hawk

You can also hold space or switch to the view tool [H] if you just want to temporarily get a clear view.

you are safe when opening a file via „open“.
In case the layer is created by „place“ or „pasted“ into an exiting document it is often misaligned, or will be enlarged or reduced. 

Please keep in mind to check layer size, position, rotation etc. you should add one extra step and rasterize the lower layer before merging them in case of:
fractional position Layer DPI not matching documnet DPI layer rotated or sheared. otherwise result of merge will be blurry.
so in general to be safe:
rasterize lower layer group both layers rasterize group

Group both layers, and use rasterize.

I just uncheck Editable on the composite alpha.
Am i missing something?

Looking good! Question, how will we be able to access the API for different operators inside of Affinity? One thing I always appreciated when using Blender and Maya is that every action taken is actually recorded as a coding command. I.e. changing the position of an object, using modifiers, etc. get recorded in a timeline and you can also right click any button, slider, etc. to copy the code to run that operator. Would really help open up the API to casual coders if we can very clearly see what code we need to do specific stuff.
Also, will switching modes be supported as well? For instance, let's say I am doing something in Designer/Designer Persona and I wish to access Photo/Photo Persona for specific operators, will I be able to program it so Affinity opens up what I need to access it if I own the necessary software?
Would be cool as well if we could create new operators that can be put into the current UI and even make shortcuts for them in all the accessible menus. 
I happen to know a guy who wishes to get started on a basic animation timeline for Affinity once there is a scripting API established. Will that be possible too? 

Yes, there will be some notion of a plugin / add-on package and they won't have to be single-execution-and-stop scripts like in these examples.
I'm not in a position to promise anything (even with the bribe of a cuppa) but we have done some work on panels because it feels like having some built-in support for UI would be of value.

Fine, even you are at early stages here, I hope you can make some good fluid progress.
Let's give you one two ideas, of what capabilities/possibilities would be fine to have here in conjunction some day in the future then too.
Not just relying on an internal (inside the GUI apps) execution engine. Meaning here, it would be nice to also be able to execute JS scripts via common CLI command line based execution processing, so without having to start the GUI always at all. - In this context think about how one would use ImageMagick here. Offering to reuse also external JS modules together for interoperation. Offering to hook in with, or to run inside a debugger, for the development of more complex scripts. So one can set breakpoints, inspect values, single step into and over the JS code etc.

YES! That sounds amazing. Thank you so much!

Apps: Affinity Publisher
Platforms: Windows and macOS
Cross-references are a field inserted into text that refers to another object or piece of text. If the current document is a chapter of a book, cross-references can refer to objects or text from other chapters.
You can insert a cross-reference by using Text > Cross References > Insert Cross-Reference, or by using the right-click menu on text. If a cross-reference is already selected, these options change to Edit Cross-Reference instead. Either way brings up a panel to set the cross-reference properties. The first group of properties are about the target of the cross-reference. This can either be an existing anchor, or a text paragraph. (If you cross-reference to a paragraph, it will automatically create an anchor at the start of the paragraph.) The second group of properties are about how the cross-reference will be displayed. These include as the target page number, section name, and the content of paragraphs. By using several cross-reference fields you can build up text like, “See footnote 2 on page 12, below”.
The Window > References > Cross-References menu option will display a Studio panel that lists the cross-references from the current document. From here you can go to the cross-reference itself, or its target. (This will open other book chapters if necessary.) You can also update cross-reference text from here — they don’t update automatically.
Settings > Cross-References has options for controlling the text used for showing relative positions “above” and “below” (these will use the language of the text they are in rather than the UI, for support of bilingual documents).

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
A number of suggestions have been taken on with guides...

1. When you move a guide by dragging it on a document you will now see both the position of the guide relative to the ruler origin (as before) as well as the distance from the guide's previous position. So this means if, for example, you just want to move a guide 10mm you can achieve that easily without having to change the ruler origin.


2.When dragging a guide, holding Shift will now snap the guide to ruler marks. As this is based on ruler marks this also means the further you are zoomed the granularity of the Shift-constrained snap increases. Shift will snap based on the distance from origin, Shift-Alt will snap to the delta distance.
3. If you hold Alt or Command (Ctrl on windows) before dragging a guide that will now create a copy of the guide.
4. If you drag a new guide from rulers then guide visibility will automatically be toggled on (if it was set to off).
5. Alt-clicking on any guide will delete the guide.
6. Double clicking on an existing guide will now open the guide manager dialog (with the guide you had double clicked having focus in that dialog.
 
