deeds

Agreed, I just tried most of my fonts and almost all of them have catastrophic kerning. It would really be helful to be able to have a more automatic workflow for this.

+1,000,000 for optical kerning. Too long overdue.

Any news on having this functionality BACK in Affinity Designer since I don't have Affinity Publisher as it makes no sense for my workflow, and I would not buy a piece of software to only use the Find and Replace functionality. Do I really need to use InkScape for this? 

And if my grandma had wheels she'd be a bicycle.
This was about Designer, not Publisher.

Affinity estimated $500k to port Designer back when it was only a Mac app, and their only app.
 
Multiply that by all the features added since, and Publisher and Photo and then multiply that by the wage inflation of programmers and the complexities of their new optimisations and building blocks for their future.

Now add the research time to figure out what they should be making it for (targeting) in the Linux world, and how that's going to impact their holistic approach to running all three apps forward at the same time.
 
Now deduct the opportunity cost of tasking programmers with this, and the restrictions it brings to the overall future design and development of the software...
 
Somewhere well north of 2 million pounds... and who knows how much revenue lost due to the inevitable, unavoidable slowing of the development of their trinity of software and whatever else they had planned.
 
Linux users willing to start a kitty?
I didn't think so.
 

Asked and answered. End of discussion. 

Yeah, no. As in, no thanks. Those software lists will never convince anyone to convert, thank you very much. (Well, anyone other than the die-hard anti-Win.) I recall "trying Linux" a number of years ago. From what I can tell today, nothing much has changed, except the number of "versions" one can choose from running under this, that, and/or the other thing. That's helpful right there. Not.
A blank screen urging one to execute esoteric command lines from somewhere or other is unlikely to convince anyone otherwise, other than the above-mentioned users.
But perhaps I over-simplify. Pardon my ignorance.

I send money to the software developers for Blender, Krita, and NovelWriter on a monthly basis, as well as three creatives (one writer, one artist, and a Youtuber). And I hate the idea of subscriptions.
So... Say again? 🧐
The majority of Linux users don't leave Windows or Mac to avoid paying for software. They leave it because they can't afford to buy a new computer when their Windows PC starts running slowly and they learn about Linux's minimum resource usage. They leave for privacy and/or security. They leave because they think customizing a desktop without having to hack it is cool. And so many other reasons.

Anyway, please stop spouting your negative ideas about Linux users and stick to the actual facts.

Linux users could start a poll, somewhere out in the wider web, to reveal how many of them are willing to pay for software, and which specific software, too.
 
That's about the only way they're going to convince anyone not otherwise religiously devoted to its anachronisms to support it through self funded, risky endeavour at their own opportunity cost.
I always get the feeling that Linux users are less likely to want to pay for software things than even Windows users. Which is really saying something. And this kind of polling might reveal that to be true, and that creative software is quite low on the average Linux user's wish lists for things they'd pay for, which might also be the reason this kind of polling isn't done.
 
But that's all conjecture. 
 
Remind me, how does Blender make a profit?
 

Erase blend mode is not a workaround ... at all. Erase is not a vector operation and the output from erase blend mode will be bitmap - rasterized!
Then you might as well work in MS Paint! 

Affinity Designer 2 is a 2.67 GB monster in which all that space is pretty much taken up by its frameworks in particular "liblibpersona.dylib".
I like Affinity but why so bulky? as a matter fact the part that I hate the most about Affinity products and really only use when forced to are its "personas".  The export persona adds just so much extra steps I always curse at it, and the pixel persona sits there never used.
 

@bt1138 and @Franciose R  (sorry, did not find the Cédille on my german keyboard..)

Please don´t get me wrong: it´s not purely about the money: for me it´s mainly about the fact that paying expresses appreciation and recognition of the work of Serif which (to me) mainly consists of ignoring user-requests. Esp. since none of the updates addresses the complaints/suggestions we all know from this forum..
(Variable fonts? improved UI?, improved UX? Image-Browser? etc. etc.)

