Clayton

I too was disappointed to see this wasn't part of 2.0, but I'm hoping this fresh infusion of capital (from finally letting us support Designer again, some for the first time since 2014!) will allow Serif to staff up a bit more and build out some of these long-requested features (without taking another eight years).
Vector warp is huge, and it's so good to see it finally come to Designer. I hope the fact that even the hero image for the feature, which shows a field of stripes that you must currently create one at a time by hand, means a blend tool is in the works for 2.1!

I too was disappointed to see this wasn't part of 2.0, but I'm hoping this fresh infusion of capital (from finally letting us support Designer again, some for the first time since 2014!) will allow Serif to staff up a bit more and build out some of these long-requested features (without taking another eight years).
Vector warp is huge, and it's so good to see it finally come to Designer. I hope the fact that even the hero image for the feature, which shows a field of stripes that you must currently create one at a time by hand, means a blend tool is in the works for 2.1!

I too was disappointed to see this wasn't part of 2.0, but I'm hoping this fresh infusion of capital (from finally letting us support Designer again, some for the first time since 2014!) will allow Serif to staff up a bit more and build out some of these long-requested features (without taking another eight years).
Vector warp is huge, and it's so good to see it finally come to Designer. I hope the fact that even the hero image for the feature, which shows a field of stripes that you must currently create one at a time by hand, means a blend tool is in the works for 2.1!

I too was disappointed to see this wasn't part of 2.0, but I'm hoping this fresh infusion of capital (from finally letting us support Designer again, some for the first time since 2014!) will allow Serif to staff up a bit more and build out some of these long-requested features (without taking another eight years).
Vector warp is huge, and it's so good to see it finally come to Designer. I hope the fact that even the hero image for the feature, which shows a field of stripes that you must currently create one at a time by hand, means a blend tool is in the works for 2.1!

I too was disappointed to see this wasn't part of 2.0, but I'm hoping this fresh infusion of capital (from finally letting us support Designer again, some for the first time since 2014!) will allow Serif to staff up a bit more and build out some of these long-requested features (without taking another eight years).
Vector warp is huge, and it's so good to see it finally come to Designer. I hope the fact that even the hero image for the feature, which shows a field of stripes that you must currently create one at a time by hand, means a blend tool is in the works for 2.1!

I too was disappointed to see this wasn't part of 2.0, but I'm hoping this fresh infusion of capital (from finally letting us support Designer again, some for the first time since 2014!) will allow Serif to staff up a bit more and build out some of these long-requested features (without taking another eight years).
Vector warp is huge, and it's so good to see it finally come to Designer. I hope the fact that even the hero image for the feature, which shows a field of stripes that you must currently create one at a time by hand, means a blend tool is in the works for 2.1!

I too was disappointed to see this wasn't part of 2.0, but I'm hoping this fresh infusion of capital (from finally letting us support Designer again, some for the first time since 2014!) will allow Serif to staff up a bit more and build out some of these long-requested features (without taking another eight years).
Vector warp is huge, and it's so good to see it finally come to Designer. I hope the fact that even the hero image for the feature, which shows a field of stripes that you must currently create one at a time by hand, means a blend tool is in the works for 2.1!

I too was disappointed to see this wasn't part of 2.0, but I'm hoping this fresh infusion of capital (from finally letting us support Designer again, some for the first time since 2014!) will allow Serif to staff up a bit more and build out some of these long-requested features (without taking another eight years).
Vector warp is huge, and it's so good to see it finally come to Designer. I hope the fact that even the hero image for the feature, which shows a field of stripes that you must currently create one at a time by hand, means a blend tool is in the works for 2.1!

