narrationsd

Walt, just to be complete here, I did try the recommended method again, this time with the Bluetooth mouse. Indeed, it works fine this way. So the issue definitely was with the not-always-complete-in-details functioning of the laptop trackpad, which is still that way after about ten years...this one was a good investment.... Noticed there are indeed a lot of apps available for dragging over Shortcuts in that magic folder; could be useful. And yes, I do appreciate the distinction between Store and non-Store MSIX; just never enjoy these unnecessary MS complications Best, thanks again,, and hope this helps someone else. Clive

Thanks, @walt.farrell. Truth is that I tried that method originally at first, but on my very up-to-date and maintained Win10, the drag-drop maneuver absolutely refused to bring the icon shortcut over. Hence the suggested, which can at least be a backstop. It occurs to me in writing this that the issue might be that I tried this using the trackpad on my laptop. There are a few other places, usually in graphic programs, where similar drags aren't accomplished, though usually where a modifier key is involved. When I'm back to it, I'll try with a Bluetooth mouse, just to see. But this is a very standard laptop driver etc., so it may be well to offer the alternate method in the official suggestion, no? Cheers, Clive

pour apaiser et les bêtes sauvages.... GoGo Penguin - Jazz à la Villette includes some brave and appreciated French, not from Nottingham, but also from today's Northern England

I didn't have one, after using at least an initial download version of the installer, and it took a bit to get one. The apps now give a lot of evidence of being Microsoft Store apps, though none of them show up on the Store Library, as other apps recently converted to install this way do (e.g. LiquidText, craft, Skype). None of the quick drag-drop ways on the web work to get a desktop shortcut, but this older one does: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/create-desktop-shortcut-for-uwp-apps-in-windows-10 Then appears a very nice icon indeed, with a very visible B(eta) greek letter on it so you can tell Nice job, and nicer if it just appeared. Possibly I missed a checkbox for this on the install?, though?

Walt, thank you, yes, I purchased a Universal license the day of the announcement, and successfully installed on iPad and Win10, so far, so great. And today, when I try it once again, the already-installed Beta activated successfully, runs fine though it asked me to verify a second time, to get the downloadable content able to access. I appreciate your help here over the long term, as I've had v1 licensing also for a number of years, and contributed here on betas. What I surmise is according to observed, as follows: - a few days ago, I got an email announcement of the beta v2, from following the proper place in the forumt - this announcement linked to a posting here, which didn't exist. Nothing existed in the area, and this lasted if I remember for more than a day - eventually a posting showed up -- not the referenced one -- and gave download details. I downloaded and installed -- wherever those installs are going... - this is where I came up against the absolute refusal to activate, with perfectly good old password, and when I changed my store login password, just to see. I could always go right into the store itself. - that's whenI made the post above, which seemed this morning to have been disappeared from the beta forum...hmm. - this morning, Saturday here in the Americas, I had a look at the forum, and could see your reply because a notification lit... - to prepare to reply, I wound up the beta again, with vpn turned off as too many sites don't like those, as I had originally also, and this time the activation occurred immediately and smoothly, if needing somehow to be done twice, as above. - the beta also runs fine, with a lot of improvements listed to be appreciated, as always My conclusion is that whatever was horsed up to cause the original posting not to appear, or led to its being taken down, was still horsed up in ways that caused the activation server not to work, and this lasted long enough for me to run into it. Eventually, this has apparently been unwound. Maybe my posting will reappear as well, or otherwise I'll attempt to DM you with the above Best, Clive p.s. if you read this in an email notification, I've edited to clarify one or two points, and to remove the impression I had that my original post had been disappeared -- instead, it was as a reply to Patrick's announcement, and thus not showing in the forum posts listing -- quite rightly

well, I installed it. after this apparently misplaced posting appeared the next day -- and it absolutely refuses to let me activate. I even changed my store password, after which the store let me in as ever, but still this 'msix' beta doesn't. Maybe m$ mean what they say, when the say it's going to be wonderful, but isn't yet....

