MuuSer

I don't think this is possible yet (correct me if I'm wrong), but I would love to be able to toggle the visibility of certain layers with the data merge feature.

This is possible in Photoshop, where you could add a boolean type field in your excel sheet with "TRUE" or "FALSE", which was linked to the visibility property of a certain layer. Hope this is understandable.

Would open up some nice possibilities...

Macromedia Freehand was (and still is) the best vector app that has ever existed. There is one feature alone in that app that was better than anything I’ve ever seen in any other app. It was the Graphics Find & replace panel. Apparently, no one else ever used it but me, because no one is submitting feature requests for it to Adobe. You could use it to find anything in your Freehand doc and replace it with anything else. It was amazing. I will never forgive Adobe for buying Macromedia and killing that app. I have to use Adobe software at work, but I will never again install their apps on my home computer. 
I also cannot ever get used to having more than one arrow tool. It seems so dumb. The one arrow selection tool was able to do everything that multiple arrow selection tools do in all these other apps.
I also share in the frustration of the UI elements, especially the new poorly drawn icons compared to V1. The UI was fine in V1. What we needed were things like a blend tool. Hopefully, those other things that have already been requested before will be added in a future free update and not 5 years from now.

Biggest issues? I hoped that with AD v2 I'll get true competitor for Corel Draw 9, but... no, still 70% of its tools are missing, not mentioning Corel DRAW X3 (the latest version I known as a child)  I don't understand who use AD and consider it as a competitor for AI

While I am all with Serif for the huge undertaking they have been carrying on since years, I have to share Kal's frustration. What I can start to see with V2 is this:
- Photo and Designer are strong competitors to the Adobe equivalents. They still miss things, but do so many things well. AI features don't compel me. All considered, I was already mostly happy with the first version.
- Integration with the Mac's UI is even worse than before. This may seem a little thing for our fellows using Windows, but it is extremely important for us Mac users. We chose the difficult way of living out of the crowd because we love the comfort and elegance of that UI. Programs interfering with our lifelong meditation can't find good reception.
- While adding some extraordinary features, like side notes, and continuing to have the older, like live preview of changes, Publisher is very far from being an InDesign replacement. It can already be fine for someone working in isolation, but not for people working in a team or with collaborators, due to the lack of any way to be integrated in a production flux. It still lacks some fundamental things for long projects, like cross-references. It can't deal with RTL and CJK languages, that are all part of my everyday job. And then, there is the same issue of the application frame breaking the usefulness of the clean, multi-window Mac environment.
I was sincerely hoping to be able to finally trash InDesign in the next few months. But at this point I fear it will be several years away from now. The only two solutions, in the meantime, are to either keep a machine (real or virtual) with a current Mac OS just to use InDesign CS6, or to switch to InDesign CC. This latter solution repels me, since it would mean making all the forthcoming documents hostage of Adobe and its aleatory price and plan policies.
Not a great situation, in the freelance/small shops publishing world.
How bad I feel? I'm considering alternatives to using page layout software, entirely.
Paolo
 

Sigh. I thought it would be obvious that this wasn’t a new ‘feature request’. It was a one-off review off the first major upgrade to Affinity‘s ‘pro’ apps, pulling together a bunch of missing features that I happen to think are most important. 
Yes, these features have been requested more than once already, over many years. (I’ve linked to some of those discussions). That’s kind of the point—they were things we might have expected to be in V2, and their omission is a signal to me that Affinity’s software designers don’t rate the importance of these things highly.
If this isn’t the place for an overall review and discussion of V2 and its most glaring missing features, how about being a little constructive and telling me where the right place is? I did look at all the options, and the ‘Feedback for the Affinity V2 suite of products’ certainly seemed like the best fit.

Exciting times. With precious little in the way of recent updates, some users wondered if Affinity was dead—but no, we were promptly told that they were just focused on the next major version. And four months later, here it is!
A common expression amongst users has been 'hopefully in version 2', so here's my list of hoped for changes. I'm about to fire up my new V2 apps for the first time and see if all the hopeful waiting has been rewarded. I've divided my list into two main categories: 'UI frustrations' and 'Missing or broken features'.
 
