JamesM

I don't understand how so many people spend so much energy focused on missing the obvious background to the original question that Walt interpreted and understood correctly.
However, I did learn a little more about Windows Pro X.

Canva bought Affinity to the tune of about 1 BILLION dollars.
Affinity made 16 MILLION pounds in revenue in 2022.

Yeah, I am sure that will let you carry on and change nothing.

Considering how many “funds” Canva has “raised” in the past few years and how many venture capital campanies are involved, I have a VERY bad feeling about this.
The forced marketing speech (“joining the family”, yeah, sure) in the announcement doesn’t halp.
I guess that it’s probably a good way for all Serif employees to get a nice retirement in 3 to 5 years, but it’s a buckshot in the face for me as a happy user and supporter of an independent company that makes professional software I use every day.

I must say this was a shock but not a good one - Canva also bought SMARTMOCKUPS.COM which was amazing and now they are shutting it down - I do hope this is not the case with Affinity.
Canva have the cash and resources and do make the final decision which is a shame. All this companies say at the beginning no no we will be independent but in reality that will not be the case.

Yeah, I’ve not a good feeling about it. 
 
That reads to me as, from v3 it’ll be different. 
 
I really really hope we don’t get any Canva crap to deal with and subscription stays away. I’m not that loyal. 
 
 

I love you guys, and I have a big load of respect about you, being a big evangelist of Affinity, but I'm not having a good felling on this. Canva is not what I could name a "professional software" partner. They want to be Adobe, not an adobe alternative.
The first insinuation of subscription model will break any trust on Affinity, and for the love of the goddess, I hope Affinity apps don't become a dumpster of stupid and crappy AI and cheap design tools that Canva really is.
I've read the FAQs you published… they don't give me enough reassessment that nothing is gonna change. Your company and your project is not yours anymore.
I wish to be wrong.

Hi All,

I am thrilled to announce that Affinity is joining the Canva family.
This is a moment of great excitement, anticipation, and profound gratitude for all of you who have been part of our story so far. 
We know that those of you who’ve put your faith in Affinity, some since we launched our very first Mac app, will have questions about what this means for the future of our products. Since the inception of Affinity, our mission has been to empower creatives with tools that unleash their full potential, fostering a community where innovation and artistry flourish. We've worked tirelessly to challenge the status quo, delivering professional-grade creative software that is both accessible and affordable. 
None of that changes today.
In Canva, we’ve found a kindred spirit who can help us take Affinity to new levels. Their extra resources will mean we can deliver much more, much faster. Beyond that, we can forge new horizons for Affinity products, opening up a world of possibilities which previously would never have been achievable. 
Canva’s revolutionary approach to design democratisation and commitment to empowering everyone to create aligns perfectly with our core values and vision. This union is a testament to what can be achieved when two companies that share a common goal of making design accessible and enjoyable for everyone come together. 
I want to express my deepest gratitude to our incredible Affinity team. Your passion, dedication, and relentless pursuit of excellence have been the driving force behind our success so far, and I can’t wait to continue this journey with you all. 
To our loyal users and the creative community, your support and feedback have been invaluable. You’ve inspired us to push boundaries and continuously improve, and we’re excited to embark on this new chapter together. 
The future is bright, and I am incredibly excited to continue our story together and create a world where design is within everyone's reach.
With heartfelt thanks,
Ash
For more information...
We have included some FAQs at the bottom of the announcement article here. A video message from me with some more background is on YouTube here.  

Additionally we will be setting up a Q&A session about this acquisition in a few weeks time. More info on how to take part in this will be sent on email and posted on this forum in the coming days.

Oh and I would like to add:
it has nothing to do with my files. I had crashes after opening AP and AD (haven't used publisher in a while so maybe it would appear there, too) when all work files were closed. Same for the brushes lag. It appears in documents of any size and amount of layers, tried new blank documents and had the same. It randomly appears and works a while after a crash/restart until the next lag. 

