rubs

Here is a collection of UI quirks and problems I found in AD, more or less arranged by subject. Sorry for the long post... Menus: Last document saved does not appear immediately in the MRU list "Paste Special" should be followed by ellipsis ("...") Layers/Rasterize is followed by an ellipsis ("...") but it shouldn't Windows best practices mandate that every command should have a menu equivalent, but most tools don't Toolbars: The left toolbar doesn't have a "Customize" context menu Button tooltips should be followed by their respective keyboard shortcuts Compounds are great, but easy to miss. The icons tooltips should hint at them. For example, "Add (Alt+click for compound)" Several blurred icons (e.g. break/close/join nodes, snap nodes) Icons for break/close/join curves look quite similar Retain Show rotation center status between sessions Panels: Layers panel: allow renaming objects, slices, etc. with F2 Clicking inside the ring in the Color panel should also select Stroke. Remember Fitts' law Miter adjustment in stroke panel: what does it do? which units does it use? why doesn't it have a slider instead of a simple text field? Preferences dialog: Preferences dialog tab (General, Color profiles, Performance...) should be always visible at the left for quicker access / less clickingSplit view: No Split View option in Export persona Split view minimum should be narrower (the width of the tab) or at least configurable Split view labels should be semi-transparent, or optionally hidden Export Settings: Seems odd that it is necessary to select a preset in the Export screen in order to remove it in the Export Settings ("More...") screen, since the Export Settings screen itself allows to select any preset. (I hope this is clear)Locale: My AD locale is set to US-English, but several resources (like style names), tooltips etc. still appear in my system's locale (PT-BR) Installation does not remember previous install language, always defaults to system's language (PT-BR in my case) Various: On startup, it would be nice to see some progress in the splash screen. Loading is slow so it should show that something is going on Maybe include most recently open documents in welcome screen UI is too dark to see when in a bright room (perhaps extend the Gamma range further?) I believe AD should store the state of all UI elements. This is currently done only partially. Thus the position of Preferences, Document Setup, Export Settings and other dialogs should stay put between calls. Same applies to other dialog states (Preferences page, keyboard shortcuts selected menu, etc.), the collapsed/expanded state of sections in the Assets panel, etc. Pressing the middle mouse button should also change the cursor to a hand (same as the spacebar) Curve outlines sometimes make a quick "flash" between positions while dragging nodes (tell me if I must post a video on this one) Thanks,

Okay, now I get it, thanks for the tip. Anyways, I still see this as inconsistent behavior. In the Layers panel, objects can be selected by clicking the left empty area and the object text, in addition to the thumbnail. With a crop mask, however, clicking the left area or the object text selects the whole object. Still needs fixing, I think.

I've attached a video so hopefully you can see what I mean. After expanding the object in the Layers panel, clicking the mask on the Layers panel selects the object and the mask. I'm using version 1.5.0.29 RC. This behavior is the same across all betas. Video_2016-11-03_081453.wmv

Of course. I meant thumbnail, not icon, sorry. So I'm rephrasing the problem: It seems the only way to select the crop mask is by clicking its thumbnail when the object is collapsed in the Layers panel. After you expand the object you cannot select the mask thumbnail separately. Looks like a bug to me, needs fixing.

It seems the only way to select the crop mask is by clicking its icon when the object is collapsed in the Layers panel. After you expand it you cannot select it separately. Looks like a bug to me, needs fixing.

The Area setting in the Export Settings dialog always defaults to Whole Document so each time I export I have to select Selection without background again. I believe this setting should be remembered between calls. An easy fix, I believe.

That's great. I'm glad to know it. I believe this is a key factor into making us users more confident. Thanks.

I understand that one of the candidate builds will eventually turn into a release version very soon. This is something to celebrate, of course, but it brings me to a question. I know it's a naive one but I have to ask it anyway. (I'm quite disappointed with some of your competitors' practices.) Your current rhythm of improvements and fixes is great, as is your unusual responsiveness to users. Are these qualities really part of the company policy? Will you guys keep doing this even well after the beta is over? Thanks for any thoughts.

Now I see you already have the same approach in the Layers panel in the Export persona! You should do the same in the Draw persona for consistence (not to mention half of the clicking 50% less clicking when locking objects.).

You said "into" XDP, but in the previous post I'm referring to a paste from XDP to AD.

The formats are: Paste Special: Enhanced Windows Metafile (either crashes, or nothing happens) Device Independent Bitmap (either crashes, or nothing happens, or sometimes it pastes OK, not sure why) Windows Metafile (looks OK) The ordinary Paste crashes most often than not.

A similar issue occurs between AD and Xara Designer Pro X11. Clipboard contents are not made available as vectors although SVGs are handled just fine in Xara. I think clipboard handling may need some more work. Another problem occurs when I try to copy a vector shape (a single rectangle) from Xara and paste it into AD. Window reports a crash in Xara, then both Xara and AD freeze until I terminate Xara using Task Manager. then AD unfreezes but the contents are not pasted. For the record, Xara works just fine with other vector software such as CorelDRAW and Inkscape.