UI frustrations
Window management (Separated Mode)
Ever since MultiFinder appeared on the Mac in 1987, we've been able to run multiple apps and see their document windows side by side. Over the years came other improvements like drag and drop between apps and documents. You lose some of those benefits when an app takes up the whole screen with a solid background. For this reason, many of us preferred a separated workspace (turning off Application Frame in Adobe apps), but after switching to Affinity, quickly discovered that Affinity's Separated Mode was pretty broken, with document windows and Studio panels seemingly having no knowledge of each other's existence.
After much criticism, Affinity finally responded in June 2020 with a help article titled 'Increase your efficiency with Affinity’s Separated Mode'. There was no admission of any issues though, and I parodied the unhelpful article in this forum comment.
Changes in V2
Affinity seems to have finally acknowledged the issues with Separated Mode. Their solution? Remove it altogether! The new 'Float View to Window' command kind of gives us the worst of both worlds… separate windows that still aren't aware of your Studio panels, and a big old solid-grey app window obscuring every other background app. It looks like Affinity might have just put this one in the too hard basket.
Panel management
Resizing Studio panels in V1 is somewhere between painful and impossible. To be fair, this was never a perfect experience with Adobe either, but Affinity takes the pain to a new level. Can't see most of your Paragraph panel? Hover your cursor very carefully over that one-pixel hairline between panels… Nope, there's the 'no entry' cursor telling you the panel can't be resized (for some unknown reason). Double-click to minimise a panel or two to make more space… only to find that it added several inches of completely empty space to a different panel instead. Try to resize that one. Nope, there's the 'no entry' cursor again. Start double-clicking ALL the panels until you can finally see the one you want. Utter frustration.
Changes in V2
After playing around with panels for just a few minutes, the results are mixed. Firstly, I can resize panels (without seeing the 'no entry' icon all the time)—great! Secondly, the hover-zone seems to have expanded from one pixel to around two—I'll take it! Beyond that, things are still quite unpredictable. For example, I currently have a massive Swatches panel full of mostly empty space, and a tiny Text Styles panel below it which is showing me only two lines. I can resize the Text Styles panel to my liking, but if I then minimise and reopen it, it's right back to the way it was—tiny and useless. Whatever algorithm is determining these panel sizes is clearly not fit for purpose.
On a positive note, on the Mac the Studio panels are now listed under the Window menu—exactly where they should have been all along!
Oh one other thing… I lost the Swatches panel in Designer. As in, it just totally vanished. 😳 I can hide it and unhide it again from the menu, but it does not reappear. Restarting the app doesn't bring it back either. This could be a bit of a problem!! (Edit: Found!)
Working with guides
Creating a simple guide the normal way, by dragging out from the ruler, works fine. Unfortunately though, Affinity apps lack the power and flexibility of other drawing apps like Illustrator, which let you select and manipulate guides like normal objects—positioning them numerically for example, or hitting delete to remove then. Illustrator even lets you convert normal vector objects into guides.
With Affinity apps, you have to drag a guide off the edge of a page to remove it. The issues with this approach are (1) you have to be zoomed out so that you can see the edge of the page, and (2) it's inconsistent with the behaviour of other objects, which can be safely dragged and positioned beyond the edge of the page. This creates confusion for users as discussed on threads like this one.
Instead, Affinity gives us the Guides Manager. It's a useful tool, but it would be less necessary if guides were more flexible in the first place.
Changes in V2
There appears to be no changes to the way guides work in V2.
Working with colour swatches
In my opinion, Affinity seriously dropped the ball in V1 with the way colour swatches are handled. Here are some of the features that are missing or broken:
There's no obvious place to put your custom colours. You have to find the 'Add Document Palette' command first, which then creates something called 'Unnamed'. Other actions may trigger the app to add a second palette named 'Document'. Once a swatch is created, you can't convert it to or from a global or spot colour. You can't select more than one swatch at a time. You can't drag and drop colour swatches between palettes or between different parts of the UI. There's no obvious way to add a Pantone swatch to an existing document palette. (You need to apply the colour to an object on the canvas, select the object, switch back to your document palette and click on one of the two 'Add…' buttons.) New global colours are given generic names (Global Colour 1, etc). Pantone colour names are not preserved when added as global colours (the most common requirement!) and need to be typed in manually. Global colours are not transferred between documents when copying and pasting objects. (You need to explicitly export a palette from the first document and then import it into the second document.) Global spot colours are not added to a Publisher document palette when placing a Designer file (unlike InDesign and Illustrator). There's no search field in the 'Add Global Color' panel or edit colour pop-up, making it almost impossible to select the one you want from a large list of swatches. (They aren't displayed as a list, even if you set the panel appearance to 'Show as List'.) There's no command to find and delete unused swatches from a document palette. There's no option to merge two global colours. When deleting a used swatch, you're not asked what to replace it with. (If you delete a global colour, all instances just get replaced with a non-global version.) Yes, colour swatch management in Affinity V1 is bad—really bad. In one forum comment I wrote, 'That's one thing Adobe got right, and something the Affinity devs would have done well to replicate, rather than trying to get clever and do their own thing. Gosh I hope version 2 starts to take this seriously.' Well let's check out V2 and see…
Changes in V2
(1) The 'Add Document Palette' command now displays a pop-up which asks, 'Please enter a name for the new palette.' It still defaults to 'Unnamed', but it's a small improvement over the previous behaviour.
(9) Both the 'Add Global Color' panel and the edit colour pop-up now feature a search field, making it much easier to select from a large list of swatches. (They also now respect the 'Show as List' setting.)
Aside from those two improvements, very little seems to have changed with colour swatches across the Affinity suite. That's a big disappointment, and seems to communicates that the Affinity team don't share the view of many users, that this really needed an overhaul.
Undo/Redo
In Affinity apps, the action of selecting or deselecting an object gets added to the undo/redo stack. This is counterintuitive, goes against years of established practice, and (if the user is not familiar with it) can lead to data loss. Only an action that alters the artwork in some way should be added to the undo/redo stack, as discussed here.
Changes in V2
Nothing has changed.
 
