Boldlinedesign

I have an old computer with el capitan installed that I use almost exclusively for Adobe CS6 suite needs - things I still can't accomplish in either affinity or Vectorstyler yet. I haven't noticed any serious issues or stability problems in the El Capitan version of Vectorstyler, but then again, I use it sparingly on that machine. I use Vectorstyler primarily on my M1 mac at this point. I also would think support for El Capitan with Vectorstyler would end at some point sooner than later as well

Pure comedy - I love it. thank you for the laugh today. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get to the local offroad track to see if my average little commuter car can handle the extreme curves and jumps, mud and uneven terrain that specially-modified vehicles including SUVs, trucks, motorbikes, quadbikes and buggies can handle with ease. if it fails once I'm going to sue the car manufacturer.

It works incredibly well on 95% of all case uses but you’re only focused on the extreme? This is a common way you'd use the feature? Lol. Affinity does not even attempt to include it at all because of its complexity, but you so easily dismiss the implementation of the feature in Vectorstyler because only under extreme conditions, it's imperfect? That does not seem realistic or fair. you did not include the source file here with history enabled for us to investigate or replicate the problem. I'm not sure even how you accomplished the issue honestly. What's amazing to me is that if you were to submit this Vectorstyler file on the forum there, the developer would have a fix for it in a few weeks if not days.

Not sure what that means. Works great here

Vectorstyler has offered all of this for over a year. Using both designer and Vectorstyler gives you a whole lot more options

@friedgoldmole One of the big problems in Affinity Designer with booleans is that the merge boolean resembles the " union" option like in Illustrator or Vectorstyler, rather than a true "merge". If two overlapping shapes are different colors for example, then merge should essentially cut one from the other and group them. (If they are the same color then merge should unite them as one shape) You can see from my example below, that the purple and black overlapping shapes when merged in Illustrator or Vectorstyler cut through. In affinity designer, they unite as one, no matter the differing colors used. This hinders the effectiveness of the merge tool because one needs to divide the shapes first, then select the multiple pieces of the purple and merge them together again - lots of extra steps. Here's hoping they add a unite boolean and fix the merge issue

@friedgoldmole has a good point here. You should be able to select all objects in this case and click on boolean merge and have the black numbers become one with the black outline shape without it filling in the many white negative spaces. This is what happens in both Illustrator and in Vectorstyler. This is the result when I use boolean merge: Why are there so many filled in portions? This is the result I get when I do the boolean subtract: Again, it makes no sense to me.

@visualrevolt thanks for sharing. I agree with you on most everything you said. Many think they are only allowed to use one or the other. I own both and use both for different reasons. Designer alone was not enough to replace illustrator in my professional work. Using vectorstyler allowed me to not be as impatient waiting for affinity to add basic features. Vectorstyler is my primary at this point, but I enjoy using the iPad version of designer as well and like the interconnection with photo and publisher.

@Medical Officer Bones there are certainly improvements that can be made in Vectorstyler as with any program. I've got a solid list of improvements I've advocated for and helped test to improve. It's easy to find an extreme scenario that causes a program to fail and judge the entirety of the program on that extreme function. I'm glad you brought up the issues with complex vectors in Vectorstyler and sent the sample to the developer. I have little doubt vectorstyler will improve dramatically in short order as a result. Thankfully, I don't think most vector users are doing super complex designs like that all the time and will not run into this issue often before a fix is made. I don't have any insider knowledge, but I can imagine solutions to the issues you brought up will be fixed in a matter of weeks or months, not years. I'm glad you've brought up issues on the VS forum. I wish more people would do the same instead of just shutting down and avoiding it. There are plenty of areas like this complex svg issue that not everyone runs into. So it's great when people bring up diverse issues because it helps round out the improvement of the program This was why I was saying the use of both vectorstyler and affinity designer in tandem provides a solid well rounded solution. Designer can open complex vector designs smoothly then vectorstyler, but it also lacks pure vector brushes, blending between shapes, eraser tool, image trace, blob brush equivalent, etc other existing tools need a lot of refinement and improvements. If I were to claim I couldn't use designer because of these missing features, that would be the wrong mentality. Just because Vectorstyler is not as capable at running super complex extreme designs does not negate the rest of its powerful featureset. I've used vectorstyler full time for solid year now and rarely saw crashes or instability and rarely had slowdowns during use. Then again, none of my projects are as complex as von glitchkas wormwood sample. If most of your work is that complex, keep using designer and jump over to vectorstyler for the missing tools in designer. .

