vonBusing

Not silly at all if you ask me. Affinity beta versions have 4 levels, i.e. current APub is 1.7.0.270. It is displayed as such in the About window. that's great. But it's displayed with 3 levels only in the Finder info window and the auto-update dialogue, i.e. 1.7.0. At least in the later place, it's slightly frustrating, because the potential changes are in the level not displayed. I do not know how challenging it would be to align that, but that would be great (I know, I've already said that... ).

The following may be silly but …
Can you please update the version string with each new beta build?
Version strings are not limited to three numbers. For example, the version of Google Chrome I'm posting from is numbered 73.0.3683.86.

Table cell heights size now works after updating to latest beta. 

That's why it would be helpful if the auto-update showed the the full beta version number, not only a truncated one.

Great to see that the collapsing of subcategories is working again in the Assets panel, and this little function to get the asset at any size is very welcome!

Status: Beta
Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not submitted
Download: Here
 
Hello,
We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the beta of Affinity Designer 1.7 for macOS.
Designer 1.7 is a significant change to the currently shipping 1.6 version. Files edited in this version will not be backwards-compatible with the shipping 1.6 version. As such, we would not recommend using this 1.7 version for critical or production work at this stage. It is inevitable that there were will be a number of issues with 1.7 but we hope these will be minor and aim to resolve any issues very quickly, so please use it and explore the new features, but also do keep in mind that you may find snags and we would appreciate your help with finding and reporting these to us.
If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry.
It’s also worth noting that we aren’t done yet - we are still working through reported bugs from previous releases and hope to fix as many as possible before the final release of 1.7.
With all that said, we hope that you will enjoy the new capabilities introduced in this initial release and we look forward to any and all feedback you give to us.
Many thanks,
Matt
 
Please refer to previous beta updates for a full list of all changes to date. This latest update builds on the 1.7.0.6 changes and also includes the following changes:
Fix for items which contain other items always getting rasterised on export
Improved draw performance for vector containers (Any vector object which you put something else inside. i.e. make a circle and then clip some other object inside it)
Wireframe mode should work correctly for multiple linestyles
Added clickable context toolbar for when an image is selected, allowing users to scale or set bitmaps to arbitrary sizes
Fix for a number of Appearance panel issues
12bit RGB TIFF support
Double-clicking an item in the Assets panel will now queue it up in the Place tool, ready for you to drag out at the size you like
Paste image now works from browsers again
Fix for selection frame not representing currently selected objects and their transform properly!
Point Transform tool - now has on-document feedback about relative scale and rotation during drag and specific Transform studio information
Grid Widget (turned on via grid and axis manager) only allows 'full editing' (editing of scale and angle) while in Move Tool and only when a cube grid is not active

I do not expect to see "Data-Merge" in the initial 1.7 release. You may continue to look forward to it, but perhaps not in each pre-release public beta. As with the rest of the Affinity range, we are known for introducing additional features in free updates post release. I cannot say what those new features may be.
When Affinity Publisher is launched I suggest that you buy it if it has the features that you need, and not based on your hopes for the future.

Status: Public Beta
Purpose: Stability and General Testing
Requirements: Mac OS 10.9 or above
Hi,
We are pleased to announce that Affinity Publisher build 257 is now available as a manual download from the link above and on auto-update.
As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity where you may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. 
We hope you enjoy the product, and as always, if you've got any problems installing or running up, please don't hesitate to post in this thread.
Any problems actually using this version please make a new topic in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Please feel free to leave general suggestions and comments in the Discussion Forum. 
Many thanks for your continued feedback.
---
Arrowheads!
We have Arrowheads for Line Styles from Designer. The best place to report any issues is probably the Designer Beta Forum.
Assets
We have removed the placeholder Assets from Publisher. Publisher will release with an empty Asset Panel.
Other Improvements and Fixes
Main Frame UI
No more duplicate empty panels (!)
Option for large thumbnails in Layers Panel. Layer colour tagging added
Column guide default options are now saved
Adding content with linked images to Assets will switch them to be embedded
Reintroduced Rotate View on context menus
Added command entry on Text Styles combos to create a new style
(Mac) Fixed overlay issue when entering font name into Text context toolbar font control
(Mac) Fixed crash using arrow keys in Pages Navigator on High Sierra and earlier
(Mac) Toggle Unicode shortcut is listed only under Text Menu
(Mac) Find and Replace panel icons missing from Panel on El Capitan and earlier
(Mac) Line Break shortcut is <Shift>-<Enter>
Pages / Master Pages
No longer draw guides from hidden masters
Fixed scroll into view in Pages panel
Fixed crash when pasting a Master into itself
Fixed crash moving items in Z-order having done detached edits
Text
Fixed application of Text Wrap borders (!)
Placing text with a frame selected now populates the frame and replaces the current content
Fix for positioning of path text
Formatting a specific text selection no longer updates text defaults. Formatting at the insertion point still does
Text tool selection improvements. <Alt>-<Click> forces select in front / behind
Long / nested style names in the Text Style panel are now displayed with elllipsis if necessary rather than shrinking
Fixed crash reading text attributes near Drop Caps
Fix for Character Variants for some fonts failing to show up in Typography panel
Fix for erroneous spell check warnings when languages switch within text
Paragraph Leading control not using localised decimal separator
OpenType - Accept newer versions of GSUB / GPOS tables. Used by e.g. Bahnschrift
(Mac) Fixed underline position for e.g. Univers Ultracondensed
(Win) Fixed issues with the Paragraph Decoration dashed stroke UI
Tables 
<Ctrl>-A / <Cmd>-A now selects all text in a cell rather than all cells in text context
Fixes for Table Tool when Table is nested inside layers etc
Fixed issue setting Table Cell insets
(Mac) Fixed glitch changing Table Format names
Find and Replace
Replaced character escapes in Find results with 'User Description' glyphs
RegEx fix for Find with trailing '\b', '\>' not highlighting results and Replace not working
RegEx fix for Replace All for empty search ranges 
RegEx fix for lookaround (?=regex) etc
Hyperlinks
File based Hyperlinks now have an option to copy the linked file to the output folder
Insert Anchor fails on text frames promoted from Master Page
Add Interactive > Insert Hyperlink to customisable keyboard shortcuts
Import / Export / Print
PDF Import - Fix for layers not importing
PDF Import - Improved detection of redundant clips
PDF Export - Use document colour space for transparency blending
Export - Fixed issue rendering image nodes with transparent regions with fills applied on raster export
Export - 'Pages' entry box isn't always enabled correctly
(Win) Fix for CMYK Printer Profiles not showing in Print dialog
(Win) Stroke width being printed incorrectly on rotated objects
Index
Sort index entries by page number
---
Earlier Release Notes Beta 249

