Bryan Rieger

+1 for a slider to control the amount of smoothing applied. It would be nice to be able to vary it, rather than just have it on or off.

+1 for a slider to control the amount of smoothing applied. It would be nice to be able to vary it, rather than just have it on or off.

+1 for a slider to control the amount of smoothing applied. It would be nice to be able to vary it, rather than just have it on or off.

Although I like the smoothing generally, there are times when it would be better not to have it. The on/off toggle is a good idea, but, even better, would be a slider to control the amount of smoothing.

I just wanted to say a BIG thank you to the whole team at Serif for the work they've done on the pencil tool and the stroke width tool in the 2.5 release. The changes to the pencil tool in particular are most welcome, although being able to adjust the level of smoothing applied would be helpful as it's now very difficult (nay, impossible) to draw rough lines using the pencil tool.
Anyway, kudos for a job well done. Looking forward to seeing what's in store down the road.

I just wanted to say a BIG thank you to the whole team at Serif for the work they've done on the pencil tool and the stroke width tool in the 2.5 release. The changes to the pencil tool in particular are most welcome, although being able to adjust the level of smoothing applied would be helpful as it's now very difficult (nay, impossible) to draw rough lines using the pencil tool.
Anyway, kudos for a job well done. Looking forward to seeing what's in store down the road.

However, if you watch the last 90 seconds or so of the video, I think he might have a lot of trouble getting any other employment. Nothing to do with AI, just his attitude.

The availability of AI to the masses at very low cost is changing things.
What has changed AI is the availability of very low cost, very high power hardware compared to 20 years ago, more so than the software. The hardware has enabled far bigger datasets to be used at a far faster rate than before.  What would have required a warehouse sized computer (and another warehouse for the power/cooling)  is in the average high-end desktop PC.
The problem is the quality of the AI is "just good enough" for low to medium end graphics work. Much the same that cameras on phones became "just good enough"  for news photos. Hence, local newspapers no longer have photographers as 99% of their pictures come (free) from the public who are happy just to see their name as a by-line.
The world is changing, rapidly.  I have worked with computers, on the technical side not just as a user, since the 1970s and my father since 1953. My father worked on aircraft design.  So I have seen the change in the world by technology, some of it I had a hand in.    It is evolution.  The world won't go backwards, it can't
Canva will aim at the low to mid-end.  The Affinity brand will be mid to high.  So as the Canva users aspire to better, they can do so by moving to Affinity.  Much of the mid-range can move from Adobe to Affinity.  

That said, whilst I produce an on-line only PDF magazine, we are also looking at some short run "limited Edition" hardback book runs to compliment the PDF's. So just as photography (with glass plate cameras) didn't entirely kill off portrait painters, Canva isn't going to gill off professional graphics artists or Affinity. .   
 

The new smoothing algorithm is fantastic! It's such a pleasure to use now, and with almost (I'm just being very fussy) no clean up required. The new implementation of the auto-close settings is really intuitive. Well done. I'll report back any issues I find with it, but just wanted to acknowledge what an improvement this is.
Addendum: Okay, now I know this is going to sound whiny, but is there anyway to reduce or turn off the smoothing? It's now very difficult to draw a rough, hand-drawn line. I do LOVE the new smoothing algorithm, but there are times where I want my lines to look a little rougher.

