shushustorm

____________________________________________________________________________________________________ EDIT: I edited this topic's title to "Sync only some Symbols" This is the issue: - Currently, you can temporarily stop syncing symbols. During that time, you can edit some values of any singular instance of a symbol, which don't reflect on other instances. Those values are kept to the individual instance that you made the changes on. When enabling syncing again, all the other values are being synced again. However, when temporarily stopping the syncing process, you can only edit one instance each time. Within the video I showed: ( https://www.shushustorm.com/_Uploads/Serif/iOS/1_10/SyncNewSymbolsInstanceToSelection.mp4 ) - The top left: Original arrangement using original symbols - The bottom right: Duplicate of the original arrangement -> "new arrangement" - The bottom left: New graphic that's supposed to be used in the "new arrangement" instead of its current graphic. After doing so, I still want to be able to change, for example, the first arrangement's rotations or scales, colors,... and those should be reflected in the second arrangement's rotations, scales, colors,.... This is what I suggest: - Being able to set and remove a _____ continuous syncing tag _____ on a selection so that the selection, if the tag is present, still does sync even when syncing is turned off. In my case, I could then add said tag to the "new arrangement", then disable syncing, change the graphic for all the instances of the "new arrangement" by just editing one of them, then enable syncing again and everything would be synced again with just the "new arrangement" using the new graphic. This feature would make things much more flexible. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Original title: "Sync new Symbols instance to selection" Original text: Hey everyone! For my usage, the symbol feature can be quite limiting at times. I want to make some of the instances of a symbol use a different symbol. Here is a video showing the scenario: https://www.shushustorm.com/_Uploads/Serif/iOS/1_10/SyncNewSymbolsInstanceToSelection.mp4 (I want the lower right arrangement to use the new shape for its instances, but not break the instances, so that I can still edit them and everything mirrors to both the first arrangement as well as the second one.) Right now, unfortunately, it seems the only solution to this is to duplicate the file and change the symbol there. However, even then, copying and pasting the symbol to the original file will overwrite the original symbol there. It'd be great to be able to either - explicitly being able to set a new instance to a selection, as I already mentioned or - to be able to stop syncing for anything else than the selection, creating a new instance on the fly. When thinking about it, I guess the second option would be even preferrable. Best wishes, Shu

Hey @Dan C No worries! I made two videos of the gesture issues. - One is a very general one, which this topic isn't specifically about, but here it is: https://www.shushustorm.com/_Uploads/Serif/iOS/1_10/ClunkyGestureBehaviour1.mp4 - The other one, which this topic is about, is panning not resulting in panning, but rather zooming. I have encountered much more severe situations, but with the limited time I invested in trying to record this, I was able to capture the following (5th gesture attempt): https://www.shushustorm.com/_Uploads/Serif/iOS/1_10/ClunkyGestureBehaviour2.mp4 As you see, the canvas doesn't pan as it should. In many cases when this happens, I get significantly oversteered zoom in instead of panning. In this case, the zoom wasn't too severe, but it does happen and it's quite annoying. I am using iPad mini 5, iOS 14.5.1, Affinity Designer 1.10.3.ipa (but from the Preferences window it states 1.10.19). I am using my fingers only, so I am not using any pencil, or any screen protector for that matter. Best wishes, Shu For reference on the more general issue, since I also included a video for that one:

Hey everyone! That's outstandingly annoying, making quite the bad UX: https://www.shushustorm.com/_Uploads/Serif/iOS/1_10/NewFileGettingKickedOutOfFullscreen.mov I am using macOS 10.13.6 and Designer 1.10.4. Best wishes, Shu

Hey @stokerg Here you go: https://www.shushustorm.com/_Uploads/Serif/iOS/1_10/SymbolSyncIssues.mp4 https://www.shushustorm.com/_Uploads/Serif/iOS/1_10/SymbolSyncIssues.afdesign I am using iPad mini 5, iOS 14.5.1, Affinity Designer 1.10.3.ipa (but from the Preferences window it states 1.10.19).

