Bit Dissapointed

Approximately 20% of the global population might expect vertical text orientation in text boxes, as their languages traditionally utilise it as well. This figure predominantly includes the populations of China, Japan, and South Korea, where the tradition of vertical script is prevalent. Imagine 1,577,000,000 individuals to get the general idea. Thus, you are decidedly not alone in having a potential or direct interest in vertical text orientation. It is reasonable to assume that this functionality is something both professional and non-professional customers will seek out and base their product choice upon. Indeed, this region offers businesses a colossal potential market share, which ought to be considered in a manner befitting a gentleman. My personal experiences with the culture there, on both leisure and business trips, have been most favourable, ensuring that respect is indeed mutual.

Given that Affinity is a low-budget product, it should directly support formats used by people and organisations that typically use similar free or low-cost products, so I agree.

It is high time for widespread and standardized attachment of certificates and cryptographic validation of images and other copyright-protected materials for all types of creative performers especially. It's odd that it hasn't happened yet, so it's nice to see Leica making a move, as it's a brand that provides tools for many professionals, whose livelihoods are secured by, among other things, that camera.

Apologies? That shall not occur. It's becoming rather too akin to an American-style safe space, cushioned in rubber. And I am utterly indifferent to the aforementioned. Utterly indifferent. Regarding the quoted matter: It is precisely this deterrence scenario that a select few regime-loyal multi-posters on the forum have often been criticized for by others over the years, that suggestions for improvement are drowned in responses that resemble rather unserious fanboy-like retorts, yet this is conversely quite tolerated by Serif. But I can assure you, people with serious needs have an intuition that tells them something fundamental about the overall level. Consider how many individuals with serious needs and work processes are departing due to such unserious impressions and counteractions, for you are frightening away serious clients. There's also the outcome of "No impression" which unfortunately happens quite often around here.

In the context and based on the presented and the perpetual discourse in here, yes. I spend 40 hours a week in the professional environment I'm referring to. It can be observed with the naked eye from Saturn that the vast majority here - far, far most - do not. The tragicomic aspect of this forum - any forum - is that it is appropriate to present oneself without any special knowledge on the subject thousands of times, but inappropriate to point out this problem in concise language even once. If a forum suffers from confirmation bias and survivor bias, then it's quite irrelevant whether the forum guidelines protect and ensure a dialogue in the tone of Miss Marple; it becomes a tiny safe space for a very small and exclusionary, homogenous group.

Noted, but I shall conclude by emphasising that if there is one aspect that falls under feedback for the products, it is the specific things that cause dissatisfaction in them, which are the concrete errors in methodology behind them. And the method is precisely what frames all the individual errors. Meta? Well, then let's have a meta-feedback forum. Instead of unmethodically trickling in tiny individual drops of feedback here.

It is still stunningly irrelevant. The point is that they should have learned something in their field over the past decades, and their Mac and Windows versions contain the same hopeless usability errors and algorithms as before, and their work methods and deficiencies are the same. I'm talking about methods, you're babbling about products. The products are products OF the method. Serif will make many of the same elementary mistakes today if they start over with the Mac code, because their corporate culture and deficiencies are unchanged over time.

Oh, give me strength. It doesn't matter that they started on Mac 10 years ago. I'm talking about how the company works as professionals, methodically, involving specialties, what algorithms they develop themselves or obtain from external sources, what their attitude is towards the professional level of the algorithms and to their products as such, and much, much more. The WHOLE thing! You shouldn't think you're starting over just because you're also making a Mac version. But you do start over when you fail to work professionally in advance, then you end up with the clunky tablet versions of the products that we have today. Nothing learned and no empathy, they try BY THEMSELVES and fail BY THEMSELVES. The company has been working with graphic software for 30 years and should be at a much higher level of consciousness, professional level, and possess much greater industry knowledge than they do today. They had the chance to make a fresh start with Affinity as a company on all levels, but it was only partial because the corporate culture does not extend further.

Hi Erno No reason to be unhappy, just aim for a realistic level of perception and expectation. The key is to avoid oversimplifications. Serif has created affordable software for the masses, which in some aspects makes things easier and better than Adobe, yet there's also a strong sense of "beggars can't be choosers" with the product. Adobe is pricey, I can afford it and also have Adobe and others, so I'm more neutrally minded. I'm not a fan or fanboy; I simply use the software that suits exactly the product I'm creating, so I don't expect Serif to provide me with alternatives for everything I use Adobe for, to cut costs, nor am I dependent on Serif, but it annoys me immensely that they don't mature internally as a company. All companies do some things right and some things wrong, and unfortunately, in my professional life, I've seen company cultures stuck for decades. It's not unusual. Professionally, we've switched to new professional firms (being professional is an ATTITUDE!!!), and it has elevated both our products and our work. It's contagious to work with companies and people who maintain a very, very high level. Conversely, it becomes increasingly demoralizing to see the old companies, whose products we still have clients using, continue on their old cultural track, making inferior products, and actually being cringe-worthy to interact with. But there's some cash flow coming in that keeps them alive for a bit longer. They also whine a lot about new companies taking their customers, but it's often simply because... they deliver better. So, do I think Serif will ever change its attitude and modus operandi? Not at all. I'll use Designer as long as it's best for a niche in my work and hobby, and I'm actually quite fond of the desktop version of it, but beyond that, it's a peculiar experience to work professionally where I do, seeing the software I use evolve, and Serif bumble along in the same track decade after decade. I just want to encourage you to see everything in the right light, now you thought Serif was a new company, not at all, and if you're going to base your business tool choice on anything, it should be facts, not false hopes or a lack of facts. If there's one thing that's dangerous, it's making a long-term choice that's wrong.

