JET_Affinity

Again, climb down off your friggin' pedestal, mister 'professional.' You don't know diddly about the careers of other people here. Since the Affinity programs are just for poor rank 'beggars' so beneath you , why are you wasting your time here, incessantly spouting your ridicule? How does someone of your obvious (because you say so) time-is-money 'professional' status have a productive moment to lose dinking around with a $50 program that's obviously going nowhere (because you say so)?
JET

Some of you guys need to get off your 'I'm such a professional' high horse, effectively insulting everyone else here you don't even know. A professional can do professional work with a crayon. I'm inclined to doubt the claimed 'professionalism' of anyone who truly thinks a program is 'useless' until it's a veritable clone of the one program with which they're familiar, and has all the time in the world to waste repetitively whining about it.
I've been making my living in digital graphics for 35 years. Can I right now, today, do commercial-quality saleable work for clients in Affinity? Absolutely. Just like I can with Illustrator, Draw, Technical Designer, Canvas, and others, despite their respective weaknesses.
Do I consider Adobe Illustrator 'professional quality'? Compared to what? Regarding which features? I can build a list of sub-par features for any vector drawing program on my computer, including Illustrator. I can also build a list of features which Affinity could—with just a little innovation instead of just ever-more 'me, too' copying of conventional wisdom—easily implement in such a way to surpass Illustrator's functionality.
Since the beginning of the 'desktop revolution' in the mid-80s, one thing I've considered a matter of simple professionalism is to maintain at least working familiarity with as many mainstream vector graphics applications as I can. That's why I didn't become a victim when Adobe foisted its Captive Customer licensing scheme.
Affinity can do things Illustrator can't. For just two examples:
It provides a full-blown feature set for mechanically-correct axonometric drawing. To those who know how to use it (and broaden one's money-making skill set with it), that alone is worth the price of all three Affinity applications put together. Affinity's value fields understand a math expression containing more than one operator. (What a concept for one-fifth of the way into the 21st century, 'professional' Illustrator!) Waiting until any given program does everything one wants it to, in precisely the way the single program with which one is proficient does it, is a good way to find oneself behind one's competitors and mission-critically dependent upon a single vendor.
Use the programs you buy for what the can do. If you truly "can't do anything with a program until you get your wish", then why are you wasting your time and breath if you consider the program so 'hopelessly 'unprofessional.' Don't buy them. Don't use them. Get on with your erudite, single-track, blinders-wearing, awe-inspiring career.
JET

Nonsense. Since when is merely specifying a line by length and angle or drawing to user-defined scale only for 'CAD tools'? Egads, man, by that kind of logic, no 'CAD tool' should be able to colorize a vector object, either. Do you know why it's called a Bezier curve, and what industry Mr. Bezier was working in?
Mainstream vector drawing programs are very general-purpose. They are not just used for loosey-goosey freehand scribbling in an ill-conceived attempt to emulate 'natural media' on a tiny cell phone screen with a pudgy finger. These programs are routinely used for:
Cleaning up and augmenting CAD exports to make them suitable for commercial-quality reproduction Drawing die cuts for commercial collateral and package design Drawing garden plats Maps of all kinds Typeface design Bird's-eye views of theme parks for visitor's brochures Conceptuals and working drawings for commercial signage, storefronts, interior designs, point-of-sale displays, billboards Cutting paths for sign vinyl plotters and routers Architectural concepts Trade show displays and booth sites, both as conceptual renderings and as final working drawings All manner of info graphics And, yes, axonometric drawing (assembly diagrams for everything from colorful pre-school toys to mundane light fixtures) …I could go on indefinitely. Since the mid-80s I've been using FreeHand, Canvas, Draw, Illustrator, Flash, and most others that have come along in this software category since then to do these kinds of things, all of which are squarely within the real world domain of profitable commercial illustration.
JET
 

