Ben

I'll PM you my bank account details.
 
One way to support us is by spreading the word and getting more people on board.  Affinity can only get better while it is being supported by people buying our apps.

I'm hoping that this video just has a low frame rate - otherwise that is one sloooooow app.
 
Also, it appears heavily dependant on 3D at various stages.  We won't be going there.  Designer is primarily intended as an illustration tool.  We have no intention of adding any handling of 3D content or input.  The axonometric features I'm currently working on are just smoke and mirrors on top our existing 2D functionality.  They don't pad out our existing document data in any way to reference or link to some form of plane aware extra information (other than our grid description which is isolated from the actual curves data, shapes, etc).
 
It's all a bit hard to explain.  Basically, if I can add a feature without having to embellish our existing document objects to know about 3D, then no problem.  If a feature requires that objects would need to remember extra information, then we'll have to think very carefully about it.
If it can all be done in the Tool, then that is still ok.  What I want is for someone who doesn't deal with 2.5D to be able to open a document and treat it as 2D, but for people that want to use 2.5D, they can, but the underlying objects are essentially no different - it's down to what tools they use to draw and edit.

Dimensioning is going to be interesting, especially if it needs to conform to the scaling of the grid axis.  As I mentioned before - there is no spoon - your objects/layers don't exist in a plane, they are just drawn and transformed to maintain plane perspective. It's all done at tool time with reference to the active grid plane, and no extra information needs to be persisted with the object.
 
So, this will take some considerable working out (on my part).
 
I'm also not saying when we'd add dimensioning tools.  We have longer term plans, beyond what is on the road map.

I have another sneak peak for you.
 
This one might be a little hard to follow, but I'll try explain it best as I can.  Something that has always bothered me is when I put a linear or radial gradient fill on something, and then try scaling or shearing the object.  The gradient fill is unstable in that it doesn't track the object transform.  This is because linear and radials fills are positioned relative to two key points, forming a line through which the gradient is rendered.  Elliptical (and bitmap) fills don't suffer from this because they have three key points, forming a rectangle in two axis.
 
So, I decided we need to fix that. See this video: CorrectedFills.mov
 
The top objects have a legacy linear, radial and elliptical gradient fill.  You'll see that when I shear the first two objects, the fill kind of moves around inside the object and doesn't conform to the shear.
The bottom objects have a corrected fill.  When I shear these objects you'll see that the fills continue to adhere to their placement relative to their object.
 
I then show you some new handles that appear in the Fill tool, which show you the "correction" points of the linear and radial fills, connected with dashed lines.  (You'll notice that the elliptical fills appears the same as they need no correction).  These new handles show you when a fill is being corrected, and give you opportunity to place the extra correction points if you so chose.  You can double click the correction point handles to adjust the fill into a conventional linear or radial fill in document space.
 
Why is this important?
 
If I create an asset or a symbol, I can then place it, and transform it, and maintain the visual appearance without the fills distorting.  This is then especially useful for 2.5D drawing - I can use assets and symbols that were designed in 2D, transform them to grid plane (using the new planar tools coming in 1.7 which make use of shear and scale), and they will maintain their fills.
Of course, it is just generally useful, in that it kind of maintains a more WYSIWYG approach to gradient fill placement.
 
 
 
Just, don't ask about conical fills - they are going to take a bit more figuring out.

I can look into it for 1.7.

Everyone has one feature that is going to speed up their workflow.  Unfortunately, for every person it is a different feature.  Our team is only so big, so we can only do so much at a time.  I tend to do improvements on different sections of Affinity.  A lot of work was done on the export persona a while ago with the addition of fully configurable multiple slice export.  Since then other areas of the app have needed attention - areas that other users said would improve their workflow.
Its difficult to completely finish a feature - so we work to a point where a feature ticks most boxes.  Export is huge and will always get improvements.
 

Everyone has one feature that is going to speed up their workflow.  Unfortunately, for every person it is a different feature.  Our team is only so big, so we can only do so much at a time.  I tend to do improvements on different sections of Affinity.  A lot of work was done on the export persona a while ago with the addition of fully configurable multiple slice export.  Since then other areas of the app have needed attention - areas that other users said would improve their workflow.
Its difficult to completely finish a feature - so we work to a point where a feature ticks most boxes.  Export is huge and will always get improvements.
 

I'll PM you my bank account details.
 
One way to support us is by spreading the word and getting more people on board.  Affinity can only get better while it is being supported by people buying our apps.

I can look into it for 1.7.

Transparency tool is a Designer tool.  If we put all the Designer tools into Photo, there would be no need for Designer.
 
...and you'd eventually end up with a behemoth tool that doesn't focus on one main user group. Like some other competitors you might have heard of.

Everyone has one feature that is going to speed up their workflow.  Unfortunately, for every person it is a different feature.  Our team is only so big, so we can only do so much at a time.  I tend to do improvements on different sections of Affinity.  A lot of work was done on the export persona a while ago with the addition of fully configurable multiple slice export.  Since then other areas of the app have needed attention - areas that other users said would improve their workflow.
Its difficult to completely finish a feature - so we work to a point where a feature ticks most boxes.  Export is huge and will always get improvements.
 

