Bauke

Hello,
Would it be possible to add the option for a keyboard shortcut to toggle the brush stabiliser on and off?
Thanks for your consideration!

I too have a need for a 1-bit mode, in order to prepare images for letterpress, silkscreen etc. Also, the addition of duotone, tritone and quadtone would be fantastic.

This is definitely not one of the most important features, but as a GREP-engine is already implemented: may we hope for something like GREP-Styles?
This is a feature I don’t use on a daily basis, but it is something I’m very very glad to have from time to time.

Hello,
 
Are you planning on adding functionality for the new OpenType variable font technology in Designer, Photo and Publisher?
 
Best,
Bauke

Hello,
Would it be possible to add the option for a keyboard shortcut to toggle the brush stabiliser on and off?
Thanks for your consideration!

Hello,
Would it be possible to add the option for a keyboard shortcut to toggle the brush stabiliser on and off?
Thanks for your consideration!

Hello,
 
Are you planning on adding functionality for the new OpenType variable font technology in Designer, Photo and Publisher?
 
Best,
Bauke

Hello,
 
Are you planning on adding functionality for the new OpenType variable font technology in Designer, Photo and Publisher?
 
Best,
Bauke

Hello,
Would it be possible to add the option for a keyboard shortcut to toggle the brush stabiliser on and off?
Thanks for your consideration!

Hello,
 
I think it would be convenient if the nudge distance could be saved as a document setting, because I often set the size of a grid space as my nudge distance, which of course, differs between different documents. For the same reason, I believe it could be beneficial to make screen tolerance a document setting instead of an application-wide setting.
 
What do you think?
 
Best,
Bauke

I too have a need for a 1-bit mode, in order to prepare images for letterpress, silkscreen etc. Also, the addition of duotone, tritone and quadtone would be fantastic.

I too have a need for a 1-bit mode, in order to prepare images for letterpress, silkscreen etc. Also, the addition of duotone, tritone and quadtone would be fantastic.

Hello,
Would it be possible to add the option for a keyboard shortcut to toggle the brush stabiliser on and off?
Thanks for your consideration!

A little more on the subject if you wish to dig deeper — Donald Knuth (of TeX fame in the typesetting world) & Michael Plass published an article in 1981 called Breaking Paragraphs into Lines. Here is the Abstract:
 

Read Bauke's post earlier in this thread. Shortly, Publisher hyphenates & justifies using algorithm that optimizes one line at the time in a paragraph. More advanced algorithms optimize whole paragraph at one go, resulting better typesetting.

Sorry for my ignorance, but what exactly is a paragraph-based composition engine?

Here are a couple suggestions concerning three whitespaces that I use frequently.
First, Thin Space (non-breaking), Hair Space, and Right-Aligned Tab are the three white spaces I am used to using that are not currently in the Text->Insert menu. Adding them to the insert menu also lets us assign keyboard shortcuts. (Indesign has a keyboard shortcut assigned for Thin Space and Right-Alligned Tab, but hair space is in the menu without a shortcut, so this would be a win for me.)
Secondly, thin space (U+2009) is not rendered very thin in Publisher, particular in justified text.
Thirdly, the thin space I need (in French typography, used between several common punctuation marks such as question marks) needs to be nonbreaking. Specifically, this is "NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE" U+202F in Unicode. Indesign complicates matters. It offers a "Thin Space" that it treats as nonbreaking, but it apparently uses "THIN SPACE" U+2009, which in my understanding is not explicitly nonbreaking. When text in Indesign is pasted into Publisher, U+2009 that was formerly nonbreaking is breakable in Affinity Publisher. MS Word also treats U+2009 as nonbreaking, so although I think Publisher may actually be performing according to Unicode spec, it is a sticky situation.
To summarize, the hair space and nonbreaking thin space (however you choose to work it out) are needed in my work. I can at least work around by inserting with the Mac Character Viewer. Right-aligned tab can be worked around with other methods, but it is a nice convenience to hit that shift-tab.
The first answer on this post on StackOverflow.com, although dealing with HTML as the context, is still very helpful explaining the problem with the nonbreaking thin space for typesetting in French in the digital age.

Visit any university library and you'll find that endnotes replaced footnotes long ago, perhaps in the 1950s. In the era before computers, endnotes were far easier to typeset. In todays world, their appearance at the bottom of a page is seen as clutter by most readers.
While this might be true up to a certain point for academic publications in the English-speaking world (and while there is a certain international convergence in recent years), there are also cultural differences. German academic publications are still heavily using footnotes for reference purposes as well as for comments and clarifications. And while footnotes might be perceived as clutter from a typographic point of view (it can be incredibly difficult to typeset certain sorts of academic texts in a visually pleasing way), they are much more practical for readers. Personally, I don’t like reading a book from two ends.

HZ-algorithm would indeed be really needed feature. We can do without for a while but before long there is no future without one.
 
Mentioned linked, autogenerated text frames with wrap features are must, also styles, master pages, and page numbers, headers and footers in them.
A couple advanced features which would also be of use:
Rule based styling. App would use user defined rules to automatically decide which style tag is needed in each paragraph. If you think it you realize it is quite easy to teach machine which parts should be headline, lead, subheading, first para, body text, image caption; especially if you have repetitive structured publication workflow.
Image optimizing at PDF export. You know, you expect app to be able to downsample images at export. Also modern apps can translate them to right color space at export (you can call this to color separation). But what little piece is missing: sharpening. When you downsample, right amount of USM is needed for optimal output. You could add USM to export procedure and achieve much better output quality. At the moment this workflow is possible in InDesign only using LinkOptimizer plugin and then it is still a separate step (though well automated).

