Matthias

With Stage Manager enabled an external monitor can be used as a true second display with its own content on display. Without Stage Manager external displays merely mirror the iPad screen, aspect ratio and all. It’s a whole new paradigm.

I think the Affinity Suite on iPad is THE predestined candidate for utilizing the external display feature via Stage Manager. In fact that is why I bought an iPad Pro, falsely assuming this just works. No idea how tricky it is to implement the feature but I think it should have high priority going forward. I for one would love to work in Designer/Photo/Publisher on iPad seeing my designs in all 5k glory.

Thanks NathanC, this neat little trick hasn’t ocurred to silly me. Great!

Thanks MikeTO. In my example the text elements ARE converted to curves. The PDF export bug seems affects to affect vector curves as well.

Blend tool, agreed.

Today I checked out my new big shiny monitor which I bought to use it for the Affinity suite — only to find Stage Manager is not (yet?) supported. It surprised me to learn this is a feature that has to be explicitly supported by the app. Well, I hope it is going to work soon. Cause what would be a better use case for a big display than Designer/Photo/Publisher?

I used “False Perspective“ warping to map a few vector elements to a photo of a building. While the “Live Perspective“ Filter in the Photo persona worked, the Warp option from the Designer persona does only partially: On screen everything looks nice and when I export to, say, a TIF or PNG image, the warped elements look as intended. It’s just PDFs that have problems, regardless of the PDF version and preset. Please see attached ZIP Publisher package including also a faulty PDF. Warp-to-PDF-Problem.zip

Sorry to get on the nerves of you fine developers. The warp tool is a great addition for working with vector paths in a playful way. But please may I kindly remind you of the vector shape morphing/blending tool that’s once been on the v1 roadmap? It’s just that it would be so effortless for a lazy guy like me to create dynamic, expressive design with vector shapes.

Right. The technical nature of a dedicatedly defined colour swatch should always be controllable by the designer. Affinity could just keep the Spot Colour checkbox in the Edit Fill-dialogue – problem solved!

Thanks for the new image placement options.

Well, Mark, then we do have a different approach here. We both want to put the designer in charge — but from opposite directions. I concede your points. What would help though is if the app would somehow memorize the originally dialed in colour values. So when the colour space would change back from a different one to the original one the colour values would jump back to what exactly one intended them to be.

… note also that there was recently another thread where people were basically requesting the opposite. They wanted the CMYK values of swatches to remain unchanged when pasting something into a document with a different color space - they were more concerned about the numbers than the actual color for some reason related to corporate standards of clients or some such. Hi fde101, I am one of those people you mention in this quote. The way I read Mark Oehlschlagers request me and him are sort of on the same page: I too would want it “easier for the designer to accurately specify and manage color with confidence” — which is why I think that CMYK values I myself have dialed in should stay true to my decision — for several reasons I have outlined. I am not sure what Mark’s wish is but I’d suppose it’s not the opposite of mine.

Thanks, Matt!

My guess: Either Publisher beta ignores image linking and embedds them anyway (the size of your publisher document would be a tell) or the pictures are somehow twice on your hard drive.

True. But I think as long as it is a colour that I have defined as a global colour it should always stay the same, regardless of the document’s colour profile. I’d also expect the according swatch to show up in the new document (which it doesn't). I’d prefer my global colour looking weird in a different colour space. Numerically (but kind of secretly) changing the actual colour values is a recipe for disaster when you have to work with people that are not so much into colour management (I’d guess it is the majority). Because once the app has benevolently changed ”my“ colour’s numerical values in order to keep it’s appearance a third party cannot ever trace it back to it’s original values (which might have been there for a reason). Whereas it’s easy to change the document’s colour profile anytime to match the intended output (or the global colour itself, provided the swatch is being copied over, too). Since numerical colour definitions (not colour appearances) are a customary thing in corporate design I am actually baffled that this is a topic that’s being discussed at all.