About: Can the Affinity range of products really be called 'pro'?
The premise of the initial post is flawed. Serif Affinity applications are designed meticulously with usability and performance as primary considerations. It is this meticulous attention to detail and aggressive responsiveness to the Affinity community in providing new features and refinements that qualifies Serif Affinity applications as 'pro level'.
Affinity applications are still in their 1.x release. When Adobe Photoshop 7.x supported 1 undo level, with other photo editors supporting hundreds. Many (including myself ─ when Photoshop 7.x was current) would argue; one undo level in a photo editor disqualifies the application as being considered 'pro'. Yet Photoshop evolved, which required significant time, refinement and monetary investment. The insinuation that Affinity applications are not 'pro level' because they are not equal to applications that have been around for decades insults the intelligence of users in this community and the impressive efforts invested by Serif.
I saw a video released a week after Affinity Photo beta went public that claimed Affinity Photo was not a serious application and that it shouldn't be considered because Photoshop was better. For god sake, should we throw out a 2-month-old child because they can't drive a car, express complex ideas or solve sophisticated problems? The video was taken down within an hour of me posting my analysis of the author as having an emotional investment in Adobe being superior. Think I hit a nerve?
Sure, Serif Affinity applications aren't perfect. I defy anyone to make the argument that Adobe applications are not without their flaws. Affinity applications have been released with features that Adobe has since incorporated into their counterparts. Affinity application feature implementations, refinements and fixes have been released at an aggressive pace by any reasonable standards. It's frustrating when features fail to work as they should, however what application has not demonstrated such problems. Adobe In Design has had more than its share of issues resulting in the application crashing. Does that mean In Design is not a 'pro level' application?
'Pro level' does not mean all features and refinements in a 1.x release are equal to applications that have evolved over generations. 'Pro level' means features, speed and usability are sufficient for use in production by competent users, and that the refinements incorporated in the applications are within a higher threshold of quality. Serif has secured their place as a development company that can bring advanced features and revolutionary implementation from concept to production on a mass scale against such a powerful competitor as Adobe with decades of established market share and vastly more resources, and still be a highly respected contender by many professionals.

Again, climb down off your friggin' pedestal, mister 'professional.' You don't know diddly about the careers of other people here. Since the Affinity programs are just for poor rank 'beggars' so beneath you , why are you wasting your time here, incessantly spouting your ridicule? How does someone of your obvious (because you say so) time-is-money 'professional' status have a productive moment to lose dinking around with a $50 program that's obviously going nowhere (because you say so)?
JET

Some of you guys need to get off your 'I'm such a professional' high horse, effectively insulting everyone else here you don't even know. A professional can do professional work with a crayon. I'm inclined to doubt the claimed 'professionalism' of anyone who truly thinks a program is 'useless' until it's a veritable clone of the one program with which they're familiar, and has all the time in the world to waste repetitively whining about it.
I've been making my living in digital graphics for 35 years. Can I right now, today, do commercial-quality saleable work for clients in Affinity? Absolutely. Just like I can with Illustrator, Draw, Technical Designer, Canvas, and others, despite their respective weaknesses.
Do I consider Adobe Illustrator 'professional quality'? Compared to what? Regarding which features? I can build a list of sub-par features for any vector drawing program on my computer, including Illustrator. I can also build a list of features which Affinity could—with just a little innovation instead of just ever-more 'me, too' copying of conventional wisdom—easily implement in such a way to surpass Illustrator's functionality.
Since the beginning of the 'desktop revolution' in the mid-80s, one thing I've considered a matter of simple professionalism is to maintain at least working familiarity with as many mainstream vector graphics applications as I can. That's why I didn't become a victim when Adobe foisted its Captive Customer licensing scheme.
Affinity can do things Illustrator can't. For just two examples:
It provides a full-blown feature set for mechanically-correct axonometric drawing. To those who know how to use it (and broaden one's money-making skill set with it), that alone is worth the price of all three Affinity applications put together. Affinity's value fields understand a math expression containing more than one operator. (What a concept for one-fifth of the way into the 21st century, 'professional' Illustrator!) Waiting until any given program does everything one wants it to, in precisely the way the single program with which one is proficient does it, is a good way to find oneself behind one's competitors and mission-critically dependent upon a single vendor.
Use the programs you buy for what the can do. If you truly "can't do anything with a program until you get your wish", then why are you wasting your time and breath if you consider the program so 'hopelessly 'unprofessional.' Don't buy them. Don't use them. Get on with your erudite, single-track, blinders-wearing, awe-inspiring career.
JET

