread at the end of the document for the next chapter title and apply the chapter title master to it. Add one more page/spread and apply the regular master to it. Paste the text for the next chapter into the first blank text frame. Shift click the overset text indicator on the last text frame and Publisher will create as many pages of linked frames as required. Repeat 6-9 as required. If you later add or remove pages in a book configured this way the assigned masters will stick with the pages they're applied to.

Instead of using a white box to obscure headers or footers on the first page of a chapter you should consider using a separate master page.

Here are the suggestions offered by others last time. Are you unable to resize the dialog box?

Wow, that M1 Max 32 core GPU.

The issue I've reported can be replicated consistently with the same images. I can create a document with a single image and get the bloated file size every single time. I sent Serif a copy of a test image that will always cause the problem so I assume they'll be able to track this down.

No, the problem I've reported can be recreated with a blank document and one image. Your issue might be the same or could be completely separate. I know there's another file size thread on embedded PDF files but I don't recall one for InDesign files.

I believe they're asking for the ability to select text frames on more than one page or spread at once. There's a reason apps don't generally offer this feature - features such as Group require that all of the selected objects be on a single page or spread. If you want to select all of the frames because you want to change their attributes all at once, you'd be better off putting the text frames on a master page and then editing the frame there.

I ordered a month before then. I just believed the hype about M1 memory management more than my decades of experience of never cheaping out on memory. It's still amazing and I don't run out of memory every day, but I was surprised to hit that brick wall.

For anybody still on the fence as to which configuration to buy, here's what I wish somebody could have told me before I ordered my 14" MacBook Pro. I ordered the base 16GB of RAM, upped the CPU cores from 8 to 10, and kept the GPU cores at 14 instead of the optional 16. I had planned to order 32GB of RAM but I wanted to get my order in within minutes of availability and not wanting to spend too much, I decided more CPU cores might be more important than more memory given the praises people had given Apple Silicon's memory handling. I think that was a mistake. If I was doing it again I would order 32GB of RAM and leave the CPU cores at 8. Several times in the past few weeks I've stared at the beachball and waited for macOS to do its thing because I've run out of memory, not just in Affinity apps but in system apps like Preview. Apple Silicon is great but the old saying that you can never have too much ram is still true. I think 16GB is usable for a lot of work but I wish I'd bought 32GB. I know I'm getting a boost from the extra CPU cores, at least for some of what I do, and more RAM did cost twice of what the extra CPU cores did, but I would reverse that decision. Even though the GPU is more important for rendering the canvas in Affinity I'm happy with the level of performance I'm getting there. BTW, I've been keeping a benchmark list up to date over in the Windows Photo beta area - scroll to the bottom to see a comparison of several Mac and Windows systems.

I don't believe this is a bug. The order of entries in a table of contents is dependent on the layer position of the text frames. The TOC engine searches for entries starting at the bottom layer on a page, not the top, which is correct. Here's a fixed version of your example - you need to position Content 1 below Content 1 in the Layers studio (or use send to back).

For me, it is definitely specific images. It's possibly the same for you but perhaps you have one or more of the troublesome images in each of your files. I have done further tests with the sample image I provided to Serif earlier in this thread. All of my images are TIFF and while most are CMYK, some are RGB because they were created years ago and I will do my photo cleanup at a later time. The test image was RGB so I tried converting it to CMYK and it had no impact. I tried converting it to CMYK with Photoshop instead of Affinity Photo and it had no impact. I tried halving the resolution with only the equivalent reduction, not to a normal document size. I tried cropping the image to see if it was something peculiar about specific aspect ratios but it had no impact. I then tried converting the TIFF to a JPG. I expected it to work like halving the resolution, a corresponding drop in file size to match the new image size, but converting it to JPG completely solved the problem. I don't want to use JPGs for my book and I can wait for Serif to fix this as I don't need to provide the files to a printer anytime soon so the bloated file size doesn't worry me yet. But I hope this is addressed before the next release as it's an issue for large books.

Hi @Fnuxus, with your extensive experience using a variety of apps I think Affinity will feel just like home very soon. I've been using using page layout software even longer than you and when I picked up Affinity the cloud of confusion cleared in a day or two and then it was like slipping on a comfortable pair of slippers. I think Serif's designers have done a remarkable job. Every application names some things differently and in this case it's right where you were looking and is just named "Update <style name>." And Serif does provide three ways to update your style. The easiest option is in the Context Bar a the top of the screen which has controls for both character and paragraph attributes. After you've adjusted the paragraph or character attributes as desired, just click the Update paragraph style button (circled in red) to update the paragraph style. Tip: to the right of the Update button is a button to open the Paragraph "studio" (Affinity term for palette) so you can edit the paragraph attributes. And there is a matching pair of Update and show studio buttons to the right of the character style dropdown list, which is to the left of the paragraph style dropdown. Tip: the dropdown indicates if a style has been overridden with a + sign as show in this screenshot, i.e. Body+. Another way to update your style is through the studio panel's context menu as you attempted. Serif have grouped paragraph and character text styles into one studio panel. You can sort them by type with paragraph styles on the top and character below. Once you've edited your style and have it the way you like it, just click the context menu icon to the right of the style name (or right click anywhere on the style) and choose Update Body. Finally, you can update your style through the menu bar. Choose Text > Text Styles > Update Paragraph Style (or Update Character Style).

With the Mackintosh added for comparison. Green highlights highest score within a 10% band.

Like you, I have a MacBook Pro 14" and have the latest version of Monterey. I've had no issues with running the Affinity suite on my new computer so the issue is likely a specific feature you're using and I'm not using, unless you have some different system configuration. Sorry, I don't have any specific suggestions but at least you know it's unlikely to be a general issue with your new MacBook Pro.