Hey everyone! When setting the blend mode to Erase, I am getting different results for different instances of the symbol. When I close the file and open it again, all the instances will show the same as the one I selected the Erase blend mode on. Here is a video showing the issue: https://www.shushustorm.com/_Uploads/Serif/iOS/1_10/SymbolEraseBlendModeInconsistent.mp4 I am using iPad mini 5, iOS 14.5.1, Affinity Designer 1.10.3.ipa (but from the Preferences window it states 1.10.19). Best wishes, Shu

Hey everyone! Since upgrading from 1.7.1 to 1.10, I am having symbol sync issues. Some layers within a symbol will break their symbol links when - Deactivate some layers within a symbol - Temporarely disable syncing symbols - Activate some of the deactivated layers within the symbol - Enable syncing the symbols again -> Now, activating or deactivating layers within the symbol will only rarely (seemingly random layers; but when the issue starts, lways the same show the issue) result in activating or deactivating across the symbol instances. When it's not mirrored, only the instance that I am currently activating the layers within will show those layers. Trying to re enable the behaviour by deleting the layers and pasting them again will result in the deletion of all the layers within each instance. So the link ins't broken completely, but only for its activation state. I'm not sure this issue is completely new, but it's horrible to work with. Best wishes, Shu

Hey everyone! Since upgrading from 1.7.1 to 1.10, I am getting quite some clunky gesture behaviour. Most of the time, when trying to pan, the gesture isn't recognized as such and Designer will zoom instead. Best wishes, Shu

Thanks for the reply! Updated to 1.10.4. Crash still happening, wrong order still happening. In Designer and Publisher as well. Unfortunately. Need to keep the OS, though, for compatibility reasons.

Hey everyone! I am having two severe issues when trying to use color palettes, both being repeatable reliably without being able to use a workaround: - Affinity Photo will crash - The order of the colors isn't right And one issue shows up, which is minor, but confusing: - Setting the number for the colors to be generated, then pressing "Preview", doesn't preview and you have to instead use the slider. I made a video showing all the issues: https://www.shushustorm.com/_Uploads/Serif/macOS/1_10_1/PaletteIssues.mov Here is the file that I tried to import: https://www.shushustorm.com/_Uploads/Serif/macOS/1_10_1/texture0001.png The other file ( https://www.shushustorm.com/_Uploads/Serif/macOS/1_10_1/texture0001_43.png ) is just for the meta info of how many swatches are included in the first file, so I specified 1 more than that because of the black background. Note that the preview shows the right order, but it's wrong once imported! Also, Photo doesn't launch again by itself; I am using a shortcut to invoke it. I faced those within Affinity Photo, but may be an issue within Designer and Publisher as well. I am using Affinity Photo 1.10.1 on macOS 10.13.6. Best wishes, Shu

I uploaded a modified file that reduces everything to the core issue (the original file is rather large, but the issue can be reproduced within this small file as well). Also, I included the images as well as screenshots of the export settings in the .zip. I'm not online here very often, but if you need any more info, I specified an email address!

Hey everyone! Since updating from 1.7.1 to 1.10, I am having huge issues: When trying to export to .pdf, I get white lines around some (most, but not all, for whatever reason) images that use transparencies. Besides this, the exported file size is about 3 to 4 times larger than when using my previous Publisher version (10,1MB VS 38,1MB)! I needed to change a Publisher file that I already had from version 1.7.1. I had a .pdf export from that version as well and I also still had notes that stated which quality settings I used for exporting said .pdf. I used the exact same export settings using 1.10, but those issues showed up. I have made heavy text content changes on the document - quite some time investment! -, and the file size should even go down, since I deleted a lot of images from the original 1.7.1 file. And now the worst thing: I thought I might just go back to the previous version of Publisher, which I made a backup of for situations like this. Trying to open the modified file there results in a message saying it seems corrupted. I tried updating to 1.10.1 to no avail. Time wasted very much. Horrible. Best wishes, Shu _____ EDIT: I even tried to export using no JPG compression, so that the white borders may go away. Didn't improve anything; file size just increased to 48MB. EDIT 2: I disabled "Overprint black" - whatever that means - and there are no white outlines anymore. Not sure this is intended or if that's just a coincidence, but it seems to work. I reduced the file size by downsampling a lot. I got a file now that I need, but still; quality isn't the greatest and the outline "solution" still seems sketchy. EDIT 3: Turned out the "Overprint black" didn't solve the issue. It was just a random encounter of sporadically not making the lines appear. Further exports, while trying to increase quality at considerably low file size, also showed the white lines even with "Overprint black" disabled. EDIT 4: Alright, it seems the white lines go away when rasterizing to 72DPI*. Why? Don't know. File size: 5,2MB. Quality: Bad. But acceptable. 30 minutes is more than enough of trying to do a pdf export. On my end, case closed. Still, quite the bad experience. (*for my original exports, I used 440DPI) _____ From the exported PDF: Within Publisher:

+1 It's much too bright using the dark UI theme.

Hey everyone! When importing a symbol from another file (copy and paste), Designer crashes. I am using iPad mini 5, iOS 13.4.1, Designer 1.7.1. Best wishes, Shu

Hey everyone! The background color is bright even though the normal UI is set to dark. This isn't great to work with. I am using iPad mini 5, iOS 13.4.1, Designer 1.7.1. Best wishes, Shu

Hey everyone! When moving objects from symbols and trying to detach them, some of them will not be detached. I have to duplicate those items to be able to detach them. Frequently, this and trying to resize the detached objects will crash Designer. I am using iPad mini 5, iOS 13.4.1, Designer 1.7.1. Best wishes, Shu

Hey everyone! When moving an object inside a symbol and undoing, it's a symbol outside of the symbol. I am using iPad mini 5, iOS 13.4.1, Designer 1.7.1. Best wishes, Shu

Hey everyone! When setting snappig mode to true, the setting will not be saved, even with "Synchronise tools across files" enabled. I am using iPad mini 5, iOS 13.4.1, Designer 1.7.1. Best wishes, Shu

@R C-R I also read your comment here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/78555-affinity-designer-ipad-for-iphone-split/&do=findComment&comment=507425 I think the main issue in me explaining this is that Procreate has a very different approach of handling UI than traditional software UI, which is most of Affinity's UI. I do understand the concern about finger to screen size ratio, but that's just an issue with locked UI. Procreate is very excessive in showing you only what you need, which makes it very much both screen space efficient and workflow efficient. Procreate uses a number of solutions to get the UI running on, for example, 4.7 inch devices, most importantly being: Well structured menus - Most UI only appears when neccessary - Clear and understandable menu structure for easy and fast navigation - High amount of layers by only showing layers on the whole screen, when opening, aligning view to currently selected, and being able to scroll Gestures: - UI easily accessible, with gestures for UI icons (for example, holding color button selects last selected color, 2 finger swipe right on layer alpha locks layer, 2 finger tap on layer - set opacity, 2 finger hold on layer - select layer content) - There are quite a few gestures that give access to functionality (e.g. 3 finger swipe down opens menu for Copy, Cut, Paste), which is even faster than Affinity's tap & hold for cut, copy & paste. QuickMenu: - Can be invoked using a gesture (currently, double tap), can be customized to hold 6 individually selected features so you can choose which you need most for your workflow - Swiping into direction of a QuickMenu item chooses that feature - No unnessesary clutter, because most of the time, you probably only need a subset of what a software is capable of and for the cases of requiring something you rarely need, you can open a menu - A lot faster than non-gesture UI, because you don't have to think about where which button or functionality is located at among all the rich functionality, you don't have to precisely aim at buttons, moving the hand, tapping that button About seeing the artwork itself: When using Procreate, I am only working on the canvas in full screen mode. There is only a small button in the top left (or right, depending on settings) that is there to show the UI again. Other than that, the whole screen real estate is used for painting. Also, I don't know about your workflow and if those examples are neccessary, but I wouldn't use long layer names. For me, that would be a very artificial scenario. That just takes too much time to both write and read when working on that file later on. In fact, I don't explicitly name a lot of layers, especially using Designer, I am naming maybe about 1/50 of all layers, since I am using a lot of compound shapes and naming would just waste time and not even be useful. Also, 50 layers is very few for Designer or Photo (not for Procreate, but that's not a UI matter, but the layer limit that has been introduced for faster file save and load). At least if you structure them into groups and subgroups, which you should do? You can easily scroll through, for example Group1 * 2 Groups * 5 Layers (10 layers), Group2, Group3, Group4, Group5 - that's 50 layers already. Not meant for promotional purposes, but for reference: https://procreate.art/pocket Unfortunately, currently, there is no image of the app running in full screen mode. That mode hides the top menu bar. When looking at the images, I hope it's obvious that the buttons aren't too small to be tappable. In fact, most buttons are larger on my 4.7 inch iPhone using Procreate Pocket than those of Affinity Designer or Photo (, which I do like the size of, since it's less cluttered now since one of the latest releases) on iPad mini 5. Personally, I worked with 27'' iMacs and I couldn't stand it. I always had to turn my head to see different parts of the screen. Moving the mouse all over the screen was tiring or, when the mouse is set to a faster speed, it loses accuracy. I am using a 15'' Macbook and I do make excessive use of macOS's spaces, which I can toggle between. When working with Designer on macOS, for example, I mostly use full screen mode, showing no UI at all, using keyboard shortcuts. I don't want to look at UI. I want to look at what I am working on and that's why I try to get rid of UI as far as possible and useful, which also works great for smaller screen sizes and seeing all the screen at once, or, for iOS devices, being able to carry a small, lightweight device wherever I go. Anyway, just my opinion. I'm sure there are arguments to be made against iPhone, especially business wise. I'm not online here very often, so I don't really get involved in a lot of discussion, just wanted to state my opinion.