Some of you guys need to get off your 'I'm such a professional' high horse, effectively insulting everyone else here you don't even know. A professional can do professional work with a crayon. I'm inclined to doubt the claimed 'professionalism' of anyone who truly thinks a program is 'useless' until it's a veritable clone of the one program with which they're familiar, and has all the time in the world to waste repetitively whining about it.
I've been making my living in digital graphics for 35 years. Can I right now, today, do commercial-quality saleable work for clients in Affinity? Absolutely. Just like I can with Illustrator, Draw, Technical Designer, Canvas, and others, despite their respective weaknesses.
Do I consider Adobe Illustrator 'professional quality'? Compared to what? Regarding which features? I can build a list of sub-par features for any vector drawing program on my computer, including Illustrator. I can also build a list of features which Affinity could—with just a little innovation instead of just ever-more 'me, too' copying of conventional wisdom—easily implement in such a way to surpass Illustrator's functionality.
Since the beginning of the 'desktop revolution' in the mid-80s, one thing I've considered a matter of simple professionalism is to maintain at least working familiarity with as many mainstream vector graphics applications as I can. That's why I didn't become a victim when Adobe foisted its Captive Customer licensing scheme.
Affinity can do things Illustrator can't. For just two examples:
It provides a full-blown feature set for mechanically-correct axonometric drawing. To those who know how to use it (and broaden one's money-making skill set with it), that alone is worth the price of all three Affinity applications put together. Affinity's value fields understand a math expression containing more than one operator. (What a concept for one-fifth of the way into the 21st century, 'professional' Illustrator!) Waiting until any given program does everything one wants it to, in precisely the way the single program with which one is proficient does it, is a good way to find oneself behind one's competitors and mission-critically dependent upon a single vendor.
Use the programs you buy for what the can do. If you truly "can't do anything with a program until you get your wish", then why are you wasting your time and breath if you consider the program so 'hopelessly 'unprofessional.' Don't buy them. Don't use them. Get on with your erudite, single-track, blinders-wearing, awe-inspiring career.
JET

Some of you guys need to get off your 'I'm such a professional' high horse, effectively insulting everyone else here you don't even know. A professional can do professional work with a crayon. I'm inclined to doubt the claimed 'professionalism' of anyone who truly thinks a program is 'useless' until it's a veritable clone of the one program with which they're familiar, and has all the time in the world to waste repetitively whining about it.
I've been making my living in digital graphics for 35 years. Can I right now, today, do commercial-quality saleable work for clients in Affinity? Absolutely. Just like I can with Illustrator, Draw, Technical Designer, Canvas, and others, despite their respective weaknesses.
Do I consider Adobe Illustrator 'professional quality'? Compared to what? Regarding which features? I can build a list of sub-par features for any vector drawing program on my computer, including Illustrator. I can also build a list of features which Affinity could—with just a little innovation instead of just ever-more 'me, too' copying of conventional wisdom—easily implement in such a way to surpass Illustrator's functionality.
Since the beginning of the 'desktop revolution' in the mid-80s, one thing I've considered a matter of simple professionalism is to maintain at least working familiarity with as many mainstream vector graphics applications as I can. That's why I didn't become a victim when Adobe foisted its Captive Customer licensing scheme.
Affinity can do things Illustrator can't. For just two examples:
It provides a full-blown feature set for mechanically-correct axonometric drawing. To those who know how to use it (and broaden one's money-making skill set with it), that alone is worth the price of all three Affinity applications put together. Affinity's value fields understand a math expression containing more than one operator. (What a concept for one-fifth of the way into the 21st century, 'professional' Illustrator!) Waiting until any given program does everything one wants it to, in precisely the way the single program with which one is proficient does it, is a good way to find oneself behind one's competitors and mission-critically dependent upon a single vendor.
Use the programs you buy for what the can do. If you truly "can't do anything with a program until you get your wish", then why are you wasting your time and breath if you consider the program so 'hopelessly 'unprofessional.' Don't buy them. Don't use them. Get on with your erudite, single-track, blinders-wearing, awe-inspiring career.
JET

Regardless, the request for a hairline stroke weight setting is valid. (It's been brought up before in other threads.)
For those not familiar, a hairline stroke weight always renders at the smallest width possible on the output device, be it your monitor or an imagesetter. This is advantageous when drawing paths in detailed illustrations, during which we are constantly zooming in and out. Having stroke weight set to hairline feels more precise and is less distracting because the stroke weight is always drawn the same, regardless of zoom. The extreme zooming capabilities of Affinity as compared to other programs buttresses the point.
It's a great feature, a standard setting in PostScript, and it should be provided in every vector drawing software.
JET

It's also another "low hanging fruit" opportunity to surpass Illustrator. Throughout the FreeHand vs Illustrator competitive years, FreeHand users knew what a huge advantage it was to work with hairline strokes in the normal full-color interface. The only way to get hairline editing behavior in Illustrator is to put it in its lame Outline Mode.
JET

I’m not an admin but I dare to say what they would say: It’s done when it’s done.
What’s the point of asking when it’s done? Just continue to use Illustrator or whatever until you get the notice that it’s here. It’s not going to come any quicker by constantly asking.

