buschbrand

I am designing some packaging right now, that will be folded later. To make editing of the sides easier, I use View -> Rotate.
Visually this works fine, but when nudging frames with cursorkeys they will still work like the view was not rotated.
For instance when view is rotated right, the "up"-key will actually nudge right in the current view.
This is very unintuitive and really frustrating when finetuning.
Please change this, so the cursor keys work correct in relation to the current view.

Status: Beta
Purpose: Stability and General Testing
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Publisher
Mac App Store: Not submitted
Download: Download
Auto-update: Not Available
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Hi,
We are pleased to announce that Affinity Publisher Customer Beta 1.9.0.742 is now available as a download from the link above.
If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry.
This beta is significant update from the 1.8 version available for purchase - we strongly recommend that you do not use this beta for real work as data could be lost and the files you save are not guaranteed to open in previous or future versions of Affinity Publisher.
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New Features and Improvements
We are still very early in the beta process for 1.9. We have additional features we expect to integrate over the next few weeks.
PDF Bookmarks
Bookmarks provide a listing of flagged content that are present within a PDF document.
Bookmarks can be added via the Anchor Panel or automatically generated from a Table of Contents.
PDF Passthrough
It is now possible to flag placed PDF files for PDF passthrough. When such a file is encountered during PDF export it can be embedded verbatim in the output PDF ensuring 100% fidelity.
PSD flattened image representation
When placing a PSD we now use the flattened bitmap representation in the file rather than interpreting the file content ourselves. This will generally give better results on output.
Convert Pixel Layer to Image Node / Picture Frame
It is now possible to convert a Pixel Layer to an Image or Picture Frame plus content.
Initial Text Baseline Advance
Text frames now support an ‘Initial Advance’ property. This can be helpful to keep text aligned with other page elements and ensure predictable consistent layout.
Path Text
Additional controls now make it possible to avoid flowing text onto both sides of a curve. Additionally it is now possible to hide overflowing Path Text if desired.
Configurable Bleed and Margin Guide Colours
The colours used for Bleed and Margin guides are configurable by the user and saved with the document.
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Known Issues with New Features
The following lists some of the more important known issues we currently have with new the features:
- PDF Passthrough: Crash exporting specific PDF - If you have crashes exporting we would love to hear about them
- PDF Passthrough: Preflight warns of passthrough pdf when it is set to interpret. Some preflight checks drill into PDFs flagged for passthrough and report spurious errors.
- Convert Pixel Layer to Image Node: Converted image resources can end up with no name
- Path Text: Path text overflows on wrong side, hiding overflow hides all text
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To be notified about all future Mac beta updates, please follow this notification thread 
To be notified when this Publisher update comes out of beta and is fully released to all Publisher customers, please follow this thread

I finally got it working. Thanks again. I discovered I'd missed this one critical step. If you don't opt-click the thumbnail (obviously), the mask is invisible, and it looks like nothing is happening.
One more thing I still can't seem to do is paste into the mask. For example, if I want to copy an alpha channel from one image to another.

As a time-served Compositor (most of you will need to Google that job) I have many years creating artwork on many typesetting systems from the early 1970s onwards. In recent decades, like many people, I have been using QuarkXpress and InDesign to build artworks. Unfortunately, those softwares are prohibitively expensive, so it comes a pleasant surprise to find a software that is on the surface, is a good as the industry standards at a reasonable price.
One observation is that I notice that Affinity Publisher does not include a Slug area. This is a much ignored and misunderstood feature within InDesign. It's sole, but sometimes essential purpose is to allow the creator of the artwork to place information on the edge of the artwork document that can be included or excluded from the  PDF sent to the printer.
This can be simply page numbers or essential information to the Printer pertaining to the page(s) it is attached to. The beauty of the slug area, is Adobe  PDF allow it to be included or excluded from the PDF, therefore it doesn't interfere with Imposition software but it can be included whereever it is necessary. 
In my decades of experience very few people understand its purpose, however it is to the professional artwork creator essential.

A little fun project to stave the boredom away. This pretty little WACO is stationed in Rheineck at the Altenrhein flying museum in Switzerland.
It´s artwork from a picture I took a few weeks back and it was 2D´d in Affinity Designer. The clouds are a mixture of Cloud brushes and Perlin noise in Affinity Photo.
All hail the Perlin noise.