So, this is an old problem, I've seen explanations full of words saying it's the operating system issue and bla bla bla.
The problem is with the way they affinity softwares handle what is pasted from the clipboard.
Attached is a video where I paint something on a layer in Krita and then paste the content of the layer in Inkscape, Clip Studio Paint, Rebelle 5 and finally in Designer 2.0  (Don't mind the video quality, I recorded it using ShareX and it was encoded to have a small file)

image_transparency_past_clipboard_to_affinity.mp4  

A screen of the result with Affinity software if you can't watch the video.
 
 

This tool was originally part of the 1.x roadmap in 2015. Unfortunately, there is no more publicly-facing roadmap.

I've said this before, but my biggest wish for the Affinity suite is not any one feature, but a new business model. Look at what the UX design app Sketch has been doing with an annual update program: They added more features last year than Affinity Designer probably has in the past four, and they did it without a subscription. Instead, they sell one year of updates – after one year, you can still use the last version you updated to, and it's your choice to renew to get the latest release. 
Basically, I want Serif to start charging at least a little more so they can fund development more sustainably. I don't expect them to keep shipping great new features when the last time I gave them any money was 2014, but they need to give me that opportunity to support the company. 

I've said this before, but my biggest wish for the Affinity suite is not any one feature, but a new business model. Look at what the UX design app Sketch has been doing with an annual update program: They added more features last year than Affinity Designer probably has in the past four, and they did it without a subscription. Instead, they sell one year of updates – after one year, you can still use the last version you updated to, and it's your choice to renew to get the latest release. 
Basically, I want Serif to start charging at least a little more so they can fund development more sustainably. I don't expect them to keep shipping great new features when the last time I gave them any money was 2014, but they need to give me that opportunity to support the company. 

The question is not so much whether Affinity Designer is still developed (it obviously is) but whether Serif still has any kind of ambition of delivering a viable Adobe Illustrator competitor, and are devoting the development resources needed to do that.
The answer to that question once appeared to be yes, about five years ago. Today, I think the answer is pretty clearly no.
When AD launched back in 2014, its biggest shortcomings versus the industry leader were acknowledged and actively pursued. Artboards were at the top of the list, and indeed, were one of AD 1.4's marquee features the next year, proudly marked off the now-infamous 1.x roadmap. 
Then Affinity Photo happened, and AD development slowed to a trickle. Not a standstill – updates such as improvements to the pen tool continued to show up a few times a year. But by the time Affinity Publisher came around, the original Designer roadmap had not only been abandoned, but deleted from the site. Six years after Affinity Designer 1.0, most of the software's original ambition remains unrealized. The improvements that continue to ship every now and then are certainly welcome, but are a far cry from what was once planned.
The intended use for AD has clearly shifted. Once positioned as a tool for working professionals, it's now aimed at hobbyists and people who need vector software for side projects. And as someone who uses AD for side projects, it works well for that! If I were doing vector illustration in my day job, though, there's no way I'd choose AD over Illustrator. The time savings of features like shape blends, vector art brushes, envelope distorts, scatter/pattern brushes, isolation mode, and more would have me (however grudgingly) paying Adobe's stupid subscription fee.
Of course, Adobe has teams upon teams of developers, product managers, UX designers, and QAs working on Illustrator. Serif, as best I can tell, has one person working on Affinity Designer. But I guess that's not a bad fit – Serif's side project is the tool I use for my own side projects.

VectorStyler is an interesting example of a 180-degree different approach from Affinity Designer. They're still in open beta, but have tried to cram everything into their 1.0 branch: VS already has features AD has made no progress on for years like blends, distortion envelopes, and more. It all looks great on paper, but unfortunately... these features are almost unusable. 
Affinity Designer has been glacially slow in adding features, which is a problem, but VectorStyler has been almost as slow in addressing critical stability issues, not to mention some major usability shortcomings from adding too many features without a consistent UX vision. The app is incredibly powerful, but it's an absolute mess in its present state.
If it's a choice between reliable versus feature-poor and feature-rich but unreliable, I'll gladly choose the former. But it will be interesting to see how this race plays out between VS developing reliability and AD developing a competitive feature set.

