[Affinity is joining the Canva family. RIP ?]

I have decided to just wait and see what happens but I  will not be building the new business that I  have been wanting  to do  I  think that this will could go like Xara/Magix

They still sell their Designer pro non subscription but you if you don't  get the subscription  there is no assets in the designs  gallery  so no templates no smart shapes just imagine Affinity designer with only squares and ellipses  and everything else behind that subscription pay wall  then next to go wad the Xara Xone a teaching and resource site it was scrapped and the community tutorials put behind a ridiculous site that you can't search and no one uses any more and nothing new was ever  added again

Then the Magix crapp software that was cobbled on to the Xara software 

I  switched to Affinity once I  could run it on my Pc to to get away  from all of that  was happy and enjoyed Affinity apps   now here we go again

So  I  will wait and see if serif/ canva  prove me wrong  I hope they do 

 

 

[Canva]

I will wait and see what happens  but I  won't  hold out much hope  they will add features and content that will be subscription only that is what a subscription is all about

Canva will make changes  its their company now and they  call the shots  

I  truly hope I am wrong but  I  saw as a member of the forum team at Xara  and had access to info that wasn't  public  that what went down with Xara and Magix  was not good   I  can easily  see the same thing happening  here 

So to Ash,  Patrick and the rest of the Affinity team  I  truly would love for Canva to prove me wrong   let's hope they do

 

[Canva]

Another Software company that sells out   I came to Affinity  because of the crapshow that become Xara and its product line when they sold out to Magix  

Now Affinity  have done the same  just wait til canvas start bolting on their crappy add ons Canvaffinity here we come

Just wait til Canva starts cutting costs whereever and whoever they can

Just wait til there is a subscription fee snuck in first as an optional thing but before you know it you will need that subscription to get the best new features and new content 

So where do we go now ?  For me I  am  now a hobbiest  and  once the  crap show begins just like magix did with Xara  I will find a new hobby 

I have seen this before now we are about to see it again  Apparently the folks at Affinity didn't learn from Xara's mistakes   Because no matter what you promise now You are no longer calling the shots the software,  the company and your loyal customers are now at Canva' s  mercy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brush panel improvements]

show as list greyed out and auto selected  and no nozzles show on preview in vector brushes  in pixel persona it works just fine  is this intended/expected behaviour?

 

[vector warping text with FX]

messing around with the vector warping this time I warped text around a sphere  one thing I found and this may be already known but you select the warp group and apply effects it only applies the effects in the original bounding box  however select the text layer within the warp group and apply the FX to that and all works fine

[who wants cookies?]

these cookies have zero calories!  some brushes that paint cookies on your document!  chocolate chip, double chocolate, gingersnap and sugar cookies!

 

cookies.afbrushes

[designer beta 2.174 mesh warp with grouped fx effects crashes]

I am able to repeat this but I'm not sure if its known or not any way here is exactly what i am doing

1. create 2 vector shapes with the shape tool and add them to make a compound shape

2. clip a bitmap into the shape as a child layer

3.apply 3Dfx  to the shape and add a colour overlay fx with 50% transparency

4.  create some text and place on top of the shape

5.apply bevel fx to text and set transparency to 50%

6. group text and shape

7. layer menu  >vector warp group >mesh

8. add extra nodes to mesh beta crashes 

[beta exe version triggers anti virus and now stable version wont activate]

so was playing around with the beta version and it crashed went to open it again and got a notification of a new version available and decided to try the exe format.

when I try to install it my av software blocks it saying it contains a threat  GenVariantFragtor.206121 so I went to open the stable version and it wants me to activate it  which i did do before as i have used it for a while now.  anyway filled in my info and it now says wait a moment and try again which never goes away and if I close it and try again i still get the same thing. 

I am going to close everything down and restart my computer see if that changes anything

Edit: after restart exe versions of stable 2.04 apps working fine designer 2 beta exe (latest build) still triggers av software (Bit Defender)  after temporarily disabling bit defender beta exe installs fine  

[Spiral Tool in Affinity Designer]

There could be lots of uses for spirals from plant illustrations to Greek meanders to logo design 

[Spiral Tool in Affinity Designer]

You could also add Xara designer pro X to that list Sadly though theirs is part of their subscription and with out keeping up an increasingly expensive subscription you lose access to it    They implemented theirs as a shape tool  which would a great way for affinity to add it too!  Just imagine being able to drag a spiral on to your page and be able to quickly edit it with some of those special nodes!   And no subscription needed! 

[new msix files not picked up by my gaming keyboard]

ok I guess tomorrow I am going to install the exe versions  and decide   at least i have only installed the designer beta so far

thank you for your help 

[new msix files not picked up by my gaming keyboard]

will it actually be easier to uninstall and reinstall all my affinity apps?  if i could just point my keyboard software to the proper files is all I need.  I miss my g keys 

[new msix files not picked up by my gaming keyboard]

I have a logitech g710 gaming keyboard it has six programable keys that i had set to quickly do things like open a new document, export, and a few other things to speed my workflow however the keyboard software doesn't pick up  the msix files its looking for the exe file where are those files for version 2 once installed?