Regardless, the request for a hairline stroke weight setting is valid. (It's been brought up before in other threads.)
For those not familiar, a hairline stroke weight always renders at the smallest width possible on the output device, be it your monitor or an imagesetter. This is advantageous when drawing paths in detailed illustrations, during which we are constantly zooming in and out. Having stroke weight set to hairline feels more precise and is less distracting because the stroke weight is always drawn the same, regardless of zoom. The extreme zooming capabilities of Affinity as compared to other programs buttresses the point.
It's a great feature, a standard setting in PostScript, and it should be provided in every vector drawing software.
JET

Even without a set of dimensioning tools, length and area of a selected path should be provided in the interface of any serious drawing program.
 
JET

For those not familiar:
Illustrator's awkwardly named Merge performs two basic Boolean operations in one move, based on their color:
It Unions touching (abutting or overlapping) fills of the same color. It Punches (subtracts) overlapping fills of different colors. (Frontmost punches others). So it results in the minimal individual paths around visually contiguous regions of the same color.
One common real-world use case for this is when preparing a design for cutting from sign vinyl. In that common workflow, you don't want any cuts across same-colored regions, because as the vinyl shrinks over time, void slivers appear. So the Merge command saves a lot of time and tedium.
However, it addresses just half of that use case: When different colors of a sign vinyl design need to appear to abut, one actually does need a small amount of overlap for the very same reason: It's very difficult to physically perfectly abut different-colored pieces of vinyl when applying it, and even if you could, the eventual shrinkage would again cause slivers between them.
The practical fix is analogous to that of color trapping (chokes, spreads, and overprinting) in print.
So this is yet another opportunity to improve upon an Illustrator feature by addressing its shortcomings instead of just mimicking it in 'me, too' fashion: Such a command should incorporate an Overlap setting that would default to zero, but could be set by the user whenever a trap (parallel to the shapes) is needed. That would address the tedium of having to manually apply Offset Path (in AI) or Contour (in Affinity) to the results of a Merge operation. In other words, the suggested new feature function should incorporate three basic operations (union, subtract, and offset), not just two (union and subtract).
Illustrator could have long since addressed this by providing a checkbox in its Merge command: Respect Manual Traps or Respect Overprinting Strokes. But it doesn't. And its 'Pathfinders' generally ignore strokes anyway. Expand Appearance 'sees' manual traps built in Illustrator, but treats them as 'third' colors instead of as the same color as the spread or choked color.
Another low-hanging-fruit opportunity to surpass Illustrator's functionality by avoiding its endemic characteristic of too many grab-bag standalone features being 'unaware' of each other.
JET

Macro, unlikely. Too many variables. Although Windows applications tend to refer to Visual Basic scripts as 'macros', generally speaking, a macro is just a recording of a sequence of individual performed operations or commands provided in the standard interface, like so-called Actions in Adobe apps. The sequence would likely be different for every piece of artwork, thereby negating the advantage.
Scripting, on the other hand, maybe. But that's far more ambitious. A good scripting implementation provides for variables and conditional logic. But the operative phrase here is "good implementation". I've resorted to writing Javascript to create a substantial collection of 'missing features' in Illustrator, and yes, I am one of those who dearly wants to see Affinity provide a complete and well-documented Javascript object model as soon as its feature set is more fully fleshed-out and stabilized. But even so, it was the continual frustration of scripting AI that I had to resort to it for no-brainer missing functionality like, for just one example, a simple reverse path command. (And no, no one need trot out clicking an endNode with the Pen Tool.)
But  it comes immediately to mind in this context that Illustrator's Javascript (as of CS6, after which I abandoned it because I will not enslave myself nor have my business-critical files held hostage to a software vendor) provides no method for collision detection between paths (something I asked for throughout the years of writing AI scripting). So one might be able to devise into the script a repetitive loop of 'tests' to determine which paths actually overlap. But I'd be gritting my teeth doing that just because the functionality should be in the standard interface.
The use case I described (vinyl cutting) is one in which something akin to Illustrator's Merge command quickly becomes indispensable. But its utility is certainly not limited to that. It's one of the kind of features that a user may not immediately recognize the 'need' for, but will quite likely find many uses for once it is provided. Adding a button and a slider to a Boolean palette would not constitute excessive gratuitous tool-glut.
If one thinks it through, it becomes evident that the so-called Merge Pathfinder is doing essentially much the same thing that the much later so-called Live Paint and Shape Builder features are doing. They're just doing it as a 'live effect' with an elaborate tool interface, instead of by a simple command. Much of Illustrator's tool glut boils down to 're-packaging' of existing functionality with more elaborate interfaces.
Of course it did. And I dare say, like many other things, it probably appeared before Illustrator's trapping functions. But FreeHand did not have a command akin to the one specified in this thread. The Merge command was one of the precious few positives in having to segue to AI after Adobe bought and killed FreeHand.
I'd have to fire up the old bulbous pinstripe Mac G4 relic to verify, but something in my own vague recollection suggests that FreeHand's Boolean path operations could be made to incorporate manually-built traps.
All this is why I continually argue that we need to think beyond Illustrator. Illustrator is just one of the old 'Big Four" (FreeHand, Illustrator, CorelDRAW, Canvas). A lot of redundant clutter lingers from the ad-hoc development since those days and elegance is lost when new offerings just 'copy what [historically] sells.' Elegance is achieved by providing fully thought-through and integrated functional power just beneath a clean, minimalist, but intuitive interface. The clutter of the older apps is nowadays nothing to emulate.
My favorite example of the 'everybody now does it, so it must be right' fallacy is the now omnipresent confused, always-shifting, schizophrenic  'Bar' that can't decided whether it's a Tools Option Bar or a Commands Bar. Every graphics software developer should be required to understand and experience the advantage of FreeHand's incomparable Inspector Palette. (Closest thing to it in any program I use is in the Layout Mode of FileMaker Pro; a database program, of all things.)
JET

