m.vlad

I am surprised this hasn't been fixed yet. There is no room for working together with people using adobe if there is no common format that we can talk through. PDF is not a good enough alternative, as text gets split into text lines.

I am surprised this hasn't been fixed yet. There is no room for working together with people using adobe if there is no common format that we can talk through. PDF is not a good enough alternative, as text gets split into text lines.

I think an eye icon would be best, clear indication that it's to do with visibility, clear distinction between a closed eye and an open eye if something is visible or hidden. The round blob is too abstract

First of all, thanks for these updates, excited to try out the tools! I do have some issues that I've found after an hour of trying to use this as an alternative to other photo editors that I'd hope to see addressed:
1. A way to save raw edits as XMP instead of requiring the saving of an .afphoto file, the idea of closing down in an ecosystem, particularly with the lack of a DAM, doesn't sound appealing. It sounds like that's kind of what the Embedded and Linked options do, however the Linked option did not actually add any files to my system (I kept watch on any files with the same file name as the photo), so I'm unsure what the difference between the two is.
2. Global presets for RAW edits, instead of one per page. It's a bit confusing as is. Also a way to edit existing presets and save it as such, instead of deleting a preset, remaking it from scratch and saving that. Also this is likely a bug, but when opening a new raw file to edit, the settings are set to Default, but the "selected" preset is the last used one, requiring switching to Default and back to the saved preset to actually change things, sometimes even doing it multiple times, the feature seems quite buggy. Also, ideally a Preset Manager would also be present, to be able to see exactly what each preset does, and potentially tweak from there.
3. Non-destructive cropping is a must. Honestly just something similar to the artboards, so if you crop an image you can adjust the crop later. I could just open the file in ADesigner, but that's an extra step that could be avoided.
3.1. Keep a strict ratio for cropping, but allow to rotate the crop based on mouse position when dragging the crop selection around (see how cropping operates in other apps like Lightroom and Capture One).
4. Split view of photo without edits, or just being able to toggle the raw edits on and off for preview purposes.
5. It's not clear enough that a photo is a RAW file, a button similar to the FX one would work wonders and make it much clearer what it does.
6. There's something about the Overlays panel that feels incomplete, I think it should be closer in look and feel to the Layers panel but then again, how is this better than just duplicating the layer, making the adjustments in that raw layer, and applying a mask to that? Even more powerful then because you can use images and the like.
 
I might add more to the list once I spend more time on this, but so far I'm somewhat disappointed. Non destructive raw editing was a highlight of the announcement, so I thought it's finally a good standalone photo editor. It is clear however that the app development is still walking in the shadow of CameraRaw and while there have been some improvements and additions that are much welcome, I'm sad to say that I'll likely be sticking with Capture One, despite my wishes for that to not be the case, not because of the lack of a DAM (just making that clear), but because of the lack of a good, non destructive, open photo editing flow.

Backwards compatibility is not about making V1 do V2 things. It's about V1 compatible data being ported from V2 to V1. Of course, that would strip V2 features that are manifested in the file format, which still leaves you with maybe 99% of features being compatible.
For reference:
Dedicated topic:
Current Serif stance:
 

There is another issue not discussed on the first 4 pages of this topic: file format compatibility within the Affinity photo range.

I took a picture in afphoto format made with V1 and edited it in V2.
Then saved.

Now I want to open it with V1 and here what I got:



I tried to locate an option to keep compatibility within versions and found none in the preferences nor in the save as menu.

I tried thus to save the new file as a .PSD so I can import it in V1. 
And it removed the background of the picture...
So the picture is lost (I'll use a backup but that's not good for V2)

This issue alone makes working with Affinity not a viable on a business: you'd have to get all your graphists work with the very same version of Affinity photo at the same time and not be able to work with fellows using Photoshop.

Serif is not Microsoft / Adobe yet: it has no hegemony on the field so it can't play lock up strategy.

Also I think Serif has an Adobe strategy: cater for the masses not for the pros.

It's a bit like saying: "I'm an artist, I buy my artistry tools at the supermarket" and you got low quality pencil, paints, ...
Whereas the pros go to dedicated shops for pros and buy pros products at the price it costs for the quality required.

This idea "We need the whole market to buy our products" is a no go: Pros want pros products because they have the experience to match it hence the very detailed first post by Gary.Jones whereas newbies have a learning curve to climb and can't work with the pros and their tools straight away.

That would actually be a big improvement over what I am seeing in the app.
The lower dot in your picture here is an outlined circle with the same stroke color as the solid upper dot.
In the actual app, I get a solid dot either way, with the "off" condition (hidden layer) being more dim than the "on" condition.
If the dots actually looked like the ones you listed above that would be MUCH better than what is actually there right now.
Not as good as the checkboxes that were used before, and not as good as an "eye" symbol (and ideally a "printer" symbol next to it to control printing and preview visibility separately, which we have also been asking for now for some time), but certainly better than what version 2 currently offers.
 
