SrPx

Some ideas, in the order I'd try them : 1- Yes, the first one I'd try would be to directly apply for example the "Windows 7" theme (or any of the others, you can reduce effects manually later on) . And reboot, just in case. But you mentioned "aero does not work".....A bit surprised, as you have rounded stuff and UI things that are not classic UI. It's obviously loading all, and you have the full entire list of features checked... even much more than I have, and I load my A. Designer no problems with just the very basic of Aero that Affinity needs (ie, I don't actually notice Aero is ON other than the UI being a bit more modern, when hovering cursor over tasks and some other different Aero features, but I have the glass effect disabled, also sounds, cursor's shadow, desktop icon text shadows, etc, etc) . It seems the Affinity installation is what is not recognizing it, even while Aero IS ON, clearly.... (sounds as an install/registry thing on a particular scenario. Windows has this issue often. ) 2- If that doesn't work (seems it does not) , go and try by manually check just the "adjust for best appearance" , but NOT the "let windows decide" that you have now ON, neither adjust for best performance or custom. That one probably has some possibilities. Then reboot as with other options. Heck, if that doesn't work, I'd first would try all options, so, also setting them custom and the performance one. I don't know the A. installation internals, so who knows what can trigger or disable the registry flag or whatever is avoiding the thing to happen. 3- Third scenario, nothing of that works, then I'd just fully uninstall, and I mean ensuring quite that the software apps are totally uninstalled, both Affinity Photo and Designer. And I mean, also the customer betas, all, everything from Affinity. (once done, at this point I am the kind of guy that I search the registry, see what was left, but please don't do that if you are not a registry expert... I'm almost certain 9 times out 10 when a user not knowing how to deal with Windows Registry gives it a try, wrecks something...anyway, having a look doesn't wreck anything...changing keys or values does....) Then, REBOOT, then, being very sure a full Aero theme is fully ON, install the 2 apps (if you have both) again . Even reboot again after that, just in case. If in third case it does not either work, I know how to deal the stuff in registry, but wont say any more here, that's sth that Serif's support might want to give you advice about, through a private channel: by forum PMs or better, direct email (write them at their email support's address). I hope it helps somehow. I'm just a Windows/Affinity user.

nah.

In one thing I agree with you, I don't have the time. Cheers.

Rude comment before, and rude comment now (for a total of 2 posts)...nice. They do not owe you more info than they already told you (quite a lot) . And no, I don't work for them, not in the slightest way one could imagine. You are not an admin to tell me if I can post (or what to post, or post only in the line of thought you like, etc) or not in whatever the thread.

Roadmap ? it has been already said that in summer there comes a beta.... And in the meantime, I guess they are busy with other stuff as well (brush engine problems, issues here and there) with the other apps.

The 'abnormality' is Affinity, obviously, hehe... In the mind of the titan.... I hadn't noticed the initials...

Patience is a superpower. Is not as if the beta had been announced to be released in 5 years...

-- Edited --- (by me, SrPx)

Yes, I remember all that. Freehand was such a joy, very practical for design. A shout in favor of Illustrator would be in terms of... illustration. For inking (line art, comics), it is absolutely useful and convenient ) like the capability of "re purpose" a line you just inked, by tracing since its start (if you have all configured in certain way!). This speeds up the workflow crazily, and is not found in other apps. Although for inking these days I prefer raster tools (some highly specialized ones at that), just personal take. I would have preferred if both packages would have been maintained, but focusing illustrator much more in... er... illustration, Freehand, in its line for graphic design, was perfect. Even Corel Draw had since then cleverer solutions than Illustrator, once Freehand was ditched....