Greetings everyone,
Having had a chance to peek at the Publisher Beta, I'm interested to know if there has been any follow-up with regard to implementing a microtypographical engine. A key document (for me, at any rate) is Hàn Thế Thành's 2000 dissertation Micro-typographic extensions to the TeX typesetting system (3.5 MB PDF). I generally use ConTeXt for typesetting, in part due to the excellent control over the implementation of these functions. I would love an Affinity-quality WYSIWYG typesetting program that included a similar fineness of control, at the least with margin kerning.
Thanks for listening!

I agree that selecting and deselecting shouldn't be counted as an action in the history log.
 
Often I design something, then press undo a lot of times and then I deselect whatever object I changed/moved in order to compare the lay-out without clutter such as UI elements. If I then want to redo again, I cannot because the deselect action counted as an action and the history (or is it called future?) is gone.
 
Another frustration that I think is related to this topic (user-actions unnecessarily counted in the history log) is described here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/23196-duplicating-issues/

Test : Photoshop vs Affinity Designer

Original photo :
- Size : 3840 x 2400
- resolution : 96ppp
- Color type : RGB
- JPEG Header block : 220 bytes
- JPEG Data block : 631 153 bytes
- JPEG Sign : FF D8 FF E0 00 10
- Info : gd-jpeg v1.0 (IJG JPEG v62) / Q 80
- R 25% / G 23% / B 22% / BK 0% / W 5% / Global brightness 24%

** Export as : JPEG / Q-100 / no-icc / 1080 x 675 (729Kpix / 2.187 MB RAW) / Progressive / 24MC
 
Photoshop :
- resolution : 96ppp (same ... = good)
- JPEG Header block : 222 bytes (almost same as original ... = good)
- JPEG Data block : 201344 bytes (9.2% of Raw size ... = great ratio)
- JPEG Sign : FF D8 FF E1 00 18 (different ... = can be bad)
- R equal / G equal / B equal / BK 3% / W 7% / Global brightness equal  (black and white are modified ... why ? ... = bad)
- differences with the original : 38.16%  
- visual aspect : good
 
Affinity Designer :
- resolution : 72ppp (not requested in export ... = bad)
- JPEG Header block : 158 bytes (lower than original ... = good)
- JPEG Data block :  230 724 bytes (10.5% of Raw size, +15% bigger than photoshop ... = good ratio)
- JPEG Sign : FF D8 FF E0 00 10 (same ... = good)
- R equal / G equal / B equal  / BK equal  / W 4% / Global brightness equal  (white slightly lower than original ... = not good but not really bad)
- differences with the original : 29.52%
- visual aspect : good

 
** Export as : JPEG / Q-80 / no-icc / 1080 x 675 (729Kpix / 2.187 MB RAW) / Progressive / 24MC
 
Photoshop :
- resolution : 96ppp (same ... = good)
- JPEG Header block : 222 bytes (almost same as original ... = good)
- JPEG Data block : 121408 bytes (5.5% of Raw size ... = great ratio)
- JPEG Sign : FF D8 FF E1 00 18 (different ... = can be bad)
- R equal / G equal  / B equal  / BK equal  / W 6% / Global brightness equal (white slightly higher than original ... = not good but not bad)
- differences with the original : 44.91%
- visual aspect : slight blur on fine geometries, few glitchs/artefacts visibles

Affinity Designer :
- resolution : 72ppp (not requested in export ... = bad)
- JPEG Header block : 158 bytes (lower than original ... = good)
- JPEG Data block :  85 617 bytes (3.9% of Raw size, -29% lower than photoshop ... = good ratio)
- JPEG Sign : FF D8 FF E0 00 10 (same ... = good)
- R equal  / G equal / B equal / BK equal / W 4% / Global brightness equal  (white slightly lower than original ... = not good but not really bad)
- differences with the original : 48.73%
- visual aspect : fine geometries looks bigger, few glitchs/artecfacts visibles (little more than photoshop) 

 

Looks very handy indeed. Well done. 
 
But I am still waiting for these important features that never found their way into DrawPlus either - so I am still using Inkscape and clumsy clumsy Illustrator CC for designing logos and shapes:
handles snapping to especially grid and guides (just check out how Inkscape does) snap the node handle to a vertical / horizontal alignment and other angles (just check out how Inkscape does) I just read the book "Vector Basic Training: A Systematic Creative Process for Building Precision Vector Artwork" by Von Glitschka. His techniques allow you to draw precise or symmetric shapes very very fast. When I read the book in 2011 I had just purchased DrawPlus and was surprised of the poor snapping features in DrawPlus - it made no sense. The tips in the book are hard and often impossible to follow. Well you can if you zoom in and make adjustments with your shaking hand and manual aligning. It just takes ages compared to automation. That is what we have software for, right? Then Affinity Designer surfaced and I was again surprised that these features were promised since 2014. You are SO close to being awesome. Please walk the last meters towards the goal! It is just the core of shape design that the software can assist your shaking hand and guarantee precision and symmetry.
 
I know this was requested and discussed in other threads - just making my voice heard here as well. And I hope the wait will be over once 1.7 arrives. Pleeease. Otherwise I enjoy the user interface and aesthetics of  Designer much more than the competition. Almost there Ben.
 
Merry xmas and happy new hear!

Regarding manipulation of nodes: I hope someone has their eyes on some of the innovative Bezier handling previewed of (and now present in) in the just-released FontLab Studio VI.
Others may remember that much of FreeHand's superior path drawing and selection interface stemmed from its progenitor, Altsys Fontographer. To my hopeful eye, this may signify at least potential for a long-needed renaissance in 2D Bezier-based vector drawing.
JET

Hi Reglico,
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the snapping of curve control handles cannot be enabled using the snapping manager.
I agree with Mattyd that feature would be a most welcome addition.