Missing or broken features
1-bit black and white artwork (line art)
Graphics applications have, since the beginning of time, supported true 1-bit black and white artwork, so many professional users were understandably shocked to discover that Affinity V1 apps offered no support at all for 1-bit files. The only workaround is to work with grayscale and manually compress your lightness levels. This is anything but reliable, as compression algorithms at export time will not recognise the difference between a faux B&W image and a grayscale one, downsampling line art to an unacceptably low resolution and adding unwanted antialiasing.
Changes in V2
Incredibly, there's still no support for 1-bit black and white artwork.
Turning off antialiasing
The ability to turn off antialiasing of exported graphics is an essential feature for any professional graphics application. Affinity V1 apps lacked this feature entirely in the beginning, but in response to a forum post in 2015, one of Affinity's developers added highly-customisable, per-object control of antialiasing. Then, in 2020, it got better, with a simple on or off option, which you can apply to multiple objects at once.
This is a huge improvement already, but some of us would still like to see a simple on/off checkbox at export for outputting something like a raster print versions of a logo. As I explained in the same discussion: 'it's about tailoring the artwork to different output media. That should be an export function, not something I have to hard-code into the design file.'
Changes in V2
Turning off antialiasing cannot be done globally at export—it must still be hard-coded into each object of the file.
Reliably exporting for print
Affinity Publisher's default PDF export settings for print-ready artwork ('PDF (press-ready)') turns black (K:100) to a CMYK mix (e.g. C:71, M:66, Y:66, K:76), which would be a disaster if not detected before your job goes to print (something which is difficult when there are no pre-press tools provided). There are other issues too, like line art being downsampled and antialiased (related to the previous two issues).
Changes in V2
This has not been fixed. The 'PDF (press-ready)' export preset still has an all-or nothing 'Embed profiles' option ticked by default, and still causes black artwork (like text) to get converted to a CMYK mix.
Previewing colour separations
Affinity has no alternative to Acrobat Pro. For print professionals, this means no way of previewing and checking colour separations before going to print. When combined with the issues mentioned above, the chances of poor quality artwork and printing are high.
Changes in V2
There are no new apps or built-in tools for checking colour separations.
 
Summary
V2 may have brought some cool new features, but it has only brought modest improvements to a few of the features which matter to me the most, while other issues have been overlooked completely. Having waited so many years for the first major update, I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed.
I'll still purchase all the apps, and I'll still recommend them to family and friends. They do a lot of great things, and you certainly can't beat the price.
Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of the issues I have with the Affinity apps—just a few that frustrate me the most. If I've left out some of your biggest issues, feel free to add them below with a note on whether V2 fixed them for you.

Can't we already do that using the visibility checkbox?