Status: Beta
Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo
Mac App Store: Not submitted
Download DMG: Download
Auto-update: Available.
 
Hello,
We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the latest beta of Affinity Photo 1.7 for macOS.
Photo 1.7 is a (very) significant change to the currently shipping 1.6 version, so, as ever, I would strongly urge users to avoid the 1.7 beta for critical work. This is a pre-release build of 1.7 - we will release more builds before 1.7 ships. Things will be broken in this build - please use it to explore the new features and not for real work.
If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry.
It’s also worth noting that we aren’t done yet - we are still working through reported bugs from previous releases and hope to fix as many as possible before the final release of 1.7.
With all that said, we hope that you will enjoy the new capabilities introduced in this release and we look forward to any and all feedback you give to us.
Many thanks (as always),
Affinity Photo Team  
 
Ps. I have decided that this post is getting too long - I'll fold the previous beta changes into the general 1.7 description later today.
 
Changes This Build
 
- All ICC transforms are now performed using Metal, hence many times faster.
- Introduced new metadata mining - completely rewritten to improve performance, flexibility and correctness.
- TIFF export now has user selectable compression method.
- When using selection tools with no pixel selection, default to New / Add as appropriate.
- Add a button in general preferences to open a folder from which Photo will read LensFun-style XML files - if users wish to add / experiment with their own lens profiles.
- Compatibility with latest Designer / Publisher builds.
- Missing icon for Procedural Texture tool.
- Can assign keyboard shortcut to new Assets panel.
- Light UI improvement for advanced history view.
- Toggling “Apply tone curve” in develop assistant will correctly update the histogram.
- Improved rendering of mask thumbnails when layers panel is set to checkerboard previews.
- Can now drag .afassets into Photo.
- Fixed loading of monochrome RAW.
- Fixed some select tool issues (mainly bounding boxes, duplicate issues, undo issues).
- Pen tool / node tool improvements.
- “Lock guides” added to menus.
- New look for persona icons.
- Fix issues with bitmap fills when Metal is enabled.
- Fixed long standing issues with TIFF / RAW files opening in the wrong persona.
- Tidied up the colour tagging UI for layers.
- Implemented layer colour tagging PSD import / export.
- Fixed issues when trying to paste images copied from Safari.
- Fixed issue when toggling rulers in Develop persona.
- Assorted other small fixes.
- Localisation improvements.
- Help improvements.
 
Changes In Previous 1.7 Beta Builds
 
- Added an “Assets” panel to Photo.
- Ability to lock brush symmetry.
- Layers page - removed the glow around thumbnails.
- Layers page - added option for transparent background for thumbnails.
- Layers page - added multiple thumbnail size options.
- Layers page - added ability to tag layers with a colour.
- New ability to control how macros are scaled / aligned when playing back.
- The History page now has an “advanced” mode - which shows thumbnails and time info.
- Metal rendering performance improvements.
- Fixed issues when dragging the HSL adjustment wheel with no range selected.
- Added “Rasterise & Trim” into right-click menus.
- Tool shortcut improvements.
- Prevent Frequency Separation from being “faded”.
- Fixed bugs with mask rendering.
- Fixed lazy update of opacity / blend mode on adjustment dialogs.
- Added ellipsis to adjustments flyout in layers page.
- Improved macro recording of paint mixer (again).
- Dragging the crop tool frame will always pan.
- Crop tool - pressing “reset” will revert to “initial-drag-to-set” mode.
- Tone map white balance sliders should reset on double click.
- Fixed “Colour dodge” blend mode in 32bit RGB.
- Fixed import of PSD documents with groups containing only masks.
- Improved support for CR3 RAW in the Core Image engine.
- Fixed issues when live filters were placed inside vector layers.
- In the Develop persona, the state of the clipping toggles is now correctly updates when switching documents.
- Portrait images now work properly with the undo brush.
- Fixed inability to manipulate the lighting filter inner cone if it has been moved too far.
- Fixed issues where red inpainting previews could linger.
- Reduced memory footprint when developing RAW.
- Noise reduction slider range improvements.
- Improved stack alignment.
- Numerous other small fixes.
- Localisation improvements.
- Help improvements.
 