Can you please take another look at the colour palette and swatches panel across Affinity suite. Its bugged me for a while and is very poorly implemented.
The colour palette is horrendously clunky to use and EVERY time you start a new document you need to manually create a new Document palette or else working with colour will drive you insane. A blank document palette should automatically open by default and be the current active palette. As you start working with colours they should be automatically added to the palette. So for instance if you created a new document and then created a triangle and chose a colour from the swatches panel, that colour should automatically get added to the document palette which should be independent of the swatches. At the moment as you work nothing gets added to a palette and so the so called palettes are not really palettes they are still swatches i.e. colours to choose from. A palette is a collection of colours that are in use is it not? The document palette should be independent of the various inbuilt swatches. You should be able to import colours to the document palette from the inbuilt swatches and/or any swatches that you create (from the document palette). At the moment swatches and palettes are essentially the same thing in Affinity and they should be treated separately as they work differently. A palette is colours in use. A swatch is a collection of colours to add to the palette.
Furthermore when working on a complex design, having to manually add each individual colour after previously manually creating a document palette gets very tedious. It would be much more efficient to select the item you want to recolour, create the colour in the mixer and the colour should then get added to the document palette as it is now active on the canvas. At present it only gets added to a crippled  'recents' palette. The recents palette would not be required if you use the method I describe as any colours used in the document will be present in the document palette therefore killing two birds with one stone. 
Colours should also be made drag and drop able as at present the recents bar you have to unselect any graphic elements, select a recent colour and then click 'add to palette' if you forgot to add one of the colours you used earlier. If you don't unselect the currently selected graphic element when trying to add a recent colour other than the current active one to the palette then you incorrectly colour the element and have to undo. Therefore meaning all but the last colour in the recents bar are irrelevant as you currently have to make it active again to then click add to palette. A quick drag and drop of any colour (active or not) from recents bar to the palette below would be much more intuitive and efficient.
A third idea is If you have the Colour panel open alongside the swatches panel you could also quickly create a batch of colours (albeit one at a time) and drag and drop these across to the adjacent document palette. You cant currently do that. This too would speed up working with colour no end.
Just a couple of ideas. 
 

All I can do is click on add picture and pick the picture from the pop-up system file manager.

Why is this limiting my choice? 
I can't drag and drop or copy

I'm curious if anyone else out there is using Affinity products for making maps? These days , probably >95% of cartographers make their maps almost entirely within GIS software, but I was always frustrated by the limited options and lack of precision for controlling stylistic elements on maps in those software suites (both QGIS and ArcGIS), so I figured why not outsource the styling to Affinity products   
For those unfamiliar, mapmaking is not unlike standard graphic design. You have a document comprised of a bunch of different layers, some of which can be vector (like road lines, point data, etc.) and some of which can be raster (like elevation maps, aerial imagery, etc.). The only real difference is they are all encoded with spatial information. So what I started doing is using the GIS software just to compile and size (spatially aware trim/crop) all my different layers of geographic data, and then exporting a bunch of identically-sized layers that I then reassemble in AD / AP (i.e export a PDF of *just* the road lines, export another PDF of *just* the water body polygons, export a PNG of *just* the aerial imagery, etc.). As long as I maintain identical pixel dimensions for the exported raster layers, and identical aspect ratios for the vector layers, maintaining the appropriate map scale / size and reassembling the layers in AD/AP is trivial. Once I have all the data in AD/AP, I can take advantage of those graphic design features that GIS software could never hope to do, like advanced masking and layer blending modes, brush-based editing, pixel-perfect label placement (HUGE), etc. Another great thing is this method gives you ultimate control over design of the map frame and you're not stuck using the preset layouts and scalebars that are baked into GIS software suites. 
The included example is a map I made for my mother last Christmas of the area where her ancestors settled 150ish years ago. Its sort of like a modern take on the classic USGS topo map styles from the 50's-80's.
(there are two typos I'm aware of, 'prairie' is misspelled in both instances, and 'convenience' is written as 'convenient' in the legend... if you see anymore, let me know!)
cheers
 

Giving these issues and suggestions a bump as the color management is driving me a bit nuts.
Needs immediate fix…
- Ability to make an existing global color a spot
- Add alert when deleting a spot swatch that has been applied to any object AND include option to replace with another swatch
- Ability to name a swatch with color mix values AND name updates if values are changed
Would make sense to fix…
- Hover tool tip over any swatch anywhere gives all pertinent information: name, color mix, global status, spot status,
- With a color selected, click the "Add Global Color" flyout menu on the swatches palette and have the selected color populate the dialog rather than defaulting to some 4-color black.
- As suggested, have a search field everywhere a color swatch library is presented.
- Ability to remove individual or all recent swatches. Don't want to accidentally click on a old/revised swatch
- Combine "Rename Global Color" , "Rename Spot Color" and "Edit Fill". Why do these need to be in 3 separate places?
And perhaps a more philosophical point, or just difference in workflows…
- There are 2 small buttons to the right of the choose palette pull down menu. One the add swatch to palette, one to add global swatch to palette. Why would I need to add a color to a pallet and have it NOT be Global? The only reason I ever create a swatch is to be able to use and edit it globally. Maybe I'm just not thinking of a case where this would be useful.