For those not familiar:
Illustrator's awkwardly named Merge performs two basic Boolean operations in one move, based on their color:
It Unions touching (abutting or overlapping) fills of the same color. It Punches (subtracts) overlapping fills of different colors. (Frontmost punches others). So it results in the minimal individual paths around visually contiguous regions of the same color.
One common real-world use case for this is when preparing a design for cutting from sign vinyl. In that common workflow, you don't want any cuts across same-colored regions, because as the vinyl shrinks over time, void slivers appear. So the Merge command saves a lot of time and tedium.
However, it addresses just half of that use case: When different colors of a sign vinyl design need to appear to abut, one actually does need a small amount of overlap for the very same reason: It's very difficult to physically perfectly abut different-colored pieces of vinyl when applying it, and even if you could, the eventual shrinkage would again cause slivers between them.
The practical fix is analogous to that of color trapping (chokes, spreads, and overprinting) in print.
So this is yet another opportunity to improve upon an Illustrator feature by addressing its shortcomings instead of just mimicking it in 'me, too' fashion: Such a command should incorporate an Overlap setting that would default to zero, but could be set by the user whenever a trap (parallel to the shapes) is needed. That would address the tedium of having to manually apply Offset Path (in AI) or Contour (in Affinity) to the results of a Merge operation. In other words, the suggested new feature function should incorporate three basic operations (union, subtract, and offset), not just two (union and subtract).
Illustrator could have long since addressed this by providing a checkbox in its Merge command: Respect Manual Traps or Respect Overprinting Strokes. But it doesn't. And its 'Pathfinders' generally ignore strokes anyway. Expand Appearance 'sees' manual traps built in Illustrator, but treats them as 'third' colors instead of as the same color as the spread or choked color.
Another low-hanging-fruit opportunity to surpass Illustrator's functionality by avoiding its endemic characteristic of too many grab-bag standalone features being 'unaware' of each other.
JET

For those not familiar:
Illustrator's awkwardly named Merge performs two basic Boolean operations in one move, based on their color:
It Unions touching (abutting or overlapping) fills of the same color. It Punches (subtracts) overlapping fills of different colors. (Frontmost punches others). So it results in the minimal individual paths around visually contiguous regions of the same color.
One common real-world use case for this is when preparing a design for cutting from sign vinyl. In that common workflow, you don't want any cuts across same-colored regions, because as the vinyl shrinks over time, void slivers appear. So the Merge command saves a lot of time and tedium.
However, it addresses just half of that use case: When different colors of a sign vinyl design need to appear to abut, one actually does need a small amount of overlap for the very same reason: It's very difficult to physically perfectly abut different-colored pieces of vinyl when applying it, and even if you could, the eventual shrinkage would again cause slivers between them.
The practical fix is analogous to that of color trapping (chokes, spreads, and overprinting) in print.
So this is yet another opportunity to improve upon an Illustrator feature by addressing its shortcomings instead of just mimicking it in 'me, too' fashion: Such a command should incorporate an Overlap setting that would default to zero, but could be set by the user whenever a trap (parallel to the shapes) is needed. That would address the tedium of having to manually apply Offset Path (in AI) or Contour (in Affinity) to the results of a Merge operation. In other words, the suggested new feature function should incorporate three basic operations (union, subtract, and offset), not just two (union and subtract).
Illustrator could have long since addressed this by providing a checkbox in its Merge command: Respect Manual Traps or Respect Overprinting Strokes. But it doesn't. And its 'Pathfinders' generally ignore strokes anyway. Expand Appearance 'sees' manual traps built in Illustrator, but treats them as 'third' colors instead of as the same color as the spread or choked color.
Another low-hanging-fruit opportunity to surpass Illustrator's functionality by avoiding its endemic characteristic of too many grab-bag standalone features being 'unaware' of each other.
JET