That said, the concept of a radio button, as was already explained above, is NOT the correct one here, so I do hope Serif rethinks this and does something even better.

No - I am not lost, but you are missing the point.
Radio buttons are INTENDED to be used where the selection is mutually exclusive - read the Apple User Interface guidelines.
When more than one item in a SET (eg a set of layers) can be selected, Radio Buttons are not used because they imply mutual exclusivity.
Checkboxes are used when more than one item in a set can be ON at the same time.
Try playing two or more stations at the same time on your Radio

Yes - but that does not work in cases where both layers are either OFF or ON.
Only ONE button in a set of radio buttons can be ON - all the others have to be OFF, which of course doesn't work for layers.
That's why we have checkboxes.

That would certainly be an improvement, but Radio Buttons are used for mutual exclusivity - that is, if one option is ON, then all the other options are OFF.
Its called a radio button because e its modelled on the old-fashioned radios where you push a button to select a station,
and of course you can't have two stations playing at the same time !
So it's not appropriate to use radio buttons for something like layers, where any number of items can be ON OR OFF at the same time.
That's why we have check boxes - which work perfectly well (unlike dots, which don't )
Tell me - is this layer ON or OFF (*see below) ?

The only way to judge whether this works is to remove the context.
With no adjacent text or other buttons to provide a point of reference, there is no way to know.
Now - tell me whether this one is ON out OFF ...

You can tell from across the room that this is ON because the button includes its own point of reference.
Checkboxes work, dots do not.
=====
* This layer is ON - but who would know because Ive reduced the display contrast ?

Přesně tak.
Even though in some places there is improvement, for most parts it's "one step forward, two steps aside, three steps back".
Same here. In the forseeable future my primary work environment runs on El Capitan anyway, so I have to reboot the MacBook into a Catalina partition to use V2. But now that I also have the iPad apps (and an Apple Pencil 1), Affinity v2 will become part of my workflow for certain specific features which can then be flattened and reused in v1 via PDF export.
Preferences > User Interface > Font UI Site > Large

It was enough to use the principle of the Radio Button, which has been used for decades (which also always has extra reference point, because one of the options is always selected).
 or better 
Using the contrast/intensity of an element to distinguish the ON/OFF state is inappropriate because this mechanism is and has always been used to indicate the Enable/Disable or Active/Inactive states (in the sense of enabling control of the given element).

There's the obvious FontForge

Yes, and it has been mentioned on the forums a number of times as well.
 
In fact, when Designer was first introduced, one of the earliest messages I can find about this simply stated there would be no paid upgrades for at least 18 months - that was nearly 8 years ago:
 
In 2015 it was stated explicitly that there would be paid upgrades in the future (which obviously has now come):
 
Also that the next major upgrade would not be free:
 
Later in 2015 they committed to 2 years of free updates from Photo's launch date (they gave us what, 6-7 years?):
 
In late 2016 it was reiterated again that major version upgrades would be for a price:
 
Again in 2017:
 
The messaging has been consistent on this ever since the very beginning.
As to the lack of upgrade pricing, that is necessitated by App Store rules - it is Apple you should be complaining to about that, not Serif.

That’s what you get when:
The price of admission is very low ➡️ you attract a lot of users who will always complain about prices. Don’t have a roadmap, no public beta-testing for the major software releases, overhyped marketing before launch, bugs from v1 still not fixed in v2  ➡️ you end up disappointing some pro users. And of course, there are some of them who just like to annoy anyone who is genuinely happy with what Affinity offers. But the main source of negativity on the forums is caused by Affinity’s own actions. 

They could make the icons on the top as a carousel, so that you can scroll through the icons. They could even make the list customisable, so you could choose your most used formats and arrange them according to your needs.

Instead of bitching about it, let's see how the Export window could've been done. This is just something I came up in few minutes. I'm quite sure you guys will come up with something much much better. I'll give it some time later on, too!
Ideas for different UI elements are also welcomed!
This is by no means to make fun of Serif's UI experts, just to give them some ideas for parts of UI that could've been done better.
Thanks in advance for your input!
 
 
 

Personally, I have no problem with dots to indicate Activity and Visibility, I would just suggest using solid and hollow dots to indicate ON and OFF status, not brightness of dots.

Solid/hollow dot is a visually understandable and unambiguous, and also saves space in the Layers panel (thanks for that).

Can we please bring back the checkmark boxes for the layers. I dont know why they were changed to circles. Who asked for this? No one told serif to change this. Nobody requested this. Dont fix whats not broken. Now we're having these debates about this new on/off circle icon that we shouldnt even be having. And theres bearly any contrast with this new circle on/off icon. When you turn off the layer its this dark gray circle on dark gray. Its just hard to see. Like, a checkmark is a good indicator to tell if a layer is on or off. Why change it? 
Theres also an issue on AD v2 on ipad where the new on/off circles in the layers vanish. Theres no button to turn your layer on or off. I have to close the app and reopen it. 
 
