GripsholmLion

I must agree, I'm receiving notification in my email and seeing some people discouraging and being ironic to the users that post what they wish to see on Affinity, it's really toxic.

I can't really see how comment this adds to this topic of request and wish discussed here for a most useful and needed feature.
That so many seems so have asked for, for years.
 
Most designers use the programs not ONLY for vectorwork, but for so many of us it is one of the MOST important uses (logos, illustrations etc).
Other Affinity-programs are of use.
Requesting for this in a vector-based program should not come as a surprise, it should have been addad a long time ago, and when it is missing it's an illogical cold shower.
 
When that 30-day is up, it's up.
(For example if you get sick immideaterly after purchasing, as happened in my case and you miss that 30-day limit.)
 

And still, selling with a punchline of "vector brushes" when drawing in designer is not really true, is it?
That should be there in big letters as info so clients don't need to waste time and effort and have an easier pick of which apps to choose to buy without having to guess  if a vector program has the capacity for use of vector brushes sold.
 

Lack of scalability and generally poor UI (contrast in particular) are starting to take their toll on Serif @Patrick Connor
Patric one rhetorical question: Have any lessons been learned from the many complaints about UI?

I have been using masking in photo restoration for a long time with no problem. Recently, the function of the black brush has disappeared. The white brush works as usual, but the black simply has no effect. The erase tool does work, but that's not really efficient since I use a drawing tablet w pen where a simple click-switch makes masking simple.
I don't know whether this relates to the latest update or not, though I don't see any similar recent complaints in the forum or in googling. I don't find any clue to how to restore the function. I'm using 2.3.1 and reinstalled it...though when I did so, it almost instantly jumped to "Finish". I wonder whether it rewrote any files at all.
I have had a recent lockup in Windows where I had to shut down by the power button and then some of my default settings for a few programs were missing. I performed HD checks and several virus scans and nothing seems amiss. Plus, I think this issue appeared before that incident.
Any help would be VERY welcome! 

To receive a different answer may require a different question to be asked.
You made a suggestion and received fair minded explanations of why that suggestion may not be very sensible.
That is a bold and very probably inaccurate assumption. I am often very supportive of feature requests, but I cannot support this one.

What you have is a finished file format, not a raw file. Off the top of my head I cannot recall a raw file format that is TIFF. Where are they coming from? I suspect a scanner is involved.
<pedant on>
Raw is not an acronym. It is the actual word raw, with the definition of uncooked, and should not be in all caps unless all the text is in all caps.
<pedant off>

To receive a different answer may require a different question to be asked.
You made a suggestion and received fair minded explanations of why that suggestion may not be very sensible.
That is a bold and very probably inaccurate assumption. I am often very supportive of feature requests, but I cannot support this one.

To receive a different answer may require a different question to be asked.
You made a suggestion and received fair minded explanations of why that suggestion may not be very sensible.
That is a bold and very probably inaccurate assumption. I am often very supportive of feature requests, but I cannot support this one.

These are two completely different types of user interface; one place you navigate by symbols (how the brain was actually designed to navigate), the other by words (opposite brain scenario). With words, it's much, much, much harder to decode such categorization unless it's directly obvious from the words: War Ammunition Milk Butter.
In any case it is common practice in other companies to user test this before releasing a thing to the public - even a beta - and Serif doesn't do this. So here we are.

When it comes to the appearance of this list, I think that the best solution would be to use one background color and a simple separator (1 pixel divider) between the list rows instead of using an alternating background coloring with such a distinct color difference, the so-called "zebra stripes".
UI designers use "zebra stripes" in large data sets, but that's not the case here. They use this type of coloring very wisely and as a last option tool.
This method is often overused, as in this case.
Such a noticeable color difference between list rows causes visual noise and is unpleasant to the eye.


P.S The UI designer knows this stuff and would definitely not design the list this way. Another proof that there is no UI/UX design specialist on the Serif team.

I don't navigate the lists that way myself, but by what I know for sure I'm looking for, the name. Code can easily sort such a list regardless of the selected language.
Assuming that people will want to see them listed in type order in this case, or will intuitively adjust to it, is naive. And if that is the case, one should clearly section with labes them so that it is apparent and the logic is visible. Apparent logic is great usability, apparent madness is just madness.
So I think what we're left with is apparent madness that appears as madness to anyone who hasn't rehearsed and memorized the types of layers in Affinity. That's probably the majority.
🙂

Alphabetically list order to eyes or navigate obvious exhausting sorted in any other is not your with it's this which logical.

(It's exhausting to navigate this list with your eyes, which is not sorted alphabetically or in any obvious other logical order.)