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I'll keep this is mind when exporting SVGs next time. Thanks for the explanation!

This is useful stuff, but for me AD still lacks an actual Solo layer option. This would make all layers except the current one invisible (i.e. unmark their checkboxes in the Layers panel).

Okay... 3. Please look closely. Yes, I've also included two rectangular-shaped curves named panel right and panel left for the sake of comparison. But the two objects named upper detail and bottom detail are rectangles. Yet they were exported as paths in the SVGs. 4. Yes, that's it. 6. Okay. Anyway I think this is something to look at more closely. Thanks again.

Hi again, I'm including an example AD file with a couple of exported SVGs and the settings I've used. Rectangles upper detail and bottom detail were exported as paths (item 3). Item 6: after some testing, now I understand that SVG files are dependent of the DPI settings. This was a bit confusing for me because DPI should only make sense in printed media. So I didn't think it would make a difference, but it does (see attached SVGs). Now I know that I have to remember using 96 dpi (Windows' resolution) at all times for digital files. Steps to reproduce item 4: open Export Settings, set 96 dpi, and change to any of my presets. The settings go back to 72 dpi even if my preset says "use document resolution" or is set to 96 DPI (see the screenshots). As a side note, the message "nothing will be rasterised" (in British even if my settings are US-English) completes the confusion since it may look like "don't bother with DPI, this is SVG". So now you get the whole picture. svg_problems.zip

Yes, I've sent the crash report but I'm afraid I don't have any numbers, sorry. This happened about 4 or 5 days ago. I'll try to remember to keep the ref numbers next time.

Thanks for the answers. Regarding the first issue, I believe the reason may be beyond that; I think it should generate 0.649999 instead of 0.647059. But it's good to know you are addressing the precision issue (item2) anyway. As for the other issues, I'll try to reproduce them as possible and attach the offending files as soon as possible.

Hi, I found the following problems when exporting SVGs: Opacity values are changed. E.g. 0.3 becomes 0.298039, 0.65 becomes 0.647059, etc. In paths, precisely positioned nodes are not exported with much precision. E.g. 14 becomes 14.001, 13 becomes 12.999, 0 becomes -0.001, etc. Some rectangles are exported as paths instead of rects AD doesn't memorize settings and the chosen preset between exports. I believe these should be memorized between exports and even saved with the document AD crashed when I created a preset name with a hyphen in it. Can't reproduce it again. Sometimes objects are exported with the wrong size. I believe this happens if you change the DPI setting before choosing an SVG preset, but I didn't test it enough to be sure. I'm not sure if these problems are Windows-specific or not, so please feel free to move this topic elsewhere if it is the case.

When moving objects around in the layer panel, the flexibility of Affinity Designer to nest objects inside one another may be a bit confusing. It's too easy to insert an object inside another when your real intention is to insert it above or below the other object. Maybe using a key modifier while moving objects in the Layers panel would make it easier to differentiate between actions. Also, maybe using different color rectangles instead of blue for both actions would help.

Great, thanks.

I'm posting some new topics on things I feel are missing in AD. I use Xara Designer as my workhorse since it exists, but I really want to replace it -- seems the new company is focusing less and less in the professional market. I also use CorelDraw, Illustrator (with my students) and and even Inkscape now and then. So about the Layers panel, here are my suggestions along with some points I feel AD lags behind the competition: To toggle an object's visibility I just click its checkbox. That's fine, but to toggle its editability I have to select the object then click the single padlock in the upper right. (Which is misaligned BTW: the padlock icon is above the visibility checkboxes so it will mislead novice users into thinking that the checkboxes are used to lock layers.) Then a padlock icon appears and I can click it to unlock the object. I know AD is modeled after Illustrator, but these are quite inconsistent approaches for similar actions. Xara, CorelDRAW and even Inkscape have a much better solution: both commands are toggle icons for every object, and the padlock never disappears: it just changes state. Productivity tool: Solo layer / object (Xara). Productivity tool: a button to make all layers / objects visible (Xara again). Productivity tool: a button to make all layers / objects editable (Xara again). The thumbnails in AD are way better than the others, but they may become invisible because the background is always dark gray. Affinity should show a checkered background or compute the background color automatically, perhaps. Of course if anyone knows about hidden shortcuts of alternate ways of doing the above I'd love to hear from you. Thanks, and sorry for the long post...

Too bad. I really needed a 1366 x 768 profile. I was expecting to see them in the %appdata%\Affinity\Designer\1.0 (Beta)\Settings folder, but they are not there. Please consider making profiles user configurable in the future.

I second that. Objects should only move when you start moving them, it's unacceptable. I believe Affinity should check if the mouse coordinates have stayed the same after those 250 ms. But it's great software! Thanks for making the beta public.