Petar Petrenko

Hi,
AD for Windows: it would be very nice to add "View PDF after exporting" in "Export > PDF" dialog box to see the result immediately and to be informed when exporting is finished.

MS Word is a real disaster of an app. You should use it ONLY for text. Why don't you try some other MS Office compatabile software, like:
 
SoftMaker Office: http://www.softmaker.com/en/
Ability Office: http://www.ability.com/index.php?ln=en
...
...
 They can read/write doc/docx documents (even as their default document) and they are much cheaper and you can even install them on more than 1 computer.

Good evening everyone!

I'd like to propose the following feature:
"Derived colors" --> "Derived color is a color that dynamically depends on another color (a Global Color in Affinity case). It is derived from the parent color using some of the built-in color operations"

• change opacity
• change hue
• change brightness
• change saturation
• apply shadow
• apply highlight
• copy

You can watch Derived Color in action in a software like PaintCode here on YouTube

I hope you'll agree how great and efficient for productivity this is :)
This concept was far before used into the amazing Opacity.app which still yet, provide some unbeaten feature anywhere else.
 
Cheers,

Is it a good idea to develop a new creating/viewing "PDF" app beside Adobe's Acrobat and Reader?

A dedicated guides layer would be good.
In Freehand any vector placed on the Guide layer - became a guide, so you weren't restricted to vertical and horizontal lines stretching the full height/width of the page.

It would be very nice if you make an effort to allow PS actions to be imported, just for those ones who already own hundreds of them.

There are lots of reasons to add an awesome PDF viewer/editer application to the suite. Here are a few off the top of my head in under 5 minutes:
 
Add interactivity like buttons and multimedia files Colour separation previews to check over print & spot colours and other pre-press proofing Minor text changes without re-creating the whole PDF, especially if it's a long document or it uses fonts you don't have loaded on your computer Define bleed, trim and type-safe areas for auto-processing applications that some newspaper publishers have for artwork submission Preview/add/remove colour profiles Optimise or recompress PDFs to make them smaller Add security to limit the use of the document. Eg: a print-disabled proof to a client for sign-off that hasn't paid their final invoice. Text & image extraction (copy and paste entire paragraphs rather than opening it into Designer where the words might be broken up into letters) Advanced printing features without converting the PDF (eg: auto pagenated booklet printing)  
Because the Affinity suite is catering to the print industry, PDFs should really be taken VERY seriously. Just opening PDFs and exporting PDFs is just not enough. Also, opening a PDF into Designer and to make changes, then exporting it again creates a whole new document. I don't know how many jobs have gone bad by printers opening my print-ready PDFs into Corel Draw and printing separations from it when they should be printing the separations straight from a PDF workflow application. Printers who would usually have used Corel Draw, might be tempted to move over to Affinity's PDF application for better quality integration.
 
I'd put a standalone PDF tool way ahead of all the calls for a Lightroom/Aperture alternative. It would instantly stamp Affinity's authority on the print industry. It might even become a tool that Adobe users would add to their set of designer tools – a complimentary tool, not a competing tool.
 
Think of all the new Apple Mac users who were convinced to change from Windows because they got an iPhone and fell in love with it. (There was no way Apple could convince Windows users to move based on iWork and expensive aluminium bodies because the competion was too stiff for a head-to-head fight).
 
Perhaps a PDF tool could be Affinity's iPhone to sit alongside every copy of Illustrator, InDesign and Corel Draw out there?
 
 
 

Is it a good idea to develop a new creating/viewing "PDF" app beside Adobe's Acrobat and Reader?

I think that he means of Photoshop's "Create warped text".
 
 

Martin03,
 
VIPStephan has the right idea. You could make a 24 page magazine in Designer but Designer isn't made to do those kind of things and it would be tough. If you were to use Designer, you would be causing yourself a lot of unnecessary headaches. You should never use a photo app to do layout, it would be even worse than using Designer to make a magazine. Affinity Publisher, which hasn't been released yet, would be the kind of tool that you would use to do something like make a 24 page magazine. Right now your only choices are Adobe's Indesign or Quark Xpress. Xpress is more expensive but you can buy a perpetual licence whereas with Indesign you have to buy a subscription. If you have time, you can wait for Publisher to be released but it will take some time. Publisher is expected (I believe) to be released as a beta at the end of this year. So the actual release won't be until sometime in 2017 (I would suspect).  Whatever you choose, you should use a program that is made for layout. 
 
Best of luck,
Hokusai

I am not acting, just discussing.  Forums are a wonderful place to brainstorm, bounce ideas off like minded peoples.  
 
I have no ideas set in stone, and the arguments against having Designer and Photo as one single application are valid as some people do not wish to learn vector/layout design and others do not wish to work with raster.
 
 
 
 
Fantastic, Thanks for this tidbitperhaps I am not as Mad as I make myself out to be *smile*
 
A lot of times the best ideas merge from those way out in Left Field with the ideas way out in Right Field...
 
Personally I would love to have Vector and Raster living in the same "workshop"  If it means that the apps remain separate I am fine with that, I just hope the convergence goal is to where working between the apps becomes so transparent the designer hardly notices which app they are using, focussing on the end product goal.
 