- Fixed some mask rendering issues.
- Fixed 32bit vibrance / saturation issues.
- Added a “Reveal Canvas” checkbox to the crop tool - defaults to off.
- Shorted the length of some crop tool context bar items.
- Crop tool remembers settings for darken, reveal, overlay. More to follow.
- Develop tool remembers the state of clipped shadows / highlights / tones.
- Metal stability fixes when under extreme memory pressure.
- Support for drag dropping .afstyles into Photo.
- Support for drag dropping .afpalette into Photo.
- Added new “Transform object separately” mode into Move tool.
- Sub-brushes can now added by dragging from the main Brush panel.
- Sub-brushes can now be drag-reordered.
- Fixed some dark mode UI issues.
- Potentially fixed some colour rendering issues (reported by ronnyb).
- Live field blur control handle fixes.
- Voronoi filter Metal implementation optimised - hopefully fixes issue where only part of it would apply on some GPUs.
- Tool cycling will now start with the last remembered tool in the group.
- Fixed Linear Burn blend mode issues.
- Improved speed of painting with Wet Edges in 16bit mode with Metal enabled.
- Removed extraneous “Filter” from live filters menu, added ellipsis.
- Implemented subtract blend mode for LAB.
- Fixed issue whereby setting clone brush to “Current Layer & Below” would produce hard edges.
- Clone brush origin now follows cursor properly when using Aligned mode.
- Fixed various issues with resizing documents - mainly to do with masks or filter effects.
- Fixed copying areas on rotated documents not copying the correct area.
- Frequency separation can no longer be “faded”.
- Numerous other small fixes.
- Help improvements.
 
- Fixed occasional temporary corruption when using brush tools.
- Fixed crashes with Apple Photos extensions.
- Added round dot type to the halftone filter.
- Grouped tool shortcuts now default to needing the shift key held to cycle (option in preferences).
- Fixed orientation issues with tone mapping preset thumbnails.
- Improved inpainting stability.
- Add “Fill with Primary / Secondary” to the Edit menu for fast access.
- Allow adding an empty group from the Layer menu.
- Made more commands show a meaningful progress bar.
- Fixed erratic behaviour when continuing to drag after shift-clicking for a straight line in brush tools.
- Fixed failure to apply blend mode to Levels adjustment if Metal compute is enabled.
- Improved UI colour controls when working in RGB/32.
- Levels histogram how shows more visible black / white lines in light UI mode.
- Blend mode flyouts are now ordered and grouped.
- Fixed brushes with a “Final” texture looking different when used inside a pixel selection.
- Switch to next view now works in separated mode.
- Switch to previous view can now be assigned a shortcut.
- Fixed issue with White Balance rectangle becoming detached from mouse position in Develop.
- Fixed “New Stack” creating a blank document when “Align Images” is not checked.
- Fixed issue whereby freehand selection tool can get stuck when using polygonal mode.
- Fixed issue where rotating RAW can result in it getting clipped after developing.
- Fixed issue where the move tool can report incorrect boxes for pixel selections.
- The crop tool now obeys the global snapping enable state.
- New “Duplicate Selection” item in Layer menu (old behaviour). Duplicate now duplicate the whole layer ignoring pixel selection.
- Straightening in the Develop Persona now creates an undo entry.
- Spacebar-pan now works properly in Develop Persona.
- Numerous other small fixes.
 
- Fixed gamut clipping issues in develop.
- Develop now respects the output profile when previewing.
- Fixed CMYK render issues when using Metal.
- Fixed PSD import / export of 32bit masks.
- Fixed some PSD path import issues.
- Further Soft Light blend mode fixes.
- Fixed Diffuse Glow when Metal is enabled.
- Fixed blur issues with Mesh Warp.
- Histogram accuracy improvements.
- Made auto-rasterisation more consistent across tools / filters.
- Fixed HSL adjustment failing to clamp saturation and lightness properly.
- Adding a Live Denoise layer from the layers panel now uses the improved new algorithm.
- Added support for CR3 RAW when using the Core Image engine.
- All brush tools can now be axis constrained once brush has started - not just the pixel tool.
- The flood select tool now has a refine button.
- The symmetry lines number is now more correct / meaningful.
- Attempted to fix crashes with mixer brush etc.
- Small Touch Bar improvements.
- Fixed macro recording of brush commands (again).
- Fixed issue which occasionally produced blank panoramas.
- Improved selection refinement in 32bit RGB.
- Improve healing brush performance.
- New cube setup mode for grids.
- Focus merge now correctly respects ICC profiles.
- Fixed potential infinite loop in inpainting.
- Better inpainting of transparent parts of a rotated image.
- Fixed artefacts in the Patch tool.
- Alt / Option is now used to make a pixel selection from layer luminance. You can now also hold shift to add the result to the current selection.
- Fixed 16bit luminosity blend mode.
- Liquify now updates the UI properly and remembers settings on a per document basis.
- Inpainting now remembers the source mode properly.
- Fixed issues with the default “G” shortcut (gradient, fill).
- All brush tools now offer primary / secondary colours in the colour page.
- Fixed issues with some Fuji RAW files showing at the wrong size.
- Fixed colour picking issues in Edit -> Fill (mainly with CMYK).
- Attempted to fix some Core Image RAW loading issues.
- Attempted to fix slowness issues when doing a lot of painting.
- Try to fall back more gracefully if Metal fails for a particular operation.
- Numerous other small fixes.
- Help improvements and search fixes.
 