I can't offer a workflow description for every case as it randomly happens but I have the same problem as the OP. 
Working on an iPad Pro v3 and iOS 17.1.2., AP is up-to-date with 2.3.1.2217
Happens with AD and AP and I can't figure out a pattern/trigger as the situations vary. 
It happens while
brushing on a layer (randomly after I had already painted for some while) switching layers using the color slider and pipette typing values in a panel switching tools opening a document From 256 GB I have 128 GB free and I only use the iPad in addition to the macbook for drawing and don't use any large other apps, it's mainly Affinity installed.
This might be worth an extra thread but as it fits to that and often is the prelude to a crash:
Brushes start lagging out of no reason. I am using everything as intended for some while and then out of a sudden I paint "empty" on a layer, nothing visible. So I zoom in and out (with lags as well), all tools stop working/freeze, the layer becomes visible and I can finally see what I painted, then I try to paint again and the document crashes.
The lagging of the brush does not always lead to a crash but very often. It costs me so much time and is beginning to become a problem for my work-schedule and respectively also the money. 
While the brush lag is a real problem itself it is most likely connected to the crashing issues the software has on the iPad.
I would so love to keep drawing on the iPad instead of my wacom tablet as it is more intuitive for illustrators in theory. But practically I had to create so many workarounds to be able to make basic drawing at all. For example I have to exclude every larger group in my file to a new linked document so I am able to use the main document on the iPad at all and be able to paint "live" on a layer. Also I must not refresh the links on AP on iPad because it causes embedding instead of keeping my intended link - which bloats my document again. Took me hours of try and error to find that out. 
To say it shortly: Please work on the general performance on the iPad. I have no time to send you example videos as I am struggling with getting my work finished (and also the crashes and bugs happen randomly I would have to record quite some time and invest a lot of work just to make a report that probably has nothing to do with my pretty standard usage of the program) but I think the hints you get from different users are reason and explanation enough to thoroughly check the general performance.  
Thank you!
Devendra
 
 

Getty Images (Wikipedia) Simpson, Meagan (30 March 2021). "Unsplash to be acquired by Getty Images | BetaKit". BetaKit. Retrieved 30 March 2021. I believe @GarryP's skepticism about this deal is appropriate. Usually you don't throw in an undisclosed sum of money for nothing, of course one hopes for some income and future profits from it.

First, I love Affinity Designer, but I do love a tool from Concepts app called Nudge, attached you can find a video showing how it works.
And it’s not just for lines, is so fun to use it with complex art too!
It’s an amazing tool, that makes so easy and interesting to edit vectors, and I believe is so revolutionary that Affinity Designer must have it (and improve it) so we don’t need to use Concepts instead.
 
Sorry for my bad English,  thanks!
929F89D9-716B-4D2F-AF63-C8F41F3C3671.MOV

With the abilities to drag and drop, and edit Affinity native file format in both AD and AP, it will be more efficient if these apps could do split view or slide over on iPad. I imagine that it can even do drag and drop not only an image but also layers and vector objects between AD and AP. Here’s my concept below.
 

I know it is a year later, but someone might still look for it - for AD, I get everything under one artboard, then select it and do the flipping - not the ideal approach but it works.

One of the features that would make the iPad version of Affinity Photo much nicer to work on is the ability to quickly flip the canvas horizontally using a gesture. I feel that this is a very important feature and I use it a lot in other apps. I use the horizontal flip when I'm drawing because it helps me see mistakes and makes inking/painting much easier since it gives me different angles to work on. I can imagine that this feature would also be helpful for photo editing because it makes it easier to check the work for any mistakes or areas needing improvement.
So, please give us a gesture to flip the canvas horizontally. It would make a big difference! Thank you Affinity Photo team!

Thanks for all the suggestions. But none substitutes truly the workflow suggested. It the same like D for White/Black foreground/background color was added with 1.7.x as well as X for flip those colours.
In Photoshop, I am with the pen on the tablet, press R, the rotate the canvas with the pen - this is a natural move like you would be doing it with a piece of paper - then simply pressing B for going back to the brush or S for clone stamp - whatever you want to work with.
Everything else means hands off tablet, repositioning of pen after two handed operation on keyboard, totally not natural - no go for pro work, where everything has to go fast. I have no time to reposition the pen. Yes it's only a few seconds but non repositioning is 0 seconds. Somethings divided by zero = infinity. And that's how it feels to me: eternal time consumption.
I also never ever use the ring and the buttons on the tablet, they are all totally useless to me. The left hand is on keyboard the right one draws with the pen (left handers the opposite).
It is not necessary to move the hand with pen away from the tablet and reposition it after some weird keyboard commands two hands needed.
And the flip flop on/off layer is important to fast show/hide a layer with your eyes fixed to the screen to the subject you are working on and again: remaining with the pen hovering over the same position on the tablet.
All movement with your drawing hand away from drawing position and back needs a repositioning. Specially doing subtle changes this flip flop must go fast. You should see me working on an image and you would understand.  Must add a flickering warning for guys with epilepsy if they watch.

