NM_

It is not good to rush to conclusions. The project is in its early stages. However, documents are saved locally on your computer. Multiplatform programs such as Serif's and Adobe's use a graphic UI framework that sits on top of the native OS. So you get the standard open file dialogs and such, but everything else is application-dependent. Graphite should be able to use the underlying hardware graphic acceleration provided by your hardware. Something being a web app is less of an issue than what it can do. My main problem with Adobe and potentially Serif is that my digital assets can become locked to their proprietary formats and force me into their subscription model. If I choose not to subscribe, there will always be times I wish I still had unfettered access to those assets. I consider that to be the greatest threat to my freedom.

One cannot simply wish things into existence. Explore graphite's site, roadmap and blog posts, people who have contributed, and decide for yourself. The lack of financial support is certainly a factor, but that is where the community should step in.

It takes a lot of effort to develop software. The Affinity Suite is Serif's intellectual property. All they need to do is fulfill the terms of the end-user license agreement. Nobody would be served if Serif would fail because their business model was not viable. We the end-users have a choice. They could have created a subscription model witout Canva. The reasons they did not were entirely economic. Their success had very much to do with Adobe's subscription model. Without Adobe's adoption of an exclusive subscription model, Serif would not have attracted as many customers. The future success of their products under any new licensing terms remains to be seen. One thing is certain, they stand to lose many current users if they would switch to a subscription model. However, under the Canva umbrella, they may not really care.

P.S. Putting my money where my mouth is, I just became a $5/month grahite.rs sponsor.

This pledge is no assurance. All will depened on the functionality included in the various product tiers. Just look at what is happening in all other industries where there is a subscription model. Also, none of the entities in this branch of the industry own the underlying AI technology or its infrastructure, so there will be competition. This is a repetitive pattern: Talent owns the IP it develops using crowd-funding and becomes more attractive for the highest bidder. If Serif was a real Adobe competitor, either Adobe or Corel would buy them out. We, the end-users make pattern this possible. Therefore, if we do not like it, then it is upon us to change the pattern. What we can do it to put our support, both monetary and know-how, behind FOSS projects.

Consider the Affinity Designer user wish list, with the requested functionality not fulfilled for many years. Projects take time and can gain and lose momentum. As FOSS, Graphite appears worthy of support. From what I know, its distinguishing feature is its implementation in Rust, which, at least theoretically, should translate to performance and stability. In its current form, the Affinity Suite will likely remain usable for a few years. There are people still using Adobe CS6 today.

There is at least one open source projects in the works: https://graphite.rs

Came across this project posted on a related Reddit thread - looks like it is implemented in Rust and looks promising: https://graphite.rs/

@Bit Disappointed Your post makes total sense. Thank you, and I totally agree with you. We'll still get some mileage from what we purchased. Time to move on.

Maximizing revenue is the goal of every commercial enterprise. However, its customer base's acceptance of new business models should never be ignored. Speaking for myself, I am only here because of Adobe's subscription model. Adobe did not receive a penny from me after their announcement of a subscription model. I also do not believe that I am alone here. Serif should weigh its options carrfully before changing its business model, or lose patronage of people like me. For the forseeable future, I will put my support behind open-source options. Serif has a promising suite of applications. The fact that it has been a "promising" suite of applications for so long is also one of its problems.

Will this ever be addressed?

I agree with you, the current implementation of user variables appears incomplete. Currently, the only way to use it would be by copying the export format to the clipboard, and if the export format contains multiple variables, you can paste it into a new slice and edit only one of the variables. Still, as it stands, it is cumbersome to use and not as functional as one would have expected.

Interesting, thank you. But in my case, it seems more than just a fill problem. The strokes are also affected. See appearances in Designer vs. Inkscape in the attached screen captures.

Thanks. The new Palette's creation and naming would indeed be tedious. However, the palette would be exported and imported into several other files for re-theming. This is necessary for accommodating Section 508 compliance for color-blind people. The current workflow is very inefficient. If you export a palette and import it back, the names are changed. If you remove an existing global color to replace with a new one with the same name, then all references to it are deleted.

Would it be possible to swap the global colors of a document by swapping out the color palette (either a Document or Application Palette) when the following conditions are met? All colors used would be global colors, and defined in a single Document/Application Palette. The replacement palette would define different color values, but all with the same names as in the Palette being replaced. Individually changing dozens of colors when all is needed is to change the color theme rather than the design is tedious. Is there an efficient way to accomplish this? Could this be potentially accomplished by hacking the actual .afdesign file using a hex editor? Thanks in advance.

Thank you. Maybe there was something wrong with my selection. I put this file together as a simple example. For then time being, I went back to V1 and started over again without any problems.

Thanks for your post. I did not explain the underlying problem in my initial post. The only reason I experimented with mixing PNG and SVG objects was because the Shadow effect was inadequate for the SVGs. In the example file that I posted, it was not possible to apply any significant shadow effect to the SVG items (white pieces) in the top row. Having to use PNG objects in a vector editing tool defeats the whole purpose. Am I doing something wrong with the SVG objects' applied shadow effect? Thanks again.

Applying the same effects, e.g. Outer Shadow to items placed, is inconsistent between SVGs and PNGs. In the attached file, the white chess pieces were imported from SVG, the black pieces from PNG sources. While identical effects were applied to the sets, the results drastically differed. Am I doing something wrong? Is this intentional or a bug? Thank you! Merida.afdesign

Any news? This bug affects the macOS versions too. It is a showstopper, goes back as far as version 1 series, and does not appear to be mentioned in the list of bug fixes for version 2.1.0. Thanks.

... and did not make it to the 2.1.0 bug fix list either.

The broken SVG functionality for so long is bad. I suggest posting the problem on their app store reviews with a less than stellar rating. That seems to get at least somebody's attention. Any new user who would stumble across this bug would immediately give Affinity a negative/one-star rating.

This bug goes back to version 1. Is it ever going to be fixed?

The bug affects Affinity version 1 series too. And it was not fixed in the 2.0.4 update. Hmmm ...

Hi: The file in the link appears different in Affinity Designer 1 & 2 compared with other applications including web browsers, other image editors, etc. Possibly, there are formatting idiosyncrasies at play, but the end-result is not what other application render. Download the file and take a look: https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/blob/master/public/piece/maestro/bB.svg bB.svg

I meant layer opacity 🤪