Boldlinedesign

In my opinion, it would be worth your while to stay up on the updates Vectorstyler has been making, especially if your last point of reference was last year. It has been growing by leaps and bounds with almost weekly update builds. The developer has been primarily focused on improving stability and eliminating bugs. Each weekly update includes plenty of bug fixes and updates. Major feature additions and the like are planned for the next major release down the road. Any time I've dealt with a bug, its usually been quickly fixed by the developer within weeks of reporting.

I switched to Vectorstyler as my main vector editing tool after moving away from Adobe's subscription-only plans and testing Affinity's feature updates. While I continue to use Affinity on my iPad and hope for its success, Canva's acquisition and the slow pace of significant updates across its apps have tempered my optimism. Initially, Vectorstyler didn't fully meet my design needs, but it has significantly improved over the past few years. Some designers use it alongside Affinity to compensate for missing features. Although many users find the user interface less appealing than Affinity's, I'm not clear on the specific differences. I appreciate the rapid deployment of updates and improvements in Vectorstyler. The development roadmap is a promising indicator of its future direction.

I honestly don't see much of a difference between the UI of Illustrator, Corel, Affinity Designer and Vectorstyler. There are some slight nuances and some may look a little better than others, but not by much. more like splitting hairs. All could be improved upon. None are so "uncomfortable" that they cannot be used and enjoyed

I use Vectorstyler daily as my primary vector editing software. (I use affinity photo daily and use affinity designer when on the ipad). Occasionally there are crashes in Vectorstyler, but the software is truly superior to Illustrator and Corel and Designer in terms of what it offers. I had used Illustrator for years until they went subscription and hoped Designer would fill that role for me, but it's still years from being something I could use full time. Development of Vectorstyler is weekly and the developer is very receptive to new ideas and bug reports. I'm not sure what you were asking VS to do that made it crash right away, but I'm sure if you reported it on the Vectorstyler forum, it would get addressed and fixed quickly. As someone who uses it extensively on a daily basis, your first impression is not accurate to what VS truly is.

I had forgotten about Paintstorm. I was just now checking it out again. I might pick it up. I like having lots of options to work with

I use a wacom cintiq, wacom tablet and a huion kanvas screen tablet with all my design apps including the Affinity suite and also Vectorstyler and haven't had any issues. The fastest way to get the improvements you say you are needing with Vectorstyler is to test it out and give a lot of feedback, especially if you are using a tablet or screen others are not using.

@JhonatanS I've appreciated your videos on Affinity over the years. Have you considered trying out Vectorstyler as a replacement for Affinity Designer or as an add-on tool to use for what Designer still lacks?

All of these are available in Vectorstyler. It's also 50% off right now as well. No need to keep adobe just for those things. Between Affinity Designer and Vectorstyler, it will cover all your vector needs

It's half off right now for Black Friday! Works well with Affinity.

Have you tried it recently? I know some fixes were added about a month ago in Vectorstyler to allow for gradients in VS to be opened correctly in Illustrator. I have not tried in reverse - I will test that

Thanks for that tip @walt.farrell. that is helpful. I hope Affinity gets to the point they allow any feature to be assigned a custom keyboard shortcut so that users can customize it to work best for their needs

Is there a way to set a keyboard shortcut to the "convert to sharp" (as well as the smooth and smart)option in the UI? I understand I can select a node while holding down the alt/option modifier and it automatically converts to a sharp node - this is great, but it is not as efficient as if I could click-drag a selection box around a node and press a keyboard shortcut to have the selected node convert automatically to a sharp node. Vectorstyler has this option and it speeds up the workflow because I don't have to waste time directly selecting each node accurately as I go. I can select a node and while activated, double-click the "L" key and it converts automatically. I know there are buttons at the top of the UI that are active when a node is selected - if I click on it while the node is selected, it will convert it AFTER I have selected it - this is ideal, but I don't see a way to set a shortcut key to the "convert to sharp" button. is there any way to set it in the shortcuts in the settings?

I'd love to learn more about how this is currently done. Are there links to YouTube videos explaining the process you'd be willing to share?

Affinity took one approach, essentially spreading resources thin by created three apps for three operating systems. This allows for users to utilize all three major design needs right away, but it also means features are going to be lacking in all three apps. Vectorstyler took a different approach and focused exclusively on a feature rich and powerful vector editing software. Hopefully one day there will also be a Photoshop and InDesign replacement in the Vectorstyler world. In the meantime, why not support both affinity and vectorstyler? Use Designer as your primary vector design program if you wish and pull up Vectorstyler to solve the issues where Designer is lacking. Back in the day I owned the Macromedia suite as well as adobe. Today I own affinity and vectorstyler as well as several other programs that together effectively replace adobe in my workflow Both the cost of the affinity suite and vectorstyler at full price are still amazing deals when you consider the alternative of paying adobe monthly. Vectorstyler also has sales occasionally throughout the year, but even full price is a bargain.

PDF/X file exporting was just added to Vectorstyler today in the newest update to version 1.2. Might be worth looking into and providing feedback for improvement. Vectorstyler and Affinity Designer work well together; it's easy to copy and paste vectors between the two programs.