GRH

I feel quite nostalgic for those days, when icons were plain and simple and the interface easy to navigate. Now the software has to entertain you before you start work. It's become like supermarkets, they keep changing things around and you can never find what you want.

I still have a working copy of that, many good features on it.

I feel a caption competition coming on. First prize, a years subscription to the Canvafinity Suite, and 5000+ prizes of a Serif 'Plus' bundle.

Canva have bought the company, it is theirs to do as they wish. If I sell you my car and get you to agree not to put cheap tyres on it and not go faster the 30mph, and you do, what can I do about it - tell my mum? No company is going to allow itself to be handcuffed in any way when they buy a company lock, stock and barrel.

Ah the good old days, maybe I should get my comping stick out, I think I can still read upside-down mirror and tie page cord tightly.

Scribus is quite capable, it is at version 1.6.1; version 1.7.0 is in the pipeline and available as a beta. Pageplus X9 is still superior in many ways to Affinity Publisher

First red flag I saw was 'To our amazing Affinity community,' The second was 'I am thrilled to announce that ... ". Which usually means 'We have been made an offer we can't refuse.' A quick google brings "Canva has made its largest acquisition to date, likely spending more than $1 billion to buy professional design software company Serif to compete directly with Adobe as its prepares a long run at going public." https://www.afr.com/technology/canva-s-billion-dollar-bet-on-a-37-year-old-nottingham-company-20240321-p5fea0 I'd certainly be thrilled to announce that (jingle jingle). From the FAQ's ' Canva’s business model is subscription, are there any plans to change how Affinity is sold?' Answer: 'There are no changes to our current pricing model planned at this time, ... ', which likely means, after 'this time', uhmmm (whispers) 'yes.' Affinity marks Canva’s latest Europe-based acquisition, joining Flourish (2022), Kaleido (2021), Smartmockups (2021), Pexels (2019) and Pixabay (2019). Canva opened their first European HQ in 2023, based in London. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240325965656/en/Canva-Acquires-Design-Platform-Affinity-to-Bring-Professional-Design-Tools-to-Every-Organization Oh well, good bye and thanks for all the fish, it was great while it lasted.

When I load an EPS file into Designer I get a single layer with hundreds of sub-layers and it is very difficult trying to make sense of it all. I thought that this was the way it was with an EPS file - that is until I loaded it into Adobe Illustrator. I attach two screenshots of the file in question, one from Designer and one from AI. Are there any means of getting the same layers structure in Designer as in AI on file load? Thanks in advance. iMac 2017 running Ventura13.6.4 Designer 2.3.1 Illustrator 2023

Before posting a new topic, I found this one from 2022 and even though it is archived, I am resurrecting it as it is germane to my problem. I have had the same problem with EPS files, just one layer with hundreds of sub-layers, but I assumed that this is how they come, so went through various convoluted methods to isolate, regroup etc. That being said, I attach two screen shots. One is the layer makeup of Designer 2.3.1. The other is the layer makeup of Adobe Illustrator 2023. It looks to me that AFD cannot handle the EPS files correctly. Can this be ameliorated?

Maybe check snap to edges is deselected, I had soft edges selected at the time too. Make sure you include some of the forehead skin as well, otherwise you won't get a good match - go up to just before the line you have drawn.

Sorry, yes I did mean that - Selection Brush Tool. Make sure the layer is selected, then select the tool, then draw over the part you want to duplicate, you can move it around to expand the area, if you make it too big, change the 'mode' - top of screen on the left under the 'Affinity Photo' logo, then 'push' the selection back. When happy, copy and paste, then choose the 'Move' tool and move the selection down and adjust to suit. Then use the 'Healing' tool, etc., to blend it all in.

Sort of like this? I didn't spend long on this about a couple of minutes. I used the 'Brush Selection Tool' to draw the shape on the hair, copied and then moved the copy down, using the transform handles to size it. Then the blemish removal tool to hide the line on the forehead and some smudging here and there to blend it all in. To do a good job would need some time spent on it.

I have to agree, some things are best left alone (not broke, don't fix), and this is one case when less is definitely more. I think there are probably things that users have been pleading for that would have been better addressed than twiddling with the UI; after all, 'go faster stripes' don't improve performance or productivity one iota.

Touché, yet I did search and computer said 'no'.