Maybe if they introduced a simple non-printing (or non output) layer command ?
 
That way you could use shapes and snapping (as described above) but switch the layer off for output.

The current MSIX installers put sandboxed applications on your computer. To access the sandboxed applications we provided execution aliases, as described above. There are bugs in some third-party applications with the App Execution Alias. To bridge the gap between 3rd party apps and the sandboxed installed Affinity Photo 2, we are providing an application AFLaunch.exe that can be called instead of the 0KB execution Alias
So try AffinityPhoto2.exe first, and if that does not work, use AFLaunch.exe.
Attached file aflaunch.zip is a .ZIP file of the current AFLaunch.exe, referred to above. This should downloaded and unzipped onto your computer.
It can then be called (linked to) from withing your Photo DAM, which will start Affinity Photo 2 to edit your Photo. 
aflaunch.zip

Pros:
MSI had an installation success rate of ~85% (and we have many requests to our tech support team for v1 install failures). MSIX promises a 99.9% success rate.  MSI requires admin privileges to install. MSIX installs per-user, but files are deduplicated so that disk space isn't wasted. MSI apps are not sandboxed from other applications, meaning other applications can break those apps (we have seen this with several third-party apps in the past). MSIX apps are sandboxed to prevent this. MSI updates require a manual download of the full ~550mb installer which must be manually installed. MSIX can perform in-app delta updates which are smaller and faster. MSI updates can only be performed one at a time. MSIX can update all three apps simultaneously. MSI cannot guarantee that an uninstall will leave your machine in the exact state prior to install. MSIX installs are segregated and don't rely on the registry or special filesystem locations meaning an uninstall always leaves you in a clean state. Installation and app data paths are cleaned on uninstall. MSI apps cannot integrate with Microsoft Photos app to provide "Edit In..." style features. MSIX can. MSI does not require a digital signature. MSIX does (this means any MSIX that appears to be from Serif, will be guaranteed to be from us and only us). Cons:
MSI can allow the user to change the installation directory. MSIX can move installed apps to different drives, but it cannot choose a specific directory (due to the sandbox). See below: MSI can allow an option to install a desktop shortcut. MSIX doesn't provide this as an option, but you can pin the apps to either the Start Menu or the Taskbar. There is also the secret Shell:AppsFolder location in Explorer that allows you to right-click or drag the icon to your Desktop for a shortcut as a workaround if you need it.  MSI has easy discovery of undocumented app locations for launching from a third-party. MSIX hides the install location due to the sandbox, but we use App Execution Alias to enable this scenario. You can find the aliases in the following location: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityDesigner2.exe
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPublisher2.exe
Remembering to replace username with your Windows username. Also, those paths are already in your %PATH% variable so you can often launch them without even specifying the full path, e.g. just AffinityPhoto2.exe. There are bugs in some third-party applications with the App Execution Alias , and the next post includes aflaunch.exe as a work around if you need that instead. 
 

