MoonaticDestiny

So what are we doing? What are we doing right now? Im bored. I want to beta test affinity designer v2 for ipad already. I want to get to work and fix this app. I want to submit my feedback in the beta forums. Im not doing anything. I want to work. I have all the time in the world. I really want to fix this app design wise. The apps out. You got your money. You got your flowers. Lets get to work. Chapter 2. ✌️

So I started my 30 day trial for adobe illustrator on ipad, and I wanted to share my pros about the app. Specifically pros because the features that make it pro I really want to see some of them in affinity designer v2 for ipad. Not all of them. Theres not too many pros. Just some. This is NOT a feature request post. No. Im not trying to make a list of feature requests on one post. I will make a feature request of some of these request individually when the beta forums open up. I just want to talk about these pro features here because theyre related to AD and we should be talking about them. 1.) The Context Menu Widget - Ive talked about it here in the forums. It needs to happen for affinity designer v2 on ipad. Pretty much the context menu widget is a toolbar that appears under each object/stroke when you select the move tool where you have quick action buttons on a bar like move, delete, layer order, opacity, stroke width, duplicate, lock, etc. Its a bar that has everything you need and will help you in your building vector process. Serif was in the right step in making this move context toolbar. They were right there in making it BUT they badly messed up. They messed up by putting this move context toolbar inside the new quick menu. Its now inside the quick menu and all the quick action buttons are at the top (duplicate, cut, copy, paste style, delete). This move context toolbar is not a debate. It needs to happen because its going to help out users and it follows Fitts Law. We need to follow fitts law. 2) The Round Corner Widget - Every time you have a sharp point in your shape in Illustrator for ipad theres a round corner widget that you can easily pull to round your corner. Its so awesome and easy. In AD, theres specifically a round corner button and you have to press that button just to make your corner. Its too many steps and there shouldn't even be a corner button. Just offer that round corner widget where theres a sharp point to make vector building easier. 3) Smoothing - The smoothing feature is awesome in adobe illustrator for ipad. Its what the pencil tool in AD needs. You just increase the smoothing value and youre drawing THE smoothest lines. This is great for when you rough sketch something out and you just use your pencil to start vector building your illustration with smooth lines. 4) Freeform Gradient - A feature where you can add several color "annotators" to your object that blend color with each other. 5) The Pathfinder Thumbnail Preview - The previewing thumbnail of the different pathfinders shapes. Its VERY helpful to see the thumbnails of the patherfinder results youre looking for. Thats pretty much it. Yup. Its really not that pro. Nothing else stands out about illustrator for ipad. Im not really wowed. Im feeling mehhhh about it. I can honestly say it is NOT worth a subscription. Save your money. AD for ipad is beyond better. Be-yond better. AD for ipad has way more features and is ahead of the game. Illustrator for ipad is half baked. Its still baking. We really need to talk about that context menu widget though. It needs to happen in AD v2 or v3. Its really good. So good that even Apple has integrated it into their new Freeform productivity app. Now adobe, Apple, and vectornator are using this context menu widget.

Yes again to everything you said. I get you. Youre right about everything with the layer gestures. The add to selection, delete, and blend modes were just added in v2. V1 didnt have any of these layer interactions. I hate that you have to tap the 3 dots to get to basic layer properties like the opacity slider and layer name rename. It takes like 4-6 steps just to rename a layer and they still havent made it easier. Its so angering. Its funny that you said this because you were the one who mentioned it in a forum post I made a while back. It was you! Im so happy it was you because it tells me that we're both on the same page! 😊

I dont have adobe illustrator on ipad. I dont want to pay the subscription. I CANT relate to what youre saying here because I dont have the app, but this video helps me relate to what youre talking about and what youre feeling and OMG. I'm honestly AMAZED. I didnt know the adobe app did this. IM SO AMAZED right now! Everything is working with the pencil. Its truly amazing! Like, they thought about how the user should work and created a simple helpful workflow for them. This is awesome. Im honestly having second thoughts right now about paying for an adobe illustrator subscription. Its cool how theres smoothing. Which is what I requested and never got. Theres no silly rope like you say. You can stop to make a sharp edge and then continue on. This is super cool and then how the path closes by getting to the end of your line is awesome. Theres this light relieving feeling in my head right now where I feel like I can work and get stuff done and I feel excited and joy. I dont get that with AD. Im flustered with ADs UI. Im every where. I have to click several buttons to do basic actions.😫🤕 Something else I love is that corner widget in illustrator. Adobe provides you the corner widget on sharp points to make corners easily. Affinity makes a button for corners and then makes you active it to make a corner. Its so many steps. Sigh. @Bryan Riegerthank you for bring this to my attention, my friend. What youre feeling in this post of yours is how Im feeling too.

