Boldlinedesign

@LCamachoDesign Those are valid points about patterns. I don't do a ton of work with patterns myself, so it wasn't on my "urgent need" list - but it's certainly important

Right there with you @Dazmondo77! A simplify path tool would be great as well. I use that quite a bit in Illustrator

Someone mentioned you might have an existing key command already in there causing problems

I appreciate all the things Affinity is adding in to Designer/Photo/Publisher - I love that it's not just like other vector apps - things are well thought out, efficient and streamlined. Loving the new 1.9 features so far. I have no issue with a mesh fill tool/feature, but I agree with the others, it's a lower priority to me than other vital features that would allow me to switch fully to Affinity full time. Everyone has their own biased list of "most important" features - but there seems to be a strong consensus that we need vector-based distortion tools for objects and text, pure 100% vector brushes, cleaner boolean operations - (each time I add several expanded overlapped strokes together it leaves a mess of unattached nodes, sometimes the pieces i am adding together disappear entirely) Maybe less important to others but certainly vital to me - a vector eraser tool, smooth tool and blob brush equivalent (vector work can be more "artistic" this way) and a more professional print setup Down the line adding a 3D effect or the mesh fill tool/feature once the most universally needed tools are added that allow us to let go of Adobe and Corel and other fully. Just my thoughts

I traced over this mascot in a photo in affinity on the ipad. I first traced the outer shape and then made a new layer and added the detail shapes on that layer - then opened it in Affinity Designer on desktop. I'd like to take the fills on both layers and compress them down into one layer with the green and orange parts "cut out' of the blue underneath - none of the boolean operations accomplish this. When i use subtract - I actually get issues with expanded empty strokes becoming an issue. How would I compress everything and "cut it out" of the blue base fill shape? thanks indianmascot.afdesign

@hokousai - yes like a live paint option - something easier than creating a whole new shape fill or deleting points. One thing I liked in Illustrator was the ability to put a different color fill behind the shape with a negative space and then select both and press "merge" - or several other pathfinder options and have it "cookie-cutter" the back shape thereby creating a fill color that fits that negative space perfectly. When I try this in Affinity Designer, it essentially deletes the foreground shape with the negative space and leaves the back fill shape as it was... This ability to cookie-cutter a custom shape in illustrator using the pathfinder is used extensively in my work. Not that I want Affinity to copy adobe, but is there a reason Affinity has not added this kind of workflow?

@MCFC_4Heatons - the developer said he will be porting it over to windows after he releases the final release candidate for mac. I have no idea what his time frame will be for that. I'm REALLY hoping warp and the like are a part of this 1.9 update....

is there a way to auto-fill a negative shape surrounded by and existing fill? If I wanted to fill in the circular hole in the image attached? I know I could do it prior to expanding the strokes, or I have seen people create a whole new shape with pen tool set to fill-only. Are there any other better options yet?

I have a bunch of former strokes I expanded - used the new divide function to clear overlapping former strokes and then selected all and hit "add" to merge back as one piece. The last step froze the app - this is not just a 1.9 beta issue, it's happened with all versions at times... I had to force quit the beta and reopen it. When it asked me if I wanted to restore the previous file, it brought up another design I was playing around with prior to this current one I got frozen with. That recovered file was an totally unsaved version - the one that froze on me was an existing file with a name saved prior. When I went to the open recent files, and selected my file that had frozen, it then offered to use the restored version... im glad it did, but I'm curious why it didn't offer both files to be restored since both were open when it froze.

@Frozen Death Knight - yes indeed! and now the beta for Designer is out as well.

@MattP - I'm so happy to see the 1.9 beta out for Designer. Ever since photo for ipad beta was released early, I check periodically for a Designer beta! I use Designer day in and day out to design t-shirt designs and every added tool brings me closer to making Affinity my sole application set for my work. Super impressive work on the select-same and contour tools. It's efficient, effective and professional and they do not get in the way of use. I love the amount of real-time control I can have over the settings with the contour tool. I can make an inverse contour, change the corner styles, change the radius specifically by numerical input or visually with my cursor - so much better thought out and implemented than other vector apps I've used. Select-same is great as well - I like the breakdown into two main sub-categories and then the numerous options for each. I don't know if it needs an "all text" selection option or not - I can see the benefit but also at what point do we have too many options to scroll through each time! lol Glad to see the Divide boolean operation getting some love as well - that's a crucial part of my workflow. Keep up the great work!

Is there a way to preset the alignment panel before implementing an alignment option? It's always set automatically to a grayed out option until I choose an alignment first and that skews my selection across the entire page instead of what I usually prefer. Wouldn't it be easier if we have the selection made on our page, to be able to choose the align-to reference first?