For those not familiar:
Illustrator's awkwardly named Merge performs two basic Boolean operations in one move, based on their color:
It Unions touching (abutting or overlapping) fills of the same color. It Punches (subtracts) overlapping fills of different colors. (Frontmost punches others). So it results in the minimal individual paths around visually contiguous regions of the same color.
One common real-world use case for this is when preparing a design for cutting from sign vinyl. In that common workflow, you don't want any cuts across same-colored regions, because as the vinyl shrinks over time, void slivers appear. So the Merge command saves a lot of time and tedium.
However, it addresses just half of that use case: When different colors of a sign vinyl design need to appear to abut, one actually does need a small amount of overlap for the very same reason: It's very difficult to physically perfectly abut different-colored pieces of vinyl when applying it, and even if you could, the eventual shrinkage would again cause slivers between them.
The practical fix is analogous to that of color trapping (chokes, spreads, and overprinting) in print.
So this is yet another opportunity to improve upon an Illustrator feature by addressing its shortcomings instead of just mimicking it in 'me, too' fashion: Such a command should incorporate an Overlap setting that would default to zero, but could be set by the user whenever a trap (parallel to the shapes) is needed. That would address the tedium of having to manually apply Offset Path (in AI) or Contour (in Affinity) to the results of a Merge operation. In other words, the suggested new feature function should incorporate three basic operations (union, subtract, and offset), not just two (union and subtract).
Illustrator could have long since addressed this by providing a checkbox in its Merge command: Respect Manual Traps or Respect Overprinting Strokes. But it doesn't. And its 'Pathfinders' generally ignore strokes anyway. Expand Appearance 'sees' manual traps built in Illustrator, but treats them as 'third' colors instead of as the same color as the spread or choked color.
Another low-hanging-fruit opportunity to surpass Illustrator's functionality by avoiding its endemic characteristic of too many grab-bag standalone features being 'unaware' of each other.
JET

For those not familiar:
Illustrator's awkwardly named Merge performs two basic Boolean operations in one move, based on their color:
It Unions touching (abutting or overlapping) fills of the same color. It Punches (subtracts) overlapping fills of different colors. (Frontmost punches others). So it results in the minimal individual paths around visually contiguous regions of the same color.
One common real-world use case for this is when preparing a design for cutting from sign vinyl. In that common workflow, you don't want any cuts across same-colored regions, because as the vinyl shrinks over time, void slivers appear. So the Merge command saves a lot of time and tedium.
However, it addresses just half of that use case: When different colors of a sign vinyl design need to appear to abut, one actually does need a small amount of overlap for the very same reason: It's very difficult to physically perfectly abut different-colored pieces of vinyl when applying it, and even if you could, the eventual shrinkage would again cause slivers between them.
The practical fix is analogous to that of color trapping (chokes, spreads, and overprinting) in print.
So this is yet another opportunity to improve upon an Illustrator feature by addressing its shortcomings instead of just mimicking it in 'me, too' fashion: Such a command should incorporate an Overlap setting that would default to zero, but could be set by the user whenever a trap (parallel to the shapes) is needed. That would address the tedium of having to manually apply Offset Path (in AI) or Contour (in Affinity) to the results of a Merge operation. In other words, the suggested new feature function should incorporate three basic operations (union, subtract, and offset), not just two (union and subtract).
Illustrator could have long since addressed this by providing a checkbox in its Merge command: Respect Manual Traps or Respect Overprinting Strokes. But it doesn't. And its 'Pathfinders' generally ignore strokes anyway. Expand Appearance 'sees' manual traps built in Illustrator, but treats them as 'third' colors instead of as the same color as the spread or choked color.
Another low-hanging-fruit opportunity to surpass Illustrator's functionality by avoiding its endemic characteristic of too many grab-bag standalone features being 'unaware' of each other.
JET