Yes, to everything you said, my friend. THIS! I dont know why values are in decimals in v1 and v2. Why are we working in decimal values? Its pisses me off. No one works this way. If someone needs THAT specific decimal value let them enter it in but dont make us work this way. I made a whole post about this in the v1 forums back in june but serif never implemented a setting in the preferences to turn it off. Im still waiting for this. How? I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this.

Im not really sure. Pat just said a public beta version will be available "very soon." Ill just wait for the beta forums to open up to leave the feedback.

Oh. Ok. Thank you my friend. Good to know that this is how it works and that its not a bug.

I dont know whats going on. I dont know if Im not understanding it. Or maybe this is just an issue with the whole button active style. In the first photo below, the snapping button at the top right corner is turned ON so now my objects will snap to each other. However, the preview mode button next to it is not on but my grids and margins are showing. And then in the second photo, if I turn the preview mode button ON to look like my ON snap button, the grids and margin turn off. Shouldnt the grid and margin show when the preview mode button is turned ON? Not when its turned off? Is this a bug? or am I not understanding?

So I bought AD v2 for ipad when it was released. Played with it. Never opened it and then opened it again to play with it again. Yall.............this context toolbar is not it. Its not. Im letting you know right now that it is not it. Again, Im letting you know right now that it is NOT IT. The placement and the design of it is not it. Its not. Its just not. I dont want explain my self in full details right here in this forum post on why its not it because I want to wait for the beta forums to open up so I can go FULL critical design justification on this context toolbar but it really is not it. Shout out to the serif team for trying something new. Its always good to try new things but this isnt it. Again, I'll tell you why in MAX detail why this context toolbar isnt working when you start beta testing but we REALLY need to go back to the drawing board and figure this one out. Like, a UI change for v2 ipad HAS TO HAPPEN because of this context toolbar and you really have to listen this time around for this to work on improving the app. We gotta figure this out.

This "blue color" keeps popping up into users comments where they are saying its helping them. This is why the blue color in the AD v2 for ipad and all the other serif ipad apps should have never been taken out in v2. Its a good color for visual clues for the user. Also, not only are the shapes not blue but they're outlined. Which is wrong to do because users might think theyre going to create an outlined shape. They should be filled in like in v1 so that users know the shape theyre going to create will be a filled in shape. IDKY icons were a priority in v2 over fixing bugs. They should have just left the icons the way they were.

I literally made a whole post here on how this is an issue and how it can be solved. Its because they have unactive buttons as active buttons. They need to make all their active buttons, inactive buttons. Its this whole issue with the colors theyre using.

I disagree with you. It wasnt annoying. It was perfectly fine down there. The context toolbar in v1 was located at a reaching pencil distance and all your settings were there. EVERYTHING you needed was there. Now, in v2, everything has been split and divided. I dont know why they did that. I really dont like it. Its bad design. Really bad design. Everything has been redistributed around the screen. You got things at the top. Things to the left. Icons that serif expects us to know. Sliders that take up UI space. Buttons within buttons. Unnecessary icons for the sliders. Lots of buttons at the top. Its just all bad. It literally feels like they took the v1 context toolbar, redistributed everything around the interface, and said, "You figure it out." Its a mess. Honestly, the context toolbar in v1 was better. A simple bar with everything you needed. Those circle dials in v1 were awesome! You just hover over the dial and increase your vale. Super easy. Super awesome! Those dials in v1 took up waaayyy less space than the new long sliders here in v2. The dials from v1 didnt need to be turned into sliders here in v2. Now we have unnecessary sliders taking up UI space. And now you have icons under those sliders that we're expected to know. Its crazy! In v1, the context toolbar had every thing "spelled out" for you so it helped you know where everything was. It was truthfully awesome and so helpful. The v1 context toolbar was just so awesome! Literally go back to AD v1, try out the context toolbar, and then come back to v2 and see how its all a mess and confusing. Ugh! And all those icons at the top. My goodness. What are we doing? I never understood the difference between rope and window. I even played with both settings in v1 and they feel the same. I always said there should have been a 3rd stabilizer called "smooth stabilizer." Its a stabilizer that acts like the one in illustrator, fresco, and procreate where the app would do the smoothing for you. In rope and window the smoothing is done depending on the speed of your hand. Serif never implemented this 3rd stabilizer into the app. 😐 You can read about my post here. The solution to everything here is to go back to the way the context toolbar was in v1. It was never broken. No debate about sliders. No using an icon to toggle between things. No weird icons that serif expects us users to know. No cluster of icons at the top. Nothing is redistributed. Everything is spelled out for you in v1. The context toolbar in v1 was awesome. @Bryan RiegerHave you seen the rope and window stabilizer context toolbar in v1? The value input is literally right next to it. It doesnt get any better and easier than that. Now, in v2, we've moved and splitted everything everywhere. IDKY we're making these bad design decisions. You know its bad design when a user, you, says it took them AGES to figure something out. You know its bad design when a user, you, says something they need is too far away from them. You know its bad design when you call something confusing. You know its bad design when you have to look at 2 different areas of the interface for completing 1 basic action.