Sorry, I had missed this one. Changing lately my opinion about the matter (what I meant in the above post is that brush engines are my main focus and worry in any app, for any brand.).... I believe that was a too simple statement from my part, and not totally fair.... I'm worried about the brush engine more than anything, like with any other software I use or pretend to use, as I am focused lately more in illustration (among my profiles), as a freelancer. But that can change pretty fast, as it all is pointing out that I might have to take a job back again in the press design/web/games/whatever industry, as an employee. Stuff going fine as a freelancer, but I need more income, I keep being unable to charge what my time deserves, lol... (Also my bad in making strong relationship with every client/author....hehe...who can put the right price to a friend...not me...Also as I get too passionate with these illustration focused projects...) . I'll be still interested in Affinity, as I will keep doing freelancing from home (in my region inside the country, besides paying very low -only a bit more than what I get now- , is all about Adobe at the companies ). Aaanyhow (sorry for the OT)... yeah, the brush engine, the issues I found in its day... in Designer, that the raw, raster (pixels) based input (the line stroke that first appears before releasing the pen) was accurate, making the same path that my hand made, but once the tip would leave the tablet, it'd perform a vectorial average in a wrong way, making some nodes rotate unexpectedly (causing bumps in the vector line, once it vectorized the line (at pen tip release time)). This was....EONS ago. I recon I have not direct painted for a huge while since then, in Designer, but made more , er, boring, tasks. So, the brush engine might have got that fixed since a very big while. In Photo, what is known by many : Certain lag (my machine is truly old as u can check in my sig, so, who knows how much is due to that +being in Windows (but I do optimize the OS more than ppl tend to)) which is mostly generated at the start of each stroke, as it'd happen in initialization. No idea if this was fixed, as I did not purchase YET (yeah, really my bad...or my numerous bills' bad) Photo, only tested it very intensively in Windows open beta times. Stuff in Photo has improved tons since then. So, am not a good guy to ask about it anymore, either.... Other things I reported about, was the zig-zag, grid-following kind of thing happening when drawing lines very zoomed out, like fitting an A4 canvas at 300 dpi in the main window, and then drawing so. It'd be noticed, and much more if you zoomed in later to check the result. I also made videos about that, screens with notes, in steps, and also realized that many of these issues disappeared or were drastically improved if drawing zoomed in (like between 1:1 and 2:1 ). Not necessarily as much as if doing pixel art (so, brush stuff does not affect at all, in any case, to ppl doing pixel art, that was some good news was able to realize, too) . Just a bit more than 1:1 and most issues disappeared, lag would be almost gone. ( I recommend trying that yourself....It was so darn clear this fact, that I even resolved that a way of working could be to draw in "pixely mode", at least in sketching stage (where you need full speed) then scaling up for a final, work to be inked or colored. (BTW, for inking, the line smoothing feature solves a ton of issues) ) There are also a lot of things one needs to check first, like if the "Windows Ink" feature is activated in your Windows, stuff related to the drivers, etc. Besides counting on the fact that is almost proved that there are more performance issues, in general, in Windows than in Mac. The app comes from Mac originally, and I guess planned with the usage of mac graphic libraries , so, no big surprises here. I don't have a Photo license, and probably knowing the tricks I do know now related to tricks with the system and performance, which -even while I thought I knew a lot just one year ago- I do know now, after certain issues with several other softwares with which I have wanted to do very weird/unusual/highly uncommon experiments, so probably if I'd buy now Photo, I'd discover "my way" with it, and would workout any small or big issue I could find. The tools and whole thing have matured in both apps a huge lot, just seeing the fixes list, the releases lists, reading users feedback here, etc. Part of the problem is that I use always a reduced and very well selected group of other apps, also mid cost or free, done so for a big while, so several projects are tied to use of those for a while, too, due to native files. That can change pretty soon. So, in its day, I had no issues with pressure, neither with aliasing, neither with my driver, nor with tablet recognition of my Wacom Intuos Pro 4 XL, neither with Affinity's tools settings (indeed, not even with the apps performance in general, in this cr4ppy machine! ). Just what I have listed above, and it was a very long time ago, a lot of releases have happened in the meantime. Sorry if I can't be of more help.

