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(Sorry, there is no need to let us know what you do NOT know.)

Is there a way to keep the pen pressure ("controller" menu) on even after restarting the app? I use a Wacom tablet but I find that Affinity Designer forgets to turn pressure on again (or to just leave it at the menu setting I left it at).

Serif does not normally respond to feature requests.  This should be expected.  Also, this is hardly the only thread on this topic, including at least one going back to August 2018:
 
Examples:
 

Hi Y. Coutiez,
Welcome to the forums
Firstly I recommend changing your username, as this is public and therefore your email address may be harvested by spammers etc. You can do this through your Account Settings here - https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/settings/
Secondly, we are aware that many users are awaiting Footnotes and are working hard to provide a solution to this. Many thanks for your continued patience here!

@Jeremy Bohn, @Murfee - those seem like great suggestions, but they should be on a separate thread.  The announcement thread for a release is a dangerous place to put these as they may get lost in the shuffle when the next release is made and this thread gets locked.

@Jeremy Bohn, @Murfee - those seem like great suggestions, but they should be on a separate thread.  The announcement thread for a release is a dangerous place to put these as they may get lost in the shuffle when the next release is made and this thread gets locked.

There's a lot to like about the new New Document window. However, I can see some room for improvements:
1. Should be able to resize the window. I have a large monitor and would like it bigger so I can see more without scrolling.
2. Popup menus should respect the dark mode setting. Currently they're light even though I'm using dark mode.
3. Most of the settings are wiped out if you pick a different page size. For instance, I set up a Letter sized document, set it to use Picas, set my margins and bleed, and if I click on the Legal thumbnail on the left, it resets all of those things. I should be able to change to a preset page size without wiping out my other settings.
4. The "link" to set Inner/Outer/Top/Bottom the same in Margins/Bleed should take affect as soon as you click it. For example, right now if you have them unlinked and all set to 0, if you change one to 5 and then click the link, they end up being 5, 0, 0, 0 which isn't right if they're supposed to be linked.

Thanks, this is a very nice update. I really like the new document window, is there any chance that you can add the option to set a preset, either the standard ones or a user created one, as a default when creating a new file, so that it is the one selected when the window opens. 

Affinity Publisher 1.8.0 should shortly introduce a new preflight-panel (which will be released in a free update if the beta testing of the feature goes well).

QuarkXPress can do that, so it's obviously not an unreasonable request: 
 
 
InDesign can do it too, but it looks like it creates one that requires Flash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_VCAiRcbdg

Hi @ToniB, do you have any suggestions on how to make this more intuitive without making it less efficient or wasting screen space?
Many projects wind up with a large number of layers so expanding the UI to display things more clearly would likely use up more screen space which would make laptop users upset.  Anything that required extra steps would make the process less efficient which would slow things down; as this is a professional-level application meant primarily for power users, efficiency of operation generally takes priority over obviousness for those first learning to use it.
If you can come up with ideas for improving the discoverability of the behavior or making it more approachable without compromising the efficiency or compactness of the current solution, your request is much more likely to gain some traction.
Personally the only thing I can think of at the moment would be to add some kind of indicator to the mouse pointer which depicts what is about to happen depending on where you are pointing as you drag the layer, and maybe highlight the drop zones somehow as well while doing so?

Thanks, I see in fact our QA have re-opened, must be more to it than I thought.

However, another topic linked to a Microsoft discussion which seemed to indicate that Microsoft is also looking at reworking the interfaces in a way that would resolve this problem. Still, I agree that it probably won't appear in an Affinity release soon.

By default the Gradient tool on a text box is activated for the text itself. You can adjust the text box background gradient by changing the context in the gradient tool's contextual toolbar:

Just switch "Text" to "Frame" as above. 
But these are the only two available options. Serif would need to add a "Rules" context to make it work on the column rules as well.

Cropping in Affinity Photo has always been non-destructive, and I think it's one of the selling points.
I suppose that Serif could consider implementing a Preference that would defaut to non-destructive, but that you could set to destructive if you wanted to. Or perhaps a setting on the Context Toolbar for the Crop Tool.

@Larryh,
Affinity Designer is hardly minimalistic; not sure where you are getting that from or what you are comparing with.
In some cases the tools are designed differently than in other software (as should be expected) and the functionality that other programs use multiple tools for are merged into a single tool which may have multiple modes of operation.  It sounds like you need to spend a bit more time exploring the interface before trying to judge the program.
SVG is only one standard for vector graphics, and is not the native or primary format that Designer targets.  It is one option among many when exporting, and it would make no sense for Designer to limit its feature set to only those things which happen to be supported by this one format.
The export persona allows configuration of repeatable exports from the same document and for exporting multiple sections of a document simultaneously, which can be very useful to some designers depending on their workflow and what they are trying to produce.  For one-off exports, the options in the File menu are likely more convenient.
I'm not sure what you are designing, but realize that design/illustration is a very large field with numerous people in different situations having different requirements; this program may not be tailored to exactly the type of work you are doing as it attempts to cover a lot of ground; search around the forum a bit and you will find people using it for everything from designing corporate ads and logos to software user interface design to creating card games.  It is a powerful, professional application, but whether or not it is the best for your needs is something you will need to determine - no one program will be perfect for every user and project.

