Gatada

I love the icons for Photo, Design and now Publisher - but not the "splash mess" added behind them... They do the icon no favors. Would love to just see the icons - clean and simple. Actually, I thought the noise behind the icon on Designer beta was added to remind the beta testers that they should expect bugs. Was surprisingly disappointed when you kept it for release. Now I also saw the backdrop for the Publisher icon.. it is .. just too much! Please, why have that? * start crying myself to sleep

This is driving me nuts. I am sure I managed to do this before, now I cannot figure out how to export a PDF with transparent background. - Document Setup has "Transparent background" enabled. - I am seeing the document with the classic checked background. - During export I set "Compatibility" to PDF 1.7 (supposedly only 1.4+ support transparent backgrounds). The files I export have a white background. What am I doing wrong? All help appreciated.

I also have a file you can check out. In my case the background in the Export persona didn't have the correct size. If I exported from Draw, the result was correct. What I fail to understand is how this is possible? I added the file here. Wrong Background size.afdesign

Dammit. I think the PDFs had transparent backgrounds, just all my viewers decided to be kind and render a white background. Even Preview did this, toggling View > Show Document Background did nothing. The exported PDF worked in Xcode however, which is the only thing I need.

When using "Join Curves" why aren't the selected nodes used for the join? Seems to be so much more logical. If there is no selection - then the default is the two closest nodes. Not having any way to influence how a join happens, and not letting a selection influence the result just feels wrong.

A workaround is to drag the first marquee you create around on screen. You only need to do this once - it seems. After the drag the tool start working as expected, showing the size and location in the transform panel. PS: Oh, didn't see the last part of that sentence in Chris' answer.

Hey, Loved being part of the beta. Especially the clever way you reminded me of the fact that I was launching the beta version of the app: the ugly noisy background of the otherwise beautiful splash screen. Every day I was looking forward to getting the final 1.5 release without it. I thought you guys were so clever. Then the day finally came. Excited I launched the updated release of Affinity Designer, but the ugly beta background pattern was still there! I had to double-check that I did in fact launch the release and to my horror, I had. Now I cringe every time I launch Affinity Designer. Please reconsider. Please make the ugly pattern a BETA artefact and not a release asset. I implore you. PS: But seriously, make the splash beautiful again! Remove the background splash pattern. And of course I still think you guys are clever. I love Affinity Designer as a tool.

This is driving me crazy. I create an artboard and add a rectangle. Nothing seems to align to anything: - The artboard doesn't align to the checkered background. - The rectangle doesn't align to the artboard. - The artboard doesn't scale to match the handles. - Despite having snap enabled I can end up with an artboard/asset that isn't aligned to the grid. What is the reason for this?

Hey, Congrats on 1.5 - it is sweet! Unless I'm missing something... And this is no biggie - but the export preset for OS X icons gives the folder a ".appiconset" extension, however, the stock provided tool for making icons (iconutil) requires ".iconset". Maybe this is something that I can fix myself, by editing the preset (if it is in some file somewhere)? Thanks

No comment on the key-element selection when aligning/distributing?

Agreed. Miss this as well. The Transform point should affect mirroring and basically determine the axis used for the process.

I have posted about this a feature myself at some point. To me it's kinda basic; I'm surprised it hasn't come up or been added in AD long time ago. The key/reference element could be picked as simply as being the Last or First object selected. No longer remember what AI or CD does..

Hey, Really like working with AD, at least when it doesn't crash. Which is does now, a lot - like every other minute. Seems mostly when dealing with artboards. Also, to make a crash more annoying, the studio hides and the tools "undock". To re-launch AD after a crash I have to: 1. Launch AD. This launch however, will freeze. 2. Force quit AD. 3. Re-launch AD. 4. Re-dock Tools. 5. Reset Studio. 6. Open the work file. 6. Create a new document and add any shape to the canvas. (This is the only way for the layers in the studio to actually appear.) 7. Close the new document. 8. Get back to work, until it crashes again. 9. Rinse and repeat from step 1. Needless to say, this is EXTREMELY frustrating and time consuming. I would have posted this under bugs, but seems you have closed that forum. Aanyway.... When I sufficiently zoom out, I would really like to see the overlapping artboard labels hidden. There is no point in showing something that looks like this (attached image):