I was going to clarify what I wrote by editing my post, but I got side tracked and I didnt. What I meant to say, and I didnt, was "this is something I really want to have a debate about WITH SERIF." I meant to have a debate with serif. Not you. This is a conversation I want to have with them. I apologize, my friend. Im sorry if it came off as me coming for you with this whole detailed paragraph. Sorry, again.

I totally agree, my friend. I literally said that while I was typing my response in my previous comment, so I know Im right now. ☺️ THIS. Ive said this so many times, and I'll say it again. Serif is playing a game with users and the game is called "Hide and Go Seek." I dont want to play your game, Serif. I dont want to seek what youre hiding from us users. Stop hiding things from us. We have space but its very limited. A second row will NOT hurt though. Thats what users having been asking for years. There needs to be a customizable toolbar at the top. Currently, serif already added buttons at the top that they took out from the edit menu for us. So they did the customizing for us when really it should have been us who should have done the customization less taps = good design several taps = bad design

Hey, walt. This is something I really want to have a debate about. I think all personas should be lined next to each other. How it was in v1 and how mrqasq here is asking for and the reason why I say that is because it makes it easier for the user to toggle between into each persona. These personas are very important. Users should be able to toggle into them easily with one tap. Now, users have to do 2 taps just to get to them. 2 taps slows workflow and it makes it less easy to toggle into them. Heres the REAL issue though. Serif thought it was a good idea to put the context toolbar at the top on the same row the personas are on. Bad idea. That row at the top now becomes full of icons and these context toolbar icons now clash with the persona, document, and edit buttons. Because they clash, serif now has to make room for the context toolbar buttons and has put the personas into their own little single button pop up menu. This was a bad design choice by serif. This design choice makes the user do more work to get to important personas. This context toolbar ruins everything. I hate the context tool bar at the top. It was fine at the bottom in v1 but serif said something about they needed to move the context toolbar because it was in the way of the users canvas. It was distracting so it was moved to the top. I truthfully believe that if serif wanted to put the context toolbar at the top, they should have made a second row and have this second row reserved for the context toolbar. THATS what should have happened. That way the top row is reserved for all personas, the document, and edit buttons. And then the context toolbar has its own row below for as many buttons it has. So now theres no button clashing going on and users can now 1 tap easily into their own personas. On top of that, the top row where the personas,document, and edit buttons are should have been where the customizable toolbar should have gone. Its what users have been asking for years. Serif made a mistake by putting the context toolbar there instead of the customizable toolbar. And you know why the context toolbar at the top is a bad design decision? Its bad when not all the buttons of the context toolbar can fit on the bar at the top that you have to do a swipe left on the bar to see the rest of the buttons of the context toolbar that are hiding behind the zoom preview mode and snapping. Thats when you know its bad. So all personas should be displayed. No pop up menus for personas. The context toolbar should have gone on a second row below the top row.

The hand graphic for the gesture Zoom In and Zoom Out on all 3 app gesture PDFs for ipad, theres supposed to be filled in circles under the thumb and index finger because you have to "hold" down to perform these 2 gestures.

@Bryan Rieger yes to everything you said, my friend. I really, really wanted to like v2. REALLY. There are so many BAD design decisions, things that are confusing, things that feel half-baked, and things that just don't work. Normally I would post issues to the forum and wait to see what happens (spoiler: nothing ever happens), but I'm at a bit of a loss as how to proceed. I was hoping that with the BIG launch of v2 we might see a new, more communicative Serif There so many questionable design decisions Serif's consistently mute communications style has really eroded my confidence in Serif. ALL of this. 👆

