LilleG

...I've seen puppet warp being used in the development version of Photo about 2 years ago - the code is definitely there, it's more a case of presenting it to the user neatly and then it'd be good to go, I think :)

Would it be possible to maintain a shared asset library for ALL affinity apps, so that all my brushes, styles etc are shared across apps...? It's a waste of time to have to manage multiple asset folders (brushes, styles, etc.) when the app is meant to function as a suite...
 
thanks for your consideration

Hope you're all better now, Matt.

Hope you're all better now, Matt.

Hi klownshed,
Thanks for your words :)
1) You can control aspect constrain behaviour through Preferences, Tools section, Move Tool Aspect Constrain dropdown.
the Automatic option will constrain the resize depending on the type of object selected. For objects with an intrinsic aspect ratio (like images or text frames) the proportion will be kept when you resize them. For the others, it will not (you must press ⇧ (shift) to keep their proportions. This option is selected by default.
  Constrain by default will resize objects proportionally no matter what's their type.  You will have to press ⇧ (shift) to override the constrain.
  Do no constrain by default will force you to press ⇧ (shift) to resize objects proportionally no matter their type. 2) Usually if you have an object than can be edited with a specific tool, that tool will always edit that object as long as it's selected. If you want to start drawing a new rectangle just press ESC to deselect the current one.
 
3) We already have changed shortcuts a couple times to fit Mac conventions, Apple conventions and Affinity specific requirements. One way or another it will never please everyone. The latest Beta (1.3.5.1), introduced a couple days ago, lets you can assign custom shortcuts to fit your specific needs/requirements.
 
4) There will be improvements to smart guides, snapping and guides to address this and other issues later.
 
5) This was requested already but it still may take a while. We are committed to implement what's defined on Designer's roadmap first.
 
6) Some people prefer the way it works in the current version. Maybe a preference so everyone can set it up as they wish?
 
7) Press ⌥ (option/alt) and click over a layer's thumbnail to isolate that object.

That would be all most of us need!  :-)
 
But no, I've not seen a comprehensive comparison on a single chart.  I myself have just been trudging through the Affinity apps trying to compare what is what.  Thankfully, some keyboard shortcuts are the same, but not all.  Although I bought Designer and Photo, neither app is still an Illustrator and Photoshop replacement yet.  I am hopeful that day will come and come soon though.  And toward that end I am searching the apps to see what can be improved.  We should all remember that Photoshop and Illustrator have been around FOR DECADES and are very refined apps.  That makes the Affinity apps all the more surprising because they are really good after only 5 years of engineering.  Perhaps in another year or two, if we all submit well thought out feature requests, we can retire Adobe for good in 2016 or 2017.  Fingers crossed.

Right.  I have plenty of other apps that will show me jpg, tif, psd, svg, png.  The only thing I have that will show .afphoto and .afdesigner is the Finder.  Which was not meant to let me easily click between image folders while inside a graphics app. 

I was surprised to discover, looking back over the older ones, that I had apparently never submitted a Review.  I'm sure I did Ratings, for both Designer and Photo.  This time I did both for Photo and sort of slid a Designer plug in with it.  For what it's worth, and I'm not sure how representative I am, when I'm considering a purchase I look at both old and new reviews and unless the new reviews are saying the app got worse, I'm as influenced by the old as the new.

The previous reviews have not been deleted.  Click on Customer Reviews>All Versions and they are still there.

Hi Bill,
I don't have details on how this will work, but the ability to change the ruler's origin is planned for a future update.

That's great.  I'm always afraid that "this time" a Mountain Lion fix is going to be just too much trouble to be worth it for the (few?) of us left.  

Great!

We've made some more Mountain Lion fixes in the next beta, so hopefully your issue should be fixed.
 
 
Should be fixed for you in the next beta! :)
 
 
No, we lost one of our great Lion testers! :) Seriously, I'm glad you made the upgrade though - Yosemite is great.

Purpose: Features / Improvements / Fixes 
Status: Beta
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Here
 
To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it.
 
Please Note: This beta includes many changes which have never been beta-tested before. Being realistic, it is quite likely that you may encounter an occasional bug. We will do our utmost to fix anything that emerges as quickly as possible, but we just wanted you to understand that for production work we would recommend using the Mac App Store version until this beta has been validated for a few weeks. There are no translations included with this beta version, sorry - they will return next time...
 
 
There are far too many under-the-hood changes this time to list them all, but the highlights for this beta are:
 
- User-definable keyboard shortcuts (first phase - more to come...)
- New PDF export engine with ability to output PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3 and PDF/X-4
- Added Character and Paragraph panels - rather than these options being stuck in large modeless dialogs
- Boolean geometry operations fixed
- Many import and export improvements to PSD, PDF, EPS, SVG, etc.
- Attempt to import .AI legacy files
- New, searchable preferences panel with support for user-definable nudge distances
 
...and of course, the two changes I'm sure everyone will be most happy of all with: The beta now has its own icon and also has a sensible numbering scheme! :)

Purpose: Features / Improvements / Fixes 
Status: Beta
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Here
 
To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it.
 