I have observed from the sidelines how a very small percentage (single digit well below 1%) of Affinity's customers dominate this forum and feel compelled to comment on all new suggestions. I am amazed at how few people are involved and how much they dominate. I miss the functionality from other forums where you can see a member list and sort by the number of posts. Statistics on how few percentages actually fill this forum with their perspective on everything would be interesting. From my experienced point of view, this is not a community here, but a highly limited group of primarily men. A fan club. It is highly suspicious that so few spend so much time here; it's as if they are always here and not out in the world or inside Affinity creating. I strongly agree with those who believe Canva should establish a new forum, start afresh, and ensure that new customers and customers from other social platforms can participate.
On top of that, countless other issues arise, so here is some help for new users to navigate the artificial reality in here.
Online Disinhibition Effect
When people communicate online, they often behave differently than in real life. This tendency, known as the "online disinhibition effect," can lead to more aggressive or dominant behavior. The dominant users may feel freer to express their opinions and opposition without worrying about consequences.
Echo Chamber Effect
A forum dominated by a small group of users can create an "echo chamber," where the same opinions and viewpoints are repeated and reinforced. New ideas or criticism may be met with resistance because they threaten the established consensus within the group.
Social Identity Theory
These users may see themselves as protectors of the forum's "identity." According to social identity theory, groups can develop a strong internal solidarity and resistance to outsiders, which may explain their reluctance to accept input from new users.
Gamification and Status Seeking
Some users may be more interested in gaining high status in the forum through the number of posts and likes rather than creating graphics. The forum's structure may reward activity over quality, attracting those seeking recognition and influence.
Resistance to Change
Many people are naturally resistant to change, especially when they feel their status or position is threatened. The dominant users may resist new ideas or technologies because they feel comfortable with the current state and fear losing their influence.
Personally, I am infinitely tired of seeing the same people comment with the same tendencies, claims, and reactions. We already know what you stand for and against after thousands of posts, so let others have a chance and listen. We all use graphic programs in various ways and have different or greater needs.
My biggest and most genuine concern is that Serif has used the smallest group of customers as input for all development. You can hardly make a bigger mistake than that.

I noticed some weirdness with the auto-close feature when zoomed in (see video below). It gets harder to not only see the 'close loop', but to also trigger the auto-close feature the more you zoom in. This is especially noticeable on the iPad, to the point where I didn't think auto-close was working at all. I routinely work at zoom levels of 400% or higher, and this appears to be the point where the auto-close feature begins to get wonky.

CleanShot 2024-04-19 at 16.17.54.mp4    

So, the pencil tool improvements are great, and after a few hours of using them I'm finding that they enable me to stay in the flow while longer drawing as I'm not having to constantly shift to the node edit tool to clean up extra nodes and reshape curves. However, the one thing that keeps pulling me out of flow now is sharp corners, as there is no way to specify one while using the pencil tool, so once again, I have to grab the node edit tool in order to make those changes.
I was hoping that if while drawing I slowed and stopped for a second at a corner it would take that as an intent to create a sharp corner/change of direction, from which I could then continue drawing. Adobe Illustrator on the iPad uses a similar technique when using the pencil tool where when you slow and stop for a moment it displays a small pulse animation at the location of the corner to provide feedback that it has created a corner node, from which you can then continue drawing. The other thing that Illustrator on iPad does that's insanely helpful is they provide a small contextual toolbar while drawing that enables you to quickly move between the pencil and the node tool and modify nodes and curves as you go (as well as access common features). It's a great feature, but unfortunately the rest of Illustrator on the iPad is a dog's breakfast.

Yeah, I miss that effect a lot, but I'd prefer it to be more of a non-destructive vector effect (sort of a mix between the contour tool and layer FX) so that you could always go back and edit the effect as and when needed. Also see 'pucker, bloat, splatter, block shadow, offset, etc'. Roughen also isn't an effect that should be limited to the pencil tool, as using it with paths/curves/shapes drawn with the pen tool, shapes and fonts would also be desirable.

The new smoothing algorithm is fantastic! It's such a pleasure to use now, and with almost (I'm just being very fussy) no clean up required. The new implementation of the auto-close settings is really intuitive. Well done. I'll report back any issues I find with it, but just wanted to acknowledge what an improvement this is.
Addendum: Okay, now I know this is going to sound whiny, but is there anyway to reduce or turn off the smoothing? It's now very difficult to draw a rough, hand-drawn line. I do LOVE the new smoothing algorithm, but there are times where I want my lines to look a little rougher.

I think being able to set the tolerance of auto-close feature would be helpful so folks can tune it to their liking, or set it to ‘maximum’ where it would always auto-close regardless of the distance.