Ok. Seen the video. I quite like it, to be brutally honest. It works A LOT like Dreamweaver did in its most mature years. Yes, this is for coders wanting to speed up, really, and/or people at least knowing basic concepts, tho I can imagine ppl with drag and drop intentions only can as well manage here. I was almost to think...heck... why another DW? we all know already this does not work in a current frontend team, which tends to be linux focused....BUT....besides there's linux/mac/win versions (tho I don't see my linux colleagues much into this sort of visual apps, to be sincere) . But then I saw... is a kind of thing like DW was, but adapted to times, and supporting at least quite a number of things left out in most all other previous solutions . To name only a short list of what I've just watched in the video, of the advantages I see : - cross platform, in the 3, linux included, and while I never so it important for Affinity's current tools, for making graphics, it is for making sites, where rarely one works alone, be it a gig, or task in the work place. - Supports Javascript ! That is, writing it and testing it, see if it works, etc. This alone would shine over any other feature. My solution, other than just uploading at least to our test server, was often to use a develpers' extension in the browser while visiting the page to be changed, and trying chunks of code thanks to that extension. - Support for responsive. But this is a factor in common with things like that the other tool mentioned, Weebly too, even Wix (but not so much as weebly ) - Support for Bootstrap (a framework for UI elements, forms, etc, that is very practical and used in a ton of sites. It's quite important, very. Is not just "yet another thing". ) - Grids systems, like all the above, working inside the application ! - Server calls supported, meaning working directly with that in the UI , not a chunk of characters you would only leave there written, instead, sth you could dynamically make it work, so really study the site behavior, etc. And this are only a few that i can remember right now, there are quite some more

"fixed-position web creator " ....WebDwarf used fixed position divs, that is, with position: absolute or fixed, often, and using pixels, not relative neither percentages. Do you refer to that ? Yeah, that's bad, Specially in this all for mobiles content times. Although, often grids are created in bricks of pixels (at least the smallest "brick", the smaller container), just using the fluid grid concept, so, yeah, not issue at all, in any case. I'll dig that Pinegrow thing, just out of curiosity. Probably the other one, too. In an ideal world, one would prefer tools that would shorten time needed making sites, specially when the main activity is not making webs, anymore. But I'll see if that's possible with those two new things.

another one I didn't know... besides being disconnected for 5 years (with ins and outs, as in the middle have configured small online shop, made some simple sites, etc) is the fact that I tend to keep very far from those. But I'm getting surprised -slightly, as i predicted that this would not be an exception of how much all is evolving- but in f first look I quite like it. A really good wysywyg , allowing FULL control (almost sure that's impossible) in theory would be BETTER even for when you are very capable with the web code, as anyway, if in charge of the concept/graphic design, mounting the thing by just well made css classes and chopping accurately the graphics, is not fast , or no as much as doing it graphically (BTW, Photoshop sectors and web export always produced a not too nice code, either...Lately... haven't tested) . So, an UI that allows mounting it all graphically, but using sth like the Chrome developers extension (or Firefox equivalent) to "inspect", select and double click or sth, to edit that DIV code, and even access the exact CSS class or property right from there, that'd be very much a time saver. If the code exported (in general) later is garbage, that advantage gets 100% destroyed. So, depends on implementation. Is a graphical builder where you can edit code "in place" , graphically. if does it well, that'd be a win-win. But again, I need to see it to believe it, after so many other horror stories in the past....It does look like it might do it well, tho. Lol...seems the price is exactly the same than the other app,. in the basic license.

