Patrick B

I tried out Canva recently and, financial backing aside, I really don't see what it's going to bring to the table for Affinity. Honestly, I despise the Canva software, especially its UI and lack of essential control features, and insane promotion of AI slop. Hell, I can't even kern my type properly. Compared to Affinity, using this would just slow me down unless my goal was to put something out quick and half-arsed onto my Instagram feed. Does anyone here actually use Canva professionally? How has it served you?

FYI, the lag seems to be much worse in the 2.0.3 update.

This appears to now be fixed as of the 2.0.3 update! 👍 Thank you. EDIT: I spoke too soon. It seems there are still some instances where the bug appears, particularly when the warp group elements are extending outside the selection box. Notice that the "great times" at the bottom left is fine. Screen Recording 2022-12-20 at 12.06.30 AM.mp4 Untitled.afdesign

OK then, nevermind… I just tried a third time and now I am getting the lines regardless of the unit. I am at a loss.

I wasn't able to reproduce your issue until I found out that the white line appears if you change the document units before export. So if you create the document in millimetres, it should stay in millimetres before exporting… If you change it, you'll get the line. This is not ideal, and I agree it should be an option in the export dialog. The only other workaround I found was to export individual artboards instead of the Whole document… this seems to get rid of the line but obviously isn't the best solution since you'll have to compile them afterwards. So just maintaining the same unit is the way to go.

I also prefer working in light mode, especially during the daytime. And I have to say that I 100% agree that the light mode UI in V1 is a much better user experience than V2's light mode. The dark theme of V2 is beautiful, but it's quite apparent that light mode just did not receive the same amount of love and care.

In Affinity Photo the swatches panel lags quite a bit, while the swatches panel in Designer is fine. This is especially apparent when browsing large swatch sets, such as Pantone. See here: swatches panel lag.mp4 Both apps are using the same Performance settings:

I also noticed that when you are doing consecutive cuts in a particular direction, it won't let you cut back in the opposite direction (unless you select that area that has been cut). As seen here: 03.mp4

Hi EmT, Here are some screen recordings. I am working with the document "Knife Bug 1.afdesign" that OP posted. 01.mp4 02.mp4

If you don't mind using a web-based app, another option is Photopea (it's free). Just upload your image and go to Image > Vectorize Bitmap.

I agree, I think it would be great to have that quick option available. The downside of Adobe's implementation is that the warp mesh is not very editable — you can modify the outside points/curves but not the interior area. So having the flexibility of Affinity's Warp Group, with the added ability to conform to a shape as a starting point, would be remarkable!

bug.mp4 I'm on an M1 Mac running macOS 11.7.1. Sorry if this has been reported already.

Oh wow, I didn't even realize that. 👍 Awesome feature!

Well to be fair, it's more user error on my part than anything, let alone a software problem. I think I've been too spoiled (and brainwashed) by Adobe's automation tools.

Another update, this time from the official Affinity account:

On a side note… why are brush names not included in the desktop apps, only the iPad? It's much easier to find a brush with a label.

I am using an M1 iMac running macOS 11, and I'm able to replicate the problem on my end. As has been said, the bug seems to only occur when cutting a straight line (holding Shift) across curved paths, seemingly at specific areas. This only happens on curves that were converted from fonts, but not every font and not every glyph has this problem. Hope this gets fixed.

I can confirm that I'm seeing this bug happen on an M1 iMac, running macOS 11.

I was attempting to replicate a perfect arch using Designer. Adjusting one node at a time, freestyle, is very tedious and time-consuming when such an effect requires a reasonable amount of precision. I need to practice with this manual way 😅… but I expect a computer to do more of the work.

Agreed with all of the above. I find the Warp tool very primitive. At the very least, there should be the ability to snap handles to perfect horizontal/vertical angles, as well as being able to align and move multiple nodes at once.

I agree that a dedicated Rotate Tool will greatly benefit us illustrators. People who draw with a graphics tablet are kinda being left in the dark there. I've tried the keyboard shortcuts, and mapping rotation to the tablet touch ring, but both options are inferior to a Rotate Tool if you keep one hand on the keyboard while drawing.

Is the document colour profile set to Grey? It will need to be RGB, or CMYK, depending on your use, in order to incorporate any colours. On Mac, the option is under Document > Convert Format / ICC Profile… > Colour Format.