This tool was originally part of the 1.x roadmap in 2015. Unfortunately, there is no more publicly-facing roadmap.

The question is not so much whether Affinity Designer is still developed (it obviously is) but whether Serif still has any kind of ambition of delivering a viable Adobe Illustrator competitor, and are devoting the development resources needed to do that.
The answer to that question once appeared to be yes, about five years ago. Today, I think the answer is pretty clearly no.
When AD launched back in 2014, its biggest shortcomings versus the industry leader were acknowledged and actively pursued. Artboards were at the top of the list, and indeed, were one of AD 1.4's marquee features the next year, proudly marked off the now-infamous 1.x roadmap. 
Then Affinity Photo happened, and AD development slowed to a trickle. Not a standstill – updates such as improvements to the pen tool continued to show up a few times a year. But by the time Affinity Publisher came around, the original Designer roadmap had not only been abandoned, but deleted from the site. Six years after Affinity Designer 1.0, most of the software's original ambition remains unrealized. The improvements that continue to ship every now and then are certainly welcome, but are a far cry from what was once planned.
The intended use for AD has clearly shifted. Once positioned as a tool for working professionals, it's now aimed at hobbyists and people who need vector software for side projects. And as someone who uses AD for side projects, it works well for that! If I were doing vector illustration in my day job, though, there's no way I'd choose AD over Illustrator. The time savings of features like shape blends, vector art brushes, envelope distorts, scatter/pattern brushes, isolation mode, and more would have me (however grudgingly) paying Adobe's stupid subscription fee.
Of course, Adobe has teams upon teams of developers, product managers, UX designers, and QAs working on Illustrator. Serif, as best I can tell, has one person working on Affinity Designer. But I guess that's not a bad fit – Serif's side project is the tool I use for my own side projects.

I've said this before, but my biggest wish for the Affinity suite is not any one feature, but a new business model. Look at what the UX design app Sketch has been doing with an annual update program: They added more features last year than Affinity Designer probably has in the past four, and they did it without a subscription. Instead, they sell one year of updates – after one year, you can still use the last version you updated to, and it's your choice to renew to get the latest release. 
Basically, I want Serif to start charging at least a little more so they can fund development more sustainably. I don't expect them to keep shipping great new features when the last time I gave them any money was 2014, but they need to give me that opportunity to support the company. 

The question is not so much whether Affinity Designer is still developed (it obviously is) but whether Serif still has any kind of ambition of delivering a viable Adobe Illustrator competitor, and are devoting the development resources needed to do that.
The answer to that question once appeared to be yes, about five years ago. Today, I think the answer is pretty clearly no.
When AD launched back in 2014, its biggest shortcomings versus the industry leader were acknowledged and actively pursued. Artboards were at the top of the list, and indeed, were one of AD 1.4's marquee features the next year, proudly marked off the now-infamous 1.x roadmap. 
Then Affinity Photo happened, and AD development slowed to a trickle. Not a standstill – updates such as improvements to the pen tool continued to show up a few times a year. But by the time Affinity Publisher came around, the original Designer roadmap had not only been abandoned, but deleted from the site. Six years after Affinity Designer 1.0, most of the software's original ambition remains unrealized. The improvements that continue to ship every now and then are certainly welcome, but are a far cry from what was once planned.
The intended use for AD has clearly shifted. Once positioned as a tool for working professionals, it's now aimed at hobbyists and people who need vector software for side projects. And as someone who uses AD for side projects, it works well for that! If I were doing vector illustration in my day job, though, there's no way I'd choose AD over Illustrator. The time savings of features like shape blends, vector art brushes, envelope distorts, scatter/pattern brushes, isolation mode, and more would have me (however grudgingly) paying Adobe's stupid subscription fee.
Of course, Adobe has teams upon teams of developers, product managers, UX designers, and QAs working on Illustrator. Serif, as best I can tell, has one person working on Affinity Designer. But I guess that's not a bad fit – Serif's side project is the tool I use for my own side projects.