People want separate apps I am cool with that, and It sounds like Serif is looking at ways to still maintain tight integrations, which is great!
 
I like the persona idea UI design trick, just suggested that something similar may work to play layers back and forth, or perhaps it is contextual?  or something like when you edit a smart object in Photoshop?
I am just tossing this stuff out there, because I am excited about these Apps and their potential, not because I want to troll.
 
I don't care if 90% of my ideas don't stick or work, I'll just focus on the 10% that do work born out of my beautiful failures.

A dreamer has to dream though, and I don't see that talking hurts anyone here.
 
I don't think it has to be an all or nothing, a black and white, this or that situation.
 
If you ask Adobe why file formats can not be more tightly integrated between Illustrator and Photoshop they will give you a million reasons why it will never happen, and why it is better for the designer. I personally never felt it has given me any advantage to my workflow.
 
Lets put it this way;
 
Designer and Photo are separate apps. 
 
1. You are using Designer and need to quickly touch up a raster image in designer, clicking a persona or some UI trick quickly opens the Layer/Image in Photo for retouch/effects/stuff, clicking persona/UI trick sends it back to Designer, for layout.
 
2. You are using Photo, and need some vector work done, you click a persona/UI Trick and start working on your Vector Designs, finish and Persona/UI trick back to Photo with your new vectors.
 
 
It would mean not having to duplicate tools in Photo, or duplicating tools in Designer, using the best tool for the situation while feeling like you are working in one "Workshop" not running between Workshops.
 
Having File Formats integrated really opens this possibility up.
 
 
I don't see this as a black and white situation, A user would still be able to Purchase one or the other, or both.  The difference is that when purchasing both, Designer and Photo are tightly integrated into one Workshop instead of separate Workshops... The use of same file format makes this very possible, and does not mean that when working with Vector you see all the Photo tools or vice versa, in fact it would reduce the need for replication of tools in either program.
 
Serif has already created a brilliant "persona" interface which illiminates clutter smartly. 
 
I am not saying Serif needs to only make one application fits all, only that when purchasing another Serif application that the integration is so tight the designer feels like he is still working in the same "Workshop".
 
I don't care if there is one Icon or 5 icons in the dock, I just love the idea that Serif is building here a tightly integrated system of design tools.
 
Don't fuss over what can not be done, fuss over what can! 
 
Love what Serif is building, just hope they stay on this present track, or even more convergent track and not a divergent one.

Why not simply merge Designer and Photo
 
Or perhaps have Designer having Photo integrated while Photo is stand-alone.
 
Designer is fairly close already.  I see it is the future of Designer software.
 
 

+1

As the original poster, my interpretation of a DAM would be just that - simply an asset manager.  IE, a catalogue / database that can search on keywords, etc. and quickly preview and launch an asset into Affinity Photo, Designer or Publisher.   I would not wish it to be an all in one Lightroom/Aperture look a like, but more like Bridge on steroids.   One important thing it should do would be to function as a metadata editor (keyboarding, dates, etc.), and file renaming and moving (something Lightroom is pretty good at).   Plus, being able to do these things as batches.    I personally would much prefer a DAM that is not bloated and is trying tries to include everything - including the kitchen sink.

Editing Colours in the Gradient Map panel needs to select the colour point and then clicking on the Colour field. I supposed editing Colours just by double clicking the round colour point on the gradient. I think this would be more intuitiv and more efficient.

The smart snapping / guides are really coming along! Any chance we can get distance functionality from other shapes as well? I added a gif demonstrating the functionality.

Thank you.

Maybe moving over the icons with mouse to display bigger icon (like with loupe) would be better solution?

What about making it part of the Autosave functionality, like a secondary checkbox in the prefs labeled something like, Incremental Autosave, which adds a user defined suffix and a user defined time amount before save?
 

My motto is: "Less Adobe apps, more joy". BTW it is the same for Microsoft apps.  :)

I don't know how many units you support, but there will always be somebody who needs its own one (me included). Why is so hard to add this feature?

My motto is: "Less Adobe apps, more joy". BTW it is the same for Microsoft apps.  :)

My motto is: "Less Adobe apps, more joy". BTW it is the same for Microsoft apps.  :)

Petar_MK,
 
Before I always thought it was unnecessary because why not just use Apple's Preview? Preview is free and it does a decent job handling PDF files but recently I had to modify some lengthy PDF files and using the latest Preview was just horrible. Sure it is great that it is free but it isn't a production tool by any means so I can see how it would be useful to have an Affinity PDF app like Acrobat. Sure you can edit somethings in Designer but it isn't really made to edit PDF files the same way that Acrobat is (no long documents in Designer). I don't like Acrobat either but I don't have any choice. In my opinion, Acrobat went downhill from version 6 (version 6 had that "Do you want to make Acrobat your default PDF viewer" dialog box that you had to click every time, it was horrible). Plus I'd rather stay away from anything made by Adobe so I would gladly welcome a PDF creator/viewer from Affinity! One that is powerful enough to use in a production setting.
 
Hokusai