I was planning to suggest a change to the "Automatic (based on selection)" constraint feature this week so I'll use this thread. My two pet peeves are:
If I select two objects with inherent aspect ratios (i.e., images or groups), they'll be unconstrained which isn't what a user would want. This is the OP's point. To scale an image proportionally with Transform, I must click Link and remember to turn it off when I scale a shape a moment later. I never remember and make this mistake a dozen times a day. The Link control is always set to what I last used, and doesn't reflect the object type. With most other apps (Adobe, Apple, Microsoft...), selecting their version of Link constrains drag scaling and deselecting un-constrains it. Link also has separate states for images versus other objects. The default states are Linked for images and unlinked for other objects. Most apps go even further - if you drag scale an image and a shape together, the image will be constrained and the shape will not. Microsoft nailed this.
So my request is:
Change Link so it controls the automatic constraint behaviour Have separate Link states for objects with inherent aspect ratios (default to Linked) versus other objects (default to Unlinked) Scale objects per their Link state even in multi and mixed selections A few notes on other apps:
Photoshop doesn't have separate states for images versus shapes but it's image-centric. I don't have ID and Illustrator to test so they may work more like Apple and Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't have to worry about showing a mixed state value for Link when an image and a shape is selected because Office has separate Link controls in the Shape Format and Picture Format sections of the ribbon. Apple shows a mixed state value, but it's unimportant for them because their apps can't scale multiple objects simultaneously. Groups in Microsoft apps don't have an inherent aspect ratio which isn't great.  
 

I think using the Edit in... command makes transferring a document to another application quite easy and smooth.

Um, just out of interest, approximately how much of your day is spent waiting for another Affinity application to open on what I assume is cutting-edge, professional-grade hardware?

Um, just out of interest, approximately how much of your day is spent waiting for another Affinity application to open on what I assume is cutting-edge, professional-grade hardware?

Um, just out of interest, approximately how much of your day is spent waiting for another Affinity application to open on what I assume is cutting-edge, professional-grade hardware?

So, Designer is now able to import and export DWG's. That's great, that's fantastic. As fantastic is the measure tool. Brilliant. But it would be groundbreaking if you can add dimension to the drawing!!! You’ll have all the architecture-related people who are going to use Designer! You are near there!!! Please please please add this, and vector patterns..😁😅

When working with "Move tool", I mostly don't want the tool to be auto-select on layer I click on since it may sometimes result in selecting the wrong layer or wrong group, but I need uncheck the "auto-select" option all the time. It does not remember my preference. Is that how affinity works or is it a bug?

I'd like to be able to convert multiline paragraph or art text to separate lines of paragraph text or art text, while keeping the position of the text.

This is not a criticism and please don't take it as such; but your view of other people's choice of words reads like an instance of knowledge fallacy. Not everyone knows what you, I, or someone else knows, but it's normal for us all to forget that from time to time. Perhaps a lot of people don't know the name for the people tasked with making UX decisions; or that such roles exist and are a distinct part of development (I would argue that UX designers are still developers in the same way as I used to be a web accessibility developer); or perhaps some people just want a shorthand for the cohort who work at a software company while they get their point across. I hope you won't mind if I refer to all such related people as developers because, believe it or not, I do quite like brevity. 🙂

Grant me a Euro for every 'I have absolutely no idea about what's happening internally at Serif, but I believe that...' post ordinary users have received from other ordinary users here, and I could buy a luxury yacht with a crew.
And let's just repeat for new readers: Developers develop code and architecture, while project managers and other decision-makers make decisions (ideally with usability specialists, which is not the case at Serif Software) about what and when to develop. The best role for developers here is to advise on the most feasible implementation order and what is technically possible or impossible. Had there been a leadership decision years ago to switch to a scalable interface instead of the strangely microscopic one we now have in v2.0, it might have been implemented by now. Possibly at the expense of new features, and therefore postponed. A classic scenario; milking an architecture to its last.
In that case, it would have been a strategic decision, implemented in the products by developers, with marketing and documentation following suit. Instead, another peculiar strategic decision was made to change the interface to the dark one we have now, with contrast issues, and still an interface that cannot adapt to current and upcoming screen sizes.
I don't understand why so many refer to developers as almost the sole factor in software development; it's such an oversimplified notion of a company, I can hardly fathom it. I have no idea why leadership at Serif makes both sound and obviously flawed decisions, and why glaring deficiencies are not addressed for years, but don't imagine for a moment that there's a circle of all-knowing, gracious developers with a ready explanation and solutions at hand for future updates.
Decisions are made by the head; not the tail!

I have bad eyesight. I've had two cataract surgeries and and a repaired detached retina. I generally use LARGE monitors when using graphics editors with a high contrast UI. Affinity apps are really good for me because I can make nodes really large, change guide colours easily, et cetera. One area that falls down on that is the local help file. Initially when when it pops up the text is readable, but I have to focus hard at times. I normally get around this by pressing CTRL+ a few times and it's a lot clearer. The problem is though that every new time I open the Help window it reverts to a default size.

I'm suggesting an extra preference where the user can set the font size in the help document.  I don't know it this would be based on points or say, a multiple of the standard size, but it would make reading the help a lot easier and less frustrating.

Image below: default help size at left, help font size after a few CTRL+.
 
 

Just found a better solution:
Duplicate the layer you want to feather  nest one to the other in masking position  add live Gaussian blur in masking position of inner Adjust strength to taste in my experiments the alpha values did not reach 0 to 100 but only a subset of this range. To correct: add a channels mixer above child layers choose alpha channel  set offset to -100% set alpha input to 200% now the feather works as wanted.
The file shows a 1px checkered board above a blue fill layer. You can feather the shape from hard edge to soft 


tutorial live feather mask.afphoto

That could be useful to me, too.