Matthias

Currently selecting or deselecting an object creates a new history entry. This causes issues if I undo something (Cmd+Z) and then deselect the currently selected object to review the work without distracting outlines because it creates a new history entry, overwriting all the steps I went backwards, and I can’t go forward anymore. In my opinion the fact which object I had selected isn’t worth an own history entry. I’m constantly selecting and deselecting objects for whatever reasons; that is nothing I need to remember particularly.

Maybe this is a Publisher feature but I think it should work as well in Designer:
Images should also be placeable as mere references. Embedding is fine for convenience in some use cases but I see many cases where it is the less desireable way to deal with pixel images in a vector environment.
 
With non-embedded images I can change a picture externally and have it updated automatically as long as its name hasn’t changed. But more importantly: This would keep file size small.
 
Today I am working on a package design with lots of imported images – the AD file size keeps on growing. But this is redundant as I have to keep my original image files anyway.
 
 
Best
Matthias

Maybe this is a Publisher feature but I think it should work as well in Designer:
Images should also be placeable as mere references. Embedding is fine for convenience in some use cases but I see many cases where it is the less desireable way to deal with pixel images in a vector environment.
 
With non-embedded images I can change a picture externally and have it updated automatically as long as its name hasn’t changed. But more importantly: This would keep file size small.
 
Today I am working on a package design with lots of imported images – the AD file size keeps on growing. But this is redundant as I have to keep my original image files anyway.
 
 
Best
Matthias

Here is a list of suggestions and improvements I've come up with. Mostly personal preferences, but perhaps others would like to see some as well.
 
Functionality
Preserve curves when deleting non-extrema nodes (see Glyphs.app) Keyboard shortcut to cycle through nodes Keyboard shortcut for closing and joining paths Show distance between objects when moving them (see Sketch.app) "Option + Hover" to see distance between objects (see Sketch.app) Objects automatically change to color picked from eye dropper (see Sketch.app) Smart Layer Export – export all layers with a file extension in name (LayerName.png) Show guideline position on document when hovering the ruler (see Sketch.app) Miscellaneous
Glyphs panel for including all characters within a font Remove vertical rotate handle on bounding-box (redundant and distracting) Folder icon for grouped layers (easier to distinguish) Add left/right padding to "Studio" panel tab titles (text is very cramped) Option for disabling decimal values (coordinates, width, height, font size, etc.) Simpler, non-gradient bounding box handles (they are blurry and distracting) Infinite canvas (mentioned by others before in forum) Additions 
Enable snapping when nudging vector nodes with the keyboard Option to not insert empty layer for new documents in AD  
Cheers!

Here's an example:

Sadly, we can't transform vector points using this technique (e.g. select few points of the rectangle and stretch them out). It is possible to do using Transform Panel by changing W/H properties, but it is kind of complicated.

Great to have a user definable rotation point. It occurs to me that even with snapping on it cannot be placed precisely. But often precision is needed here.
 
This is why it would be of help if the user definable rotation point had x/y coordinate input fields. The two boxes would appear right next to the icon when the feature is set to “on”. When I move the rotation point manually it would reflect its actual location. I mean there is enough space there – so why not do it?

Great to have a user definable rotation point. It occurs to me that even with snapping on it cannot be placed precisely. But often precision is needed here.
 
This is why it would be of help if the user definable rotation point had x/y coordinate input fields. The two boxes would appear right next to the icon when the feature is set to “on”. When I move the rotation point manually it would reflect its actual location. I mean there is enough space there – so why not do it?

As it is now with a selected object I have to press alt (or shift or cmd) first and then drag the object in order to duplicate it. I can even let go of the modifier key while dragging once the duplication has been initiated. This is not Mac-like.
 
I suggest to change this behavior to work just like the Finder in OS X: I can press alt any time while dragging an element and this changes the drag action to a drag-and-duplicate action. Also helpful is the arrow changing to an arrow-with-a-plus-symbol thus reflecting the modified behaviour.
 
Likewise I don’t think it is necessary to let three modifier keys do more or less the same trick.
 
Here’s my suggestion for the other modifiers: 
 
– Shift-dragging would constrain the dragging to 45° directions (but wouldn’t generate a copy, for a copy I’d have to press the alt key too). One expansion to the constrain behaviour of now: By moving the arrow around I could still change the constrained direction to 45° jumps – not just to the one direction I started to drag to.
 
– Cmd-dragging would create not a copy but an alias or symbol (which I think is on the roadmap anyway).
 
Makes sense?
Matthias

As it is now with a selected object I have to press alt (or shift or cmd) first and then drag the object in order to duplicate it. I can even let go of the modifier key while dragging once the duplication has been initiated. This is not Mac-like.
 
I suggest to change this behavior to work just like the Finder in OS X: I can press alt any time while dragging an element and this changes the drag action to a drag-and-duplicate action. Also helpful is the arrow changing to an arrow-with-a-plus-symbol thus reflecting the modified behaviour.
 
Likewise I don’t think it is necessary to let three modifier keys do more or less the same trick.
 
Here’s my suggestion for the other modifiers: 
 
– Shift-dragging would constrain the dragging to 45° directions (but wouldn’t generate a copy, for a copy I’d have to press the alt key too). One expansion to the constrain behaviour of now: By moving the arrow around I could still change the constrained direction to 45° jumps – not just to the one direction I started to drag to.
 
– Cmd-dragging would create not a copy but an alias or symbol (which I think is on the roadmap anyway).
 