Hey, I'm really hoping you plan to add 1/3 and 2/3 magnification to the export dialogs? Cause whenever I add a raster image to a canvas, I cannot export at x2 and x3 as the rastered element will obviously become blurry. Also, I want to suggest that you move the plus to the top in the image below, so that I can quicker press it to add new magnifications. Currently, I have to click and move, click and move. No biggie - just a better UX with the button in one location. Johan

Hey, Loving the 1.5 beta btw. Anyway - when dragging the pie handles, the start, end and total angles are shown as integers, when they in fact aren't. So... I first drag all the handles for all the pies, then I have to manually rewrite all the angles to get their rounded values. This is tedious, and .. quite frankly a bit silly. I think you should either show the angles as floats when I drag the pie handles, or you should show them as integers, but then also make the pie snap to whole angles. As it stands, I cannot (necessarily and easily) snap two pies together using the handles. The screenshot shows two pies with what appears to be the same angles - but obviously, there is a gap there. Johan PS: I never though I would write in a forum about snapping pies together.

I knew my love for Affinity Designer wasn't misplaced! I have had issued with art boards and the slices being misplaced and messed up. But it seems by not dragging with the mouse when I copy or create dartboards - and instead offset the art boards in Transform - I get less issues.

Solved it, pretty simple really - must have been tired: 1. Add drop/outer shadow to the shape. 2. Make a mask from the inverted shape and use it to mask the other shape. So only the drop shadow is visible. 3. Set the opacity of the mask fill to 0%. Voila!

So, if I'm understanding this question correctly - Johanna50 wants to create something similar to what I need. Therefore I'll add some details and questions to this thread. Ok? Hope so. Basically, I need a drop shadow from a shape, without having the shape itself show up. I need the drop shadow with alpha only, everything should be transparent. So, something like this - with with the red also transparent: http://pasteboard.co/wMOEKfg.png Now, in photoshop I would simply create the shape with fx and give the fill full transparency. This however, doesn't work in AD. Any ideas how to do that non-destructively?

This is a critical bug, makes AD useless - forced me to return to the competition. Any news on the fix?

Slightly frustrated? It kinda kills the flow completely whenever I illustrate using Affinity Designer. I need the color picker on a modifier key like OPT when combined with vector generating tools. I need to be able to pick a color and immediately create the next stroke using the newly picked color. OPT for outline color, Shift+OPT to set fill color. The keys must be pressed before starting a new vector, with the pen still in the air (or mouse button not pressed) - with the picker active, touching the canvas will pick a color, not create a shape. Pretty, pretty please!

Hey, Would love to see a "Projected Export" option in the export dialog. It would basically create a new file that has expanded and merged all the outline of the elements visible on the canvas. Currently, the process of getting the outline only is just as tedious as any other vector tool, but Affinity Designer can and should do better! Like this:

Yeah, I would very much like this too. Or - a slower and less cool implementation, allow me to toggle visibility of all selected layers if I OPT+click the checkbox.

I think you mean OPT+Drag? OPT+Drag is also consistent with how objects are duplicated on the canvas, and I hope one day in the sidebar. PS: What do you guys think you achieve by posting +100? There is a Like This button, I think using that is better for everyone; less thread clutter.

Hm, what does CMD+Drag do? Seems like it does the same as Opt+Drag? If they do the same, I would prefer OPT+Drag, and freeing CMD+drag to do something else. Anyway, OPT+drag to duplicate anything anywhere would be nice; both in the sidebar and canvas - like FX, layers, objects. The ⌘+C ⌘+V workaround is a solution for some of these, but not all.

Very basic, but I still haven't found a consistent way to predict when or what object moves when I align elements. Locking doesn't make a difference, neither does selection or layer/element order? So how can I have one element stand still and the other to move?