Seneca

Hello @kimtorch,
Tim and Patrick went to great lengths to stress the fact that this is just a very early pre-pre-pre-alpha, of what they are working on. This is not representative of what we get when this is released.
And secondly, as far as I remember the team is also working on a C based extension system. For companies that need greater automation this plug-in system might be more suitable. 

Yes, there will be some notion of a plugin / add-on package and they won't have to be single-execution-and-stop scripts like in these examples.
I'm not in a position to promise anything (even with the bribe of a cuppa) but we have done some work on panels because it feels like having some built-in support for UI would be of value.

@Alfred
Here is an extract from Unicode. I show here only 4 of the attributes of each character out of several more than 200.
<char cp="0027" age="1.1" na="APOSTROPHE" […] na1="APOSTROPHE-QUOTE" […]/> <char cp="2018" age="1.1" na="LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" […] na1="SINGLE TURNED COMMA QUOTATION MARK" […]/> <char cp="2019" age="1.1" na="RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" […] na1="SINGLE COMMA QUOTATION MARK" […]/>
@walt.farrell
I agree that the use of the curved apostrophe in the user interface may seem like a minor detail. However, the user interface is a key element of the user experience and can have a significant impact on the perceived quality of software.
Without going back to the first WYSIWYG text editors, which revolutionised desktop publishing by allowing users to directly view the final output of their work on screen, the use of the curved apostrophe in the Affinity Suite user interface can help improve the overall user experience and increase user confidence in the quality of the DTP suite. I think this could be an easy improvement to implement and I hope the Affinity development team will consider this suggestion to improve the quality of their software.
A spelling mistake is still a mistake! It's a bad thing in a software that wants to claim excellence.

Hello out there!
As far I see, that may be implemented (at least) in AFPub:
When deleting a color swatch, a paragraph style or text style which is already applied to elements in the file, AFPub just does it – and nothing happes, exept that I'm loosing that format.
It would be very useful, if AFPub would gave me a hint "That [style, swatch] is already used in that file, what do you want to do: ..."
• just delete it
• choose a replacement style/colour etc. ...
Often I delete a color swatch, because there is already an other, analog color in use, AND I want, to apply "blind" those elements the already given color, etc.
Especially usefull would that be while importing textfiles, which are already formatted via "own" styles: Theses styles are imported, too, into the book layout, and when I delete those imported styles, I would be asked, which already defined style should be the replacement.
 
Johannes

Get Art Text. Works great with Affinity Designer. 

I'm not sure what you mean but Publisher can import PDFs and edit them.
Publisher is what inDesign is and not a replacement of Adobe Acrobat. You wouldn't compare inDesign to Adobe Acrobat would you. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

I think you are referring to the Running Header Field itself. 
What we are referring to here the logic behind the field. The Running Header field is set up to display the information that needs to find on the page. It looks for that information in the Paragraph style or a Character style.
This works in the same way as in inDesign. My recollection of how it works in Quark is rusty at this stage.

@MikeTO ,
I went though my settings again and discovered that I did have the same Character Style applied to one of the footnotes.
I fell into the trap of not seeing the obvious. Need to take a break.
EDIT: You were right about the styles

In my earlier post I commented that Running Header is a great addition to Publisher. With this in mind I decided to take this feature for a spin and try to create scripture references as it is often found at the top of a bible pages. This is pushing this feature to as far as it can go at the moment.
The reference below is composed of the following bits:
1. The book name (Running Header field)
2. Chapter number (First on Page)  (Running Header field)
3. Colon
4. Verse Number (First on Page)  (Running Header field)
5. En hyphen
6. Chapter number (Last on Page)  (Running Header field)
7. Colon
8. Verse number (Last on Page)  (Running Header field)

This works well but I quickly discovered that for this to work correctly  we need another addition to the “Use” option. Currently we have “First on Page” and “Last on Page”. This works well for the majority of cases but here we need something like “From Previous unless First on Page”. I struggle to come up with a better wording for this.
The reason this is needed is shown in the screenshot below. There is no way at the moment to account for the fact that the chapter number can still be on previous page and this still needs to be carried to the current page.

I also discovered that the drop caps feature as we have now is not adequate to make chapter numbers to be dropcaps. There might be workarounds but they will remain workarounds.

