Aongus Collins

Thanks! Your method works very well. Using a dashed stroke for a railroad is a great idea.

Michail, Here is a screenshot showing the process in more detail. I’ve also uploaded the file. For consistency, each set of roads is now on a layer level, not a C-level (that was an oversight). The lines are simple open curves, no boolean or compound operations were involved. I hope this is clearer! Road Map.afdesign

Nils, Michail, Yes, using layers can resolve the issue of varying road widths. Here’s another example, using open curves. As toth explained in an earlier post, when curves are open you can achieve a perfect illusion of 2 parallel lines. In the Appearance Panel the lower stroke must have a Butt Cap, and the top stroke a Square Cap. In this example the thinner strokes are on on a separate, upper layer. Although the roads don’t really join, they look as if they do... due to the way the uppe curves have been placed to cover the borders of the underlying curves.

(split from this announcement post) Thanks for a great update. As a quick test, I played with the appearance panel. Specifically, I tried drawing a basic street map, as you might see in a leaflet for a local business. Using the new multiple strokes capability, it’s possible to do to such work quickly Affinity Designer. First I drew the roads using a heavy dark stroke. Then in the appearance panel, I added a second stroke, in a lighter colour, above the first stroke. That produced the effect of parallel lines, with a fill in between. The technique will work only if another new feature in 1.7 is used: when using the pen tool, the "Add new curves to selected object object" button on the context toolbar must be selected. Then the lines blend together. The second stage in this exercise was to duplicate the artboard containing all the elements. On the second the strokes have brush styles to give a more hand-drawn style. This is a quick, very rough test, and I’m looking forward to exploring the latest Affinity advances in more depth!

No, it doesn't seem to work in a freeform or AI envelope way. On first glance the most powerful envelope distortion feature in this release appears to be isometric projection. A group consisting of text, curves and shapes can be projected on to any isometric plane, then flipped, rotated, moved on that plane and even projected on to another plane. Most impressively, the text remains editable. Otherwise, while text frames can be rotated, text must be converted to curves (expanded) before any skewing can happen. It would be good to see such functionality expanded beyond the confines of the Isometric Panel: the ability to skew type can be really useful in other forms of perspective drawing.

The Node tool’s new Transform Mode allows for a high level of distortion and transformation. Now in addition to the traditional rectangular selection, it’s possible to lasso-select points freehand style. Designer highlights the selected points in a bounding box on which operations such as skew, scale, move, rotate etc can be performed. Just started exploring this feature, which promises to be very powerful. I’ve used mesh fills in Illustrator for years, and look forward to seeing them in Designer some day! A knife tool would work faster (though probably less precisely) than my current practice of selecting points and clicking ‘Break Curve.’

Bullets and Numbering working fine on my system... haven't had a chance to explore other text features.

In the absence of video tutorials, the documentation has been updated to cover new features such as construction mode and changes to the pen & pencil tools. There is a minor glitch in the section on the Isometric panel — some images are missing. Otherwise great job!

As a sole trader, I'm interested in some of the points you raised. 1. Typically companies or traders ask for a VAT invoice in order to reclaim that part of a transaction when they submit a VAT return later. Software vendors such as Smith Micro have set up systems that allow customers to input their national VAT IDs in the checkout pages and -- in accordance with international agreements -- those purchases are zero-rated. I'd like to see Serif adopt that system in time, but currently their prices are so low as not to make it a big issue. 2. My understanding is that Serif's licence is basically per user, not per machine. If I have a number of computers, I may use the software on only one system at a time. If I hire an employee or a sub-contractor, I need to purchase an additional licence. This is good: if a machine dies, the licence lets me use the software on a replacement. If business expands to the point where I must employ someone else, the cost of an extra licence would be very small in comparison to my employer's liabilities!

Congratulations on your Windows launch. I've already got the Mac version, running it on a fairly powerful Mac Pro with lots of memory and a decent graphics card. My Windows laptop, on the other hand, is entry-level. I'm really impressed by Designer's responsiveness on the lower-spec machine. Subjectively, it's not a million miles from a workstation performance, at least when working on relatively straight forward files such as cartoons. And it works beautifully with a Wacom Intuous tablet. Affinity Designer is amazing value for pro software. The value proposition is even better when you factor in that Designer allows you to use older hardware for longer (also an environmental benefit!).

I've had the same experience. Purchased on the 20th, but the order is still listed as "pending." In an earlier post, Serif said there was an issue with some zip codes, and they were planning to clear it by Monday. Fingers crossed!

This issue was dealt with previously and is now marked as fixed: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/1157-vector-brush-tool-crashing-release-candidate-1/ Unfortunately I was able to reproduce it today in RC3, when the program crashed after I'd drawn about 25 brush strokes. Crash report attached. Crash Report 24 Sept Vector Brush.zip

Actually there were no bitmap images in this file, just simple vector shapes down-saved to Illustrator EPS 8 format. I'm attaching the EPS I used. test import size eps.zip

I have been able to repeat this. 1. Create graphic in Illustrator, sized 80mm X 80 mm 2. On import into Affinity, the artwork dimensions change to 60 mm X 60 mm.

Thanks MEB! I've got it now.