I run EVERY SVG Affinity exports (SVG digital - small size) through SVGOMG https://jakearchibald.github.io/svgomg/ in order to strip out as much junk as possible. It doesn't always get rid of all of the extra groups, but in my experience it does manage to get the majority of them.
You can also use the command line version https://www.npmjs.com/package/svgo to quickly process an entire folder full of SVG images.

They have to acknowledge there is an issue in the first place. I have zero faith in Serif at this point ever changing strategy. They have given no indicator the longstanding buglist is even a passing priority other than they've not been hard of hearing and are listening. Managing Director/CEO was in the Canva liveposting when a few of us brought up this exact discussion and when asked, there was no response. There have clearly been major problems going on with development for some time, especially for them to be acquired, so I just took this to mean go pound sand, silly user, you're addressing the elephant in the room. The positive chatter is just that: talk.
I had also brought up this issue in a beta thread I made in a previous beta cycle (probably archived). The response was along the lines of what could theoretically happen with bugfixes, which once again feeds into the speculative demons that plague this forum and breed pointless guesswork. This is an endless merry-go-round and not worth wasting one's time and energy on. The language has never changed surrounding this and "for future updates", thus kicking the can further down the road each time it is brought up. That's why I think there will never be a meaningful response.
The codebase as-is is not being fully supported if major bugs, especially workflow-related bugs, are not being addressed in a timely manner. All the while they are pushing hard on marketing of "new features" that have existed on other platforms for much longer, that are sure to create more fires without the hardening of that foundation you mention.
The marketing promises this platform to be "just as good" as the others, therefore trading off the impression of other high productivity software on the market (that actually delivers on optimization), again with the leading language of the management…:
I've come to accept the development priorities are exactly where they are meant to be. Adopt new users to the Affinity workflow with the promise of a fixed price, regularly add in "new features" that mimic other high-productivity platforms, but make them work "as advertised", not necessarily as expected. Also, continuously pressure the user to accept odd design strategies and use empathetic "We're listening" language to continue to keep them invested in the platform. But do continue to suggest to others it's just as good as other professional software out there and how happy they will be, regardless. By the time one notices any impact that preexisting bugs may have on their workflow, especially if they're aiming for high productivity/polished output, they'll have wasted so much time working around the odd problem and developing their workflow around it, that they may feel invested. Remembering that changing platforms is already painful with both having to learn a new platform and readjusting expectations accordingly. That has a high cost. Not to mention justifying to oneself the loss of a workflow that does work for them, it's just not as they felt they were advertised...
Yes, one can do "professional" work with Affinity, if they're doing {XYZ}, whatever XYZ happens to be. However, it's very dependent on the scenario and if the user is an unfortunate and find themselves in the situation where they encounter these workflow bugs regularly, then the suite becomes unfit for high productivity. I find that when I often opened the program and found a new bug, sometimes almost immediately, I was back to help/"the forums" to figure out what new hurdle I was thrown. Sometimes it's on me, but it's never straightforward and because of the arrogance around Serif's design (lack of a lock function being one example...), it leaves the user at the mercy of a divine intervention by way of seemingly randomized bugfix schedules and a userbase that is left to get into the weeds with one another over such design programs rather than focusing on addressing the overall problem with a haphazard development strategy. I don't bother to report bugs because I know unless they're low-hanging fruit, they will never be adequately addressed or fixed. Anything expand stroke, rendering-related or having to do with the brush engine or average algorithms… just forget about it.

The saddest part about all this is in that shifting my work back to other software, I'm seeing areas that where Affinity does stand tall over the competition, but it's all for naught with the plague of poor algorithms and the increasing unreliability the programs themselves bring with each bug release.

{As always, YMMV and this is very much my own opinion. Please save your rare novelties in the form of emojis for someone more deserving}

Could you not use Global colours for this? When I know I may need to change the colour used by multiple objects I usually create a global colour and assign it to each object accordingly. Then when I need to update all elements that use that colour, I simply edit the global colour swatch.