Yes, and I don't think anyone is arguing that point.  The fact is that there are a LOT of feature requests floating around in which people are advocating very strongly that the product should never have been released without it, that they have gone several years without being implemented, that each of them should be the #1 priority, ...
Serif is a relatively small company with limited resources with which to implement these features (one of the reasons they can keep the price as low as it is for this quality of software), so they need to prioritize and select which ones make the most sense to implement in what order.  They have already indicated quite strongly that they are hoping to implement this feature, but that when they do, they want to do it very well and it sounds like they planning on doing it in a very big way; they want to implement each feature with a relatively high level of quality rather than rush to get in lots of features that are half-baked.
That will take time, and with so many other things floating around that are much harder to work around or which are impacting a large number of users, it is quite understandable that this will not happen as quickly as some would like.
In this thread, several options have been suggested on how to go about doing this while waiting for Serif to finally get to the point where they can provide this feature.  That is not because people think it is a bad idea, but because they are being more realistic about the amount of time it will probably take before it happens.

Yeah, we could go there instead. In fact, those topics should be merged, or something, but I guess I'll just pick the one that's got more traction.
As for your comment regarding SVG fonts, well… I totally get it. They are flashy and, compared with the arguably complex variable fonts, are low-hanging fruit, UX speaking (though Adobe did solve it, for the time being, with a single button and a floating dialog with simple sliders). They don't really entail any standard setting other than, you know, properly implementing the format. Sérgio is actually an expert on those, by the way, and did a presentation about that topic last year.
Still, I'd say that variable fonts can be more useful, especially in Publisher, and all those formats aren't mutually exclusive. The only reason I periodically bring it up is the fact that Serif, for all their failings, did prioritise decent OpenType support early on. That's a major win in my book, and likely one of the main reasons that got me interested in Affinity in the first place.

And spread the discussion out even more than it already is, making things even less likely to be noticed when they do get around to it since they will be all over the forum rather than consolidated in once place?
Why not keep it together in one of the numerous threads that already exist on that topic?
 
 
Personally, I am much more interested in support for SVG fonts than for variable fonts, but I do think both should be seriously considered and supported at some point.  As has been repeated a few times, however, it seems this won't be happening particularly quickly, and I don't expect that piling additional discussion on top of what has already taken place is likely to change that.

And spread the discussion out even more than it already is, making things even less likely to be noticed when they do get around to it since they will be all over the forum rather than consolidated in once place?
Why not keep it together in one of the numerous threads that already exist on that topic?
 
 
Personally, I am much more interested in support for SVG fonts than for variable fonts, but I do think both should be seriously considered and supported at some point.  As has been repeated a few times, however, it seems this won't be happening particularly quickly, and I don't expect that piling additional discussion on top of what has already taken place is likely to change that.

And spread the discussion out even more than it already is, making things even less likely to be noticed when they do get around to it since they will be all over the forum rather than consolidated in once place?
Why not keep it together in one of the numerous threads that already exist on that topic?
 
 
Personally, I am much more interested in support for SVG fonts than for variable fonts, but I do think both should be seriously considered and supported at some point.  As has been repeated a few times, however, it seems this won't be happening particularly quickly, and I don't expect that piling additional discussion on top of what has already taken place is likely to change that.

I apologize for not explaining this better but what I want is for the slider or scroll wheel to offer finer control of the width of the column rule without having to set the app User Interface preference to show lines in points or the document units to points.

As you seem unable to keep this thread on topic, all the off topic discussion is now here.

Personally, I think this deserves its own persona, as has been brought up in one of the numerous other threads on this subject.

Yes, and I don't think anyone is arguing that point.  The fact is that there are a LOT of feature requests floating around in which people are advocating very strongly that the product should never have been released without it, that they have gone several years without being implemented, that each of them should be the #1 priority, ...
Serif is a relatively small company with limited resources with which to implement these features (one of the reasons they can keep the price as low as it is for this quality of software), so they need to prioritize and select which ones make the most sense to implement in what order.  They have already indicated quite strongly that they are hoping to implement this feature, but that when they do, they want to do it very well and it sounds like they planning on doing it in a very big way; they want to implement each feature with a relatively high level of quality rather than rush to get in lots of features that are half-baked.
That will take time, and with so many other things floating around that are much harder to work around or which are impacting a large number of users, it is quite understandable that this will not happen as quickly as some would like.
In this thread, several options have been suggested on how to go about doing this while waiting for Serif to finally get to the point where they can provide this feature.  That is not because people think it is a bad idea, but because they are being more realistic about the amount of time it will probably take before it happens.