As I've mentioned a trillion times before in this forum, Serif has opted for many perplexing, contradictory, or technically incorrect or dubious solutions. This is what happens when you stubbornly refuse to hire specialists for specialist work. If things haven't changed in 30 years, why would Serif alter its course in the next 10? It's the most effective cure against learning, market share, and happier customers I've ever seen. Personally, I would find it dull as dishwater and extremely unambitious to work in that way (I wouldn't be allowed to either) but they have so clearly chosen to cocoon themselves in their cave with their methods. Their choice. I'm somewhat enjoying Designer, which does have its merits and performs well and swiftly, but I can say with conviction that my investment in Publisher and Photo turned out to be superfluous. Especially Photo. Bloody hell, the amount of unserious algorithms you can find there. Even considering the price. But perhaps the worst part is that it fails to attract professional clients, despite the marketing team's zealous use of the term "professional." So, ambitious and professional clients who come here with expectations are, to their surprise and often irritation, told by non-professionals what professionals need and expect! Brilliant strategy, sure to drive potential professional clients away. Yet another effective cure against increasing market share. The discourse in this forum is that many customers indirectly indicate that they have too much time on their hands, not to use Affinity professionally, but to talk about it. And much more. In other words, don't expect Serif to take a sharp right turn towards Usability City, no matter how critical, constructive, or fanboyish you try to be here. Wishes are listened to in this forum, but there's no serious, professional, and structured work as there should be in a company like Serif, and that's the basis for the observations you've made. In other words:

As usual, I lose track of what on earth people are discussing in here, but here is my understanding of your needs, @Phil_rose, and it is at least my recommendation, if: Starting point: You HAVE images stored locally You WANT to insert them into a Publisher document You DO NOT wish to have the images embedded/stored in assets or embedded the document (This is a massive amount of data and even duplicate data I never desire. I always select linked unless I have have a specific reason not to.) Method: Create a document to the desired specifications Choose prefer linked Place the images Monitor that they are linked in Window -> Resource Manager Result: A document of a reasonable size where the images as data are not unnecessarily duplicated in assets, which only makes sense if you intend to use the images in multiple documents - and often - and otherwise is not a good idea, because assets are not an image library as such. Hence the name assets, which leans more towards logos and frequently used symbols and the like. Embedding the images in the document itself is also not meaningful, unless you need to transport the document to another computer that does not have access to the images locally. Document properties Resource Manager

Dragging these files from your file manager into the assets panel should do the trick. But be aware that assets are intended for smaller and fewer items that are used across projects. With so many images, you start to move into an impractical scenario, but mostly if you think so yourself. 🙂 In Affinity, when you add assets, they are actually embedded into the application’s data (not linked and cannot be linked), which results in a permanent storage of a massive amount of data for a singular purpose. Affinity may store these images in a format that takes up a lot of space. Makes sense in some scenarios (logo, symbols, icons), not so much in this case. Embedding a large number of assets, like 60 large JPEG images, leads to a significant increase in the file size. This could also impact performance and memory usage, potentially slowing down the application and affecting overall system efficiency. Personally, I would be perfectly fine with dragging them in from the thumbnail view in my file manager directly onto the page (ad hoc), and also having set "prefer linked" in the document setup. You risk using hundreds of megabytes or even a gigabyte of data on this, depending on the project and image sizes, not to much use after all.

I don't know, but I know that Serif wanted more frequent, smaller releases to avoid regressions. However, this just goes to show that good architecture requires foresight. I believe these layer states were rushed out in beta too quickly; the purpose of a beta isn't for customers to find and report fundamental flaws in the UI and architecture. However, I could be wrong, and it might be a minor slip-up; I'm just not that convinced.

I can only imagine that this has been requested before, but it definitely deserves a spotlight once again. I've just tried working with layer masks that I paint on with a white or black brush. It was surprisingly challenging on Designer for iPad, as I can't easily swap fill and stroke like on desktop or quickly set fill and stroke to black and white when they have other colors. To my VERY big surprise, Serif has prioritized giving keyboard shortcuts to ALL blend modes on tablet versions, but not these mission-critical shortcuts that are muscle memory for experienced and especially professional users. The method to swap fill and stroke with a pen is not quick and very clumsy compared to having a keyboard attached, where you can press 'X' and 'D'. And setting them to black and white with a press or click is not possible at all. So, could it be prioritized for iPad Pro users and others with a keyboard attached to the iPad to add keyboard shortcuts for these things, as they are in the desktop versions? These keyboard shortcuts are so well-known from other programs decades ago and are extremely valuable when working with masks, so I am completely baffled that they are not in the tablet versions as the most obvious feature.

As mentioned the page border/outline plus scroll bars or scroll bar placeholders when the entire page is visible as in above screenshots. It's a classic example of where Serif's software isn't very... shall we say, engaged or immersed.