I do think it's not an issue of too small screen size. Personally, I would even prefer the size of the display of the iPhone SE, with there being much larger phones now, which I find very inconvenient. The reason I think both Designer and Photo could run flawlessly on a 4.7 inch iPhone is that UI doesn't need to be scaled, as I described here:

Keep in mind, though, the iPhone version of Procreate does indeed use a different UI layout than the iPad version. It's not just scaled down to the small screen size. The layers, for example, have similar real world size and the checkboxes seem like exactly the same size on iPhone SE as on iPad mini 5. Just like I mentioned in another topic, this would require Serif to overhaul the UI so that it suits the iPhone experience. Just uploading a current build that's checked for iPhone as well wouldn't do. That said, I don't face any problems using the iPhone SE digital keyboard. So you may be right about finger size. But even considering the OS keyboard may not be easily usable by everyone, you can still get away with UI of similar or the same size as there is on iPad. You just have to arrange it well. So even if the digital OS keyboard is a hurdle, which is different in size from device to device, third party developers may keep their UI scale on iPhone, so this doesn't become a problem.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. The display size of iPad mini 2, 3, 4 and 5 are the same, the resolution is the same and the aspect ratio is the same. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices#iPad_Mini) The most notable difference is the much faster CPU used by iPad mini 5 and 1GB more RAM for 5 compared to 4, the latter of which may only be accessible by the OS. That range of CPU power is available to iPhones as well, though. Especially when considering 2018 iPad 9.7 inch (6th generation), which does run Photo and Designer: iPad mini 5: 2,49 GHz hexa-core 3.145.728px (same for 2, 3, 4) iPad (6th generation) 2,34 GHz quad-core, A10, M10 3.145.728px iPhone 8: 2,39 GHz hexa-core 1.000.500px, 2.073.600px (Plus) iPhone X: 2,39 GHz hexa-core 2.740.500px iPhone XS, XS Max, XR: 2,49 GHz hexa-core 2.740.500px (XS), 3.338.496px (XS Max), 1.483,776px (XR) iPhone SE: 1,85 GHz dual-core, M9 727.040px I am using iPhone SE for painting using Procreate Pocket (, which includes about the ratio of features compared to Procreate for iPad as Affinity Photo for iPad compared to Photo for desktop) and it works very well. It will be somewhat slower when using demanding brushes in 4 mirrored mode, but that's to be expected when comparing the CPU specs to, for example, iPhone XS. Of course, the UI layout is different from the iPad version. Then again, it makes sense, since its aspect ratio is different. If Serif considers the iPhone market not interested enough for their products, especially compared to the major effort that would be required to create UI that suits the iPhone, that's understandable. But considering hardware only, I don't understand why there wouldn't be iPhone versions. Personally, I would even buy Publisher for iPhone. Just for reference, there are a few topics about iPhone versions: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/93108-iphone-app/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/83494-pocket-version-for-iphone/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/78555-affinity-designer-ipad-for-iphone-split/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/76941-affinity-photo-for-iphone/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/47837-iphone-version/