- Significant improvements to selection refinement.
- More tools will now rasterise non-pixel layers on use.
- Fixed histogram statistics (was including alpha channel in calculations incorrectly).
- Improved TIFF import support.
- Fixed some localisation issues on the Glyph Browser panel.
- Small UI alignment tweaks.
- Fallback to 96dpi for imported JPEG, PNG - not 72.
- Fixed mesh warp blurry issues when Metal disabled.
- Fixed Metal implementation of Diffuse Glow.
- Fixed some PSDs which would not import due to path issues.
- Fixed CMYK rendering (again) when Metal is enabled (blacks would go weird).
- Attempt to fix the odd black square appearing in the view.
- Further improved Scale / Rotate stacking alignment.
- Fixed orientation issues with some panoramas (upside down).
- Reduce file sizes by discarding old snapshots properly.
- Fixed recording of resize document sampler method in macros.
- Fixed recording of paint mixer brush in macros.
- We now use Ctrl+number to change flow in the brush tools - not Cmd. This fixes Cmd-0 zoom etc.
- Fixed resize document issues with layer effect scales.
- Fixed liquify tool auto-commit issue when switching persona.
- Crop tool Touch Bar fixes.
- Assorted small fixes.
- Help improvements.
 
- Hide / Show / Show All Layers options in layers menu.
- Remove new destructive modes from crop tool (for now - will revisit).
- Fixed crash when RAW contains malformed GPS data.
- Fixed levels adjustment alerts.
- Fixed 32bit issues with Soft Light blend mode.
- Fixed flood fill bugs when colour is not opaque.
- Fixed various TIFF files which tried to load into develop persona.
- Fixed Voronoi bug if image has alpha channel.
- Allow Cmd key to be held when typing numbers in a brush tool (will change flow instead of opacity).
- Fixed remaining LUT export bugs.
- Small memory management improvements.
- Fixed red-eye correction in develop.
- Develop noise reduction performance improvements.
- Improved visibility of selected hue range in HSL UI in light mode.
- Fixed issues where sub-brushes could get reset.
- Sub-brush spacing / size sync buttons work properly.
- Dark / light UI improvements in brush editor panel.
- Fixed more Radeon R9 issues.
- Fixed more CMYK issues.
- Fixed some PDF import bugs.
- Numerous other small fixes.
- Help improvements.
 
- The crop tool now defaults to the old behaviour (destructive).
- Added lens correction data for more cameras.
- More double click support for resetting adjustment sliders.
- Further HSL improvements in 32bit mode.
- Fixed issues when using Edit -> Fill with a transparent colour.
- Fixed issues exporting HDR files when some pixels have negative values.
- Fixed TIFF ZIP compression issues.
- Fixed a sporadic crash when exporting PSD.
- Fixed lens correction for Panasonic DMC-TZ60.
- Fixed orientation of RAW images during HDR merge.
- Fixed noise reduction in non-RGB documents.
- Fixed scale + rotate alignment mode in stacking.
- Reduce develop memory usage and further improve loading speed.
- Fixed recolour adjustment slider colour issue.
- Fixed displacement map “load from beneath” sometimes including the current layer.
- Fixed CMYK rendering on Radeon R9 GPUs.
- Fixed motion blur etc. disappearing in 16bit documents with Metal enabled.
- Fixed equation transforms not working in macros.
 
- Fixed incorrect RGB / BGR / Red-major-order export of LUTS.
- Ability to either rasterise or rasterise and trim a layer. Previously recorded macros will trim.
- Fixed issues when parsing autofocus rectangles in RAW develop.
- Show which autofocus rectangles were in focus and which were selected by the camera (yellow, green respectively).
- Fixed inability to open photos from Apple Photos from file -> open. Now correctly asks for permission.
- Threshold adjustment will always present an intensity histogram.
- Improved histograms on curves and levels adjustments.
- Fixed LAB issues with edge detection filters.
- Switching between adjustments and filters will close any existing panels accordingly.
- Fixed incorrect ability to drag a locked layer when there is no layer selection.
- Fixed loading of 8/16bit images with linear RGB profiles.
- Can now double-click most sliders in adjustments UI to reset the individual parameter.
- Make it obvious which nozzle is selected in the brush editor UI.
- Other small fixes.
 