For those not familiar:
Illustrator's awkwardly named Merge performs two basic Boolean operations in one move, based on their color:
It Unions touching (abutting or overlapping) fills of the same color. It Punches (subtracts) overlapping fills of different colors. (Frontmost punches others). So it results in the minimal individual paths around visually contiguous regions of the same color.
One common real-world use case for this is when preparing a design for cutting from sign vinyl. In that common workflow, you don't want any cuts across same-colored regions, because as the vinyl shrinks over time, void slivers appear. So the Merge command saves a lot of time and tedium.
However, it addresses just half of that use case: When different colors of a sign vinyl design need to appear to abut, one actually does need a small amount of overlap for the very same reason: It's very difficult to physically perfectly abut different-colored pieces of vinyl when applying it, and even if you could, the eventual shrinkage would again cause slivers between them.
The practical fix is analogous to that of color trapping (chokes, spreads, and overprinting) in print.
So this is yet another opportunity to improve upon an Illustrator feature by addressing its shortcomings instead of just mimicking it in 'me, too' fashion: Such a command should incorporate an Overlap setting that would default to zero, but could be set by the user whenever a trap (parallel to the shapes) is needed. That would address the tedium of having to manually apply Offset Path (in AI) or Contour (in Affinity) to the results of a Merge operation. In other words, the suggested new feature function should incorporate three basic operations (union, subtract, and offset), not just two (union and subtract).
Illustrator could have long since addressed this by providing a checkbox in its Merge command: Respect Manual Traps or Respect Overprinting Strokes. But it doesn't. And its 'Pathfinders' generally ignore strokes anyway. Expand Appearance 'sees' manual traps built in Illustrator, but treats them as 'third' colors instead of as the same color as the spread or choked color.
Another low-hanging-fruit opportunity to surpass Illustrator's functionality by avoiding its endemic characteristic of too many grab-bag standalone features being 'unaware' of each other.
JET

For those not familiar:
Illustrator's awkwardly named Merge performs two basic Boolean operations in one move, based on their color:
It Unions touching (abutting or overlapping) fills of the same color. It Punches (subtracts) overlapping fills of different colors. (Frontmost punches others). So it results in the minimal individual paths around visually contiguous regions of the same color.
One common real-world use case for this is when preparing a design for cutting from sign vinyl. In that common workflow, you don't want any cuts across same-colored regions, because as the vinyl shrinks over time, void slivers appear. So the Merge command saves a lot of time and tedium.
However, it addresses just half of that use case: When different colors of a sign vinyl design need to appear to abut, one actually does need a small amount of overlap for the very same reason: It's very difficult to physically perfectly abut different-colored pieces of vinyl when applying it, and even if you could, the eventual shrinkage would again cause slivers between them.
The practical fix is analogous to that of color trapping (chokes, spreads, and overprinting) in print.
So this is yet another opportunity to improve upon an Illustrator feature by addressing its shortcomings instead of just mimicking it in 'me, too' fashion: Such a command should incorporate an Overlap setting that would default to zero, but could be set by the user whenever a trap (parallel to the shapes) is needed. That would address the tedium of having to manually apply Offset Path (in AI) or Contour (in Affinity) to the results of a Merge operation. In other words, the suggested new feature function should incorporate three basic operations (union, subtract, and offset), not just two (union and subtract).
Illustrator could have long since addressed this by providing a checkbox in its Merge command: Respect Manual Traps or Respect Overprinting Strokes. But it doesn't. And its 'Pathfinders' generally ignore strokes anyway. Expand Appearance 'sees' manual traps built in Illustrator, but treats them as 'third' colors instead of as the same color as the spread or choked color.
Another low-hanging-fruit opportunity to surpass Illustrator's functionality by avoiding its endemic characteristic of too many grab-bag standalone features being 'unaware' of each other.
JET

