LCamachoDesign

I'm just going to leave this here:
GitHub - SysCV/sam-hq: Segment Anything in High Quality
Then tell me AI has no uses in real projects.

I'm just going to add what I think it's an important technical point, rather than discussing thread locking vagaries.
Serif themselves should not add any AI related features to Affinity. This field is in constant change at this point in time. Plus, due to the nature of how it works, i.e.: needing vast amounts of compute power that are unavailable locally to nearly all users, the most likely future will be that a considerable number of cloud AI image generator and editor APIs will exist in the market.
As such, what Serif should be focusing is what I've already mentioned dozens of times. Plugins and scripting. Plugins and scripting should be their top and only priority. Then users and API providers will be free to add whatever generative AI they fancy. Or none if they dislike, do not have use for, or simply disapprove of its usage.
Furthermore, when the field inevitably changes, all that needs to change is the plugin/script, and that will be the responsibility of the creator, be it a user or API provider. Serif should not, and must not, spend their time chasing this industry. It changes too fast, it contains too much, it's just too much for any single company to keep up. It also gives the user freedom to use any provider they personally like, rather than being forced to use whatever Serif would choose.
Thanks!

I'm just going to add what I think it's an important technical point, rather than discussing thread locking vagaries.
Serif themselves should not add any AI related features to Affinity. This field is in constant change at this point in time. Plus, due to the nature of how it works, i.e.: needing vast amounts of compute power that are unavailable locally to nearly all users, the most likely future will be that a considerable number of cloud AI image generator and editor APIs will exist in the market.
As such, what Serif should be focusing is what I've already mentioned dozens of times. Plugins and scripting. Plugins and scripting should be their top and only priority. Then users and API providers will be free to add whatever generative AI they fancy. Or none if they dislike, do not have use for, or simply disapprove of its usage.
Furthermore, when the field inevitably changes, all that needs to change is the plugin/script, and that will be the responsibility of the creator, be it a user or API provider. Serif should not, and must not, spend their time chasing this industry. It changes too fast, it contains too much, it's just too much for any single company to keep up. It also gives the user freedom to use any provider they personally like, rather than being forced to use whatever Serif would choose.
Thanks!

Hi @LCamachoDesign,
Thanks for providing detail,
I've discussed this internally with the QA team and it looks like this is likely by design, the expand stroke function separates the original shape into it's two components: the stroke and the fill. In this scenario you do have a stroke applied to the object since you have a stroke width, it just doesn't have a colour which the function isn't checking for, as objects can exist on the canvas without a fill.
However, I do agree that I can't really see the intention behind it's current functionality, so I'll be logging this as an improvement internally based on your suggested remedies so that it does not leave a secondary curve object for the invisible stroke.

I'm just going to add what I think it's an important technical point, rather than discussing thread locking vagaries.
Serif themselves should not add any AI related features to Affinity. This field is in constant change at this point in time. Plus, due to the nature of how it works, i.e.: needing vast amounts of compute power that are unavailable locally to nearly all users, the most likely future will be that a considerable number of cloud AI image generator and editor APIs will exist in the market.
As such, what Serif should be focusing is what I've already mentioned dozens of times. Plugins and scripting. Plugins and scripting should be their top and only priority. Then users and API providers will be free to add whatever generative AI they fancy. Or none if they dislike, do not have use for, or simply disapprove of its usage.
Furthermore, when the field inevitably changes, all that needs to change is the plugin/script, and that will be the responsibility of the creator, be it a user or API provider. Serif should not, and must not, spend their time chasing this industry. It changes too fast, it contains too much, it's just too much for any single company to keep up. It also gives the user freedom to use any provider they personally like, rather than being forced to use whatever Serif would choose.
Thanks!

Hi LCamachoDesign,
This seems to be a bug so I will log this with our developers for further investigation. This looks as though its being caused by the node handles pointing directly upwards moving them slightly makes expand stroke work correctly.
Thanks
C

Steps to reproduce:
Create a new document Create 3 text objects Lock one of them Deselect all objects Shift select one unlocked text object, then the other, all is well and as expected Without letting go of Shift, try to select the locked text object The app will hang, Affinity Design will start using a lot of CPU time See video below for a visual guide.
Workaround for this bug is... waiting. The app will eventually unfreeze itself, but it might take a while. On a Ryzen 3700x it takes around 3 minutes to become responsive again.
EDIT: The first time you trigger this bug, the app will take the longest to regain responsiveness again. On subsequent triggers the app will still become unresponsive, but recover much faster... 🤔
Thanks!