I just wanted to say that I love AD v1 more for iPad than AD v2. And you know what? I hated v1. I have been raging in the v1 forums for the past couple of months for the serif team to fix some design issues with v1 but now Ive grown to love it. I open AD v1 up and I get so…….happy. Theres a happy feeling in me. Which is weird because I despised v1 months ago. Like, theres now a grateful feeling in me. A grateful feeling that v1 exists. That it wasn’t replaced/upgraded by v2. Im happy they are 2 separate apps because I don’t have stick with v2. I can remember that v1 exists and I can go back to it. I go back to v1 and my middle blue line layer clipping mask drop zone is there. This little blue middle line in the drop zone of the layers is why I prefer the ipad app over the desktop app. This middle blue line in the layers is awesome! The gray/blue tool icons are there. Those icon are beautiful. So beautiful. Its like a gray and light gray color with an accent blue to go with the blue theme of affinity designer. Theyre beautiful. My goodness! I can’t get over them. I don’t have go into v2 and see the “game boy” style icons. The eraser tool in the pixel person in AD v2 is literally a dr Mario pill. The lasso tool is literally Woody’s lasso from Toy Story and the purple star wand is literally a Wizards wand. Its a gameboy-ie style. It doesnt go with affinitys dark gray sleek theme. I don’t like the style they’re in. I love the gray/blue icons in v1. My buttons in v1 are not active. They’re all turned off. V2s buttons are all turned on. The context toolbar! Ugh. Im so happy its at the bottom in v1. I don’t like it at the top in AD v2. A custom toolbar should have been at the top in v2. Not the context toolbar. Im so happy the context toolbar is at the bottom in v1. I can go back to it. Im so happy they’re not sliders on the left side of the interface like in v2. In v1, theres no command controller that doesnt turn on all the time when you open Designer. Theres a delete button in v1! In v1, I don’t have to see the object type icons in the layers. You can’t turn that off in AD v2 for iPad. Again, nothing really changed in v2 from v1. Nothing was dramatically new. Yeah, new features were introduced but I didn’t need those features anyway. I cared more about design issues in the app than new features. We need to fix those design issues to have a functioning app. Not much changed…….nothing changed. Im honestly……..giggling………giggling because nothing changed and this is what we got in 4 years. AD v2 for ipad is just AD v1 with several active buttons turned on with a context tool bar at the top that shouldn’t be there thats been split into sliders on the left side of the interface. Thats all AD v2 is. The only thing good "design wise" about AD v2 for ipad was the new quick menu and pulling things out from the edit menu and placing them at the top for easier access. Which should have been the custom toolbar. These are great starting design solutions the app needed. I still bought the v2 app to support serif, and I wanted to see what was new in v2.

Its not a big issue but can we fix the home button?

Im not a developer. Im just a designer. I pay attention to how this app is designed. I dont have any work to show. I can only show a photoshop mock up of how I think the app should function when I see something wrong. I used to post several mockups in the AD v1 for ipad forums, but I stopped because serif was ignoring us ipad users and no updates were going to happen. With the new v2 update, I came back to see what changed and.....sigh. I figured I'd get to work since Im not doing anything.

I think if a tool from the toolbar is active, then a "light gray box" should show that its active. Not blue. I say that because in the "STUDIOS" example at the very top, layers is active and a light gray box is used to show that its active. So if that light gray box is being used for the studio icons to show that theyre active, then that same light gray box should be used for the tools on the left side. Right now they use a dark gray box to show that theyre active. Look at the first example called TOOLBAR. It a dark gray box but it should be a light gray box. I do want to note that in AD v1 for ipad, serif did use "blue" to show a tool was active. They put like a blue line next to the tool icon to show the tool/studio was active. I dont think serif should be using the reverse darker gray box. Its weird and its confusing users.

Im trying to understand you comment. So....snap is a button that can be turned off or on (toggled). So making it blue shows that its been turned on. Tapping it again would turn it off. Its currently "turned on" in the last example. When its off, it will return to the way it is in the example before the last one. Snap has been "selected" and turned on. For the selection tool in the last example. I think i messed up. It shouldnt have been a blue box. It should have been a light gray box because now Im going back to how they currently have it with the reverse highlight dark gray indicator only this time I made it blue.

Heres an example of how how the top bar should look. You should also be using the color blue because it tells the user that something is on. Its like when you highlight text. The blue highlight lets you know what text youve selected. The blue box here lets you know what youve turned on. Its a good indicator. Kind of like the blue lines used for the drop zones in the layers studio.

Actually, theres 3 things going on. Theres inactive buttons, active buttons, and then active buttons that stay on. I didnt really talk about "active buttons that stay on." I only 86'd them because I dont like the dark gray reverse highlight style its in because it confuses the user as being active. I instead said to choose between light gray or blue when really you should be using both. Dark gray to show inactive buttons. Light gray to show a button has been activated. And then blue to show active buttons that stay on. The dark gray button that I titled "86" needs be removed from that app because youre using it as your active buttons and active on buttons and its confusing the user.

Oh! Thank you, my friend. Thank you, THANK YOU!