Hokusai

dannyj, You can move forward without any worries but you can't always move backwards. Hokusai

retrograde, I think this is an excellent idea and it would make dealing with shortcuts much better, easier, and more intuitive. I love the fact that shortcuts are customizable and implementing something like what you are suggesting would make it even better. Hokusai

Thanks Matt! You're the best! You made my day knowing that "hide" will be coming sometime in the near future! Hokusai

ianrobertdouglas, I remember reading a thread with lots of comments from the developers in it and it took me a while to find it but here it is: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/2363-ability-to-create-vector-brushes/?hl=%2Btonyb+%2Bbrushes&p=10222 I never used them much in Illustrator but I did like the Japanese sumi brushes and they were useful in certain situations (for me anyways). Hokusai

One thing that I think could be improved is the "multi-shape" tool (with a flyout). I love that I can add individual shapes from the multi-shape tool to the individually shown tools but when I do so, it makes two of them in the tools. Shouldn't a tool that is added to the shown tools be taken out of the multi-shape tools to avoid taking up screen space? Sorry if that isn't clear. Please see my attached screen shot. There shouldn't be two of the same tool shown is my point. Hokusai

MattP, Thanks for the update and thanks for adding a "Show All" and "Unlock All"! I really appreciate it. Now all I need is a "Hide" command right above the "Show All" and I'll be set! Thanks for all the hard work! Hokusai

TemperDesigns, Hello and welcome to the forums. A feature similar to Illustrator's Shape Builder has been requested more than a few times before. You can read about it here https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/9038-ad-shape-builder-tool/. Hokusai

BRIANSTUDIO, What is your comment in reference to? It certainly isn't helpful in this situation. The developers and most of the users here are incredibly nice and helpful and many people give advice and offer help to people free of charge. Serif doesn't only offer help to people who buy a manual, they offer help to everyone. It is ridiculous to think otherwise. Hokusai I went back and looked at your two previous posts and both of them were answered so why the attitude?

jhazel0705, Don't give up, if you keep at it you'll get the hang of it. A few things to point out, I'm pretty sure that you don't have 45 layers, you probably have 45 objects and no layers. When you first start a drawing, create a new layer and then select it and all of the objects that you create will be in that layer, it will help you to better manage your objects. Secondly, if you would post the file that you are working on, someone might be able to better help you or give you advice but your screenshot doesn't quite give me enough information to give you more advice. Best of luck, Hokusai

predick, Hello, I'm glad to hear that you were able to resolve your issue with the guides. Hokusai

predick, I downloaded your file and it shows the guides just like it should in the beta. I'm not sure what is causing the problems for you but it works fine on my end. Hokusai

predick, I tried it with a file I created in the store version and I was able to open it with the beta and then only 'Show Guides' without doing anything with the grid. I haven't tried it with your file yet though but it worked fine on my system. Hokusai

vjsouza, This has been brought up a few times in the past. Here is just one of the threads about it with some good posts: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/12058-why-not-merge-designer-photo/?hl=+merge%20+photo%20+ Hokusai

Matt, Thanks for the reply! I am really, really looking forward to a hide/show all command! I didn't know that the palettes aren't document aware. I thought that if I create a CMYK document, the I should get CMYK builds of colours. To get RGB colours isn't good in a CMYK document, especially with black as it isn't always noticeable on screen but it can cause huge problems if you print black at RGB values. Thanks for the explanation as to why it is happening. I hope that the palettes become document colour space aware in a future release. With each release things get better and better. Thanks to you and all of the team there for all the hard work! Hokusai

MattP, Thanks for the hard work. I'm glad to see the paste in place between artboards added (and I'm still hoping for a "Hide/Show All" command)! Sorry, I'm still having the same problem I have been having for quite some time. With the new Beta I'm still having the same problem with it always defaulting to "Greys" in he colour palette and the greys being RGB greys and not 100% Black even though I chose a CMYK document. Any idea why this is? Is it only me that this happens to? I posted a video about it in the last beta thread that better explains my problem. Thanks, Hokusai

There are good ways and bad ways to make suggestions, offer criticisms, ask for help, or to contribute to these forums and discussions and to me, you have offered the perfect example of how not to do those things. Even your screen name is off putting. Is Affinity Designer or Photo perfect? No, but the developers are actively engaging with users to learn what they need and want and then they work hard to try and add those features and functionality. You'd be hard pressed to find a group of developers like the ones at Serif. Why don't you try to make contributions to the forums that are actually useful and help to push the programs forward instead of just complaining and being negative? Instead of being so negative, why not try to be more positive and make some worthwhile contributions to the forums? Just a thought. Hokusai

selah2012, Normally vector apps, like Affinity Designer, have the ability to place objects off the canvas and to be able to see them and access them. Affinity Photo is a raster based application and traditionally in programs that are raster based, you aren't able to do that. Hokusai