Ugh! Like, this seriously was the least of our problems. I go back to AD v1 on ipad and Im back to how it used to be. My problem is solved. I have my checkmark box in my layers but then I look up and realize that theres a bunch of affinity users debating about an on/off icon in v2. Why? Why are we debating over something that was never a problem? Now a problem has been creating for nothing and our energy is going towards it. 

Not that I expect Serif to do this, but I dream that someday it will be standard practice for all software companies to support eternal license servers.
By that I mean:
The EULA stipulates that as long as the company operates, it will supply an accessible license server for the purpose of registering or re-registering any of its licensed software, no matter how old.
  If the intellectual property rights for any application become the property of another entity, through transfer, sale, merger, or buy-out, the obligation to continue running the license server will now belong to the acquiring entity.
  If for any reason the responsible company/entity will not or cannot continue to operate a license server for a given application, its code and databases will be placed into the public domain, freely available such that that application may be registered and used by anyone.
  The EULA stipulates that these provisions cannot be subsequently removed or reduced through updates to the EULA. That seems only fair, and reasonable.

Hi,
I know there is a diversity of opinion of the recent V2 upgrades, but the universal feeling seems to be that it has been a step backwards in terms of the User Interface - there is not a lot in the forums supporting the new changes.
I think the 'new' look and feel is horrible, and significantly detracts from usability rather than enhancing it.
- Why has the Export Persona been so badly mangled ?
- Why has the New Document dialog been similarly treated ?
- What has happened to Separated View mode ?
- Why has so much been made worse, and so little made better ?
- Why are all the fonts so small in the UI ?
- Why are button layouts so clunky and amateurish - ironically, particularly in the UI prefs panel ?
- Why are buttons and fonts so small, when there is far too much empty space in prefs panels ?
- Why don't the apps honor the MacOS 'limit motion' settings ?
- Why has the issue of contrast been so poorly factored into icon design and screen colours ?
- Why do the new icons look like something from a GameBoy app designed for 8-year olds ?
- What is the point of redesigning icons at the expense of fixing bugs ?
- Why do the new icons do a worse job of representing the function of associated buttons ?
- Why have checkboxes been replaced with meaningless dots, where you can't tell whether they are on or off ?
- Why has the 'linked' icon been replaced with something so ambiguous ?
- Why are icons and controls so impossibly small when using a hi-res monitor ?
- Why are some controls virtually invisible when using high-contrast mode ?
On a scale of 10, I'd give v2 a score of 3 compared to V1.
 

Without variable font support, I'll stick to Affinity's competitor that does offer it. All modern browsers support variable fonts, as does Affinity's big competitor. Affinity has added lots of new features — most of which I wasn't really needing. Affinity's 2.0's feature list mentions "Pro Font Support." Without support for variable fonts, it's font support is not only not pro-level, it's years behind. Lack of variable font support is a disappoint to the point of me almost getting angry. I was finally hoping to finally ditch my monthly subscription fee to the other company, but it seems that won't be happening yet. This is absolutely maddening for me.
 

Version 1.8 of OpenType was released in 2016, it included Variable fonts. The feature is mature and widely used nowadays. 
It would be great to have support for variable fonts. 

I think actually they're following Apple's recent look here. Ventura generally replaces tabs with scrolling panes, and this looks a lot like the Print dialogue in the current version of Pages. I do agree the preview is Adobe-esque and unwanted.
But look at the options at the bottom right. The labels don't line up with the controls, and the checkboxes and radio buttons are IMO too close to the text. The two radio button options should be separated off from the rest by white/black space, and have a common heading ("Resolution"). For an example of how to do this properly, see Appearance under Ventura's Settings.

The new UI has an overall Adobe 2006 CC  feel to it, which is bad.  I moved away completely from InDesign and Illustrator because of the nasty, old looking interface and because I always had to re-learn (in Indesign especially) where features were hidden within the UI. I remember that exporting files from Indesign used to give me anxiety,  which is why I loved the simplicity of the "New..." and "Export..." panels in Affinity. There WERE intuitive and I always got what I wanted from them, quickly. Yesterday, unfortunately, after installing V2 (which I bought directly, no worries on my mind) I found myself losing time trying figure out how to switch a new file from landscape to portrait, or how to un-click the "Facing" option. But the most disturbing was the "Export" panel. I LOVED the old one. All the formats on the top, easy to see, one click, very satisfying. Now...we have to chose the formats from a dropdown list that definitely has a dated Adobe vibe, with a preview that doesn't always work and which is definitely not needed. It's not a good look and it is frustrating, because it feels to me that you are trying to appease the people who cannot leave Adobe behind. Affinity is a different animal, it is beautiful, light, smart. It is everything Adobe isn't, in a very good way. Don't try to be Adobe.
Also, the "Layer effects" panel looks weird now (with Photoshop vibes) and those arrows on the bottom don't do anything (or do they?). Why did you change the order of the effects anyway? Who uses "Bevel and emboss" that frequently?
I am hopeful that we will see some improvements in the next updates.