High guys
This two things I am really hardcore missing in Affinity Photo:
Layer on/off flip-flop command, Cmd+, in Photoshop R key for "rotate canvas", like in Photoshop, this is like handling a piece of paper - or not if missing. This two points are - at least to me - 80% of my workflow. And I am pretty sure I am not the only one. Exactly that I use permanently is missing  please check the video and sorry the bad English, was not my day today 
Cheers,
Roland
 
 

Previously reported bug is still not solved in 1.7.2.
At a certain time during working, brush drawing reactions change. Instead of drawing as I move my pencil on Wacom drush starts to react as in the attachment below. It takes only first and last point and draws a line between them.
Black lines as seen.... blue strokes are done afterwards to show what I was really drawing on my Wacom (Pro Intuous)....
Please start solving this issue reported about half a year before
Thanks
Jindra

This seems like a good place to offer a suggestion regarding workbooks. I have both the Designer and Photo workbooks, and they're great. I have only one issue, and that is that they don't lay flat. While it's a beautiful, quality product, not being able to lay flat takes away some functionality and makes it pretty frustrating for the end-user. I would have happily either paid a little more for hardbound workbooks with concealed wire-o binding; or opted for a slightly cheaper semi-concealed or open wire -o in a soft cover.

Just a thought...

Hi Tim Kyarie

This is a known issue with Wacom tablets. It is caused by clicking on the Designer UI (not the document area) with a Wacom Pen whilst your focus is in a different app. If you click on the document space when the focus is elsewhere it doesn't go wrong. 
In the meantime as a temporary work around could you go into your Wacom Tablet Properties > Mapping and then disable 'Use Windows Ink'. That should stop it from going wrong.

We're planning on improving Wacom support in a future update by using Windows Ink, because the two systems seem to compete with each other.

This tool is a must have for complex design creation. I really hope it gets implemented in the next version 2.0 . Even if it means paying for an upgrade. I understand all the time and effort that goes into creating programs like this, so I am happy to contribute to get the upgrades.  

Indeed, working with big vector pieces can mean mapping out tons of raw geometry, hitting select all, and then using the shape builder tool to merge, subtract, and trim at will without having to think about what is and isn't selected when working with standard boolean operations. It's actually a bigger deal than most people give it credit for and I'm quite surprised Affinity isn't jumping at the chance to put their own spin on something that lies at the heart of vector and object-based design: improving the user experience of working with shapes and operations.

Affinity Publisher sneak peek! Just to prove we're not making the whole thing up, check out this early build of our DTP app. Still lots of perfecting to do; expect the beta next summer. Enjoy.
 
Update: I think we have answered all the questions we can about Publisher before the beta starts. Hopefully the public beta will answer any remaining questions when it starts at the end of August.   
This thread is now locked. 

Hi RHiNO,
 
Thanks for your comments and feedback - much appreciated! :)
 
I'll try to quickly answer some of your questions:
 
Canvas rotation via rotation gesture seemed to happen too frequently and it's quite annoying so we made it only possible in the canvas rotate tool... There's no reason we couldn't enable an option that would let you have it in all tools though... :)
 
"Pencil input only" sounds like a reasonable request - we're still getting a lot of this stuff nailed down so we can add that one to the list, thanks.
 
Pixel eraser is also sensible!
 
Paolo (who makes the DAUB brushes) was in the office with us a couple of weeks ago and he was using 7GB of his custom brushes - so yes, they work great, but we need to add an importer so you can easily get them into the application. This will get done soon.
 
The gestures would fight with the current ability to paint/move/whatever - but if we added your 'pencil input only' option then there would be no fighting, so yes, we could enable custom gesture recognition to trigger tools or actions...
 
It wouldn't be totally trivial to add custom scaling for the context bar at the bottom, but it's definitely possible. We're still playing with these things anyway at the moment, so I'd expect this area to evolve over time anyhow...
 
The navigator will be improved to add 'View points' (customisable view setups that store view centre and zoom level) to help you easily navigate around the document. I'm not totally sure about panning the view around with your finger in the navigator though - perhaps it would work for the pencil, but your finger is often a bit too clumsy to do anything meaningful in that amount of space, I found...
 
Not too sure about fonts personally, but I was under the impression that you could already install fonts from iCloud Drive? Perhaps not?
 
Yes, I'd also like to have a persistent tool state between application runs, and we're already doing this for the desktop products, so I'm sure this will also be enabled on iPad
 
Thanks once again - hope you enjoy using it! I'm sure we'll make it so much better over time :)
Matt

Official Affinity Photo iPad Tutorials
New to the latest update of the app (1.6.9), we've got a brand new set of tutorials that follow a more structured approach. You can access them from the Tutorials option in-app or by following this link:
https://affinity.serif.com/tutorials/photo/ipad They are sorted into categories:
Basic Operations Advanced Corrective and Retouching Creative Tools Filters and Adjustments Export Persona Just some quick info about the new videos:
They're all shot in 4K resolution (supported on desktop machines) for extra clarity. There are localised subtitles for all the languages supported by the app (English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese Simplified, Japanese).  
Hope you find them useful!
James