Thanks for the speedy response, Gabe. So I created two global Pantone colors. It's kinda weird that you can't go in and edit the color making it spot of you need to change it. That seems like a pretty basic function. Also, by default, the Pantone swatches are arranged by type of color instead of Pantone #. It takes forever to hunt and pick for the color. Personally, I prefer the color name listed. Even a search function for Pantone would help.
Another issue is that if delete a global color, a warning dialogue box appears telling you that some of the colors in you file may be effected. It would be nice to have a message with a replace color option appear. Something like what Adobe InDesign has. Since you don't have a "select same color" option in your software, this would be helpful until you get that.
I love what you guys do! Keep up the great work!
Stephen:)

Just for the expectations alignment
From and including: Sunday, 12 October 2014 To, but not including Thursday, 30 April 2020 Result: 2027 days
It is 2027 days from the start date to the end date, but not including the end date. Or 5 years, 6 months, 18 days excluding the end date. Or 66 months, 18 days excluding the end date. 😀

It seems you didn't note the Tint slider in the Colour Panel.
It appears as soon you select an object with a spot color assigned:

Also for non-spot colours the Tint slider is accessible any time via the burger menu:

Now it's 100 % hawaiian, right?

Hi there,
I love Hawaiian Shirts and tropical und floral patterns. It's not that perfect and just »work in progress «– but I like it. Some shadows have to be refined and some textures may be added. No Stock-Pictures are used and lots of hours were spent to draw all parts of it.
I don't know what to do with it. In my dreams it becomes a shirt. What do you think?
Ciao,
Arne

Hello. My question relates to the purchased version of the program, because according to various speculations on various sites, people who have purchased the program from 1.xx will have to buy again if they want to use version 2.xx. I would like to know the answer to this, because if it is true, I would wait until version 2.xx with the purchase.
Thankyou for your answer.

+1

I know I've suggested a similar feature, but all this talk of smoothing curves brought this up in my mind; in addition to a tool to smooth a curve, Affinity Designer should also have the opposite.  I am of course referring to Midpoint Displacement, which would allow illustrators to make non-uniform curves more easily than having to draw each node individually.
 

 
Being able to smooth curves is indeed important, but as it is, it's really hard to produce a line that doesn't look uniform, and a roughening tool to add pseudorandom midpoint displacement would make illustrating much less time-consuming.

Thank you very much, Jowday,
I tried to find a good balance between naturalism and a reduced style. But I'd like to make the look a bit more artsy … maybe in a blockprint-style. For me it's just the starting point – I really love patterns in general, so let's see, where it takes me.

Both are excellent, @buschbrand
Hawaiian shirts are growing on me now that many modern designs are so sterile and minimalistic. I find nature and cultures inspired by it much more appealing than generation iPad, flat design and homes without traces of who lives there.
I would certainly buy on of your shirts.
Cheers

Passt wirklich auf alles: Markisen, Sonnensegel, Becher, Autos, Corona-Masken … und natürlich auf Jürgen von der Lippe!
PS: Ein Hawaiihemd/shirt verträgt doch jedes Motiv, selbst wenn das Bier oder Tier in Hawaii (noch) nicht existent ist. Hauptsache kunterbunt! Auch hier nutzt man den farbenfrohen Tukan.

Now it's 100 % hawaiian, right?

Hi there,
I love Hawaiian Shirts and tropical und floral patterns. It's not that perfect and just »work in progress «– but I like it. Some shadows have to be refined and some textures may be added. No Stock-Pictures are used and lots of hours were spent to draw all parts of it.
I don't know what to do with it. In my dreams it becomes a shirt. What do you think?
Ciao,
Arne

Hi there,
I love Hawaiian Shirts and tropical und floral patterns. It's not that perfect and just »work in progress «– but I like it. Some shadows have to be refined and some textures may be added. No Stock-Pictures are used and lots of hours were spent to draw all parts of it.
I don't know what to do with it. In my dreams it becomes a shirt. What do you think?
Ciao,
Arne

Now it's 100 % hawaiian, right?

Now it's 100 % hawaiian, right?