v_kyr, I agree with all your post. Anyhow, issues showed up in my experience specially in my last stage as a frontend. So much that I had to finally ditch them all, even while latest years I was only trying to speed-up the graphical part. (the actual graphics + code integration) One other problem is maintaining that . If every body in a project would use it, no probs. But... in a company like in the ones I worked, never the case... backend people where on Linux, 100%. using IDEs or directly Emacs or Vim, hehe. It'd have been pure wishful thiking to hope any of those would install a Windows or mac and put there a Muse, Dreamweaver or the like . And is not the case only of being at a company. Also happens when one is a freelancer. I don't know other ppl, but I find almost always the case when I am one of the persons working for someone in same project, even if we don't contact, the freelancers, among us. So, me or the other one, needs to take the code (I said i don't do this web making activity, I mean, I mostly don't, but from time to time stuff comes) and be able to edit it. yep, if is clean code,great, but also if the operation is just a someone taking the output from a person using that wysiwyg. But for example, just read in their page -of this site mentioned- that they don't do that well, they recon, in importing code files. That issues can happen there, as they have their internals, and they dump stuff in the best way possible in export (said here to be clean, i have not tested....) , but import needs to be converted to sth that their internals can work with. This means that a 1:1 with code, that can be edited constantly in the two directions, sth needed so often while making a site or web app, is not gonna be easy. Anyways, that's me becoming picky and doing it wrong. As I am thinking as if the functionality was to make sites in the sane way, but complete sites, at a serious level. Not just a static output in web format for your publishing content already edited in APub. If I undrstood well. For that, an app like that would be pretty ok. And IMO, better than this one linked, the one that could coome in the affinity line, as the content exported in a native file, to be read as Affinity native file in import, from Apub into the new tool, would be much more 1:1, seamless, than a export from APub to some third party wysiwyg. Anyways, that can be an extremly long wait, so, definitely, for the usage mentioned -which is quite limited- it worths it the purchase of one of these tools. (maybe, it'd had to be seen how goes the import of APub content, or any import at all, into that one or a similar web application of that nature)

looking a bit more into their site... it reminds a ton to a very older thing, called HTMLKit, it also worked with extensions and also the html one was highly developed.... (but wasn't really wysiwyg, was an IDE. Still, the extensions concept, very similar). Oh, still exists ( htmlkit.com, seems now is prepared for LESS (a very convenient and "IN" CSS framework )) , it seems, and also seems is non related with that other company. And anyways, is totally a different concept, is code wit ha ton of helpers. Seems the one you say, which danger could be that being a download thing (instead of what weebly or Wix include, which is, you handle an online editor which obviously is always up-to-date in the server) and being the web sth that evolves so fast, the danger of desktop applications for this, is that they become obsolete little after downloading them. But seems a purchase (not expensive) gives you the rights for free updates until a major version. IMO the way to keep your customers. That perhaps means you need to update every year or every 2 years, as much. But that's pretty fine. For a tool like this, it only makes sense that you have it ALWAYS updated . It can become very useless just a few months in a frozen version, as the web is that fast-changing. So, clearly is a tool to be constantly updating (this or any web builder, or XHMTL, HTML, or CSS framework) those free updates, AND efinitely immediately purchase the next major version in its moment. These apps, if not updated with standards are worse for you than any other idea. So, this is very important to keep in mind. You need to be very in the update mentality, for sth like this. or one could render some disasters in the web.... Yep, these tools are not for everyone (I recon I like what I'm reading in that site) but for people knowing already to use those markup languages and CSS specification, it'd make no sense, as a lot of flexibility would be lost... I perfectly understand that people with careers very far from this kind of skills, would only be interested in a raw dump into PDF, if that works in this case....

Yep, have been, not too long ago I was for 7 years in charge of all the web (front-end guy, working side by side with the ppl in charge of the back-end (ROR, mainly)) and print stuff for a company, had been in similar functions in around 5 more places (but of very different nature each time) and, as a big contrast, in other 4 companies, (game development) working as a game artist (2D (UI, concept art, texturing, pixel art), 3D, and also the g. design work and eventual web code, depending on the company). Since only a few years it is that I am full time freelancer, mainly illustrator (but some gigs come from time to time in the form of 3D or pixel art. )