So, the pencil tool improvements are great, and after a few hours of using them I'm finding that they enable me to stay in the flow while longer drawing as I'm not having to constantly shift to the node edit tool to clean up extra nodes and reshape curves. However, the one thing that keeps pulling me out of flow now is sharp corners, as there is no way to specify one while using the pencil tool, so once again, I have to grab the node edit tool in order to make those changes.
I was hoping that if while drawing I slowed and stopped for a second at a corner it would take that as an intent to create a sharp corner/change of direction, from which I could then continue drawing. Adobe Illustrator on the iPad uses a similar technique when using the pencil tool where when you slow and stop for a moment it displays a small pulse animation at the location of the corner to provide feedback that it has created a corner node, from which you can then continue drawing. The other thing that Illustrator on iPad does that's insanely helpful is they provide a small contextual toolbar while drawing that enables you to quickly move between the pencil and the node tool and modify nodes and curves as you go (as well as access common features). It's a great feature, but unfortunately the rest of Illustrator on the iPad is a dog's breakfast.

Could you not use Global colours for this? When I know I may need to change the colour used by multiple objects I usually create a global colour and assign it to each object accordingly. Then when I need to update all elements that use that colour, I simply edit the global colour swatch.

Could you not use Global colours for this? When I know I may need to change the colour used by multiple objects I usually create a global colour and assign it to each object accordingly. Then when I need to update all elements that use that colour, I simply edit the global colour swatch.

Please reconsider providing architecture specific builds for macOS Intel and Apple Silicon directly from Affinity. I know that doesn't help with the App Store Universal builds issue, but at least you could help those customers who have purchased directly from you. Oh, and an added benefit would be showing some respect to users with smaller hard-drives by not shipping GBs of libs they don't need.
Simply saying 'sorry for the inconvenience, but we're not going to bother to at least fix it where we can' just further demonstrates Serif's contempt for its users. 

The most important update needed in the Affinity suite is FIXING OLD BUGS. For working professionals the most important software trait is stability and the app working as intended. I don’t care about nor want to see more new features until as many updates as necessary are spent simply fixing all the existing bugs currently breaking the software, which, when taken together, erode one’s ability to work continuously in the suite… 
For example, there is a rendering bug in the app’s engine when using translucent colors, which prevents exporting, so one is forced to use inaccurate screen grabs as FINAL output! Imagine trying to resize your exports using the viewers Zoom factor. This SUCKS!
Ignoring these types of bugs, specially basic ones inherent in the main rendering engine, are simply unacceptable and very frustrating, after YEARS of bug reporting!
Please@Ash I BEG YOU, seriously address the present boatload of bugs before releasing ANY NEW FEATURES!
Thanks for all you do. I LOVE the suite, but the bugs are killing us!

Below is a video showing drawing with the pencil with Sculpt and auto-close enabled. As you can see when sculpt mode is active, auto-close doesn't work. Also having the pencil turn into a 'node manipulation' tool is kinda weird. I like the '+' aspect of the cursor, but the pointer doesn't really match the action. Perhaps using the pencil icon with a + symbol when sculpting/adding to/continuing from a path/curve makes more sense?

Untitled.mp4    

Yes, but pages are the best construct for what I'm working on. If I wanted to use artboards I'd work in Designer.

So, the pencil tool improvements are great, and after a few hours of using them I'm finding that they enable me to stay in the flow while longer drawing as I'm not having to constantly shift to the node edit tool to clean up extra nodes and reshape curves. However, the one thing that keeps pulling me out of flow now is sharp corners, as there is no way to specify one while using the pencil tool, so once again, I have to grab the node edit tool in order to make those changes.
I was hoping that if while drawing I slowed and stopped for a second at a corner it would take that as an intent to create a sharp corner/change of direction, from which I could then continue drawing. Adobe Illustrator on the iPad uses a similar technique when using the pencil tool where when you slow and stop for a moment it displays a small pulse animation at the location of the corner to provide feedback that it has created a corner node, from which you can then continue drawing. The other thing that Illustrator on iPad does that's insanely helpful is they provide a small contextual toolbar while drawing that enables you to quickly move between the pencil and the node tool and modify nodes and curves as you go (as well as access common features). It's a great feature, but unfortunately the rest of Illustrator on the iPad is a dog's breakfast.