- Improved Metal stability / performance with large documents.
- Fixed a number of dark mode issues.
- Fixed preview glitches in split preview mode for filters / develop.
- Fixed batch processor not obeying dimensions correctly.
- Improved Procedural Texture UI in light mode.
- Allow brush rotate / size key changes while dragging.
- Numerous text engine improvements.
- Fixed cursor issues with HSL and other adjustments.
- Fixed issues with some menu shortcut keys.
- Improved PDF export.
- Improved localisations.
- Numerous other small fixes.
 
- Fixed CMYK rendering when using Metal.
- Fixed loading of huge JPEG files.
- Added “Alpha Similarity” to Select Sampled Colour tool.
- Fixed a number of crash bugs in the adjustment panel.
- Fixed issues with some existing user documents crashing in 1.7.
- Assorted other fixes.
 
- Show the Curves / Levels histogram in the correct colour space.
- Fixed some GPU memory management issues.
- A further attempt to fix the HSL UI crash.
- Improve performance on Intel Iris Pro GPUs.
- Improved help.

- Numerous other small fixes.

- Fixed hardware acceleration issues on certain iMac devices.
- Fixed a number of brush bugs.
- Fixed hang in HDR merge with GPU enabled.
- Fixed HSL adjustment UI crash,
- Fixed Procedural Texture UI issues when switching from dark to light UI.
- Fixed Curves adjustment clamping issue when GPU is enabled.
- Fixed 3DLUT adjustments when GPU is enabled.
- Fixed issues with sub-brush UI.
- Numerous other small fixes.
- Added pixabay.com to Stock panel.
- New welcome screen graphics.
- New persona icon graphics.
- New splash screen.

Changes Since 1.6 Release

Performance
- The core processing engine in Affinity Photo has been rewritten to take advantage of the powerful discrete AMD GPUs in modern Mac hardware. It will now automatically use any compatible discrete GPU, alongside the Intel GPU support present in 1.6. Typically this improves compositing / editing performance by at least 1000%. Performance when using integrated Intel GPUs has also been massively improved.
- External GPUs (eGPU) are also supported - including hot-plug-and-unplug support.
- Multiple GPUs are supported - if you have more than 1 GPU (ie. Intel + AMD in MacBook Pro, or Intel + eGPU in other Macs) Photo will use them all, at the same time, to improve performance. There is no limit to the number of GPUs which can be used.

Brushes
- Photo 1.7 introduces a new “sub-brush” mechanism, developed in conjunction with Paolo Limoncelli (DAUB® Brushes). This exciting feature allows any brush to have a list of other brushes attached which will draw at the same time. Each sub-brush has a fully separate and customisable set of dynamics. You can control when the sub-brushes are drawn and how they blend with the main brush.
- The brush engine in Photo has been rewritten to use the new GPU architecture described above. With GPU support, even huge brushes with 1% spacing will perform well. All brushes / brush tools are accelerated.
- Symmetry (up to 32-way) is now supported - including on-canvas controls and optional mirroring. We have more symmetry features on the way - so stay tuned during the beta process.
- Wet edges and accumulation are now available on colour brushes and brushes with HSL variance.
- Brushes with multiple nozzle textures have always chosen the nozzle at random. In 1.7, the nozzle choice has a dynamic controller and ramp for greater control.
- All brush tools now support left and right arrow keys for rotation - a common feature request 

RAW
- The RAW processing engine in Photo has been rewritten - producing better results and improved performance. It also takes advantage of the GPU architecture changes described above.
- RAW files now load much more quickly - especially if you have a compatible GPU.
- Reimplemented support for XTrans sensors.
- The denoise algorithm has been rewritten. It produces better results and takes advantage of the new GPU architecture.
- Hot pixel removal is now automatically performed by the Serif Labs engine.
- Profiled lens correction are more stable, apply more quickly, and can be toggled in the Develop UI.
- The histogram in the Develop persona is now presented in the output colour space - as opposed to always being linear.

Filters
- New “Procedural Texture” filter with advanced presets support.
- New “Voronoi” filter.
- Denoise, Clarity and Shadows / Highlights filters have been rewritten (using technology from the Develop Persona).
- More filters are now available as Live Filters - including the new Procedural Texture filter.
- Live filters have been rewritten to improve performance - especially when multiple filters are used in a document.
- Improved Polar to Rectangular and Rectangular to Polar filters.

Adjustments
- The HSL adjustment layer has been rewritten. It now supports custom hue ranges, a new algorithm, new UI and picker controls.
- The Levels adjustment layer now supports output levels - a common feature request.
- The White Balance adjustment layer has been rewritten.
- The Selective Colour adjustment layer has been rewritten.
- PSD import / export of adjustments has been improved.
- The Vibrance adjustment layer has been rewritten.
- The Recolour adjustment layer has gained a lightness slider.