For clarity, I certainly hope no one is asking for this to be a default behavior.
I do not want an endNode of a path to auto-join to another path just because I drag it to within pick distance of another path's end. There are countless situations in illustration in which one draws coincident paths that should not be joined. Look no further than paths of different weights, color, or other style attributes that nonetheless need to have coincident ends. What about when more than two endNodes are coincident? How is the program supposed to know which path I would want it to auto-join to?
The auto-joining behavior of Adobe Illustrator's Pen, for example, is one of its most infuriatingly intrusive stumbling blocks. To avoid its infernal insistence on auto-joining to other deselected paths when drawing, you actually have to invoke this ridiculous override:
Mousedown somewhere that you don't want the next node to be Press and hold the spacebar Drag to where you do want it the node to be Mouseup Release the spacebar A path drawing tool is not a selection tool, and should not act like one. It has no business affecting unselected paths just because you need to place a node within pick distance of another path's endnode. Nor should it occur when just dragging an endNode.
At most, any such behavior should have to be invoked by a keyboard shortcut. It should not be default behavior.
The  task of cleaning up DXF files is an oft-cited use case, and one with which I am quite familiar, having been doing technical illustration since well before personal computers. But it's still a specifically vertical use case; nothing that should be cited to justify a default behavior. Other programs accommodate it with separate, explicitly-invoked menu commands. You select the paths you want to be affected and then invoke the joining command (with whatever parameters offered in a dialog). If that's what you're recommending, I'm fine with it. But auto-joining as default behavior is bad.
JET

For clarity, I certainly hope no one is asking for this to be a default behavior.
I do not want an endNode of a path to auto-join to another path just because I drag it to within pick distance of another path's end. There are countless situations in illustration in which one draws coincident paths that should not be joined. Look no further than paths of different weights, color, or other style attributes that nonetheless need to have coincident ends. What about when more than two endNodes are coincident? How is the program supposed to know which path I would want it to auto-join to?
The auto-joining behavior of Adobe Illustrator's Pen, for example, is one of its most infuriatingly intrusive stumbling blocks. To avoid its infernal insistence on auto-joining to other deselected paths when drawing, you actually have to invoke this ridiculous override:
Mousedown somewhere that you don't want the next node to be Press and hold the spacebar Drag to where you do want it the node to be Mouseup Release the spacebar A path drawing tool is not a selection tool, and should not act like one. It has no business affecting unselected paths just because you need to place a node within pick distance of another path's endnode. Nor should it occur when just dragging an endNode.
At most, any such behavior should have to be invoked by a keyboard shortcut. It should not be default behavior.
The  task of cleaning up DXF files is an oft-cited use case, and one with which I am quite familiar, having been doing technical illustration since well before personal computers. But it's still a specifically vertical use case; nothing that should be cited to justify a default behavior. Other programs accommodate it with separate, explicitly-invoked menu commands. You select the paths you want to be affected and then invoke the joining command (with whatever parameters offered in a dialog). If that's what you're recommending, I'm fine with it. But auto-joining as default behavior is bad.
JET

For clarity, I certainly hope no one is asking for this to be a default behavior.
I do not want an endNode of a path to auto-join to another path just because I drag it to within pick distance of another path's end. There are countless situations in illustration in which one draws coincident paths that should not be joined. Look no further than paths of different weights, color, or other style attributes that nonetheless need to have coincident ends. What about when more than two endNodes are coincident? How is the program supposed to know which path I would want it to auto-join to?
The auto-joining behavior of Adobe Illustrator's Pen, for example, is one of its most infuriatingly intrusive stumbling blocks. To avoid its infernal insistence on auto-joining to other deselected paths when drawing, you actually have to invoke this ridiculous override:
Mousedown somewhere that you don't want the next node to be Press and hold the spacebar Drag to where you do want it the node to be Mouseup Release the spacebar A path drawing tool is not a selection tool, and should not act like one. It has no business affecting unselected paths just because you need to place a node within pick distance of another path's endnode. Nor should it occur when just dragging an endNode.
At most, any such behavior should have to be invoked by a keyboard shortcut. It should not be default behavior.
The  task of cleaning up DXF files is an oft-cited use case, and one with which I am quite familiar, having been doing technical illustration since well before personal computers. But it's still a specifically vertical use case; nothing that should be cited to justify a default behavior. Other programs accommodate it with separate, explicitly-invoked menu commands. You select the paths you want to be affected and then invoke the joining command (with whatever parameters offered in a dialog). If that's what you're recommending, I'm fine with it. But auto-joining as default behavior is bad.
JET

So I am new to Affinity. 
I was an Adobe user and recently upgraded to the apple 2021 macbook.
I was using the Adobe CS6 suite to do all my design work and photo editing. When I got my new macbook I learned my pre-purchased Adobe CS6 did not support the new m1 chip so was facing the decision to pay a monthly Adobe subscription of $53(USD) per month forever! After 5 years, this would have amounted to $3180 (USD). That just seems so unreasonable to me because I feel I am 'priced out' of trying to design. 
Cue Affinity, the life-savers! 
Now that I've been using Affinity, Adobe couldn't pay me to switch back. Smart and thoughtful design + accessible honest pricing. It's also exciting to work with something new and robust like Affinity.
This is what design is all about.