I have been working on similar paintings for months and I do know the average amount of time I need for one of those. I have been using iPad mini 2, iPad 9.7 inch (2018), iPad mini 5, iPhone SE (the latter of which has smaller than the smallest iPhone screen size available at the moment) and when working with Procreate (or Procreate Pocket for iPhone), I haven't been any slower on iPhone than on iPad, not to mention being slower on mini compared to 9.7 inch. When working on details, you may need to pan and zoom some more the smaller the screen (if necessary at all, even that's depending on the workflow. For example, working on somewhat abstract paintings doesn't require that much precision), but larger screen sizes require much longer movements to reach the UI. Personally, in regards to UI interaction, I am much faster on iPhone than on iPad. Most of my workflow requires painting details, so that does even out with more pan and zoom on iPhone compared to iPad mini. My workflow was slowest on iPad 9.7 inch. The screen was big enough to make UI interaction a hassle, while not providing enough pan and zoom advantage to compensate for that. Currently, I would say the overall efficiency of my workflow is very similar on both devices that I am using at the moment (iPhone SE and iPad mini 5), with the only notable difference being the much faster CPU on iPad mini 5, resulting in faster export times. Personally, I would be interested in Photo and Designer for iPhone as well. It would make things much more capable on iPhone. I am currently using both Designer and Photo on iPad mini 5 and for a lot of things, you don't just require painting (Procreate), but also editing (Photo) and some vector (Designer). And yes, I do have my phone with me most of the time, but I wouldn't bother running around with my iPad, just in case I have some spare time at some point. I have painted hundreds of images on iPhone. Not would I just say working on those was at least as efficient as on iPad mini 2 or iPad 9.7 inch (2018), I wouldn't have had my iPad with me at all. So there wouldn't be any of those images, at all. Just for reference, there are a few topics about iPhone versions: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/93108-iphone-app/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/83494-pocket-version-for-iphone/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/78555-affinity-designer-ipad-for-iphone-split/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/76941-affinity-photo-for-iphone/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/47837-iphone-version/

Thanks for your reply! Unfortunately, I cannot confirm that the touch "flatness" is responsible for this happening when I am working, since I am mostly using the sides of the tips of my fingers (rather pointy as well, just like the finger tips themselves). I will try to see if flatness makes things even worse, though. Maybe this will be an indicator. I do think this is an issue on the iOS side, however, one that you should be able to have at least some influence on. For example, I am getting this issue more frequently using Affinity software than when using Procreate in a similar manner (when I had done just some adjustments that didn't require zooming and rotating the canvas, I didn't face this problem using Affinity software, of course) and the issue showed up more frequently in Procreate before one of the patches some time ago. Still, it's far from solved there as well. Maybe you are both using API calls that either do some palm rejection under the hood or some API calls are simply corrupted since about 12.1 (this is where it started happening)? Maybe it's useful if Serif and Savage talk about their gesture implementations, since this is very similar, if not exactly the same issue? Also, note that this happened from one day to another, after I updated both iOS and Procreate. So I have been using iOS software for a few years and gestures have been very stable. Until 12.1. Of course, the fact that touch visualization shows the touches, yet it doesn't work, is a strong argument for incorrect (iOS) input interpretation rather than iOS not getting input at all.

+1

That's great! Thanks for your reply!