Tools
- The Crop tool has been rewritten - it now supports resolution changes, absolute pixel size and has a much improved preset mechanism.
- The Sponge Brush tool now gives more correct / pleasant results.
- A general tools overhaul has been performed - providing editing of grids, guides, page origin, across multiple tools (not just in the Move tool)

General
- “Alternate futures” for document history have been added. Traditionally, if you roll back the undo history then do something else all your changes after that point are lost. Photo will now display a small branch icon in the history tab when you do this. Pressing that button will cycle between all the different “futures” after that history entry - meaning you will never lose work you have done.
- HEIF images can now be loaded directly into Photo. If they contain a depth map, this will also be loaded as a second layer. Because depth maps are typically lower resolution than the main image, optional “smart” upsampling will be performed.
- A large number of new cameras are supported for RAW development (we will provide a list of the new supported cameras as soon as possible!).
- The batch process dialog now fully supports expressions for height and width - available constants are “w”, “h” and “dpi”.
- Photo now supports custom document presets - a popular feature request.
- A new blend mode - Linear Burn - has been added.
- New “Move inside / outside” commands have been added - useful for quick operations on clipping masks etc.
- The Hard Mix blend mode has been improved.
- New provider options have been added to the stock panel - support for Unsplash and Pexels. Both of these providers offer full-resolution stock imagery which is free to use.
- Metadata is now dynamically synchronised with your document - so if you resize then export, the values will be correct.
- Numerous text improvements have been made - including new features.
- Significant PDF import / export improvements and fixes.
 - Numerous other bug fixes - too many to list!

Don’t use a donut/ring. Use a ‘pie’ instead.

When you convert to curves, the central point will become two overlapping nodes. Click to select one of those nodes, break the curve and then marquee-select the two nodes; deleting the two selected nodes will leave you with a circular arc:

Hi Oval,
Yes, this was improved. The middle handles don't need to be visible anymore for you to adjust the width or height of the boxes as long as there's enough space between the corners handles for you to place the cursor in the middle (it should then change to reflect you can adjust the width/height). In the current retail you can only adjust the width and height when the middle handles are visible over the bounding box.

Take a look at Enfocus Pitstop (not sure if they still offer a standalone) and Enfocus Connect.

It's also a lot harder to implement. I'm afraid it's unlikely to make 1.7 at all, never mind the next beta.

Thank you for your response. I have had no problem with printing "dyes", meaning colored inks. Rather the issue is with keeping layers of "die lines" separated. The words sound the same in English, but have totally different meanings. Die lines are lines that indicated how steel plates should be bent and inserted into wooden panels, which will be used by a machine to stamp out and score paper or cardboard. My files need to indicate where they will fall on a printed page. A simple set of dies looks like this:

 

I usually uses a PMS color that I rename for the die. With separated spot colors on export, it usually works out for the printers i work with. 

Status: Public Beta
Purpose: Stability and General Testing
Requirements: Mac OS 10.9 or above
Hi,
We are pleased to announce that Affinity Publisher build 238 is now available as a manual download from the link above and on auto-update.
As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity where you may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. 
We hope you enjoy the product, and as always, if you've got any problems installing or running up, please don't hesitate to post in this thread.
Any problems actually using this version please make a new topic in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Please feel free to leave general suggestions and comments in the Discussion Forum. 
Many thanks for your continued feedback.
---
Multi-language UI
We now have localised text for all of the languages we intend to support at release, and the Preferences UI to switch language has been enabled.
However, we are aware of quite a large number of issues currently with UI layout and missing translation text. If you wish to log an issue on the forum that you think is purely a translation issue (i.e. UI layout, text truncation, missing translation, incorrect translation) we would be grateful if you could make a post in this specific thread.
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Hyperlinks
We have our first pass at support for Hyperlinks. You can place Hyperlinks on text or other items in your document and create anchors for them to target. You can also create hyperlinks to document pages or internet URLs etc. These hyperlinks will export to PDF, though be aware not all varieties of PDF support interactive features. This feature is mainly driven via the Menu, Text > Interactive and the Hyperlinks Panel, View > Studio > Hyperlinks.
Additionally if you create a TOC or Index and request hyperlinks on export the TOC or Index will be furnished with hyperlinks as appropriate.
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General Fixes
Please note that documents saved in Build 238 will not open in Build 227 or earlier. We suggest you work on a copy if your document is valuable to you.
Main Window, Menus, Panels, Tools
Grouped and ordered blend modes in various places in the UI
(Win) Fixed issue with Noise slider in Layer Effects causing hang
Convert to Picture Frame/Text Frame missing for right-click on any selected shape.
Added button tooltips to Fields panel for clarity
Fix to snap Picture Frame content to frame
Fix for unwanted page change when placing a guide
(Mac) Fix for currently active page not being highlighted correctly in Light Mode
(Win) Fix for poor Glyph Browser selection highlight in Light Mode
(Win) Fix for spot colours losing spot attribute when edited
Grouped tool shortcuts now default to using the Shift key to cycle. Option in preferences to revert to old behaviour.
Fixed possible crash with HSL Adjustments
Fields Author field can now be overridden by supplying default with no documents open
(Win) Fix for TOC / Index separators not accepting preset entries
(Win) Fixed slow resizing of side panels
Pages and Master Pages
Fixed issues moving single pages with facing masters
Select All no longer selects master page content
Fixes for Find and Replace with master text frames
Fixes for TOC and Index issues with master pages
Fixed context menus for master page items on regular pages
Fix for Text Ruler not showing with detached master page text frames
Fix for Auto-flow with master frame content
Fix for Resource Manager not showing resources in detached picture frames
Fix for guides not being inherited when master applied to master
Text and Tables
Fix for Auto-Capitalise being too keen to help
Added a Text Tool context toolbar shortcut to access Text Frame panel
(Win) Fixed List Increase / Decrease Level shortcuts clash
Added 'No Style' to Find and Replace Paragraph Style popup
Fix for Text Styles options not updating based on selection
Fix to expand Text Field contents for copying to clipboard in non-native formats
Fixed Arial Black confusion
(Win) Text Styles - Added optical alignment settings to Text Style Editor
Fix for incorrect Text Wrap in scaled Text Frames
Fix for text selection across spreads with master text frames
Import, Export and Printing
Placing text via File > Place now honours resizing aspect preferences
PDF Export now has the option not to export layers
Fixed to warn when printing if crop marks are requested but don't fit to paper
Fixed source of crash when exporting specific documents to PSD
Updating a placed multi-page pdf now maintains chosen page number if possible
Fix for current page not being selected when using 'Current Page' print range
Fix for Bleeds failing to export to PDF when selecting specific Artboards
Fix for image resources not saving and loading their relative paths properly
Fix for Bleed not set when importing Designer document with Artboards
Setup
(Win) Fixed high DPI setup failure
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Earlier Release Notes Beta 227