VectorStyler is an interesting example of a 180-degree different approach from Affinity Designer. They're still in open beta, but have tried to cram everything into their 1.0 branch: VS already has features AD has made no progress on for years like blends, distortion envelopes, and more. It all looks great on paper, but unfortunately... these features are almost unusable. 
Affinity Designer has been glacially slow in adding features, which is a problem, but VectorStyler has been almost as slow in addressing critical stability issues, not to mention some major usability shortcomings from adding too many features without a consistent UX vision. The app is incredibly powerful, but it's an absolute mess in its present state.
If it's a choice between reliable versus feature-poor and feature-rich but unreliable, I'll gladly choose the former. But it will be interesting to see how this race plays out between VS developing reliability and AD developing a competitive feature set.

The question is not so much whether Affinity Designer is still developed (it obviously is) but whether Serif still has any kind of ambition of delivering a viable Adobe Illustrator competitor, and are devoting the development resources needed to do that.
The answer to that question once appeared to be yes, about five years ago. Today, I think the answer is pretty clearly no.
When AD launched back in 2014, its biggest shortcomings versus the industry leader were acknowledged and actively pursued. Artboards were at the top of the list, and indeed, were one of AD 1.4's marquee features the next year, proudly marked off the now-infamous 1.x roadmap. 
Then Affinity Photo happened, and AD development slowed to a trickle. Not a standstill – updates such as improvements to the pen tool continued to show up a few times a year. But by the time Affinity Publisher came around, the original Designer roadmap had not only been abandoned, but deleted from the site. Six years after Affinity Designer 1.0, most of the software's original ambition remains unrealized. The improvements that continue to ship every now and then are certainly welcome, but are a far cry from what was once planned.
The intended use for AD has clearly shifted. Once positioned as a tool for working professionals, it's now aimed at hobbyists and people who need vector software for side projects. And as someone who uses AD for side projects, it works well for that! If I were doing vector illustration in my day job, though, there's no way I'd choose AD over Illustrator. The time savings of features like shape blends, vector art brushes, envelope distorts, scatter/pattern brushes, isolation mode, and more would have me (however grudgingly) paying Adobe's stupid subscription fee.
Of course, Adobe has teams upon teams of developers, product managers, UX designers, and QAs working on Illustrator. Serif, as best I can tell, has one person working on Affinity Designer. But I guess that's not a bad fit – Serif's side project is the tool I use for my own side projects.

The question is not so much whether Affinity Designer is still developed (it obviously is) but whether Serif still has any kind of ambition of delivering a viable Adobe Illustrator competitor, and are devoting the development resources needed to do that.
The answer to that question once appeared to be yes, about five years ago. Today, I think the answer is pretty clearly no.
When AD launched back in 2014, its biggest shortcomings versus the industry leader were acknowledged and actively pursued. Artboards were at the top of the list, and indeed, were one of AD 1.4's marquee features the next year, proudly marked off the now-infamous 1.x roadmap. 
Then Affinity Photo happened, and AD development slowed to a trickle. Not a standstill – updates such as improvements to the pen tool continued to show up a few times a year. But by the time Affinity Publisher came around, the original Designer roadmap had not only been abandoned, but deleted from the site. Six years after Affinity Designer 1.0, most of the software's original ambition remains unrealized. The improvements that continue to ship every now and then are certainly welcome, but are a far cry from what was once planned.
The intended use for AD has clearly shifted. Once positioned as a tool for working professionals, it's now aimed at hobbyists and people who need vector software for side projects. And as someone who uses AD for side projects, it works well for that! If I were doing vector illustration in my day job, though, there's no way I'd choose AD over Illustrator. The time savings of features like shape blends, vector art brushes, envelope distorts, scatter/pattern brushes, isolation mode, and more would have me (however grudgingly) paying Adobe's stupid subscription fee.
Of course, Adobe has teams upon teams of developers, product managers, UX designers, and QAs working on Illustrator. Serif, as best I can tell, has one person working on Affinity Designer. But I guess that's not a bad fit – Serif's side project is the tool I use for my own side projects.

