lforbes

So converting from Raster into Vector is a basic function of all other vector based programs. Even Lightburn can trace.   "manually dragging around the vector pen along lines" is not the same as Vector Tracing.  Vector tracing traces shape fill as well.

When they say Designer is a Vector based equivalent of Illustrator or Inkscape, it seems odd that it doesn't have the basic functionality of being able to trace even a black design into a vector.

I typed black words in Designer and they were Vector. I sent to Photo so that I could Mesh Warp as the Mesh Warp is not in Designer, but when I went BACK to Designer, my design was no LONGER Vector, but a raster image.

So it cannot even maintain the vector or convert back to vector when you open it in Photo to warp.

I use the free Silhouette Studio from Silhouette America. This is their Trace feature

I drew this mask in Procreate on my iPad and then traced it to vector.
TraceSilhouette.mp4

I also bought the V2 suite because people said Designer was a vector based tool like Illustrator or Silhouette Design Studio Business, both which have ability to trace raster to Vector. 

However, I am shocked that Designer doesn't have a trace option in it?  I use Silhouette Business for all my tracing but I was trying to replace the Illustrator features as my Illustrator is very old.

I design entirely in Vector for laser and vinyl cutting and I opened a font in Photo only to realize when it put it back in Designer I was unable to point edit it anymore.

Hi,
I just bought Affinity V1 a few weeks ago for iPad and Windows 10. I have an iPad Pro. The icons are TOO SMALL for me to see. I can see the icons fine in Procreate and Shapr and all my other software but the icons in Affinity are impossible to see. They are dark grey on darker grey.

I have a 30" screen and still cannot see the icons properly because they are WAY too small for Windows 10 too?

There doesn't appear to be a vision accommodation feature to increase the icons?

Now I hear that they have discontinued the software I just purchased and refuse to update it anymore and want people to rebuy the software with the bug fixes?

I am quite frustrated by the fact that they didn't include a V2 license with the people who just purchased V1. As a software developer and a designer myself, to sell software a few weeks from discontinuing it and not fixing the obvious bugs is extremely bad customer service. You should have at least 1 year of free upgrades and bug fixes.

I opened Silhouette and showed the icons compared to affinity. They are like 4x the size. on the iPad the Procreate Icons are 4x the size of affinity.
                          

So converting from Raster into Vector is a basic function of all other vector based programs. Even Lightburn can trace.   "manually dragging around the vector pen along lines" is not the same as Vector Tracing.  Vector tracing traces shape fill as well.

When they say Designer is a Vector based equivalent of Illustrator or Inkscape, it seems odd that it doesn't have the basic functionality of being able to trace even a black design into a vector.

I typed black words in Designer and they were Vector. I sent to Photo so that I could Mesh Warp as the Mesh Warp is not in Designer, but when I went BACK to Designer, my design was no LONGER Vector, but a raster image.

So it cannot even maintain the vector or convert back to vector when you open it in Photo to warp.

I use the free Silhouette Studio from Silhouette America. This is their Trace feature

I drew this mask in Procreate on my iPad and then traced it to vector.
TraceSilhouette.mp4

That is not 'large text'. That is ZOOMED.  That makes it past the point of functionality in all my other apps.

I cannot do that. That drastically reduces my iPad screen usability size. So I then cannot use Shapr3D, procreate or ANY of my other apps because it makes my 12.9 ipad a 9" one.
All other iPad Apps have properly sized Icons. Also that won't help my Laptop where the icons are too tiny on it too.

Affinity needs to update their code to use LoadImage and not LoadIcon  Eg. HICON hIcon = (HICON)LoadImage(AfxGetInstanceHandle()

LoadIcon has been superseded in all versions of C including C+ because it is limited in size.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winuser/nf-winuser-loadiconw

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winuser/nf-winuser-loadimagea

No I just realized that for some reason LAYER and WARP GROUP is not an option to Pin to Task toolbar?

That is very weird. I can modify the toolbars for a lot but not that. Too bad.

Excited V2 Designer actually has a Vector Warp like Illustrator and Kittl (online vector creator)

However I am wondering if there is anyway to add the RISE, WAVE and FLAG warps to the Warp Group options?

They look like this in Kittl (built in Javascript)

These are the ones I use all the time and it would be great to have them in Affinity Designer.

Not released yet unfortunately. Serif staff say they hope to release it before Christmas

Does anyone have the MSI links for V2?

I bought V1 last month only to have them discontinue it before fixing the icon size.

V2 has the fixed icons BUT I cannot install it as I don't use C:\ but I use D:\Program Files. My C:\ is too tiny and just has Windows stuff installed. Everything else gets installed in D:\Program Files but the MSIX doesn't seem to let me change the directory.

This change made the application almost unusable for my daily workflow. Since the path the application is installed to is locked away by Windows, even to administrator accounts, a lot of application can't launch it externally.
E.g. Unity3D will not allow me to mark Affinity as my external image editor, which means I can no longer open images directly from Unity3D, which is how I use Affinity 99% of the time.
The Stream Deck also can't launch the application anymore. You have to find a hidden folder in windows (not the actual application path), find the app and create a shortcut, which Windows will not allow and ask to place to place it on the desktop, which you can then link to. That workaround took me a while to figure out, considering what a simple task it should've been.

Thanks for the update.
Even though I got the app moved and working.
I still prefer to have control of drive/folder location and whether I want to update or not at each update notice.
So, I would use the MSI over the app. Thanks

I'll add my unhappy voice to this conversation.  I was looking forward to v2 but since it's turned out to be an 'app' and not a 'normal' application I can't see me buying it after all.
Serif really need to listen to their customers - but I'll be stunned if they do.

Just bought the Suite and could not find the installation files so was unable to create shortcuts and worse unable to find a way to run the software! The only way I could launch the software was to double-click on the downloaded installation files which gave me the option to Launch from there. Total irritation and confusion.
However in the meantime after much faffing about through the Forum I discovered to my dismay that these are "App" files and do not install into the Program folder of my C drive and do not appear in my Programs & Features... How do I uninstall them?
I absolutely hate this unexplained change to installing/removing software and am not happy with the way this has been implemented, particularly as no advanced notification (as far as I could tell) was given.
I very much like what Serif is doing with Affinity and love the software but cannot stand this insane change to the standard installation procedure.
Please Serif fix this unwanted installation mess asap. and please retain some independence from the dumbing-down that Micro$oft continually applies to Windows in the so-called attempt to make it better.
I sincerely hope you listen.

Hi,
I just bought Affinity V1 a few weeks ago for iPad and Windows 10. I have an iPad Pro. The icons are TOO SMALL for me to see. I can see the icons fine in Procreate and Shapr and all my other software but the icons in Affinity are impossible to see. They are dark grey on darker grey.

I have a 30" screen and still cannot see the icons properly because they are WAY too small for Windows 10 too?

There doesn't appear to be a vision accommodation feature to increase the icons?

Now I hear that they have discontinued the software I just purchased and refuse to update it anymore and want people to rebuy the software with the bug fixes?

I am quite frustrated by the fact that they didn't include a V2 license with the people who just purchased V1. As a software developer and a designer myself, to sell software a few weeks from discontinuing it and not fixing the obvious bugs is extremely bad customer service. You should have at least 1 year of free upgrades and bug fixes.

I opened Silhouette and showed the icons compared to affinity. They are like 4x the size. on the iPad the Procreate Icons are 4x the size of affinity.