@AdamWVery happy to have this, as all your work; often compliment it on DPReview. Yet you are repeating a pattern here that isn't so healthy, no? you release, we are happy immediately, you push a Beta...with very important fixes (cf. breaking projects so they don't open; also, crash on your downloaded assets) This has happened each time recently, and I can't think it makes non-beta users happy, if they even know of it. Or get bitten by the important issues.. I fully appreciate about release cycles, and how things turn up anyway, but since you come back each time so rapidly, it seems clear you know about the problems when you release, and just don't re-initiate the testing to assure no retreats, for an actually sound release. Thoughts from rather dev-experienced here; hope they get suitable wakeups with your crew.... Best, Clive

Hi Mark, read your reply now a couple of beta versions back, in short order. Impressive work by you guys. Now, about links and CDNs... - The CDN move really works. It was able to saturate a decent cable internet (is there such a thing...) with peaks of up to 50Mbit/sec, in California. This is great, and things even the size of Affinity updates arrive rapidly. - the links. I clicked today first on the Publisher update. Bingo, took right off downloading as expected Then I tried here, for Photo. As before, no joy. I had to right-click-open-in-tab, to get it What's the difference? The Publisher link is https, and the Photo one still isn't We are likely big boys and girls here amongst the betas, and can figure this out, but it doesn't feel good, or of the enormous design, quality, and advances level we know of Affinity Don't mean the loud pedal, just saying a feeling, and with a smile. Can't forget all the things you guys do do, either, as you can see Best, Clive

> Click here to download the latest beta - This is now distributed via CDN, so downloads should be quick for everyone... hopefully! Well, this is a great move, but on very latest Chrome, clicking the link no longer works. I had to copy it, then open it in a fresh tab - then the downloads were indeed fast, noticeably so out in California.. I had a look, and you're providing an 'http' link -- not 'https' which is the only thing really acceptable these days, so may have crossed with Google's push on this. it's an idea, anyway, as I have actually in a career never seen such a refusal before... Same is true for the photo beta, but looked like might get better notice to report here.

Well, it's only in reading above that I _found_ the pen tool in Photo, which is indeed what I needed in annotating a screenshot using some lines. What's below illustrates the frustrating results when trying to use the brush constrain. Imagine it more as actually happens in trying to do a vertical line. - first you figure out how the thing 'works', from an initial point - then you make an initial point, and try to locate vertically from it, click. - you get a vertical all right, with a 'hook' at the top, because you weren't perfectly aligned. Or worse -- if you didn't 'clear' from an earlier attempt. What could you actually do about this? Perhaps, put the pen tool just under the brush tool, so it was a bit more evident?? I'm stopping short of suggesting you import the ability from the pen tool, but you could think about it.... I've usually found things I like, Affinity now for several years mostly replacing use of CS6, but this one, I could see being in the way of the ease that sells your efforts...

Seemed to download fast, but maybe that was not in the same time interval as others - think I was very early after the email. Today I was trying to use it, which seems generally smooth as ever, but one bug occurred: -- I wanted to create a document from a png on the clipboard - I made a mistake first -- I had copied a text after, as part of getting through that 'registration' tryout. - thus when I went to create in Photo, it refused as not the right type the clipboard -- correct - then I copied the original png again - this time, Photo didn't even offer the Create from Clipboard menu item -- it was greyed out - I created a blank document, pasted the png in. Fine enough, just extra borders - so, I tried again to Create from Clipboard. With no changes, the png still on the clipboard, this time the item wasn't greyed out, and using it did the right thing, created a doc just the size of the png. Hope that's clear, and as always, quite enjoying what you persons do, all of it Clive

'm not able to sign in with the Affinity Account in the latest Designer beta. I can use the name and password just fine to sign into the Affinity store account, but not in your app. pic attached - tried this with and without normal firewall, so it's not that...