It's only a problem if you wanted to revert to the previous beta for some reason, which of course we hope you don't (or in Uncle Mez's case, want to share a document with someone who hasn't yet updated). In general we don't guarantee loading in old versions anyway, it's just that with most of the recent incremental updates it has tended to be OK.
Taking a backup before working with a new beta update can never be bad advice.

The explanation for this is the new implementation of the superscript and subscript function. Have a look here:
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/67116-superscript-and-subscript/&amp;tab=comments#comment-347521
You will always have to use Character Panel > Positioning and Transform > Superscript to have “fake” superscripts when the respective glyphs are not in the font. The standard Arial typeface that comes with macOS doesn’t have them.
Cheers, Alex 
 

I just ran across a workaround for messy expand stroke output. (first video attached)
The amount of superfluous extra nodes is affected by miter limit settings.
(regardless of joining, the miter limit affects all 3 - rounded, bevel and miter alike)
The higher the miter limit the fewer junk nodes, the lower the limit the more you get.
 
This isn't a fix for what I'm dubbing the "sawtooth overlap bug" (second video attached), that is the major problem I'm running into with nodes. When a large stroke overlaps itself it renders a sawtooth that vectorizes that way and looks very strange.  This sawtooth is unaffected by any of the stroke settings, it just happens in tight corners with large strokes.
 

Miter Limit and Junk Nodes.mov Sawtooth_Bug.mov

Status: Public Beta
Purpose: Stability and General Testing
Requirements: Mac OS 10.9 or above
Hi,
We are pleased to announce that Affinity Publisher build 227 is now available as a manual download from the link above. All being well we will put it on auto-update soon. Please note that due to issues reported, previous build 221 was not made available on auto-update.
As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity where you may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. 
We hope you enjoy the product, and as always, if you've got any problems installing or running up, please don't hesitate to post in this thread.
Any problems actually using this version please make a new topic in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Please feel free to leave general suggestions and comments in the Discussion Forum. 
Many thanks for your continued feedback.
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Fixes and Updates
Due to the recent changes in Master Page functionality we strongly suggest you backup any documents that are valuable to you before testing.
Snapping
Fixed crash placing objects with Snap to Baseline Grid enabled
Master Pages
Find and Replace improvements
Fix for drag drop image
Fix for TOC issues
Prevent linking frames between regular pages and master pages
Section Manager
(Mac) Fixed issue entering section name
Indexes
Don't extend to whole words when suggesting an index topic
Export
PDF Export now exports greyscale images as K-only
Added feature to recolour any image as K-only, and spot recoloured K-only images now export to PDF correctly
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Earlier Release Notes Beta 221

Law of triviality 

FWIW, I have around 50 application icons on my Mac's Dock. Other than the Affinity beta icons, only two of them, for the Mac Finder & System Preferences apps, are square. Some have pictographic themes, others are more symbolic or abstract. The most common Dock app icon shape by far is round, followed by rectangles, all of which are rotated by about the same angle counterclockwise from the vertical.
The 'blah' factor is subjective but for me a dozen or so strike me as considerably more 'blah' than the Affinity beta ones.
However, the appearance of app icons, whether 'blah' or not (& whether on the Dock, in an app store, or anywhere else), does not in any way figure into my decision to try or buy an app, or to use it once I have obtained a copy of it. What does is user ratings, product reviews, the support offered by its developers & other users, & of course its utility to me.

You can import text styles from another Affinity document. We didn't see much need for export: you can just import them into an empty document (and share that).