The question is not so much whether Affinity Designer is still developed (it obviously is) but whether Serif still has any kind of ambition of delivering a viable Adobe Illustrator competitor, and are devoting the development resources needed to do that.
The answer to that question once appeared to be yes, about five years ago. Today, I think the answer is pretty clearly no.
When AD launched back in 2014, its biggest shortcomings versus the industry leader were acknowledged and actively pursued. Artboards were at the top of the list, and indeed, were one of AD 1.4's marquee features the next year, proudly marked off the now-infamous 1.x roadmap. 
Then Affinity Photo happened, and AD development slowed to a trickle. Not a standstill – updates such as improvements to the pen tool continued to show up a few times a year. But by the time Affinity Publisher came around, the original Designer roadmap had not only been abandoned, but deleted from the site. Six years after Affinity Designer 1.0, most of the software's original ambition remains unrealized. The improvements that continue to ship every now and then are certainly welcome, but are a far cry from what was once planned.
The intended use for AD has clearly shifted. Once positioned as a tool for working professionals, it's now aimed at hobbyists and people who need vector software for side projects. And as someone who uses AD for side projects, it works well for that! If I were doing vector illustration in my day job, though, there's no way I'd choose AD over Illustrator. The time savings of features like shape blends, vector art brushes, envelope distorts, scatter/pattern brushes, isolation mode, and more would have me (however grudgingly) paying Adobe's stupid subscription fee.
Of course, Adobe has teams upon teams of developers, product managers, UX designers, and QAs working on Illustrator. Serif, as best I can tell, has one person working on Affinity Designer. But I guess that's not a bad fit – Serif's side project is the tool I use for my own side projects.

If you compare what Sketch added in the past 12 months with what Affinity Designer added in the past 12 months, the difference is kind of staggering. Sketch adds major features at the speed of a tech company, while AD adds minor features at the speed of a solo developer's side project.
The key difference is that Sketch has an annual upgrade program. I wish Serif would introduce something like this to fund Affinity suite development – can you imagine what they might have done over the past five years if they had a little more money? The 2015 roadmap would probably not only be complete by now, but we'd likely have new tools that Adobe doesn't have, rather than still wishing for features Adobe had 20 years ago.
Affinity Designer is like a skyscraper that topped out at 9 floors. It's a perfectly good 9-floor building, and I'm looking forward to them adding the 10th floor, but the groundwork was laid for so much more.

If you compare what Sketch added in the past 12 months with what Affinity Designer added in the past 12 months, the difference is kind of staggering. Sketch adds major features at the speed of a tech company, while AD adds minor features at the speed of a solo developer's side project.
The key difference is that Sketch has an annual upgrade program. I wish Serif would introduce something like this to fund Affinity suite development – can you imagine what they might have done over the past five years if they had a little more money? The 2015 roadmap would probably not only be complete by now, but we'd likely have new tools that Adobe doesn't have, rather than still wishing for features Adobe had 20 years ago.
Affinity Designer is like a skyscraper that topped out at 9 floors. It's a perfectly good 9-floor building, and I'm looking forward to them adding the 10th floor, but the groundwork was laid for so much more.

I have to agree on gradient meshes. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I used the gradient mesh tool in Illustrator. It was one of those features that always seemed like it would be really powerful, but in practice was always too hard to get looking just right. 
Illustrator's new freeform gradient tool looks like a big step up, but honestly, I think Affinity Designer still needs to walk before it runs. Fancy gradients are good headline grabbers, but there are other, more basic tools like blend / live repeat, scatter brushes, and vector/pattern strokes that Illustrator has had for over twenty years and Affinity Designer is heading into its fourth without.