I was excited to see this item addressed in the Release notes for latest 1.8.3.641 today, so have made a first moment (after midnight...) to try it out. My impressions are: definitely a big improvement where it mentions, on the _tail_ of lightening pressure pen strokes however, this kind of improvement needs to be also at the _beginning_ of a stroke that _starts_ light What I seem to get in the light-start case is the dithering, sometimes showing visible half circle at medium or more width, then after an inch or so of screen drawing with pen, there's a 'snap' -- and now the stroke reverts as if the start had been full pressure and full width, even though it wasn't at all originally they're both a bit weird, that initial dither and then snap, so it ought to be easy for you to see it for your self, with a Wacom or the like, using pressure sensitivy controller on Width (80-100%) Anyway, definite forward movement, quite appreciated, thank you! p.s. extra credit also, as your forum actually remembered and automatically brough up my draft when I sighed and tried to post again, after it failed to post due a badly timed moment of that recent Windows 10 invention of fully dropping internet at random. No fix for that yet, so am thankful it only happens once late in the day or so here....

Juat downloading the release candidate for today, but I tried out the 603 Beta a few days ago on a reasonably complex InDesign idml file which I had done before, and this time it imported rather perfectly. This is a great improvement from early versions, as appreciated as they were. The document has framed local layouts, images with captions, Asian language segments, multiple sections, and lots of details like hyphenations which had thrown text layout significantly off originally. The text layout decisioning now, while perhaps not quite up to Adobe's long-in-experience parapgraph engine a few places possibly, was just fine. Any remaining desires can be easily adjusted. I'm no professional printing expert, but I think you have been doing a marvelous job, there in Nottingham and from whomever may also be contributing.

thanks, Sean

Bringing this back into view, updated for latest as commented here:

If you try this out, as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKWEjZMGM1o or other YouTubes which show similarly, it works very well - a feature such as a geometric transform is replicated in Affinity Photo -- great. And thus you can replace the original content with another, retaining the transform, which is very useful where perspective has been created, for example, as your replacement will get the same perspective fit into the overall composition.  However, I ran into problems trying to do more, which seem to center on Smart Objects being implemented, but not Smart Filters. These are simply eliminated, so if you've done anything to the original using them, it's just ignored. A particular problem is that if you did Filter operations on a Smart Object in Photoshop, it automatically turns those into Smart Filters...so you are guaranteed to lose them. There are probably a lot of ins and outs about how Smart Filters could be usefully handled, which will be up to your team to delve into and come up with the best that's practical. Not having more time to play, at the moment it occurs to me that an answer on the PS side would be to create the embedded object separately, pasting it into the composition flattened. I think this is necessary, as I can find no way to successfully flatten a smart filter, Adobe having been so impressed with themselves. Confusing to this, you will find Flatten Image on the PS Layer menu, not the Image menu, and yet it will flatten your entire composition. As well, if you try extracting (via double-clicking) the layer, Flatten on this will end you up with a white background, so that save and close nets you the rest of your composition below the layer covered up. Back to Affinity, I think it's probably apparent that not all Smart Filter operations could be replicated, but perhaps a useful subset that would be worth it? Or in any case, a (cntl-C copiable) warning alert that you've just lost Smart Filters, listing them per Layer of PSD import, would seem a very usefui and easy addition to present 1.8, if you also think so?

Now trying on fresh Beta 1.8.0.555: matters reported here feel to have improved... there's nice control, better than Adobe's it seems, but we're not there yet. There's still a definite problem as you lift the brush at the end of a stroke. I worked with Illustrator again, to see how they've done it. The key seems to be that whatever the highest pressure was at completion of the stroke (or I think, more subtly to the good, _near_ the end of the stroke), that brush size is kept, in Adobe. This leaves your end of stroke at worst a large circular blob, if you over-pressured there, but otherwise just a nice rounded end at the last intended pressure/size In Designer, you continue tracking pressure as we lift, and then try to draw an end cap at some intermediate pressure, which ends up as a bit of a train wreck Attached two pics again to show the points. Note your nice control of fine pressure, but Adobe's comfortable solution for ending the stroke, even if over-pressured before lift

Thank you, Sean

hmm. Thanks, Walt, I understand as from an old school. I thought InDesign solved this, but especially with language culture/punctuation differences, found they didn't. I did locate an intriguing article, where some of the suggestions are quite good at least for English varieties. https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/how-to-globally-change-straight-double-quotes-to-curly-open-and-close/td-p/4341351?page=1 Since Affinity does do regular expressions(!), I'm most drawn to the simplest: a Unicode single character replace all, where you replace the quote mark with itself, but with the right kind defaulted in preferences. This way no assumptions need be made about surrounding text. I guess Affinity could implement this as an internal, but then they'd have to explain where it doesn't work..unless there are other REs that cover those other situations. Cheers for your week-end...