Greetings. Just to let you know that when the UI Large font is selected the descenders of the letters in the layers labels are cut off, pink looks like oink - ha ha just realised that's appropriate in a weird way. But I digress, the text box needs making taller to accommodate all the letters. Just saying.

Oooo, how much, do you have a buy now?

How about exporting the V2 document as an SVG and opening it in V1? I did a test and it seemed to work just fine. Edit: If it's all vectors, any images seem to be handled differently.

If only they had film that went straight from the camera to the enlarger.

Having played with the file, I get the same result, but initially the image is as it is and then another layer appears and fades the image. It exports fine as a png, but has problems as a pdf - almost as if there is a copyright layer stopping it displaying properly. I get the same image in Foxit Pro, Adobe Reader and Safari - though Safari opens it up quickly. I think, as Palatino says "In graphic design, a distinction has always been made between the draft and the final artwork, which takes into account all the necessary technical conditions for further processing. Serif "saved" the last step because no further processing was planned. Understandable, isn't it?" and Lee D "The samples files haven't really been designed to be exported from the apps." I don't think there would be the same problem if you re-created the image yourself from scratch.

Are these files from the various Affinity Workbooks? If so then I can understand that they may have been 'locked' in some way as (from what I have read about accessing them) they are only available to those who bought the workbook, and presume they are for practising the tutorials with and not for general circulation. Is that the case?

The only thing I can think of is they mean: take a picture and have it wirelessly appear in AP. Some cameras/phones will upload directly to iCloud for example. So far as I know, AP does not 'listen' for incoming files.

From playing around with it, as soon as you release the mouse when having done a corner, the rectangle (in this case) turns into a curve, as evidenced by the change of layer name from rectangle to curve. If you click 'Bake Appearance' a centre node appears on the rounded corner just made and you cannot change it back to a sharp corner or make any changes using the 'Corner Tool'. If you don't click 'Bake Appearance' you can change the rounded corner back to its original form (or make the curve a larger or smaller radius) by left-click-hold on the node and move the mouse. You can also round any 'unrounded' corners after baking. 'Baked' only affects the corner(s) that have been rounded, so if you round just one corner and 'bake' you can still round the other corners, and bake them individually. I guess the key thing is not to bake until you are happy with it. I think 'Set' might be a better term than baked.

And that's just how it should be 110% off or free (personally, I'd go for the 110% as they'd have to pay me 10% to take it off them). You have to watch them though, or they'll be wanting us to buy stuff to pay their wages next, like I mean, what's that all about? Sheesh!

I don't have a problem with the pricing and I thought the discounted cost of V2 was a good price for the 3 programs over 3 systems - I have Mac and Windows machines and am eyeing up an iPad, so I will use all of the licensed products, all for one low price - for as long as I keep V2. As far as I can see, and having read Ash's post regarding this, V2 is a different product to V1: 'It’s worth saying too that V2 does include many under-the-hood changes to our underlying technology, and we have also been investing in several new areas of research recently. Some of these haven’t manifested themselves into new features yet, but overall V2 does give us a better platform to develop on moving forward and I’m sure you will be pleased with the updates V2 will receive.' Developing these products cost's money, and the income stream for Serif is the sale of the programs they create. And don't forget there are product enhancements yet to come that will not have an additional fee, as well as bug fixes. I think it is unfair to expect free or low price upgrades forever, it would not be a good business model for one. You don't get free upgrades to your car, if you have one, each year. You don't get free upgrades to your TV, if you have one. I dare say that there will be a similar offer for V3 when it comes. Having said all that, I think that Serif could have handled customers expectations better, by announcing their pricing plan well before the release. That would have given customers a chance to have their say, and having said it, make the choice whether or not to upgrade after considering Serif's reasons for their decision. As it is, I think there was a little naivety on the part of Serif in expecting no pushback to the pricing model, evidenced by Ash's comment: 'It’s been really hard to see some of the comments about us not looking after our existing customers – we’re pretty devasted that anyone feels like that to be honest.' from which they will no doubt take on-board and learn from it that not all customers have the same affection for the company as others do.

Well they can still download them from the Apple store, they won't run on High Sierra but that doesn't matter, and when you get the iMac you can re-download them. If you look for Truth42's comment in the reviews it will show you how to get the universal licence. In case you can't find it I've screen-shotted it, file below.