Yes 🙂 and to me it seems like you already have the answer inside your mind. Don't upgrade. Not before your payment seems to be worthwhile and expressing your appreciation of Serifs work feels right. Just pointed out that even money is not a real issue here either. You are not standing at a crossroad.
And to others: paying anyway because it is feels so cheap just completely removes the incentive for companies to put competitive effort behind their work, and especially removes the motivation to innovate. After all, they make plenty of money from you who uncritically throw money at them.
Hell, if my customers hadn't been critical and had a choice beyond my products, then I wouldn't have been so constantly critical of my own work, my own products and my processes and methods.

To all those who've worked so hard, tirelessly (and without reward) to defend the image, identity and sanctity of Affinity, you deserve a well earned break.
A moment to self reflect.
To raise a glass to your selves.
To cheer a secular version of Christmas, to the gods of whatever makes the jets go round the world.
Well done.

These are arguments for outright closing. I would not mind an environment to interact more personally, but it would probably be harder to moderate than how it is now if it becomes too "community-based" (internet speak: "mob rule") since the brand name will be directly associated and any bad actors will reflect on that brand. As long as moderators are tagged as "staff members", they're even bigger targets for abuse in this less formal setting. "Oh they 'censored' my post? Must be reflective of their stance as a company!", etc. So say goodbye to direct interaction between staff and their users. They'll either be too busy quietly chasing trolls, gathering data from the bug tracker and too exhausted to deal with the minutia of internet "etiquette". I can't see it staying friendly for long.

A bug-tracker attached to the forums could work wonders though for sending users a productive direction, especially if they can find one that would fit in relatively seamlessly with the forum's software/registration.
 
Also, +1 bring back separated mode. I'm not a Mac user, but I have seen the appeal of that workflow.

can you use FCP with two screens? yes.
can you tear off panels and move them from screen to screen? yes.
can you use both of those functionalities also with logic pro x? yes.

can you use two screens with any of affinity v2 apps? no.
end of conversation.
limiting users in a professional graphic creative/production environment to a single screen is a deeply regressive decision.

with large screens being cheaper and cheaper, most professional users are accustomed to multiple screen setups, plus ipads for macos/ios environment.

as you try to paint it - this is not a windows vs. macos rant. this is a basic app/os functionality.
what is next? affinity v3 will not have a node selection tool? or layers?

also, whatever you prefer is not relevant.
from the beginning of GUI, macos has this functionality. if a developer introduces a different functionality in his software, it is his obligation to offer both options to users and let them decide which one they will use.

You can, but some aspects of efficiency suffer somewhat unless you have the keyboard shortcuts for most of the tools memorized and even then some functions may require you to move the mouse pointer between screens so often that the benefits of doing so are minimal at best.
 
The original Mac OS could only run one application at a time - there was no multitasking support at all until part way into the System 5 version cycle, and then it was optional and turned off by default.  It wasn't until System 7 that it was integrated such that it is always enabled.
With only one application running at a time, the entire screen becomes an "application frame" - as only the documents from that application will be visible anyway (plus desk accessories such as the control panel or the calculator).
When multitasking was added on top of this behavior, we got the traditional Mac environment with the windows of all of the applications being intermixed with each other.
Thus the "separated mode" behavior exists primarily for historical reasons and due to the way that the system "grew up" over time, rather than being a result of a conscious "day 1" design choice.
That said, Windows originally started out with its "MDI" approach of having document windows inside of a single application window - something that does not scale to spreading an application across multiple displays the way that happens naturally with the traditional Mac behavior.  Even Microsoft has largely abandoned MDI, as the current versions of the Office products open separate windows per document under Windows, exactly as Mac apps have traditionally behaved.
When OS/2 introduced its "Workplace Shell" interface, a key aspect of its design (later cloned by Windows 95 and its successors) was the "document-centric" approach to organizing open applications - they tried to make the application itself disappear such that one window represented one document, one folder, etc., instead of having users focus on what application they were using.
While current macOS versions are still centered on the concept of the application, the way that the windows intermix with each other in an application which is designed correctly (aka not the v2 Affinity products) is similar in practice to the way that windows are arranged in the OS/2 or Windows 95 environments.
One key thing that has changed over time is the way that toolbars and the like are managed.  With the original Mac OS design handling one application at a time, and being designed for a single small screen, toolbars were separate from document windows, and could be positioned independently, as with "separated mode".
In more modern designs, they are most commonly attached to the document windows, often duplicated for each window.
Most Mac applications have switched to this approach of keeping toolbars and the like "docked" to the document windows, at least by default, but there are a few holdouts that still "float" them separately, and others that give the user the option.
 