I do not think that we really know whose "fault" the recent crashes and anomalies with e.g. fonts, linked resource and profile lists (the latter in Affinity Photo only) are, but we know that after installation of a recent update to .NET 3.5 and 4.8 (and 4.8.1) these errors do happen with Affinity apps (and most probably with other, too, that have enabled data virtualization in context of list controls), both on Windows 10 and 11.
There is a known, easy workaround to disable the functionality that causes these issues in apps that use WPF based user interface and controls. Those users of Affinity apps that choose to keep the recent .NET 3.5 and 4.8.1 by default automatically applied recommended system updates (instead of rolling them back to avoid these rather limited Affinity-affected issues), might want to apply the easy fix given in this post to keep the updates and also avoid the issues caused by them.
If you decide to try this, please understand that you do it “on your own risk” so the instructions presented here are given just as user-to-user tip in a situation where Serif support has chosen to recommend unrolling of a recommended Windows update (that also contains security fixes), instead of giving detailed information of the problem. IMO, users who choose to unroll a security related system update also do it “on their own risk”, but most of them probably inadvertently, unless they have read the KB article related to the update they are advised to uninstall. Personally I’d definitely keep all the system (security) updates (and keep on receiving further Windows updates, rather than taking a risk of blocking miscellaneous new updates because of having unrolled one possibly being a pre-requisite for further recommended and automatic fixes).
I have no competence of making statements on whether these updates, which in addition to security fixes also contain several improvements that make the affected controls more stable, also have changes that are themselves directly causing new issues (that is, if they contain clear bugs), or whether the fixes are such that they break apps that have used certain features that in the improved versions require handling and processing, but omission of which did not cause problems in earlier versions. So far Microsoft has not provided any further fixes to the affected .NET modules, and the KB articles related to these updates state that MS is not aware of any issues related to applying these recommended updates. As far as I know this is the latest KB article related to Windows 11:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/october-11-2022-kb5017271-cumulative-update-for-net-framework-3-5-and-4-8-1-for-windows-11-version-22h2-535ac8db-c89b-43f7-abd7-a3c3240320e6
It is quite possible that such issues exist and that there will be an official fix some time in the future, but as long as such information is not made public to users (either by MS or Serif), I think that for most users it is best to allow recommended system updates and just try to live with the app issues for the moment (until getting more detailed information), as they seem to be such that can easily be either avoided or worked around (the issue with linked resources is more serious, however, and if not attended, can make it practically impossible to work with the project).
Anyway, those who don’t mind fiddling with the app setting text files and making a couple of tiny changes in them to avoid the .NET 4.8 update related issues in Affinity apps, can choose to do the following:
NOTE: You should make these changes only if you have .NET 4.8 (or a sub version like 4.8.1) installed due to recent Windows update. Please check the update history to see that this is so. Disabling the data virtualization setting has no effect unless you actually have the update active, but then you should not experience the mentioned issues in the first place)
1)      The files to be edited in case you have Serif-store purchased versions are:
C:\Program Files\Affinity\Publisher\ Publisher.exe.config
C:\Program Files\Affinity\Designer\ Designer.exe.config
C:\Program Files\Affinity\Photo\ Photo.exe.config
In case you have Microsoft Store purchased apps, I am not sure if it is wise or even possible to tamper with the configuration files, even if their location can easily be revealed by using Task Manager and opening the location of running Affinity executables.
2)      The changes to be made in each of these text files are the following:
a) In line that states the sub version of the .NET runtime version, enter 4.8 instead of 4.7.2 or something else that states the current version:
    <startup>
      <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.8"/>
    </startup>
b) In line that states whether data virtualization should be used in context of list controls, change the current value from “true” to “false”, as follows (alternatively you could delete all three lines, that is, the <appSetting> block, but it is enough to just set the value of the only setting in this block false):
  <appSettings>
    <add key="IsVirtualizingStackPanel_45Compatible" value="false"/>
  </appSettings>
3)      Save the changes (you need to run your text editor in Administrator mode), then launch your Affinity apps to see if this has fixed the problems with font lists (any Affinity app) and color profile conversion (Affinity Photo).
I cannot tell whether changing the runtime version number can have any negative effects, but if so, then it is easy enough to cancel the changes and revert the original settings. For that purpose it is a good idea to make backups of the original setup configurations before making changes to them.
I hope this user-based help is considered acceptable on the forum. I am giving it basically because I find it disturbing that Serif support currently appears to advise users to uninstall security involved recommended updates also related to issues the cause of which is not necessarily the mentioned system update, basically just to see if it “could be”, making users of release products kinds of testers (instead of spending some time and examining the cases themselves) -- and without giving any further details of the nature of the updates that they ask users to uninstall (exact KB numbers are not given, either, and e.g. there are already four or five 3.5. and 4.8 updates for Windows 11, and additionally feature updates that might either include them or be blocked because of being dependent on them).
Instead, it is basically implied that the update in question is a Microsoft blunder that the users should get rid of in order to make their system operable again [UPDATE: or, that because the issue has arisen spontaneously after a system update, it is a responsibility of MS to fix the problem as if Serif were not in power of doing anything to the matter themselves]. No notice is given whether the alleged “bug” is actually acknowledged by MS so that a fixed update could be expected in due time, or whether users of Affinity apps should permanently avoid Windows updates involving .NET components, whether security related or not.
I have not seen any publicly given information on whether a kind of feature-disablement fix (or “workaround”) shown above might at some time point be provided officially by Serif, as well, in an event it seems that there will be no Microsoft provided update that one way or another manages to implement the made improvements and security fixes without causing breaking of existing apps. And whether it is provided for all 1.x versions since they all seem to be affected.
In case this information is considered inappropriate to exist on the user forum and is estimated to possibly cause more harm than good, I apologize for posting it, and hope the moderators will remove it. The intention was nevertheless good, and due warnings were given.
UPDATE: The latest Microsoft cumulative update as of October 25 to .NET 3.5, 4.8 and 4.8.1 still does not seem to fix the issue (tested on Windows 10 and 11), and in the release article MS still claims their view of not being aware of any issues related to the update:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/october-25-2022-kb5018341-cumulative-update-preview-for-net-framework-3-5-and-4-8-1-for-windows-11-version-22h2-6bb1451c-7782-4a1f-bfdf-31140d49ee99
It means that this problem has now lasted already over a month (and the modules causing this problem in Affinity apps have been re-distributed already in a number of different cumulative updates, some containing security related fixes, as well). I do not know if rolling back the update could cause delay in update of any feature, quality and security updates but e.g. on my Windows 11 computer there is one feature update and eleven Windows 11 related quality and security updates that have been auto-installed after September 17, when the modules causing this issue were first time installed on this computer. The next official monthly cumulative update will happen on Tuesday Nov 8, and if this will not fix the issue, I would be a bit worried about the status of the problem (as there is a chance that there will be no auto-fix to the problem from MS). 
UPDATE2: For me, the patch Tuesday update as of Nov 8 2022, also including (once again) an updated .NET 3.5 and 4.8.1 module (in addition to making several other system updates), unfortunately did not bring a fix to the issues experienced in Affinity apps because of changes affecting WPF data virtualization, so the above mentioned fix is still necessary, if you choose to keep Microsoft updates.
The release note of the latest .NET 3.5 and 4.8.1 update for Windows 11, 22H2, also including a security fix: 
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/november-8-2022-kb5020622-cumulative-update-for-net-framework-3-5-and-4-8-1-for-windows-11-version-22h2-b28f2daf-af6d-4182-a960-05c607a27ef5
UPDATE: There is now official 1.10.6 update for Windows that properly fixes this issue. Please use that instead of the workaround. The updated version will overwrite any manual changes made to the app setting file so you do not need to restore anything to get the apps behave as planned.
 