Please note: on iPad you will need to use an attached keyboard or use the command controller (if not visible you can toggle it on from the document menu) to access the modifiers. Also worth bearing in mind that Alt is the global modifier for ignore snapping, so if you create a copy of a guide using Alt while you still hold Alt snapping will be disabled.
Please let us know what you think or if you spot any problems with this new functionality.

Apps: Photo
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
A number of improvements have been made to the crop tool based on customer feedback:
Crop to selection. If you have a pixel selection active the crop tool will now initiate to be a min fit around the selection you have. After a crop the current zoom level will be maintained (rather than automatically zooming to fit as previously). From various feedback this was considered preferable behaviour and leaving it to the user to choose if they want to zoom to fit after (cmd-0 or hitting zoom icon in the top toolbar of iPad). The Crop tool now remembers the last setting globally, so if you wish to apply the same ratio crop to a number of images it's much easier. You can now drag anywhere on the bounding box edges to resize the crop, rather than having to drag from a handle. Enter as well as Return will now commit a crop Escape will reset the current crop In unconstrained mode, holding Shift will constrain the current aspect ratio and Cmd (Ctrl on Windows) will resize around the centre When you rotate / use straighten feature in crop tool it will now automatically adjust crop box to fit. Please let us know what you think or if you spot any issues or have any feedback on this new behaviour.

Hi, I'll attach a video to show the result,

it doesn't seem to apply correctly, considering the colors of connected shapes.

But I see when the Shape is Empty it works nice,
but when having color actually the Color tolerance doesn't seem to be used.

Is a bug, or am I doing something wrong? 😅
2023-02-17 07-23-43.mp4    

MacOS Catalina, with "Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls" active (System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts)
activate Crop in Unconstrained mode, click into the X size field and enter a value press Tab to commit and to move focus to the Y size field focus totally lost… It happens only on first use after the Crop tool has been activated. On a subsequent click into one of the fields, the focus is then kept, incl. Apply/Cancel buttons.
This issue already exists in v2.0.4 (don't remember 2.0.0 and 2.0.3)
It works as expected in v1.10.6, although it needs two tabs to move from X size field to Y size field. But at least it doesn't lose focus.
It also works as expected "Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls" turned off, but then it simply toggles between the X/Y fields, without having Tab access to the other checkboxes and buttons.

I would love if this also applied to straightening photos within the crop tool. I would like an option for the crop tool to automatically adjust to the picture while straightening it - just like in Apple Photos. Right now it is extremely difficult to exactly match the borders of a straightened picture with the crop tool.

Example2.mov    

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
With any layer(s) selected in the Layers panel, you can now hold alt (Windows) or Option (Mac / iPad) and drag to create a copy of the selected layers. The duplicated layers will be inserted into the layer stack in the position you have dragged to.
Note: on iPad you will need a keyboard attached, or use the command controller to access the option modifier for this operation.

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
In all apps you can use the Option (macOS and iPad) or Alt (Windows) modifier on the expand chevron in the layers panel. If you hold the modifier that will now expand all groups, layers and other nested items within the parent, and going the other way will collapse them all. This provides a more convenient / accessible way to achieve the "Expand Selection" and "Collapse Selection" options which are available in the right click layers menu on desktop. For iPad this is the first time this function has been available at all (requires using the ⌥ modifier with command controller, or ⌥ key on a connected keyboard.

I bought Affinity Suite 2 immediately and was very happy to see this story continue.
But now, I will continue in my projects with V1 in the near future and observe further developments.

Good:

There are really some basic improvements and enhancements that will be very useful in future work. And I'm sure there will also be new developments in V2, which I'm looking forward to.

Bad:

This hype, overstaged by Serif, has not done the reputation of the software any good. Professional users were left completely in uncertainty for months as to whether this software would be further developed, discontinued or completely changed. No roadmap, no info, no beta phase.

Now these unfortunate problems with the app installation, which has irritated many users who now have to realise the workflow with other programmes in workarounds.

Also bad is the online activation requirement, which affects everyone who does not connect their computer to the internet for security reasons. But this will also lead to problems in the future, as we know them from Adobe. Activation servers can no longer be reached after a few years, the purchased software can no longer be used on new hardware.

Conclusion:

It was exactly these advantages of version 1 (no online activation requirement, user-friendly installation, easy integration into existing workflows) that made Affinity programmes attractive to many professional users. In V2 these features are reduced step by step and I think this is not a good way. My enjoyment of new features is very limited as a result.

