loukash

Probably the CMYK ColorSync profile

Same here. APho & AD are from the Apple app store, APu from the Serif store. Mac OS X El Capitan.

What I actually meant is that even though I have like … um, all in all about 30 years of "some" (actually professional) "knowledge of this type of software" (PageMaker, XPress, InDesign, Freehand, Illustrator, you name it), I find some of the APu's functionality to be rather unintuitive, and the built-in help not being very helpful, in particular when it comes to the details that are different from the other "this type of software".

It's explained in the bottom infobar while this cursor mode is active: "[…] Drag to move selection. […]" In APu, you can do something much better with the command key that you can't do in ID: Selecting non-consecutive parts of text to modify them, i.e. providing the same functionality as the standard MacOS text framework. Frankly though, at first I was also trying to move the text frame by pressing the command key. You can't cheat on 15 years of ID muscle memory, haha… Come on. I'd expect that about 90 % of APu users have "already a some knowledge of this type of software", namely InDesign. So far, almost every time I had to consult the Help was when I attempted to accomplish something obvious in a way I would have done it in the corresponding Adobe application, and the Affinity app just did something else .

On Mac, this is actually a system function. Open/Save dialogs are provided by the OS. The OS also keeps track of last places and writes the location into the respective application's preferences file (*.plist). Depending on where you've got your app from, it's either in ~/Library/Preferences/com.seriflabs.affinity[app_name].plist (apps from Serif Store) or ~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner/Data/Library/Preferences/com.seriflabs.affinity[app_name].plist (sandboxed apps from Apple App Store). The standard XML key to look for is "NSNavLastRootDirectory", that's the one provided by the MacOS. For some reason though, Affinity apps also store their own last directories keys, named "com.seriflabs.opensave.panel.startupdir", "com.seriflabs.export.panel.startupdir" and possibly more as needed. I don't which preference key has more priority, but I'd assume "com.seriflabs.opensave.panel.startupdir" overrides "NSNavLastRootDirectory".

On a Mac, get Default Folder. Any such problems solved, with any app that you are using whatsoever.

Frankly, I only found that button accidentally just a few days ago, after it's been driving me nuts for weeks…

Possibly the same issue as here?

Click the "Hide Selection While Dragging" button in the Contextual Toolbar:

Alright, there is some kind of a strange behavior in ADesigner. This is what happens when "adding" a complex closed form with crossing path: This is what Illustrator CS5 does with exactly the same two vector paths, using the "Vereinen" (= unite/merge/combine; no idea how it's called in the English version) Pathfinder function: In theory both results should be the same, but only Illustrator does the logical thing and simply creates an outline of both forms.

What I mean is that 1 + -2 = -1 That might be the case here.

This intersection of paths is what's causing it: It's likely neither a bug nor a feature; it's math.

Do they need to be this exact shape and position? If you move one path only 0.1 px, then they add up as expected.

Hm… wait. It worked after I have done "something" else to the paths, but it doesn't work on your fresh file. Needs more investigation…

Select one of the paths with the Node Tool, click the Reverse Curves button in the Context Toolbar, then select both paths, then Add. But yeah, it's definitely not very obvious what's going on here.

I have absolutely no idea how it functions (or not) on Windows. I haven't used a Windows PC in… at least a decade or two…

On Mac, for apps purchased directly from Serif it's in ~/Library/Preferences/com.seriflabs.affinity[app_name].plist or for sandboxed apps from Apple's App Store it's in ~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinity[app_name]/Data/Library/Preferences/com.seriflabs.affinity[app_name].plist Look for a key named com.seriflabs.Studio.Data2[persona_name]-tab The data strings of those keys are stored in hex format, not as text, so you need a hex editor to actually read or even edit them. Prefs Editor can do it. It should be possible to backup and restore these data chunks via the "defaults" terminal command, but that's way over my modest programming skills. However you can always restore the aforementioned keys from your Time Machine backup (you guys do back up, right? if not, I have no pity :P) by restoring a copy of the plist file to its original location (you can keep it there; as long as it has "copy" in its file name it won't do absolutely anything, it will just sit there), opening it with Prefs Edit (RTFM!), copying the old workspaces, and pasting them into the current plist. Or simply replace the whole current plist file altogether. Happy tinkering.

WHAT?! We may be in the minority nowadays, but I definitely do work with 1-bit images every now and then.

It just works.

The free version of Nik Collection that used to be available for download from Google still works with APhoto as a plugin. I haven't used Viveza yet, but recently I was editing a couple of photos in APhoto, among others using the Analog Efex Pro 2 plugin from the free collection. The main issue with the old Nik Collection is the installer that may or may not work properly on recent versions of Mac OS. Eventually I made it work on El Capitan somehow. Haven't tried on newer MacOS yet. Oh, and you must have the Arial font enabled, otherwise the plugins may crash. No idea if it's still downloadable somewhere. But I'm always backing up every installer that I've downloaded in the past, say, 20 years.

Not at all! I'd be just fine with the reliability of CS5(.5) because that's what I'm still working with. As noted, save for a few relatively unimportant spots where Illustrator CS5 wil predictibly crash on Mac OS El Capitan (which is what I'm mainly working with, for too many reasons that I won't go into here), it still does exactly what I need it to do. Same for Photoshop and InDesign CS5.5. Some of their tools are still very "20th century", but having been working in the digital domain for more than 25 years, I can deal with that. Heck, I made layouts with AI CS5 that look like this: The file is 66 MB without PDF compatibility (would be a few hundred MB with PDF embedded) and it takes a few minutes to load. It contains a full size vinyl LP gatefold sleeve layout, the corresponding CD Digipak layout with a 16-page booklet, and the record and disc labels layouts. All text is still "live", and all of it has my favorite Illustrator "killer feature" applied, the Roughen vector effect. Plus many other effects, filters, transparencies, you name it, where needed. Here's a detailed view: It went to print simply by exporting each page to PDF/X-3 using the built-in PDF exporter. The flattened PDF/X-3 of the LP sleeve is 100 MB. It printed without hicks. The resulting product is here: http://munster-records.com/en/label/vampisoul/product/czech-up-vol-i-chain-of-fools Everything was printed exactly as intended. Frankly, for the next release I have split each packaging part into separate files because the file load and redraw times were a tad a too long indeed… When Designer (or any other competitor) is ready to accomplish such a project as well, then I'll be ready for a full switch. And yeah, the Roughen effect is a must! I'm definitely not going to join the CC rip-off. I'm a professional graphic designer, self-employed since 1988. Then it's ultimately not worth for me to even look at that. *** Alright, we're getting very off topic…

^^ GradientExport-tints+movedmidpoints.afdesign GradientExport-tints+movedmidpoints.pdf

Alright, it's not only that: you also have to move the mid points to a different position. Then they turn to full tint.

Thanks! It's the CMYK tint swatches that make the difference: GradientExport-with_cmyk_tints.pdf GradientExport-with_cmyk_tints.afdesign The thing is that I needed exact "proportional" tints of the base CMYK color so that I wouldn't have to recalculate the CMYK slider percentages for each gradient stop. Since I wasn't able to apply tints directly to the gradient stops (why that, by the way? the tint slider should be there in the pop-up menu as well), as a workaround I have created tint swatches. There's the bug.

Stop adding features for a moment and fix the bugs instead!