I can confirm it also.

Today I just updated Windows 11 to 22H2 and the problem when typing fonts in Affinity Photo is gone... everything is back to normal. maybe for those who are still experiencing this error, you can try to update windows 11 to version 22H2 through the Microsoft page. Thank you

We are aware of this and the problem has been logged with the developers, this won't be a permanent solution however I have updated the FAQ post to include a method to hide updates, see below.
https://pureinfotech.com/show-hide-updates-windows-11/

If the Affinity apps are crashing when typing into the Font selection box please uninstall the following updates dependant on your version of Windows:
Windows 11: KB5017264, KB5017267, KB5017271, KB5017859, KB5018341, KB5018546, KB5018859, KB5020695, KB5020617 
Windows 10: KB5013887, KB5017262, KB5017266, KB5017858, KB5018329, KB5018543, KB5018544, KB5018545, KB5020613
Some users have also reported crashes/issues when placing images, updating resources, adding pages, amending table columns and converting colour profiles. If you're suddenly experiencing crashes when performing actions which worked previously it is also recommended that these updates be uninstalled. 
If you're unsure on how to uninstall these updates, please follow the below:
Press the Windows Key + R and enter 'Control Panel' Go to 'Uninstall a program' Select 'View Installed updates' Find the associated KB number, right click and select 'Uninstall' Restart your PC On Windows 11 you may need to press the Windows Key and search for 'Uninstall Updates'. You will then be able to uninstall the relevant update.
This update can then be hidden to prevent it being installed with future updates by following the guide in the link below.
https://pureinfotech.com/show-hide-updates-windows-11/

Please see the below FAQ thread on how to resolve this:
 
 

I have the same problem that arise today. Yesterday I updated Windows 11 as it wanted to do it. 
Today I saw that there is another update: 2022-09 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 for x64-based Systems (KB5017383), and I made it also, but no good. Now I have not more updates to do and Windows Insider option is switched off. (It has never been on in my computer).
So - what next? It is very annoying to find fonts without that feature.  

Is it generating crash reports? If you're not familiar with locating them: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/98904-faq-where-to-find-crash-reports/
Serif staff have previously said that for some reason 1.9.2 (and later) are requiring a more fully updated Windows 7 release, so make sure that your system is fully up-to-date on applicable Windows updates.
 