There may be other ways to accomplish this that I am not aware of so am looking forward to your comments and suggestions.
I'm including the file I was experimenting with below:
Bible-refs-2.afpub
Bible-refs-2.afpub

I'm not seeing that issue. Could you share a test document?
Here's a test document that shows the footnote being ignored. The footnote has no style applied to it as you said you didn't have any applied to yours. The running header is set to take the text from Heading 1.
running footnote.afpub

In my earlier post I commented that Running Header is a great addition to Publisher. With this in mind I decided to take this feature for a spin and try to create scripture references as it is often found at the top of a bible pages. This is pushing this feature to as far as it can go at the moment.
The reference below is composed of the following bits:
1. The book name (Running Header field)
2. Chapter number (First on Page)  (Running Header field)
3. Colon
4. Verse Number (First on Page)  (Running Header field)
5. En hyphen
6. Chapter number (Last on Page)  (Running Header field)
7. Colon
8. Verse number (Last on Page)  (Running Header field)

This works well but I quickly discovered that for this to work correctly  we need another addition to the “Use” option. Currently we have “First on Page” and “Last on Page”. This works well for the majority of cases but here we need something like “From Previous unless First on Page”. I struggle to come up with a better wording for this.
The reason this is needed is shown in the screenshot below. There is no way at the moment to account for the fact that the chapter number can still be on previous page and this still needs to be carried to the current page.

I also discovered that the drop caps feature as we have now is not adequate to make chapter numbers to be dropcaps. There might be workarounds but they will remain workarounds.

There may be other ways to accomplish this that I am not aware of so am looking forward to your comments and suggestions.
I'm including the file I was experimenting with below:
Bible-refs-2.afpub
Bible-refs-2.afpub

Strange, while creating the topic I chose to be posted to Publisher Beta 2.1 section. 
EDIT: I think I now know what went wrong. Hopefully the admin will move it to the right forum. Sorry.

As a commercial graphic designer, having certain features is essential. However, Adobe Photoshop suffered from the "Swiss army knife" syndrome, which caused a lot of damage. Illustrator is also headed down that path with features like 3D and basic animation. Fortunately, Affinity takes a different approach by focusing on keeping their apps performing at their best, rather than trying to please everyone. Currently, I am using the beta apps, and there are many upcoming features that will greatly enhance productivity. I recommend trying Art Text for any special needs, as I have been using it for years and find it wonderful. It also works seamlessly with Affinity. Have a great day!

I think you're right. I believe ID has the same running header feature set so it has the same limitation but it would be nice if Publisher could address this situation. First on Page uses the first instance of the style on the page and the previous instance if it isn't on the page. What you want is "Continued", where it always uses the previous instance unless the page starts with the style.
Also note, Quark offers "First on Spread" and "Last on Spread" which might be useful to some people.
Drop caps: I think you should split that off into a separate thread.
Cheers

We are pleased to make available the next update to the 2.1 beta (2.1.0.1730) This should now be available for you on auto-update.
Below are some of the main changes:
Dashed line / stroke panel improvements
The big new feature here is that you can now choose to set dashed lines to be "balanced", meaning spacing is automatically adjusted so cusps (e.g. corners of a rectangle) look correct. Additionally available dash lined patterns have been extended to 3 dashes and 3 gaps and there is a new "Clear arrow heads" button.
Running headers
You can now add running headers to your document in Publisher using the new running header field.
Adjusted mask behaviour
From customer feedback the drop down menu when hitting the mask button in layers panel has been removed, and logic for how the assistant determines if a mask should be added as a new layer or a child altered.
Some file management changes to iPad versions
New option to "Find in files" added to document burger menu iPadOS default Photos browser now used when opening a photo. Redesigned Edit menu on iPad
Taking on board various feedback regarding readability and loss of icons for Isometric options
Crop tool 
Problem with the hit area when dragging a corner has been fixed
Auto clean in paint mixer
Setting is now remembered
Special characters view in Designer and Photo
This has now now been added to the iPad versions of Designer and Photo
Additional select options added to iPad shortcuts / quick menu
Select next, previous, top and bottom now available in iPad shortcuts and quick menu
Brush Panel improvements
You can now optionally decide to turn the new auto scroll / switch category functionality when you change brush tool on or off
Auto-select
Auto-select is now it's own checkable toggle separate to the drop down options of selecting group or objects. Position of auto select options has moved to be after any context options based on selection Guides
Mouse wheel / arrow keys can now be used to nudge values that have focus in guides manager. Option to lock margin and spread original values added to guides manager dialog. Vector flood tool
Various changes to behind the scenes logic to try to do a better job at combining fills together.  A new scaling option of "None" when tool has a bitmap or gradient fill. Migrate your release version content to beta
A new option has been added to preferences in the desktop versions where you can transfer any content you have in your retail versions over to the beta versions at anytime.
 
