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But is the nearest ancestor Layer truly the current one, or is the topmost Layer which is an ancestor of the selected item the current one, or are all three layers current since they are all ancestors of the selected item? What if there are items selected on two different layers which are both at the top level? This is what I was trying to get at: the entire concept of the "current Layer" is somewhat ambiguous.

This is normal. It has only very rarely if ever been possible to open files from a newer version of the Affinity software with an older version. This is also explicitly called out on the page where you can sign up for the betas: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/affinity-beta-program/

Rebelle offers this in their Pro version (I think their own implementation of it).

Where this is unlikely to be sufficient is in certain categories of workflows in which continuous export is being used to update resources used externally during the design process. For example, if using either Photo or Designer to work on images that are resources in a game engine, the continuous export feature could be used to export selected regions of the document constantly as they are edited. These exported images could then be picked up by the game development software when they change on disk, allowing for near-real-time preview in context in the external software while the editing is being done in the Affinity app. This is something that cannot currently be supported in Publisher due to lack of that persona... but at the same time, something that Publisher and StudioLink are unlikely to be very helpful with. I would think that working directly within Photo or Designer would probably be the better choice for those workflows anyway.

It kind of stands to reason that when there are no explicit layers in play then the page, artboard or document serves the role of the layer. The situation in which it becomes most confusing is the one in which you have nested layers. In this situation, there are three layers, and an argument could be made that all three of them are "current" since the red rectangle is selected and is on all three of those layers. Thus, is the blue rectangle on the "current layer" or not?

All of you are completely ignoring group styles, which fit neither and both categories. The filtering idea would need another button, and if you split the panel, you would need three of them, not just two. I think if cleverly implemented the filtering option is the better choice here, rather than splitting up the panels. However, I would argue that it would also be nice (not just for this one but for several of the panels) to be able to have more than one open. Thus you could open two text styles panels, and set a different filter on each of them, to give you a similar effect to having had the panels split. The Swatches panel is another candidate to allow more than one to be open - you could have one open to a document palette and another to an application palette for example. Multiple copies of the Assets panel could be opened to different categories...

What I was referring to by the "modern" approach can be seen, for example, in Digital Performer (a digital audio workstation), in which Shift+Spacebar brings up a small window in which you can start typing to search through all of the tools, menu commands, etc., which are available in the program, and see their shortcuts, what they are, as well as triggering them right from the menu:

The classic way to handle this is to have a "Tools" menu in the menu bar which mimics the toolbar but lists the tools by name instead of using icons. A more modern approach is a searchable pop-up menu that appears with one keyboard shortcut you would learn, which you could then start typing the name of a tool or menu command in order to find and switch to / execute it.

Resolve isn't really a replacement for After Effects so much as for most of the other video-related apps offered by Adobe - Premiere for example - but it does have an integrated version of Fusion which is good for smaller tasks. That said, Fusion and Resolve Studio both include licenses for each other. If you buy either one, you have access to both. There is a free version of Fusion which is built-in to the free version of Resolve and can be fine to get a feel for it, but there are a few limitations to working with the version which is integrated into Resolve.

Only once per combination of settings. You could simply cache versions with each variant of those settings the first time the settings are encountered, then switch to the appropriate cached version when the settings are changed again.

Not sure why this keeps coming up, but not necessarily the best use of Serif's time when they already seem to be stretched fairly thin as it is; if you are looking for motion graphics capabilities check out programs like Apple Motion or HitFilm; maybe add something like SynFig Studio for certain specific use cases. For compositing work, take a look at Fusion from BlackMagic Design, or at Natron. Point being there are already several solid options out there to replace After Effects, including a few free ones.

If you are using the built-in Serif-provided RAW engine, support largely follows what is released by libraw, and they supposedly added support for this camera in version 0.21: https://www.libraw.org/news/libraw-0-21-release That release is long after development of Photo v1 ended, so you won't be getting support in v1, as others have mentioned. I don't know if 0.21 has made it into the v2 series yet but it should soon if it has not already. What that does not indicate is whether or not this specific format of the camera was added as supported. Information about how to interpret those files is evidently available: https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/10556 It is not clear from what I am finding if even Apple's RAW engine supports those files either, otherwise you would have the option of using Apple's RAW engine instead of Serif's if you are on a Mac, and if macOS does support that format, then you could potentially use that even with v1.

If you are opening a document file (such as any native Affinity file) you should see an accurate representation of what was saved in that file. If there was a locked background layer when the file was saved, you should see one when you open it; if there was not, then it should not be there when you open it. When you "open" an image file which does not natively have a concept of layers by itself, the content of that file needs to go somewhere, meaning a layer needs to be created for it (Publisher is not actually opening the image file directly, but rather creating a new Publisher document and setting it to match the content of the image file; a Publisher document needs a layer to store that content). Traditionally (I believe originating from Photoshop), that layer is called "Background" and is locked to prevent the user from accidentally moving it out of position.