Please Note: This beta includes many changes which have never been beta-tested before. Being realistic, it is quite likely that you may encounter an occasional bug. We will do our utmost to fix anything that emerges as quickly as possible, but we just wanted you to understand that for production work we would recommend using the Mac App Store version until this beta has been validated for a few weeks. There are no translations included with this beta version, sorry - they will return next time...
 
 
There are far too many under-the-hood changes this time to list them all, but the highlights for this beta are:
 
- New "Haze Removal" filter.
- User-definable keyboard shortcuts (first phase - more to come...)
- New PDF export engine with ability to output PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3 and PDF/X-4
- Added Character and Paragraph panels - rather than these options being stuck in large modeless dialogs
- Boolean geometry operations fixed
- Many import and export improvements to PSD, PDF, EPS, SVG, etc.
- Attempt to import .AI legacy files
- New, searchable preferences panel with support for user-definable nudge distances
 
...and of course, the two changes I'm sure everyone will be most happy of all with: The beta now has its own icon and also has a sensible numbering scheme!  :)
  There are many, many more improvements and fixes in this build - and probably a few new bugs :D   See if you can find them ;)  

Combining Designer, Photo and Publisher makes as much sense as Lamborghini building a sports car/SUV/minivan/pickup truck combination in an effort to satisfy every single potential use for an automobile all in one vehicle.

Jack of all trades, master of none. 'nuff said.

Signed.
 
Please, no – why would I need a massive application that loads every single function available at startup if I just
want to layout 16 pages with accurately formatted text, maybe place a few images and a logo delivered by a client?
 
Right now I just know exactly what app I need to fire up for which purpose – no unnecessary loading time,
no wasted memory usage on functions I won't need during the process or the session.
 
Yeah, I know a few of these people, too. Creating logos in InDesign … never fully understood it, I think functions are 
very limited but especially unintuitive for that purpose – but hey, whatever floats your boat.  :rolleyes:
 
Cheers
Dennis

Have you tried holding down Ctrl when starting up Designer to force it to do a factory reset?

Oh Wow!  That worked!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  You join Miguel in my panetheon of heros!  :)  :)  :)

It did work.   And thank you, Mac, and Paul for the effort you put into helping me find a solution.  It is greatly appreciated.

Those look cool Ben... can't wait to try it out on the next beta.

I think we've given our reasons for having separate apps a number of times already.  There is clearly separation between the tool requirements and use cases.  Having an uber app at a high flat cost would not appeal to the vast majority.  We see a lot more interest in photo editing compared to vector drawing (just due to the nature of the average user), so would someone who only wants to do pixel work want to pay for advanced vector tools?  Probably not, and why should they?
 
What we have done, which no one else does - is to offer a seamless handling of our files between our apps.  So, you can work on the same file between all our apps - and not have to import/update content from one app to another.  We also give you fast hand over of open files between apps, with full working history.  So, while we are not doing a single app - we have certainly given you the best alternative, and in a pattern that should work best for all users - not just those who will benefit from the entire suite.

Please don't do that. It's a stupid idea.

I vote for keeping them as separate, focussed apps.
 
I believe that if one app did everything, it would become a consumer product.
 
A designer is a bit of a vague term and covers so many disciplines, but professionals are largely specialists in their fields. If you imagine ADesigner as being aimed at illustrators and creative conceptualisers, and APublisher being aimed at layout, DTP , then you understand why ADesigner doesn't have drop caps, master pages and paragraph styles, and why APublisher probably won't have the artistic brushes and warp mesh tools – they're just not used by the same disciplines.
 
I'm a bit bummed by the current poor PDF exporting of ADesigner, but I realise that it's aimed at exporting images to be placed on websites and in brochures – not actually exporting complete websites and brochures. I'm quite certain that APublisher is going to have awesome PDF export abilities because that's the tool to create print-ready documents that will need soft proofing, bleed & cropmarks, custom compression and so on.
 
Sure you can make a simple z-fold flyer in Illustrator because it supports multiple pages, but have you ever tried making a 16 page brochure in it? It's possible, but it will drive you absolutely insane, guaranteed! Adobe has lost it's "tool for the job" focus and has left us with over engineered "Jack of All Trades" that have us all so desperate for new alternatives like Affinity's products.
 
Let's not drive Affinity in the same direction as Adobe – it will only hurt us when we [again] find ourselves looking for fresh new products in 10 years time.