Blend tool is available in Vectorstyler right now along with a number of other missing tools in designer. Consider picking up Vectorstyler as an add-on tool to fill in the needs while waiting for affinity to catch up. Vectors created in designer and in Vectorstyler are easily copied and pasted between the two programs. I'm not advocating to quit using designer, I'm encouraging using both. Why not? Between the two together, most every important need is addressed. Vectorstyler can easily be a companion vector program. Use one as the primary and the other as a supplement Vectorstyler is half off right now and also has a 42 day trial and is not subscription based. It's improving by leaps and bounds at a rapid pace. Currently the developer is working on a big update but has still put out consistent bug fixes and enhancements every couple weeks in the process.

I think it's great you have vectorstyler a whirl. Passing this advice along from the developer on the VS forum; You're most likely running into issues because the OpenCL driver on Windows is not working properly. You should try setting it to "software mode" and see if that improves things. Speaking for myself, Your negative results and crashing in VS is not typical of most users. I use it as my primary vector design program and use designer occasionally. Using both gives a lot of freedom and flexibility to the workflow

I understand - at the same time, you are looking for Vectorstyler to fill in the gaps for what you need that Affinity does not yet offer - so I'd think VS has some priority to you. It could take years for Affinity to get things like gradient mesh so you very well might be using VS far more than you may anticipate. Some people look at VS and Designer as a black and white absolute choice - choose one or the other. I say, use both in the ways that most help your workflow. Most everything can be copied and pasted easily between the two programs anyway. I've designed plenty of things on my ipad in designer and then copied and pasted the work into a VS file to finish it, etc. Throwing a few questions out on the forum VS there does not seem to be a huge investment in time and effort, especially if it directly relates to what you need VS to accomplish for your workflow. Just my opinion. I spend time on the Affinity forum several times a week even as VS is my primary vector program I use daily. There are things I'm testing and using in Designer that I want to see if it could help my workflow,so it's worth being involved here

There's a link on the main website for vectorstyler called "documentation" that takes you to the manual. Here is the direct link You can download the latest version of the VectorStyler PDF manual here Here is the direct link to the manual section on using gradient mesh in Vectorstyler I pulled up the instructions from the manual and played around with the gradient mesh some and was able to figure out how to add colors, etc. I also agree that the gradient mesh in Vectorstyler could continue to be improved. Your suggestions and ideas could prove very useful to getting the gradient mesh to where it needs to be. The developer of Vectorstyler is very responsive and open to hearing critiques, ideas for improvement and general feedback on anything in the program. He's in the middle of a large update yet still releases consistent bug fixes and improvements along the way. I encourage you to share your questions and ideas on the forum so they could be considered and implemented asap. Here is the link to the forum

what kind of vector stock art is only compatible with illustrator? Any vector stock art I've used works on everything