Why anybody would want to be distracted by any icons that held their attention is something I cannot understand. Apps are meant to be used, not admired, are they not?

Status: Public Beta
Purpose: Stability and General Testing
Requirements: Mac OS 10.9 or above
Hi,
We are pleased to announce that Affinity Publisher build 221 is now available as a manual download from the link above. All being well we will put it on auto-update early next week.
As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity where you may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. 
We hope you enjoy the product, and as always, if you've got any problems installing or running up, please don't hesitate to post in this thread.
Any problems actually using this version please make a new topic in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Please feel free to leave general suggestions and comments in the Discussion Forum. 
Many thanks for your continued feedback.
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Updates and Fixes
Master Pages
Due to the changes in Master Page functionality in this build we strongly suggest you backup any documents that are valuable to you before testing.
It is now possible to edit the content of Master Page Text Frames and Picture Frames directly from a spread the master is applied to. By default, on editing, the content attribute for the item in question is automatically unlinked, but the other attributes and geometry remain locked. It is also possible to entirely lock the Master Page instance if desired, to prevent unintended content edits. Finally options are available to edit all attributes of Master Page items linked - the Master Page and any other pages it is applied to will be updated - or to edit all attributes unlinked - only the copy on the current spread will be updated. In both of these cases an information bar is displayed while the editing ‘mode’ is active.
Text flow between frames on masters is honoured when the master is applied and it is possible to create text flow between frames that have come from masters. When auto-flowing text from a frame that comes from a master the text auto-flow will use the matching frame on subsequent pages that have the same master applied or insert new pages with the same master.
Note that the previous default behaviour was to edit all attributes for all master items linked, but also to lock the Master Page instance in the layers panel. If dealing with an old document and the new functionality is desired the instance will need to be unlocked or the Master reapplied.
Link to master page tutorial / video here
Amalgamated Text > Insert Text from File and File > Place
- Text > Insert Text from File has been removed and File > Place should be used instead. The types of files available via File > Place depends on context, for example if a Text Frame is selected then text files will be made available.
Performance
(Win) Fix for system mis-reporting RAM on some systems leading to poor performance.
- If 'RAM Usage Limit' in Preferences > Performance is set to 1024MB you may be experiencing this issue. If so please set the limit manually to a higher value (typically the amount of Physical RAM installed) or Ctrl-Run Up to reset settings.
Menus and Studio
(Mac) Fixed the spurious black tiles issue when switching between multiple documents
(Win) Fix for redraw issues when dragging document windows between monitors on some monitor setups
(Win) Fixed Show Bleed failing to work under some circumstances
Fixed min / max size issue for some panels
Added Tooltips to Page Navigation controls
(Mac) Fixed Colour Panel tabbing issues
(Mac) Fix for Pasting control characters into Find and Replace fields.
(Win) Fix for Find and Replace fields not being cleared when starting a new document
(Mac) Paragraph / Character Panels now always show scrollbars if necessary
(Win) Fix for Min / Max / Defaults in Paragraph Panel Justification settings
(Win) Fix for crash trying to insert a Text Field without a text frame selected
(Mac) Fixed Text Wrapping Dialog tab order
Section Page Count is actually Section 'Last Page'
Added 'Run Last Page' to Fields Panel
Added Next and Previous Frame page numbers to Fields Panel
(Win) Tools toolbar leaves monitor viewport when undocking on some monitor set ups
(Win) Document Zoom Level is changed to 'Fit' when a Symbol / Asset etc is dragged out
(Win) Fixed drag drop from Explorer to floating Document windows
Fix for Paste Inside being disabled with multiple objects selected
Section Manager selection fixes
Tools and View
Fix for Text Frame Baseline Grids drawing incorrectly
(Win) Fixed issue setting CMYK colours for Guides
(Mac) Fix for incorrect Ruler Origin on spreads other than first
Text and Tables
Tables and Text frames can now individually be set to ignore baseline grid
Added support for language dependent smart quotes
Allow for space above at tops of columns in more places. Fixes issues with Art Text
No longer apply initial words formatting automatically to text generated by lists
Fix for effect of next paragraph style on character formatting not being undone correctly
Fix crash justifying narrow text
Page Number glyphs are now shown as placeholders on master pages
When creating a TOC reuse an unused style if there is one
Fixed Hyphenation to exclude nulls from hyphenation strings because they confuse length rules
(Mac) Fixed failure to ever set Restart Numbering 'Now' in Text Style Editor
(Win) Fixed issue with Arial Black being incorrectly reported as missing
Fix for Edit Text Style controls not updating when Font Family changed
Fixed issue changing Table insets after scaling
Fixed issue scrolling through the Font List if fonts with long names present
Resizing text frame no longer causes issues with cursor position on the text ruler
Fix for punctuation stopping 'Capitalise first word of sentence' from working
Import / Export and Printing
Fix for some EPS imports being incorrectly translated
Document fields such as 'Author' and 'Subject' are now exported to PDF
(Win) Fix for some stroke widths being printed incorrectly on rotated objects
(Win) Fix for flipped text printing
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Earlier Release Notes Beta 206