Makes sense?
Matthias

Every single one of the eight textbox handles is about scaling. However, distorting letter shapes is not what is needed most when working with typography. So I think the textbox handles should be beefed up with some additional trickery:
 
1) alt-drag a horizontal handle to change the letter spacing
2) alt-drag a vertical handle to change the line spacing
 
The shortcuts would work on both textbox types. Art textboxes wouldn’t even require the alt key but for coherence’s sake its probably better to stick with one way.
 
Greets
Matthias

Hey Affinity team,
 
please have a thorough look at the Illustrator plugins from Astute graphics http://astutegraphics.com/to see why Illustrator is way ahead as a professional drawing tool. Their interfaces are astonishing. Especially, look at the tools included in VectorScribe to see how the interfaces for the Pen tool and Node tool can be merged in favor of direct manipulation instead of interfaces relying on modifier keys.
 
Honestly, I think the Astute graphics team has a great set of inspirational UI tweaks that make vector drawing such a more pleasant and precise experience. I wish Affinity would implement many of similar behaviours.
 
Kind regards

The new preference box contains seven topics/pages. I’d expect the forward/backward arrow pair on the upper left to cycle through those topics but it just goes just from one topic back to the start window.
 
I propose a list in a left column (think OS X Finder). It would be quicker and clearer than both of the currently two selection methods: All the topics would be visible anytime and we’d need just one click instead clicking on the arrow and dragging to the topic. The double arrow could still cycle through the list.

Hi Matt,
thanks for explaining. I had the vague suspicion I was missing something here …
 
Matthias

Hi
 
This is a REALLY small thing but it's driving me insane because I can't change my muscle memory.
 
You need me to hold down the Alt key before clicking on an object. Please can you allow me to press the Alt key after I've started dragging the object. (the same way Apple's finder functions)
 
 

Here's something to consider to enhance UX on Affinity products:
 
Current situation: Currently all objects have 2 ways to be rotated: the blue handle at the top of the bounding box via hovering near a corner handle. Currently there exists no way to adjust a shapes Stroke attributes directly on the object itself.
 
Idea: Remove the rotation functionality, since it is redundant, and turn the top handle into a UI control for setting Stroke weight, or perhaps a pop-up for any number of Stroke or even Shape attributes, DIRECTLY on the canvas object.
 
Benefit: Working directly on the object and not having to rely on palettes makes the workflow much smoother and quicker, specially on mobile devices with smaller screens, where physical size is still a limiting factor, as well as for editing while in full screen, hidden studio palette mode. As professional creative apps transition into a multi-touch and stylus enabled operating systems (iPad Pro, ahem), users will be expecting to interact with objects directly on screen, not via abstract palettes. This setup will be friendly for Pencil input. However, this same directness of on-canvas edibility while on limited screen real estate is of benefit on current laptop workflows as well with traditional mouse and Wacom0style input as well.
 
Thanks for your consideration.

It would be of help if the user definable rotation point had x/y coordinate input fields. The two boxes would appear right next to the icon when the feature is on.

+1
Count me in.

Hi guys,
 
after the affinity designer i bought also the affinity photo. I love youre tools.
 
I am graphicdesigner and i i use a lot of psd mockups to show my designs to my customers but how can i use the tons of mockup templates, that i have in your tools.
 
For example this one http://www.pixeden.com/psd-mock-up-templates/silver-foil-logo-mock-up-template

Some good ideas here I would say. I'll pass on the clipping on the toolbar title to see if we can get that sorted.

Perhaps I missed it in the last few beta's but I thought making the origin of rulers relative to any point in the dartboard was all set to be added.
 
Did I miss it?

Ok, I know I am being picky about this, but it seems to me to make more sense that the tab order of the Transform Panel would be X, Y, W, H.  Currently, if you type in the Width, then tab, you are at the Y position.  Possibly this bothers me due to OLD HABITS, but it seems that one tab from Width should be Height.  Also, one tab from X should be Y,  not the Width.
 
 

As I'm increasing my client list and move to working on more commissioned artwork with text I'm finding it very cumbersome having to restart Designer (and Photo) every time I add a new font to the font library. Maybe I'm missing something very basic here, but it would be great to be able to refresh the font list from within the font toolbar (or menu).

hifred,
I am shure there are good reasons. As is said in this article:
 
 
There are quite some technologies in OS X that are not available on Windows, things like Grand Central Dispatch, Open CL and so on. Without being a programmer I guess it is not easy to squeeze every possible optimization out of both systems while staying 100% compatible and featurewise identical.
 
Especially for Mac users history has shown that applications running on both operating systems don’t take advantage from technology that is only available on one of them (read: on OS X). Thus from a Mac user’s perspective quality would likely suffer and probably less people on the Mac side would buy a non-optimized Affinity Designer.
 
Adobe once was a great company. I think their decline in software quality (not in $) began as soon as they decided to go from Mac only to cross platform. Yes, they own a bigger market today and probably had to go this way albeit so many people have grown to dislike their bloated products and attitude.
 
Switching back to Affinity: From a marketing point of view it is a very good idea to stay focused and debut with a product (or a suite) that is the very best it can be on a given platform – even more so when competing with a de-facto monopolist that wants to be everything to everyone. I’d prefer a Mac speedboat over a cross-platform battleship anytime and surely I am not alone.
 
If the Affinity products will succeed in the Mac market (which I am sure of), Affinity can still decide to take the Adobe route and go cross-platform for the rest of the creative pro market.

That's because Affinity lets you apply a color independently of a stroke weight. I already posted about this odd behavior. I can't imagine a use case where one wants to assign a color but not a weight to a stroke... perhaps for ideatin?, quickly turning a stroke weight on and off without defaulting back to black... but for most of the time, it's just another useless/confusing step for users, IMO... perhaps a preference setting is best for this behavior, something like Use color None when stroke weight is zero ???