Not true. It only affects Mac users running Big Sur & for (most of?) them only during the first time they launch the app after booting up their Macs.
So for example, I run Catalina & even after a fresh reboot of my iMac, the Affinity apps start up in just a few seconds. After that, until I reboot again, the launch time is typically <1 second -- the Dock icons don't even bounce more than once or twice.

Ich halte die extrem langen Ladezeiten der Fonts sowohl bei Photo als auch bei Designer für ein ernstes Designproblem der Software. Photoshop CS6 stellt mir ohne erkennbare Wartezeiten alle installierten Fonts zur Verfügung, das gilt auch für andere Programme, die alle Schriftarten verwenden.
Ich erinnere mich, dass alte Windows-Versionen das selbe Problem hatten, doch Microsoft hat das sehr gut gelöst, spätestens seit XP, möglicherweise schon bei Win95, ist zu lange her. Doch das waren noch 16- oder 32-bit-Systeme, mit in Megabyte gezählten RAM, nicht mit 32 GByte.
Nur für Affinity-Programme einen Fontmanger mit dem dazugehörenden Verwaltungsaufwand einzurichten, ist keine ernstzunehmende professionelle Option.
Also wäre es höchst an der Zeit, dass die Programmierer von Affinity dafür effiziente Wege zu schaffen. Derzeit ist die Wartezeit, sowohl beim Designer als auch bei Photo unerträglich.
Eine Reduzierung der Wartezeit um 20% wäre lächerlich und ungenügend.
Google Translator:
I find the extremely long loading times of the fonts a serious design problem for the software, both for Photo and Designer. Photoshop CS6 provides me with no discernible waiting times all installed fonts, this also applies to other programs that use all fonts.
I remember that old versions of Windows had the same problem, but Microsoft did that very well, at least since XP, possibly already at Win95, is too long ago. But these were still 16- or 32-bit systems, with counted in megabytes of RAM, not 32 GB.
Setting up a fontmanger with the associated administrative overhead just for affinity programs is not a serious professional solution.
So it's high time the Affinity programmers created efficient ways to do that. Currently, the wait is unbearable, both at the designer and at Photo.
A 20% reduction in waiting time would be ridiculous and inadequate.

But why does it take AP so much longer to load fonts than PS for example?

Think you don’t understand, what I mean.
You say because „you don’t know the final print size“ you want a scaled output. Really? It does no matter, how small/big your typo is? It does no matter, wenn the aspect ratio isn‘t maintained?
You may output a document for preliminary use, but definitely not for „final print size“.

What i can never understand is why companies do this, don't offer import from prior product format.
They've spent all those years building a customer base and then abandon them, then expecting them to be loyal, they lose customers... people then look elsewhere.
 

Yes, agreed very much. Those of us who have been very loyal Serrif users (for decades!) should not be forgotten. I am really surprised that you did not think of this right from the start, especially given the similarity of design and layour of your new Publisher. It means those of us with legacy documents that might be very important will have to maintain PagePlus and the new Publisher. So please don't just put this on the backburner, but get on and implement it.

Make new document with two pages. Then insert to both of them a table.
Now take page one and select with mouse dragging all cells from top left to bottom right. Then scroll to second page (don’t select second page from pages studio, or you lose selection from table one) and instantly begin drag from upper left cell from table in second page for selecting all cells in those too. Magic happens – Publisher disappears as never been there…
Windows 7 64bit Service pack 1, 12 giga RAM, Intel i7, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti.
 
One more. If I put table to master page and then change information on them not in master page, but on ordinary pages that use that master page, I can’t change cell insets values anymore, as in real page they are grayed (that I understand why), but when I change them in Master Page, in Master Page I can see changes, but in child pages not. Are you kidding? Where I can then change table formatting, if in child page they are grayed and changing them in master page did not affect child pages?
And one strange thing more. When I start Publisher and make new document, it’s beginning type is Print (Press-Ready) and size A3. But surprise, surprise – layout says that document width is 210mm and height 99mm! And yes exactly this size new document will be. If I choose from page preset A4 and then A3 again, then correct sizes appear.
And if we already talking about Affinity programs, then why the hell all Affinity programs, older and last ones too, send ‘ (apostrophe) character to my keyboard buffer? It is little bit annoying, I think.