I agree with you that the Studiolink structure is revolutionary for Affinity and the structure can be built in an amazing cohesive way between the trio of Affinity programs. Vectorstyler is but one program and therefore does not offer that Studiolink option at all. That's certainly an advantage to Affinity right now. The fact that all resources and ideas have been focused on vector-only in VS is a negative in the lens of Studiolink and wanting to do raster and publishing work - but a huge bonus to those heavily involved in vector work itself. I don't ever seeing Affinity offering the vector capabilities VS holds - but I don't think either company is trying to be just like the other either. I don't see VS as a competitor to Affinity any more than I see Clip Studio paint as a competitor to Affinity Photo. I've always been a firm believer in artists being able to utilize the best attributes of many programs. This is why I try to be involved in multiple forums for different programs - because it benefits me in the long run to not be tied to just one. I've supported Affinity since 2015 and always hoped they would excel and create a realistic Adobe replacement. I believe they are doing it but the process has been painfully slow - for whatever the reasons. I can completely understand your decision to invest in Affinity since your workflow utilizes the three Affinity programs. 95% of my professional work is vector-based. I do use Photo some and Designer occasionally but because VS is so advanced in terms of vectors, and improving quickly, I invest most of my time there. VS does far more than fancy vector warping and stuff. Affinity version 1 was basically a non-starter for me because the designer app cupboards were bare. I'm trying to give version 2 a fair shake since they added some new features. One of the Affinity guys commented in a tweet that they use their own suite for all their graphic needs - which surprised me actually. Realistically, I can't wait around another 8 years for Affinity to add the missing parts standard in most vector editing programs. If Affinity makes great strides quickly in improving version 2 going forward, I will find more use for it in my workflow and invest more in it. Right now, because of the big update to version 2, the Affinity forum is flowing with contributions of new ideas and bug reports -which is awesome. Prior to the new update, the forum was essentially repeating the same unanswered questions waiting for answers and updates. If Affinity is not communicating much on the forum again and not adding new solid updates consistently, there leaves a lot of time to invest in other forums where things are going faster and come back to Affinity when updates come out again, etc

That's awesome that you purchased vectorstyler. It's been a year since it was last in beta! There have been a massive number of updates since then. Version 1.2 it's supposed to be released in the next few months with a lot of improvements as well - some involving the UI. There have been suggestions and ideas shared by users on the vectorstyler forum that are being considered and added. I'd encourage you to share your ideas for improving the Vectorstyler UI there.

@GRAFKOM yes that was an impressive feature to see and use in Vectorstyler. There's also an option in the same stroke panel to manually adjust the percentage of the change in stroke offset amount. So you can set it 37% to the inside or outside if that suited you best... Really amazing stuff. I use Vectorstyler for most of my vector work and use designer on occasion on desktop and on my iPad. I like affinity overall but need tools for my professional work still missing in designer, so I use other programs like VS It's on a 50% discount this week.

@Gianluca Rossi if you purchase the v2 license now, you get all updates free until v3 is released. Then you'll have the choice to upgrade and pay for v3, or not and still keep v2 in perpetuity. Affinity will be releasing updates to v2 for a certain period of time. You'll get all v2 upgrades for free. Eventually they'll release a new main version again add that will cost money ahs the cycle repeats

now's your chance to pick up Vectorstyler at 50% off! Black Friday sale going on now. No excuses left.

I've not run into any real issues opening illustrator files in Vectorstyler. Have you shared the ones with which you had issues with the developer? I'm sure any rare example with an issue would help him improve his reverse engineering results

It started out as Mac only when it was in initial development and beta and then expanded to include Windows. It's been crises platform for a while now. It's an amazing program that offers an incredible number of advanced features. I use it for my full time work and use affinity designer sparingly.

Vectorstyler is cross platform - Windows and Mac

Success! thanks! this was the part I was missing. I had the text box itself selected, but not the blinking cursor. is there any reason this could not work for other vector editing programs out there? I tried with another one and did not have success

I had tried with the text selected first and it did not work for me. I also tried dropping it in the font name field. Am I missing a step? thanks for your help

I switched over to Typeface a little more than a year ago and immediately took to the ease of use with minimal issues. I would recommend it to anyone on mac looking to switch to a new font manager. The updates are released consistently and the pricing model is very fair. I've emailed @Floor a few times with questions and for help troubleshooting and he's always replied quickly and has taken the time to explain things and consider ideas. @firstdefence I saw your comment I quoted above and was intrigued - so I decided to test it out. I did not have any luck dragging an active font from Typeface over to Affinity designer and getting the live text in Affinity Designer to change. Was there a setting I am missing?