[Vector Flood Fill]

hi been playing with this  and I'm not sure why but I cant get the bitmap fills to work with the  vector flood fill every time i try the whole thing fills not the desired area.  I select everything then select the vector fill tool then drag a bitmap from my assets panel to the active colour on the toolbar just like in the video but the whole thing fills not sure if i'm doing something wrong or what is wrong I have attached my file and the assets file 

These wood fills are my own designs they are procedural textures created in filter forge 

my wood assets.afassets vector flood fill wood fills.afdesign

[Forum re organization]

I am sorry I know this isn't really the correct place for this but I don't know where it would actually go ?

In this area you have separated out v1 and v2 related posts which is good but there are other areas where the same re organization would mke the forums much more user friendly.  for example resources and tutorials  And questions about the software.  more subforums would make easier navigation for example some one looking for an answer about Designer v2 doesn't want to surf through hundreds of v1 posts  

[vector warp tool improvements]

Been playing with the vector warp and its great!  I do have a couple of suggestions to make it even better 

1. warp a gradient fill 
2. allow us to select a node with in the mesh and apply a colour or a transparency 

[Where are the dictionaries?]

how do I download the file when I go to copy the file all I get is copy link but if I click on the file it just opens the file no download ?  I just want to easily download the file.  Is there a download link somewhere?

[vector mandala art]

Hi Garry, Thank you,  I will have to have look and tweak my template and fix that join issue.  the little white areas are because I used a vector brush on this one to kind of hand colour it.  I am experimenting with different  ideas and techniques with these.  Its actually quite relaxing doing these. 

 

[vector mandala art]

Mandala # 2  this one I did in an orange brown colour like that of henna.  I experimented with adding a colouring layer but decided I liked it better just like this

[vector mandala art]

I have decided to take up doing mandala art.  I created my own template using symbols and layers for drawing and colouring.  This is my first one, there will be more

[Cutting out the round shape but keep the white part.]

Yes Xara is fast and intuitive but Xara is not without some issues.  Affinity has better brushes already and better Svg export.  Affinity is missing some basics like blends and the contour tool is just a beginning but the main thing is Affinity is putting more work into its vector art tools and Xara has all but abandoned the art side of things favouring its business layout stuff.  And if you have publisher you can set up a picture frame that is a container for a photo.  you can drag and drop a photo into a frame  once you have your frame set up in Publisher you can save it and use it in Designer and Photo.  

[Angled or Oblique guideline]

On 3/5/2021 at 7:27 AM, loukash said:

That all said, it would be nice to have an option for custom guidelines of any shape. Illustrator can convert any path to a guideline, and I've always found it very useful, e.g. having a round guideline when laying out vinyl or CD labels.

I would love to see them do this by giving us a special guidelines layer we could easily add to our documents and anything placed on this layer would automatically be converted to a guidline and this layer would also be automatically set so it did not export or print.  And guides dragged out from rulers could also be automatically on this layer 

[Blending Tool]

I would love to see a blend tool like the one that Xara has  it works so simply you just drag from one object to the next and it creates a basic blend then they have options to set the number of steps, how they transition and how colours transition.  It is one of the few things I still use Xara for.

[intensity brushes with different greyscales]

When I create an intensity brush using the "create brush from selection" method all shades of grey create the same opacity level when I use the export png create new intensity brush method then it works as you describe.  hmmm......  I'm using the latest release version, perhaps I've found a bug?  I think I will test this out further in the current beta and see what I find.  if it still happens in the beta I'll post full steps and screenshots in that forum

In the meantime,  yes I was hoping that there was a way to create the brush so grey scales could be set to saturation values instead  for example black would be fully saturated and white would  be fully desaturated.   but I suppose could get the results I'm after by creating full colour image brushes 

[Cutting out the round shape but keep the white part.]

Hi ennuied  I know that coming from Using Xara Designer Pro into the world of affinity is a learning curve.  But not a huge one.  One thing to consider Affinity is not an all in one program like  Xara Designer Pro.  Affinity Designer is mainly for vector graphics but you can do some photo tasks in the pixel persona. 

You can mask out the white background. 

1. Go into pixel persona, use the selection brush to select the rubik's cube. 
2. Once you have the cube selected press refine on the info bar a new panel will come up and you can see a red overlay showing the areas that will be masked out.  here you can use the brush that automatically comes active to brush over any areas of your selection that still need work like fine hairs or branches.  you can use the sliders as well. 
3. Once you are happy with your mask  go down to the bottom of the refine panel and you will see a dropdown menu under the label output.  choose new layer from that menu and click apply.  You will now have your cube cutout and on a new layer of its own.  and the original photo will still be there on it's layer.  You can simply keep the original turned off by making sure it's check box in the layers panel is not checked.  and you will always be able to go back to it if needed.