impossiblecolor, There is also an "unlock" menu command but it doesn't really do anything right now so I'm guessing that it will in some future release. You can use the "unlock" command now but only if you lock something and then don't deselect it or click on anything else. Other than that, it is not useful for anything (that I can tell) at the moment but I'm guessing that it is leading to somewhere otherwise why put such a command in the menu? best of luck, Hokusai

impossiblecolor, A raster to vector feature is often requested. If you search the forums you can find many post about it. I thought that the developers have said before that they are working on adding it but it won't be anytime in the near future (but I'm not sure if this is correct or not). As a side note. Illustrator didn't have the ability to convert raster art to vectors for 25 years. It is only since Illustrator CS 2 (version 12) that it got the ability to do this. Affinity Designer is powerful but it still is young in terms of its development and something as complex as a vectorizer will no doubt take some time. In the meantime there are some decent alternatives that you can use (some of them are even free). You can lock objects by selecting the object/objects that you want to select and then simply hitting command + L (for Mac I'm not sure for Windows but if you look in the menu you'll see the shortcut for it). This will save you trips to the Layers panel. The only problem with this is, you can't unlock them without having to go to the Layers panel (right now). Hokusai

JET, I'm sorry but I think you either misread what I wrote or you misunderstood what I was talking about. I didn't say that Designer should do exactly what Illustrator does. Here is what I wrote after the short quote from me that you posted "I'm not saying that Designer needs to be exactly like Illustrator but as it is now the method that you have to use in Designer is horribly inefficient. It is more efficient to be able to do things directly on the artboard (or canvas) rather than having to mouse over (tiresome on a big screen) to the Layers Panel and select or unselect things". My whole point was I was requesting for the ability to do things with key commands on objects selected on the artboard or canvas without having to go to the Layers panel (which wastes time). I think that is what you are wanting to, isn't it? I have always wondered why a "Hide/Show All" wasn't added to more programs as it is a huge timesaver and it would greatly improve my efficiency with Designer. You can't agrue that the way of isolating things in Illustrator is miles ahead of Designer in terms of efficiency because Designer doesn't really have anyway to isolate things (sure there is one way but it pales in comparison to how you can isolate things in Illustrator). No doubt there were good things about Freehand but things move on and I imagine that Illustrator has progressed to be more efficient than Freehand was. My main complaint is everything in Designer requires a trip to the Layers Panel which is inefficient. If want to hide something in Illustrator then a simple key command will do it. I agree that being able to unlock individual objects could have advantages but still an Unlock All command is very useful in many situations. It is funny that you said "​Countless newcomers to Adobe Illustrator have struggled with such goofball elements of its needlessly cumbersome and confused interface for decades. Other programs conforming to it, just because of its market position, is one of the ways Illustrator has effectively kept vector drawing development in the doldrums.", because I felt quite the opposite. I didn't care for Freehand at all and apparently neither did the masses or else Freehand might still be around. Hokusai

MattP, I'm looking forward to it! Thanks for all the hard work! Hokusai

Zox, Thanks for the tip it would be useful in some cases. While it works in some cases it still doesn't solve my main reason for wanting a Hide/Show All and a Lock/Unlock All and that is to keep me from having to travel to and select things in the layers panel. Doing so is inefficient compared to the way it is done in Illustrator. I'm not saying that Designer needs to be exactly like Illustrator but as it is now the method that you have to use in Designer is horribly inefficient. It is more efficient to be able to do things directly on the artboard (or canvas) rather than having to mouse over (tiresome on a big screen) to the Layers Panel and select or unselect things. As well, hiding a whole layer isn't ideal as there maybe objects that I would like to remain visible on that layer. That said, I will use your tip sometimes and it is a gem of a tip. Thanks Hokusai

I too am curious to hear if there are plans to add this to Designer. Hokusai

Tanujiboy, I completely agree with you about the pricing being fair. Designer and Photo are both the best value for the cost for any graphics program out there (in my humble opinion). I too hope that more tutorials start to show up online to help people who are new to Designer and Photo. The ones made by the Serif staff are great but no doubt they could use some more. Hokusai

Tanujboy, I too think that Affinity Designer and Photo are great products and I'd say that they are popular. While maybe not as well known as Adobe's offerings, Designer and Photo are popular. As with others who have posted before me, it takes time to become known let alone popular. To me, popular is difficult to quantify but I'm guessing that you mean with professionals. I do think that both Designer and Photo are making inroads with professionals but as you mentioned, Adobe has been around for a long time and their software is well entrenched in many markets with many professionals so it will take time to make inroads into the professional market. I hope that Serif continues to have push the envelope and that Designer and Photo continue to gain traction in the market because they are fantastic pieces of software. One important thing to note, you wrote that Designer and Photo cost $39.99 and have lifetime updates but that isn't quite right. I believe that the updates are only free between major versions. Upgrades to version 1 are free up to version 2. So if you are at 1.5 then 1.6, 1.7, etc are free but I think you have to pay an upgrade price at the next major version, which would be version 2. That is my understanding anyways. Maybe someone from the staff can clarify things? Hokusai