I'll PM you my bank account details.
 
One way to support us is by spreading the word and getting more people on board.  Affinity can only get better while it is being supported by people buying our apps.

Everyone has one feature that is going to speed up their workflow.  Unfortunately, for every person it is a different feature.  Our team is only so big, so we can only do so much at a time.  I tend to do improvements on different sections of Affinity.  A lot of work was done on the export persona a while ago with the addition of fully configurable multiple slice export.  Since then other areas of the app have needed attention - areas that other users said would improve their workflow.
Its difficult to completely finish a feature - so we work to a point where a feature ticks most boxes.  Export is huge and will always get improvements.
 

I can look into it for 1.7.

Ok - I've added this capability.  Was a bit more involved than I thought...  I've done it so that Space redrag will move just the node for the edited handle, even if there are multiple nodes selected. This gives a subtly different but useful editing capability to just moving the node.  It will allow you to move an isolated node, and allow for snapping to the other selected nodes.
There was also a lot to think about to ensure that all the stuff I've previewed before continues to work correctly, and updates after the node position is changed.
 
Anyway, enjoy the video:

CurveHandlesRedrag.mov

Ok - I've added this capability.  Was a bit more involved than I thought...  I've done it so that Space redrag will move just the node for the edited handle, even if there are multiple nodes selected. This gives a subtly different but useful editing capability to just moving the node.  It will allow you to move an isolated node, and allow for snapping to the other selected nodes.
There was also a lot to think about to ensure that all the stuff I've previewed before continues to work correctly, and updates after the node position is changed.
 
Anyway, enjoy the video:

CurveHandlesRedrag.mov

And, here a video showing the new rotate-on-plane feature of the Move tool.  A new shape is created into a grid, using the "Edit In Grid Plane" mode.  Then, with the mode on, any rotations maintain the grid plane perspective.
 
RotateOnPlane.mov
 

And, here is a video glimpse of some of the improvements coming to the Node tool.
 
NodeTool.mov
 

Ok - I've added this capability.  Was a bit more involved than I thought...  I've done it so that Space redrag will move just the node for the edited handle, even if there are multiple nodes selected. This gives a subtly different but useful editing capability to just moving the node.  It will allow you to move an isolated node, and allow for snapping to the other selected nodes.
There was also a lot to think about to ensure that all the stuff I've previewed before continues to work correctly, and updates after the node position is changed.
 
Anyway, enjoy the video:

CurveHandlesRedrag.mov

Ok - I've added this capability.  Was a bit more involved than I thought...  I've done it so that Space redrag will move just the node for the edited handle, even if there are multiple nodes selected. This gives a subtly different but useful editing capability to just moving the node.  It will allow you to move an isolated node, and allow for snapping to the other selected nodes.
There was also a lot to think about to ensure that all the stuff I've previewed before continues to work correctly, and updates after the node position is changed.
 
Anyway, enjoy the video:

CurveHandlesRedrag.mov

Ok - I've added this capability.  Was a bit more involved than I thought...  I've done it so that Space redrag will move just the node for the edited handle, even if there are multiple nodes selected. This gives a subtly different but useful editing capability to just moving the node.  It will allow you to move an isolated node, and allow for snapping to the other selected nodes.
There was also a lot to think about to ensure that all the stuff I've previewed before continues to work correctly, and updates after the node position is changed.
 
Anyway, enjoy the video:

CurveHandlesRedrag.mov

Ben … this is awesome! 

Ok - I've added this capability.  Was a bit more involved than I thought...  I've done it so that Space redrag will move just the node for the edited handle, even if there are multiple nodes selected. This gives a subtly different but useful editing capability to just moving the node.  It will allow you to move an isolated node, and allow for snapping to the other selected nodes.
There was also a lot to think about to ensure that all the stuff I've previewed before continues to work correctly, and updates after the node position is changed.
 
Anyway, enjoy the video:

CurveHandlesRedrag.mov

Ok - I've added this capability.  Was a bit more involved than I thought...  I've done it so that Space redrag will move just the node for the edited handle, even if there are multiple nodes selected. This gives a subtly different but useful editing capability to just moving the node.  It will allow you to move an isolated node, and allow for snapping to the other selected nodes.
There was also a lot to think about to ensure that all the stuff I've previewed before continues to work correctly, and updates after the node position is changed.
 
Anyway, enjoy the video:

CurveHandlesRedrag.mov

Ok - I've added this capability.  Was a bit more involved than I thought...  I've done it so that Space redrag will move just the node for the edited handle, even if there are multiple nodes selected. This gives a subtly different but useful editing capability to just moving the node.  It will allow you to move an isolated node, and allow for snapping to the other selected nodes.
There was also a lot to think about to ensure that all the stuff I've previewed before continues to work correctly, and updates after the node position is changed.
 
Anyway, enjoy the video:

CurveHandlesRedrag.mov