I remember not long ago, helping a friend who only could use Muse -no coding (I mean, markup) knowledge - , and she had some outstanding probs as she couldn't do anything about it through the Muse interface. I just made what she needed with some easy lines, in a minute. Easy, and with no limits in design matters, obviously. Limits that the automatic tools force to have. But yep, the top companies tend to produce be the best tools in the field. In its day Dreaweaver was quite decent (as from certain point, it didn't do anymore its own "take" in your code(it did in initial versions, just like FrontPage (ugh)), it was almost as using notepad, if you wanted), specially since did hit the MX version. Not surprised if Muse was good as well. Had a taste of it, but I hate any of those tools, so I guess I was -always will be- biased.... And it definitely looks great in the features list , but am worried with things like these : "Add custom HTML code with the HTML tools." . So, one can't have a full code windows of the entire project (containers structure, etc) like in Dreamweaver? If so, can be as it happens with Weebly, which, despite the quite more fame of Wix, is much better than the latter, allows better control of html and css, and the output code is cleaner (this affects seo, loading times, coding maintenance, readability by others, etc) . My problem with that is that these editors (same happens with Jimdo (less flexible in what you can change in the code, but better in other things)) or in the easy builders that the hosting services provide... are mostly bits where they let you touch the code, but you have to follow a template, or a grid, or type of structure or all of that. And only can change a few things, very restricted. Or can use only some tags, etc, etc. That linked editor doesn't look bad, indeed. But for those able to do it by hand, makes no sense....Unless it produces absolutely great code, and is not a crazy mess to later on customize without doing a full rewrite... yet to find one (in many years) really behaving so.... There IS an advantage in this tools, I mean, for advanced use as well, but is shared with grid systems, certain libraries, frameworks, so , one could just do that, use frameworks but still code by hand... I am thinking that one advantage that -if done well- can be considered is that the people maintaining these wysiwyg, if they do it well, they patch stuff to keep up to date with browsers differences and bugs while rendering "standard" code, and the less standard, too. keep up to date with changes of standards, compatibility issues with jQueries, etc (so, one looses less time in dealing with those problems). But again, this is covered as well by the people who make frameworks, grids, etc, so... One other great advantage is the responsive design features. This comes as well in the frameworks in the form of css classes, media queries or the like. Even just using the modern css tools, and the better rendering of today browsers can make responsive design much easier than it used to be. That is, one needs to fight quite less today against browsers compatibility issues, and responsive is sort of easier, plus we can have access to a lot more effects. I don't know, to each his/her own. I only know that sooner or later, at some point one needs badly to touch the code....And then is when the "fun" begins, if the person in question can't even touch a line...

Great to hear ! (brush engine is my #1 issue in Afifintiy) (I wouldn't know, as I have not been using AD lately....)

+1 , totally.

Indeed, I really miss the simple alt + click that one gets in PS and many programs... tons faster (I have usually set alt in one of the two pen side buttons (different config auto triggered if am inking of digital painting, also))

-- Edited --- (by me, SrPx)

-- Edited --- (by me, SrPx)

Or just pay me to get you the html + css + graphics identical to your layout..... I'm joking, of course. But I mean, if you would put together the pains many of these tools bring, and the lack of control one has with them, way too often (yeah, even, or specially, Muse) it might worth it to learn a bit, not as to become a frontend person, just what you need (what you want to do is quite basic, very) of html and very specially, CSS, as, is true what is said, html is not thought for layout, there's a ton of situations where its default tags wont allow you to bring exact pixel to pixel appearance, but!....CSS allow you doing this by classes that affect those tags (and I don't mean inline css parameters, of course), perfectly. The rest is good image editing ability ! . I got very often the gig and/or company task of making blogger's blogs (and, WOW, do those have reaaaally convoluted and weird html+css+dynamic code all mixed (not bashing that, surely they have their reasons for doing so, as wix does), outputting chunks of not so nice code... thankfully, is google's property, and the algorythm treats blogger very nicely (how could I be surprised about that), so it gets compensated) the task was to make them look EXACTLY the same than even the most over-complex graphic design (some ppl do have very complicated web layouts) , this because there was quite a number of ppl wanting blogger's (and other blog/whatever the SaaS thingy) great capabilities as a blogger, but at same time, not looking cheap by using it... And I mean, THAT was (is) complicated as you are forced to use their weird template and css, and dynamic chunks. But doing it on your own ? Not hard. One month of using some free time chunks here and there to learn it....maybe. And it'd pay in the long run. As stuff like Wix, Muse, etc, (squarespace I think was a bit better in that regard(but I hate the limitations and/or paying for basic stuff), but don't quote me on this...) do often one of the two big issues (or both) , they output terrible code(no good for promotion, and other stuff), or simply they give you very little control or none, so you step too often into sth you can't make it exactly look like you want, no matter what you do (if you don't/aren't able to touch the actual code). There are great free tutorials for this. People is afraid of it maybe because they believe is like programming, while is just a markup language and getting familiar with certain specifications. I do know nooone is going to go for learning xhtml (or html 5, pretty similar) and css. I just wanted to mention it ain't that hard, at all. I believe the practical solution (as you really need to factor in the actual developers plans, it's their idea and their business, maybe they count, too... And we got very recent their statements about the matter) is IMO to hope that there'd be a future app for web making made by Affinity, which would import from APub with identical (visually at least) layout than what you had in there. Maybe further edit ,and export to web from there. But yeah, that can be a very long wait... I can only see sense in doing that only once APub is very mature as a product, and all the other fronts are in a great state, too, needing only light updates. I dunno. I see a ton more important (as they don't have infinite resources) to get a first beta of apub, keep improving + growing it after that while they keep polishing AP and AD, an strategy that I see it's clearly going well, looking at every beta released.