Plus various bug fixes as listed in the fix list thread.
 

Apps: Affinity Publisher
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
Running Headers are field which refers to text of a particular style elsewhere in the document. The most obvious cases are of a novel where the title of the chapter is repeated at the top of each page or of a dictionary where the first and last word defined on a given page are denoted in the header.
A Running Header is treated much the same as other fields such as creation date or current section and is found under Document Sections on the Fields Panel. The … button allows you to configure the header, whilst double-clicking the field’s name inserts a header with the current settings into the text. Once placed, the field’s settings can be edited from the right-click context menu’s Edit Field... option.
The Running Header’s settings allow you to choose which text will be chosen for the instance and how it will be presented. You can identify the paragraph or character style which should be tracked and whether you are interested in the “first on page” (which will show the first text of the tracked style on the current page or the previous text of the tracked style looking backwards through the document if none is present on the current page) or “last on page” which will show the last text of the tracked style on the current page or nothing if there is none on the current page.
N.B. Frames containing running headers are not considered as sources for tracked styles. This is because, in the case of using “last on page” it is entirely possible a running header would, when evaluated, push the source text off of the page and thus render itself invalid. Running headers are therefore intended to be placed in separate frames - usually as page headers.
The settings for constraining the running headers are much the same as for Cross-References. You can limit the number of words or stop on a specific character, include or exclude paragraph numbering and so on. Additionally, you can also apply case adjustments, None to leave the text as you found it, or Sentence, Title, Upper or Lower to reformat the text in the same manner as if you applied the text case commands to the original text.
N.B. At present, composition of fields doesn’t allow them to flow onto multiple lines. A running header which exceeds the length of a line of text will truncate to fit the frame.

Latest update (Build: 1730) available now! Release notes here

A couple of suggestions regarding the Cross-Reference functionality:
1. Allow sorting either by Target Name or by Page by clicking on the appropriate column names in the Insert Cross-Reference Panel
2. Add character styles to the Filter style so that we can also filter by character styles.

Thinking about it a bit more, the most appropriate solution to this would be to option double-click the asset to place it on the page/artboard.
That wold leave the current behaviour as is.

Yeah the thing with that (and this applies to a few other suggestions) is that our guides - at least as it stands - are not selectable things. This was a deliberate design decision at the beginning, but could be something we review at some stage. The reason that impacts this is that clicking on a guide does not select it (or remove your selection from whatever you currently have selected in your layers panel). Therefore hitting cmd-J will just duplicate your current layer/object selection.

There is other feedback we have had like being able to group guides, or reflecting currently selected guide position in the transform panel for example. All of which would mean switching to making guides selectable which is quite a big fundamental change and isn't something for 2.1.

I should say we also have a different kind of guide feature in our minds for the future - effectively guide layers which would allow the creation of any guides from any objects, and could be manipulated like any other object (grouped, power duplicated, anything else you can think of). But that's probably quite a way off...

I suggested to have the Command Key press to temporarily switch to the pointer tool a while back. That's how inDesign works and I find it very handy. When you let go of the command key then you are back to the tool you had before.
The answer I got was that the majority of the tools in the Affinity Suite change into drag tool when you hover over the frame of an object. That is true but that doesn't solve all the cases. Command press switch would solve all the problems raised here and elsewhere.

Yes, sorry. I should not rely on my feeble memory. I somehow remembered it it as 2 separate entries.

Hello @HenrikM,
I was thinking about the same thing. It would be great to be able to create your own versions of cross-references by combining various fields in the panel and being able to save it for future use.

Thinking about it a bit more, the most appropriate solution to this would be to option double-click the asset to place it on the page/artboard.
That wold leave the current behaviour as is.

I've bumped the issue