Gravação 2023-07-13 122658.mp4

Apps: Publisher and Designer
Platforms: All
In the layers panel if you alt-click add new layer when you have a selection, all items in that selection are moved to the new layer created. In other words this behaves similar to grouping, but rather than creating a group it puts your selection into a new layer.
Additionally for desktop versions you will find a new option in the right click menu for "Move Selection to New Layer" which achieves the same thing.
 


This makes it far easier to organise your work into layers, without having to create an empty layer first and drag the items you want into it.

Apps: Publisher
Platforms: All
Affinity Publisher now has the ability to define custom text variables as fields. This allows you to add new fields and assign whatever value to them you wish.
Within the Fields panel, you will now see a new section for "Custom". Within that there is a + button where you can add your own fields. For example, in this screenshot three custom fields have been created: <product name>, <price> and <release date>. 

I can now add these fields into my document, so any references to the price, name and date are drawn from the field values. In this example this means when the price and product name is confirmed I can just update the field value and every instance of that is updated throughout my document.
For iPad you can find custom fields at the bottom of the fields panel. You can add fields using the "Add custom field button". On iPad to edit the field you need to long press on it which gives the options in the flyout menu.

I'm just going to add what I think it's an important technical point, rather than discussing thread locking vagaries.
Serif themselves should not add any AI related features to Affinity. This field is in constant change at this point in time. Plus, due to the nature of how it works, i.e.: needing vast amounts of compute power that are unavailable locally to nearly all users, the most likely future will be that a considerable number of cloud AI image generator and editor APIs will exist in the market.
As such, what Serif should be focusing is what I've already mentioned dozens of times. Plugins and scripting. Plugins and scripting should be their top and only priority. Then users and API providers will be free to add whatever generative AI they fancy. Or none if they dislike, do not have use for, or simply disapprove of its usage.
Furthermore, when the field inevitably changes, all that needs to change is the plugin/script, and that will be the responsibility of the creator, be it a user or API provider. Serif should not, and must not, spend their time chasing this industry. It changes too fast, it contains too much, it's just too much for any single company to keep up. It also gives the user freedom to use any provider they personally like, rather than being forced to use whatever Serif would choose.
Thanks!

Just to confirm, I have been informed by our team that this is By Design for Affinity V2 and was an intended change, with the following information provided:
Hence, the Export Persona is now only displayed with Pixel units.
However I certainly understand this does not suit your V1 workflow, and would require manually calculating the pixel size of A4, for the given document or export DPI, each time you want to create these slices - therefore I have logged an improvement with out team to allow the document units to be used in the Export Persona, even if these are still being rounded to whole pixel values.
I hope this clears things up!

I'm just going to add what I think it's an important technical point, rather than discussing thread locking vagaries.
Serif themselves should not add any AI related features to Affinity. This field is in constant change at this point in time. Plus, due to the nature of how it works, i.e.: needing vast amounts of compute power that are unavailable locally to nearly all users, the most likely future will be that a considerable number of cloud AI image generator and editor APIs will exist in the market.
As such, what Serif should be focusing is what I've already mentioned dozens of times. Plugins and scripting. Plugins and scripting should be their top and only priority. Then users and API providers will be free to add whatever generative AI they fancy. Or none if they dislike, do not have use for, or simply disapprove of its usage.
Furthermore, when the field inevitably changes, all that needs to change is the plugin/script, and that will be the responsibility of the creator, be it a user or API provider. Serif should not, and must not, spend their time chasing this industry. It changes too fast, it contains too much, it's just too much for any single company to keep up. It also gives the user freedom to use any provider they personally like, rather than being forced to use whatever Serif would choose.
Thanks!

Ok, I can see the argument here. I'm not sure why anyone would want to select layers and groups in this way, but maybe it's useful to someone? Maybe this could be an option on the Select Same menu, like the Select Hidden Objects. It could be called "Select Layers & Groups" and be disabled by default?
Thanks all!