Yes... I worked as mostly the only person for front end in a mid size company for almost a decade, (and before in several teams, at other places) and had time to cover almost any form of producing (graphics included, of course).... The web has become more of a puzzle of dynamic chunks of code, server generated, etc. You don't have anymore your large static XHTML and your CSS 3 sheet, your js includes and that'd be it. This is the past since quite long (I had my hopes on it going away as a trend like happened with all 2.0 cr4p...but that wont happen ). For landing pages, maybe. (but my late times at this, even those were generated by several sources...true that I'm 100% illustration/pixel-art/3D since 2013, and fully not sure how it has kept evolving, but all I have checked is it is following the trend, or even is more the case of it than then....) . Plus... making even a reliable and able to compete publishing app (with today's market) is said to be already daunting to achieve in this little time (and even the more cautious plan I've heard sounds too brave to me....) ...Is not just adding even more stuff on top of that difficult mountain... it is that doing a web code generator is a task where a lot of companies, even while doing it as a standalone specific app, have failed in that in a too large percentage. First, for its incredible complexity, specially today (the times of one of the very few successful at that; Dreamweaver, by then the web allowed such app to make sense, and even so, from certain level of pro skill and bosses demands, you ended up using its code window 95% of the time (and as a last step, abandoning it in favor of just a text editor with syntax highlight and auto completion only for speed), lol...), and third parties involved, grids, frameworks , conditional CSS, responsive solutions, js (jQueries or not)/, and python/ROR/PHP/younameit generating all involved, etc. But also as is... a thing of ever-changing nature, at a crazy pace. IMO, terrible business for an app developer. If one thing is almost already obsolete in the day of release, as in that minute, new stuff is coming out, much better or just (as often , very often happens) just the new trend, the IN thing, not always being a better solution.... I mean, is like a way to end up killing every effort... I totally applaud making it an apart app, as is a very serious endeavor (which I doubt would be worth it). Maybe... making that future app to be able to import 1:1 (but seems is a given, among the Affinity apps, luckily...) from APub in native file, sounds to me a total win. And so, don't compromise/force the internal structure and/or flexibility of APub (neither use eternal development hours on it) , just make the future one read a much richer format than any web code, that is, native Affinty files from Apub, then let that specific app do its export, and focus that one of keeping up to date with the craze of the web (a bad business, IMO, anyways, but that's just me, I'm sure. ). IMO, tho, the best web editor one can have is a really good text coding editor focused in code production and maintenance (besides highlight and auto-completion, auto indent depending on the language of code, numbered lines, bookmarks, folding, etc. None of that is wysiwyg, and still, amazingly good for web code. U have it all in great free editors in every OS. Notepad ++ comes to mind, but there are many.). And I speak from quite some experience, not a random thought. If anything, I give more value that one of these apps has some way to cross platform upload to Git or SCP (but anyways, there outstanding free utilities for that, too! ...winSCP, Putty and a number of also free tools for git is all you need ....) than any "wysiwyg", as that never works well.

If the language barrier allowed me to understand it well...I'd say I fully agree with the above lines.