Wishes:

- Standard installer version

- Backwards compatibility from V2 to V1 (saving under V1 version even with the loss of features)

- IDML export


 
Sorry, my English is bad. Translated with DeepL

This is a suggestion, I feel more confortable buying a software that I know I can "own" and no servers are needed to activate.
I own a legal copy of Adobe CS3 Web Premium, have the box and everything and after I couldnt install it recently contacted Adobe. They shut down the servers, so people with a legal copy cant activate the software... (needed a software which they no longer sell even in subscription)
Or maybe a promise that we get offline activation at the end of the V2 lifecycle?

It is a bit of a mixed bag right now, in this initial 2.0 release.
There are indeed some important additions, such as footnotes/endnotes, as well as some very nice smaller touches (such as being able to drag the FX icons between layers to copy the layer FX from one to another).
Sadly there are also a few important things that were dropped, such as separated mode on the Mac (this makes little difference to me personally right now but it will be a major impact on many other users, as the "replacement" is simply not practical for many situations and workflows) and the ability to unlock the software offline (which will impact anyone who needs to keep their working computer off the internet for security reasons).
Not everything was added that we might have hoped for, the UI reskin has both positive and negative aspects to it (some of which will vary depending on who you ask), but for the most part and for many users it is a solid upgrade, though not nearly what the hype would suggest.
For some users it is no longer a viable tool for working where version 1 might have been, for others it is a major step forward, depending on the specific needs of that user.

If by "cursor tool" you mean the tool with same arrow-shaped icon as the Move Tool, on my Mac its tooltip calls it the "Slice Selection Tool." 

But from what I can tell experimentally (because I cannot find any mention of it in the built-in help) it isn't a slice selection tool at all. Instead it is a layer selection tool. So it is easily the worst named & documented tool in any Affinity app! 
The Slice Tool behaves differently if you click vs. click & drag. If you just click without dragging on an existing slice, the cursor changes to the 4 arrows pointing outward from a box one & then it acts like the Move Tool, revealing the control handles of the selected slice so you can resize it or drag it to a new position. If instead you click & drag it will create a new slice.
You can also toggle between the move & new slice modes by shift-clicking on an existing slice.
The status bar shows the various options for the Slice Tool but it still can be a bit confusing because of the odd choice for the name of the Slice Selection Tool.

AFAIK taking money again for a new release was not designed in to the Mac App Store or Microsoft Store architecture. A company cannot charge for a new version of something once purchased, and all "updates" are free. I think both stores expect the software company to make a new product that can be bought fresh or only ever make new software sales to new customers. Without the concept of a paid-for new version of AppX, the only option is to have "AppX" and "AppX ver2” as independent apps on the store.
That makes "AppX ver2” a new purchase, but worse still, neither company has a discount scheme that takes into account ownership of "AppX". Quite incredible in my opinion.
There is only ever one price for an application on the Mac App Store and the Microsoft Store, so you cannot easily offer a discount code for a new application either.
The software house can choose to leave AppX on the store available to buy after you release "AppX ver2" or not, but neither store has a built-in mechanism for an upgrade process. Biggest software companies in the world and they haven't got this sorted (smh).
IMHO to avoid the consequences of these design decisions by Microsoft and Apple, when Serif release a new version of Affinity apps on these stores (and our own store) we will need to be creative and/or generous in order to be seen as fair to our existing and new customers.

Thanks for your discerning inquiry!
I think there would always be a single source of truth for the brush size, which would be either in document pixels or screen pixels, depending on which works best for the developers. The text box would always show document pixels like it does now. Then if you enabled it, nothing would happen until you zoomed in or out, and you'd see the brush size automatically change proportional to the change in zoom level.
Likewise, when you turned it off, nothing would immediately happen. It would just keep the brush size fixed relative to the document, and the cursor brush outline would scale when zoomed, as is the case today.
So to answer all three of your questions, toggling the option on or off would preserve the current size, and the app would not keep track of two different settings. (This is how it works in Blender, by the way.)
How does that sound to you?
A small toggle button would be good. Not sure about the icon but a zoom lens kind of makes sense to me.

For MacBooks without keypad:
⌘⇞ is FN+COMMAND+ARROW_UP
⌘⇟ is FN+COMMAND+ARROW_DOWN

❤️@TonyB Great news! Thank you for officially confirming this. It's a lot of reassurance for us scripting people to know it's on the horizon, even if it takes a lot of waiting.
Good move on JS support IMHO, as it onboards the existing Adobe scripters with the necessary DTP expertise, and a lot of the frontend guys.