Dave Harris

The betas are more up to date. They have several bug fixes and are better to use than the Mac App Store ("MAS") versions. We plan to update the Mac App Store in a few weeks. Until that happens we are being quite conservative with the betas. Afterwards the betas will start to include more major features, which also makes them a bit more risky, so then it's more of a judgement call whether you want to be on the cutting edge.

So far as I can tell, they are working correctly. I don't think stylistic sets are required to be mutually exclusive. See, for example, https://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/features_pt.htm#ssxx. It does not mention them being mutually exclusive there, and further it says, In other words, if you enable both 'ss01' and 'ss03', then a default form may be mapped to one glyph by 'ss01' and then to a second glyph by 'ss03'. If they were mutually exclusive, then only default forms would need to be mapped. So, according to the specification they are not mutually exclusive, and we would be remiss not to allow users to enable several at once. We also support up to 'ss20'. We only show the ones that the font actually defines, and if they are all defined they will all be supported. You can enable them either single letter or entire paragraph, or anything in between. The only thing we're missing is some kind of preview, which we plan to add in due course.

You also have Items I started ticked. So it's not showing you threads started by other people.

Sorry - I'd overlooked this. Is it individual characters that you are wanting to shift? You can shift an entire line from the context bar, to make the tops of the characters line up with the curve.

Thanks for the sample file. Actually, parts are coming in as images because they are being rasterised on export by Designer. For example, the nose has an ellipse with a gradient transparency. That got rasterised because EPS does not support transparency. It also has a curve with a Gaussian Blur effect. EPS does not support layer effects. There is another part of the nose that uses a Multiply blend mode, and EPS does not support blend modes. If you can avoid using features which EPS does not support, you may be able to make an EPS that your clients can accept.

Check the options on the left. You should have "Content I have not read" ticked. The options are sticky, and if they somehow get set wrong, it's easy to forget they are there.

If your clients require either a .ai file, or an EPS with an .ai file embedded in it, then that's something only Illustrator can produce. If they could accept SVG or PDF, those are more capable formats, and even our EPS files are fine. Did you try opening the EPS in Designer?

If EPS supports the gradient, then we export it as vector. EPS doesn't support conical fills, or any kind of transparency, so we must rasterise those. Most likely that isn't happening and you have vector gradients, but you are opening the EPS in Illustrator. Illustrator will rasterise EPS gradients on import. There's nothing we can do about that, it's just what Illustrator does. To check, try opening the EPS in Affinity Designer again, and see whether you get images or filled shapes.

To do this with a vector gradient you need to use the Fill tool. That gives a lot more control over the start and end points of the gradient. If you use Effects, that will produce a raster gradient which will always be rasterised on export. So it's usually better to use the context toolbar or the Gradient tool.

It's a bug. It happens when the area to be rasterised is very large. Reducing DPI, or rastering portions yourself, should help. We're sorry about this, and it'll be fixed in the next release.

Hi, Terry. Use File > Export > JPEG.

If you use File > Export, the size will be shown there. It's not shown in the Export persona partly because there could be several slices being exported and several resolutions. File > Save can use presets created in the Export persona.

That's by design. The frame does resize, but you have too much text, so it spills over. Just delete the excess yourself. If you want Lorem Ipsum text, use Text > Insert Filler. That will resize to fit the frame.

We'd like to do that too, but we only sell through the Mac App Store, and that doesn't have any facility for giving a discount based on what you've bought previously.

We're unsure about this partly because of privacy issues. Saving the history means that anyone who opens the file can see how you worked, and see intermediate versions. For example, you might type some placeholder text that was rude, or confidential, and then delete it, continue working and eventually send the file to a client, and the client would be able to rewind and see what you typed. What we may eventually do is add it as a checkbox to the File Save panel.

I'm sorry, but we don't support .bmp at the moment in the Mac Affinity range. Our Plus range does, but they are for Windows (and .bmp is a Windows format).

If you are using File > Export > EPS, click on the More button and make sure JPEG compression is enabled. The quality slider will let you trade file size against image quality. You can also enable down sampling in that panel. Have a look at what the presets for Print and Web do.

At the moment Affinity doesn't recognise newly added fonts until it has been restarted, or until Preferences > Miscellaneous > Reset Fonts has been clicked. I've just tried the first font from your list, from http://www.dafont.com/hand-of-sean.font, and the second, from http://fontzone.net/download/7-hours. Both worked (that is, appeared in our font lists and rendered OK) after I Reset Fonts. Cubano-Regular from http://www.losttype.com/font/?name=cubanoalso worked. Does Reset Fonts make them work for you, or is there more to it?

Not currently, no. We probably will at some point but I've no idea when. We do plan to provide a better version of the "Access All Alternates" OpenType feature, which may help, but that relies on the font designers implementing it.

Hi Ricardo, try this: Create a new circle. Use Layer > Convert to Text Path. Type the upper text, "Photographers". Then press Return and type the lower text "rbfigueira.com". The text after the Return should go on the bottom of the circle, in the opposite direction, which I think is what you want. Use Centre Align on both lines of text. Finally, adjust the baseline of the bottom text using the control in the context toolbar. You can get to there from where you are, by dragging the path text handles - the little orange triangles on the left of your screenshot - to the semi-circle positions and then inserting a Return between the two bits of text. When you drag the handles, they should snap to useful positions.

Thanks for your feedback. To address a few of those: whether text is on the inside or outside of a path is supposed to depend on whether you clicked on the inside or outside. (I think this is more useful for lines than for closed shapes.) Using Layer > Convert to Text Path will always put the text on the outside. You can get rid of a gradient from the Gradient tool by changing the Type to Solid in the context toolbar at the top. If you are not in the Gradient tool you can simply apply another colour and it will replace the gradient. You can add more colours to a gradient by clicking on the gradient line with the Gradient tool. That will add a new handle, which you can select and recolour. Alternatively, with the Move tool there is a Fill box in the context toolbar, and you can click on that, select the Gradient tab, and then double-click on the gradient line to add a new handle. Affinity Photo's morphing is a raster effect. Designer is more of a vector program so we really want its morphing to be a vector effect.

With that option it will ignore whatever caused the rasterisation. Effects like shadows won't be output at all, for example. Unsupported fills will go out as solid colours. Transparent objects may become opaque. It partly depends on what format you are exporting to, since different formats support different things. If the thing causing rasterisation was accidental, such as setting layer opacity to 99%, it might not make any noticeable difference at all. By all means try it, and check the result carefully.

It sounds like you have snapping turned on. You can turn it off with a button on the top toolbar.

You can change Preferences > Tools > Move Tool Aspect Constrain to make it behave how you want. The default is to constrain only if the shape has an intrinsic aspect ratio. Text and images do, shapes and curves don't.

Looks like I was wrong, and we did mention more optimistic dates back then. I didn't think we did, but we did. Just as well I qualified it with, "I don't think..." rather than claiming to be certain. I'm sorry for the mistake, but please don't accuse me of deliberately lying. At no point have I attempted to mislead you.