Although technically this is know as a Layer Container, I understand it is treated like an 'Object'.
With a Layer (or Group) selected you can see there are both Fill & Stroke options on the Context Toolbar, allowing you to change the Fill and Stroke settings of all objects within, without selecting the Child objects themselves:
  2023-07-13 15-24-09.mp4  
Therefore when using Select > Select Same > Fill (or Stroke) Colour, unedited Layer Containers and Groups are also selected, as they technically have no Fill or Stroke applied.
If you have previously applied a Fill or Stroke (such as in my above recording) these Layers/Groups are then not selected when using the Select Same function.
However, as you described in your initial post, I can certainly see why this could be unexpected when trying to delete any no Fill / Stroke objects from your document, without losing Group or Layer Containers also, hence the issue I have logged with our development team
Thanks for the update, I had spotted this in my testing and noted it in my initial reply, so the devs are aware of this also!
I hope this clears things up.

Hi @LCamachoDesign,
Thanks for your report!
I have been able to replicate this in the retail version, 2.1.1 - however testing in the latest beta version 2.2, this freeze does not seem to occur.
If you'd like to try out the latest beta and confirm this for me, you can find out how to sign up to the beta here:
I hope this helps

In the 2.2 Beta on Windows this problem doesn't seem to happen.

Hi @LCamachoDesign,
This is a known issue that's currently logged with the developers, the Picture frame hit/drop zone is not correct, making it incredibly difficult to correctly position them in the stack via drag and drop. I've now bumped the existing issue with your report. 🙂

It has always been like this. No snapping to anything other than the Canvas/Artboard or other slices in the Export Persona. 

Apps: Publisher and Designer
Platforms: macOS and Windows
From the select menu you will find a new option of "Select All on Current Layer" with a default shortcut of shift-cmd-A on macOS and shift-ctrl-A on Windows.
This was requested as a quick way to achieve the same result of unchecking "edit all layers" in layers panel and doing Select All. A good example would be if you want to select everything on an artboard, you can now just click on the artboard label and hit shift-cmd-A.

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows and macOS
We have added another couple of requested settings which are sync'd between your Affinity apps (on the same device):
Favourite fonts - any fonts you mark as favourite (heart icon in fonts list) will now be shown in your favourite list in all apps.
Grid presets - same thing in that any grid presets you save will now sync'd. 

Apps: Publisher
Platforms: All
The find and replace panel in Publisher now includes the ability to limit the scope of the search to document, current spread or page, current story, current selection or current section. Also included is a result count to quickly show the number of instances your search criteria fulfils.
Desktop:

 
For iPad the scope option is available from the Cog button next to the search field:

Apps: Designer and Publisher
Platforms: All
In Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher you can now choose to toggle your view to hide all layer effects or switch to greyscale. Being able to hide layer effects in this way is particularly important for those creating very complex designers with 1000s of layers and effects - having a view mode where effects can be turned off greatly improves performance as you work.
Toggling to greyscale mode can also be useful to evaluate contrast and dynamic range more easily.
On desktop you will find these new options in the View Mode options, and on iPad you can toggle them using the buttons next to the View Mode options in the navigator as shown below.
 
Additionally on desktop we have created new buttons you can optionally add to your toolbar to make it more convenient for those who want to toggle between these views regularly. You can find these by right clicking on top toolbar and selecting "Customise Toolbar" and drag either of them on where you see fit.

 

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
There is now an option in the guide manager to change the colour of your guides. On desktop you can set this by going to guide manager (View -> Guides... or double click on any guide) and find the colour preference in the bottom left hand side of the dialog. In the example below this being set to red:

On iPad the colour setting is available from the ring towards the top of the guides panel (available from the view drop down menu or again by double tapping on a guide).

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
Holding onto any tool shortcut will now just put you in that tool temporarily until you release the shortcut key - at which point you will return to your previous tool. So for example when you are using the pen tool you could hold V to change to move tool to move your curve, and then on release be immediately back in pen tool. Another useful example would be when in Brush Tool, you could hold E to put you in Eraser and release to toggle back to Brush.

This wrapping stuff around with the help of AI looks interesting.

EDIT; not 100% useful when it needs to be accurate and or truthful to reality but for quickly modifying placeholder images it looks interesting.