How would you simplify that without losing any functionality? Everything that is there exists for a reason and provides some benefit to some subset of the application's users. It actually appears that in spite of having added a few new options they have already simplified the Wireframe options a bit compared to 2.1.

There were originally two shapes, one green and one blue, that overlapped completely the same area. Both were cut up by the other (acting like cookie cutters to split each other up) and the blue one was deleted because it was underneath the green one. That is how I read it anyway.

Then why are the colors not mixed together? Try it with two shapes where the opacity is reduced. The color of the part that you claim comes from both shapes, is only the color of the upper shape, so the color of the one underneath is lost and ignored. What seems to be happening is that both shapes are simply cut at the intersections and the parts that are underneath are then deleted, leaving only the parts that were on top. In the end, the effect of the operation is actually the same... thus the way I am looking at it is that there are two parts left from the upper shape, and one from the lower one. None of the individual parts represent more than one of the original shapes.

From what I can tell, that is not the case; rather the overlapping part only contains the shape of the part that was on top. The layer that was on the bottom guides the place where the layers are cut, but the resulting color comes from the layer that was on top, so that is the one that remains, and the parts that were tucked underneath (from the layers on the bottom) are disposed of. If I have two rectangles that overlap one corner, then I get three parts: the part of the rectangle that was underneath, which did not overlap with the upper rectangle; the part of the upper rectangle which overlapped with the other; the part of the upper rectangle which did not overlap with the other. As a result, I would have the remaining part of the underneath rectangle, which could simply keep the old name of the underneath rectangle (as there is only one remaining part), plus two parts taken from the upper rectangle, which could be named with "1" and "2" added to the names of the originals.

Just tack a "1", "2", etc. onto the end of the name of the original?

Can't speak to Illustrator offhand, but in VectorStyler at least it updates dynamically as you adjust the objects on the ends. You can also adjust the number of object in between, etc.

Which ones, other than VectorStyler (the only such app I seem to be able to find)? CorelDraw - introduced in version 2 InkScape offers an extension with a similar capability but it is not "live" - that is, it does not update when you move one of the original objects - and it seems to have some bugs... Vectornator - no such tool Not sure when it was added to Illustrator, but it does not appear to have been in 1.0:

While I do not disagree with this specific request (to remember that setting, most likely for a particular document), I do feel a need to point out that just because something is requested multiple times, does not mean it is a good idea. People frequently ask for things they would later come to regret, which would cause problems for someone else, or which would get in the way of even better things they may not have thought of when making the request.

"unusual" doesn't even begin to describe it... they way they implemented those windows is just plain wrong.

I agree with @walt.farrell, this setting should come from the text styles, not from the individual paragraph settings which are meant to override those styles locally for exceptions. Create a new document with the basic characteristics you generally use (page size, etc.) Right-click "Base" in the Text Styles panel, choose "Edit Base" Go to the Paragraph -> Spacing page using the list on the left Change "Space after" to zero (0). Make any other desired changes to the base style (the other styles inherit from this style so except for those properties they override, changes to the Base style will apply throughout the document automatically by default). File -> Export As Template and save the template to a templates folder you create at a convenient location File -> New Select Templates along the left Click the add folder button at the bottom of the list Select the folder where you saved the template Create a new document using your template From now on your template should be readily available with the text styles already set up in the desired manner. Additional templates can obviously be created and saved to that same folder to give you appropriate starting points for your projects.

In addition to what Alfred pointed out, you can adjust this within a text style to apply it by default within that style. This is on the Paragraph -> Spacing page while editing the style; just set the space before/after to zero.

Not sure where you are getting this. Many newer OSes are using "sandbox" techniques to help isolate applications from each other; while there is certainly technical merit in this, it is mostly a workaround for a design that has not stood the test of time. Very high levels of security can be achieved using techniques that are *less* impactful on performance than the traditional ACL model, something which has been proven quite effectively in the form of the Capabilities security model introduced by systems such as KeyKOS (http://cap-lore.com/CapTheory/upenn/). The cost of the CPU is not relevant. A more targeted platform using embedded system techniques (which is what you are describing) could implement security appropriate to the application without any significant performance impact if it is done correctly. The lack of a learning curve implies a lack of progress as well. This stability in terms of not needing to adjust to new features and changes would come at the cost of the pace of development, and people are still begging for a lot of key features that are still missing from the products. I don't think this will be a popular request. Already offered via the versions that run on an iPad.