Thanks for sharing those @Frozen Death Knight I'll have to follow @Andy Somerfieldmore - he's more revealing of what is coming in 1.9 than those on the Designer side! Some of the things he mentioned I can see being applied to both Designer and Photo

@Frozen Death Knight I hope you're right about 1.9 beta being around the corner. The china virus pandemic and subsequent working from home has no doubt slowed the progress. What teasers have you found so far? I saw Affinity's version of offset-path demonstrated on twitter more than a year ago, and someone recently mentioned "select-same-as" was also planned for 1.9. Have you seen others?

@steveyates - this looks really awesome! I work full-time for myself, designing specifically for apparel screen printers. I love Affinity and use their apps daily, but still resort to my outdated copy of CS6 to accomplish the things Affinity can't do. Having the ability to use Affinity Photo to create separations would offer a lot to my business. the title says it's for ipad - but looking at your etsy post, it headlined "Color Separation AP for Affinity Photo iPad, Mac and Windows" so triple checking that these macors can be installed on desktop and ipad versions of Affinity Photo? Does your macro set create an under base for printing on dark shirts?? Can I export the positives and individually saved files to send to a printer/client through email? I assume I can also save out the photo native file with seps as layers as you were showing and send that native file to a client to print if they have Affinity Photo? Have you looked at other ways to distribute it besides etsy?

The lack of warp and transform and mesh tools is one of the biggest reasons I can't fully move to Affinity designer as my go-to vector application and have to still hang on to an outdated OS to run my copy of Adobe CS6. I design t-shirts for a living and daily use the warping and transform functions to accomplish text effects. I agree that these features seem basic to any vector design app - but then again, so does a blob tool, a smooth tool, pure 100% vector brushes, select-same-as, and boolean operations that when merging objects, does not leave behind thousands of useless nodes, or make selections disappear, or freeze the app. I love Affinity, but the years of waiting has been a real struggle with no explanations why

I much prefer Affinity's pen tool and ability to quickly add and delete nodes and bend existing strokes as I trace over things to what illustrator offers. that said... Is there a way to pull in one of the two handles of a node to the center of the node so the stroke on that side makes a hard point and the other side of the node still has a handle that can be manipulated? Basically i want to be able to create a hard stop of a stroke at a node point and then bend and curve the stroke after that hard stop. In Illustrator, I could just grab one of the handles and pull it in to the node and it would snap in and disappear. Right now the workaround I use in Affinity Designer is to select the node and use the "sharp" convert option at the top of the screen and then using the node tool, pull on the stroke further along to re-bend it. Hope that makes sense -thanks!

I know vectorstyler can warp and transform text - it's still in beta and for now is mac only

You can save a file from Affinity Designer or Photo on the ipad over to dropbox pretty easily if you just use the "save a copy" option - it allows a native file to be saved out without using icloud at all. @Alfred helped me learn this trick. Prior to this I was feeling stuck with the export feature not giving me the option for a native file to export that way aside from icloud.

Thank you for sacrificing one of your "likes" for my measly post and thereby boosting of my reputation. Your generosity has not gone unnoticed Have a great day!

thanks @Alfred - that makes a lot more sense why there's a limit and how the limit works like a rolling quota.

I know this question does not belong here specifically but I don't know where to ask forum-specific questions. Why is there a limit to the number of reactions one can give in a day? How is that calculated? I reacted to a few yesterday and had no limit. Today I liked two posts and a pop up told me I was done for the day haha. More just curious why it is as it is

Oh dang! the way he was talking condescending smack he sounded like a an over-enthused intern lol! I would expect a CEO/founder to be passionate about their apps and plugins for sure - but to dismiss those with opposing viewpoints with such lack of respect and to make no offer to consider the true needs of potential clients seems beneath a CEO/founder

@NIcholas van der Walle - That's insulting - it is not purely emotionally based - It's a viewpoint developed based on principals of honesty, fairness, and what is most effective and helpful to the customer. Almost all subscription software rewards the developer at the expense of the customer. It rewards laziness while cutting progress off at the knees. You refuse to consider that because your paycheck is dependent on people falling for your talking points.

@NIcholas van der Walle - sigh - spoken like a faithful and loyal employee who's paycheck depends on overpriced subscription models! haha. you missed my point entirely. if Astute can't consider the idea that many people think subscription models for software like this is insulting to many potential users and offer alternatives - than they don't really care about me as a consumer and the Affinity community is the wrong place to be touting a subscription slavery model - again, most people are here because Adobe refused to listen to its customers