The problem with the Affinity v2 apps, as I have already explained above, is that they keep many of the UI components docked to a single document window, and do not repeat them for any detached document windows or float them to let the user position them conveniently.  If you have three documents open in separate windows, one of them must always be tying up screen space to make several of the toolbars accessible, possibly in a sub-optimal position.
They either need to float them as they did in separate mode, or duplicate them across document windows, to keep them accessible.  Either of these options would be a valid solution, but what they have currently is just flat-out bad.

Before and after prices ... The biggest psychological squeeze on the human brain since sugar. Easy now. You're not standing with a 99% off space shuttle right NOW that will never go on sale again.
There will be another discount (as there regularly is), maybe not the same one, but let's say 20% and then the difference between buying now or later is pennies. You are not at all, forced to upgrade now.
Status is ... v2 was no innovative, feature packed radical surprise. It was a regular update with a little vandalism to the user interface. Still a tiny interface. You were just waiting for some of those few new features since 2014. How long do you have to wait for the ones you're still waiting for?
Wait and leave it up to Serif whether to invest. Let them impress you and let them prove their worth. That's the order you should follow. Otherwise, your investment in v2 becomes a lottery ticket.
The status right now for you is, as you yourself write, that you CAN'T come up with arguments to invest. On the contrary, you are disappointed, so don't. V1 will work for a long, long time to come, and if there is news you MUST use, you can invest later.
Meanwhile, like others, you can look around and find alternatives that suit your needs. Either as replacements or supplements. I have found several. Meanwhile v1 and v2 of Designer became niche products which I use more and more rarely. And I see after almost 10 years a pattern emerging. Serif can't deliver. Outclassed, behind the competition and I don't believe algorithmically or feature wise they can come up to par with the programs I have and that are coming.
You are in doubt because of marketing gimmicks - not the value of the products.

I am amused by this comment because I have posted that Affinity is concerned only with desktop publishing on the Mac platform and therefore ignores APhoto.

https://www.google.com/search?q="auto-blend"+photoshop

https://www.google.com/search?q="auto-blend"+photoshop

There is no update Serif have no plans to port to Linux.

I never see if my layer visibility is on or not. This dot is so subtle that I have to click on it every time I want to know if the visibility of my layer is turned off or on which slows down my editing significantly... Why the heck not use the universal eye as a symbol, like every website with the password visibility does..?

A straw man, misdirection, passive aggression and insult.
Did I miss anything? 

Final Cut Pro is not really document-based.  Most document-based applications from Apple do open separate windows for each open document - such as Pages (their word processor) for example.  Logic does the same thing: you can open more than one session in Logic, and each gets its own window.
While these apps do not "float" their toolbars, the important distinction between what they do and the rather horrible behavior of the Affinity v2 apps is that they duplicate the toolbars and other window framing components for each document: each document window has its own copy of everything the others have, keeping all of the controls similarly accessible for each individual document.
What the Affinity v2 apps are doing which (in my opinion) is flat-out wrong is that they are not offering any option at all to keep the context toolbar, status bar, etc., equally accessible to all open windows - you can set the tools (from the left side of the main window) as floating, and you can float the studio panels, but there is still one "main" window which is the only one which can have document tabs, and which is the only one which has the context toolbar and the main toolbar.  They do manage to get this correct with the status bar at least.
Duplicating the context toolbar and main toolbar across all windows would be a positive step, as someone could then float the tools and the studio panels and get nearly all the way there, but the "correct" way to handle this if they are not going to use the "separated mode" approach is to make all of the document windows 100% equivalent and interchangeable by duplicating ALL of the docked window components across all of them.