Sure -- quotes.afpub, attached, which should explain itself: typographic quotes -- seem not to interrupt spelling now plain simple quotes -- Do still make words fail for spelling I haven't seen that there's yet a way to automatically go through selected or all text, and change the quoting style, which means I still have to retype every instance, with appropriately different auto-correct settings... big type so the situations for results are easy to see Thanks, Clive

Maarten, that's very interesting.... Yes, I suspect Affinity can easily deal with this problem, once seeing it clearly, alongside the work-around here. I'd modify what I said only to suggest that a desirable automatic fix mode be also one of equally available configuration choices, necessarily saved in the document -- I think you'd still like to be able to adjust in some circumstances, as ever for getting what the human sees best. Yes, I had some thinking this might have occurred and been part of the problem -- if you drew _again_ for example the problem curve that produces the myriad-point intersection. Drawn or traced again with not precisely the same path as the initial shape, then there're all sorts of opportunities for micro-difference -- including once again possibly primarily in the quantization given intersection probably works with measured-apparent positions rather than the Bezier points themselves. But again, Affinity guys and gals will have to know the details. Now, I looked at your references, and have to say that's an extremely attractive presentation. Your mini-resume gives a pretty good hint how this came about ; also reminds a bit of how it was to come in weekends or evenings when consulting with the BBC, and find persons micro-refining what would become one more excellent video interval on someone's television. As to the procedure with the sphere, it must be an exact example of the phrase on the Wikipedia page for it: 'veridical paradox'. What looks it can't be true but is, to save someone from looking it up. The key is that this is a purely mathematical procedure, where the sphere is allowed to intersect itself along the way. This is not physical; and I take it as due warning to what one may understand as a danger signal in other situations, that the way so much 20th century physics is based entirely on math that just 'happens' to fit with what can be even quite carefully observed --in some cases but not others -- is no full answer. Witness controversy not lessening about 'dark matter', 'dark energy', relativity/quantum irreconcilability, and whether the universe is indeed stretching as we think after the last flip-flop about this. Small matters, and that is a multiple pun. Ok, enough on a Sunday morning, but maybe will amuse you. Take care, Clive

@wigglepixel, I had a look, being curious, and because I saw nothing like this on intersecting reasonably irregular figures. What I found with your example file is that if I displace by only one pixel (or whatever an arrow-key delivers) to the left, for example of the smaller piece, the problem goes away, and i get a normal-looking few points to define the resulting object. I suspect the problem is in some kind of quantization of exact position for points of the two matching(!?) curves on the right - where you see the points build-up. If those curves are for example very close but not entirely matching, one could imagine how this could result in many points apparently being required to define their intersection. Or, which is the reason I mention quantization, some method of reading the points which invents a micropixel difference in plotting each curve. I'd guess the quantization theory, since that could account for a noisiness where resulting intersections seem back and forth instead of in one smooth curve. So it's a little hard to decide if it's exactly an algorithm problem, especially as anything but this micro-match, even using your complex curves, gives a nice and simple result. For the time being, I do understand that you want to match the shadow/darker section within the larger and lighter one, but the result I get with the one-(pseudo?)-pixel offset seems to look quite good, so maybe that can be good enough. And as a fix, maybe Affinity can arrange a configurable quantization for matching, which would be saved with the drawing, to allow you to do 'exact' matches later if you really need to. Or best, an auto-configuring one, which would react when 'too many' points were generated vs. the number of points in either of the individual objects beforehand. These are interesting figures; not yet imagining how they'd be used.... [my results are on the latest Beta]

Hi Sean, Did you need me to put this additional report you requested in a separate bug item? I had a look at where the ticket on this set of posts goes, and indeed it leads to a group of similar complaints on pen drawing of strokes, which as you noted was only my first item... Thanks, Clive gone until it's morning over here again