IndigoMoon

Status: Beta
Purpose: Stability and General Testing
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Publisher
Windows Store: Not submitted
Download: Download
Auto-update: Not Available
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Hi,
It has been a fantastic year for Affinity Publisher, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued feedback and input. We would not have made it so far and so fast without you.
Anyhow, we are pleased to announce that a new Customer Beta of Affinity Publisher (1.8.0.523) is now available as a download from the link above. Barring catastrophe this will probably be our last update this year.
As this is a 'Stability and General Testing' beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity where you may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. 
We hope you enjoy the beta, and as always, if you've got any problems installing or running up, please don't hesitate to post in this thread. 
Any problems actually using this version please make a new topic in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Please feel free to leave general suggestions and comments in the Discussion Forum. 
Once again, many thanks for your continued feedback, and best wishes for the Holiday Season and the New Year.
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New Features and Major Improvements
Preflight
We have introduced a preflight check feature which can be used to ensure that your document exports or prints as intended. The preflight check runs as a background process, and can be run on on demand, prior to output, or 'live' on a continual basis. We currently have a number of separate tests with more planned for inclusion in the final 1.8 and in the future.
Preflight is configured via the 'Preflight' panel, which supports profiles to specify which tests should be run if you desire. An indicator is provided on the status bar for immediate feedback on the process. Note we have requested updated icons as we are aware that colour alone is not a good way to represent the different statuses.
Please feel free to suggest additional tests - it's likely that many will already be under consideration but please don't let that deter you.
Fixes and Smaller Updates
New Document Panel (Mac only currently)
(Mac) Panel is now resizable and modeless.
(Mac) Reworked categories and subcategories.
(Mac) Added multiple user template folder support.
(Mac) Added Page Preset label (allow for `Custom`).
(Mac) For those items with no previews, we draw the Affinity icon for now.
(Mac) Excluded IDML files from quicklook preview.
Document Setup
Adding a page via menu / shortcut wasn't propagating desired properties.
(Win) Changing DPI in a facing page document could incorrectly cause pages to be resized.
General
(Win) Stock Panel search criteria is no longer cleared when switching providers.
(Win) Global Colour Picker was not using document's colour space.
Text
Space between paragraphs of the same style can now be set explicitly.
Stylistic Sets and Character Variants now show names in UI if defined by the font.
OpenType UI now uses feature descriptions from font and smarter samples.
Improved SmallCaps and CapsToSmallCaps handling.
Updated handling of 'Kerning' in Text Styles.
Fixed a couple of issues with 'Towards Spine / Away from Spine' UI.
Inline Text Frames were showing spelling errors in overflow.
(Mac) Fixed insets controls in Text Frame panel.
Fixed crash pinning to master page.
Fixed failure to report missing fonts for non character glyphs.
Drop caps 'Auto' now deals with inline images correctly.
Text in Text frames at very edge of page could show the wrong page number.
(Mac) Fixed insets controls in Text Frame panel.
(Win) Character Panel was not always reflecting current font properly.
Hyperlinks
Add ability to see and sort by hyperlink type. 
(Mac) Fixed crash when switching a file based hyperlink to use a different file.
(Mac) Fixed possible crash on showing Insert Hyperlink Dialog.
File Import
Some Embedded Documents could initially render incorrectly after re-opening host document.
Adding Pages from File manages mismatch in document transparency properly.
Fixed missing elements when importing specific EPS features.
(Win) Fixed crash on Windows when jpeg error handler triggered.
IDML
Fixed crashes on import for specific sample files.
Supports space between paragraphs of same style.
Improved import of unencoded glyphs.
XLSX
Fix for hidden columns.
Some text field types not imported.
Export
PDF/X-3 Embedding a colour profile was always converting image colour spaces to match the profile.
---
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To be notified when this Publisher update comes out of beta and is fully released to all Publisher customers, please follow this thread

Oh, that's a good idea. I'll think about it.
In the meantime, if you only have one body/lens combination, you can go into Develop Assistant and tell it to just always take your Most Recently Used lens profile. Then you won't even have to select the profile manually any more.

Unfortunately, as far as we can tell, this particular camera/lens combination does not give us enough information to disambiguate between the two possible lenses.
Hopefully the manual lens selection will be a good workaround for you though. This is just the kind of situation where we see it getting the most use.  

What, Again??! Wow, congrats to the whole team!!! But you surely know, that you screw up expectations for 2020
Keep on the great work!

JFYI, in my case still an open issue (5DM3 with Tamron SP 24-70)....

IDML - Great! For my simple needs, printer templates for photobooks, already fantastic! Thanks Adam!!

Status: Beta
Purpose: Stability and General Testing
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Publisher
Windows Store: Not submitted
Download: Download
Auto-update: Not Available
---
Hi,
We are pleased to announce that a new Customer Beta of Affinity Publisher (1.8.0.502) is now available as a download from the link above.
As this is a 'Stability and General Testing' beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity where you may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. 
We hope you enjoy the beta, and as always, if you've got any problems installing or running up, please don't hesitate to post in this thread. 
Any problems actually using this version please make a new topic in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Please feel free to leave general suggestions and comments in the Discussion Forum. 
Many thanks for your continued feedback.
---
New Features and Major Improvements
IDML Import
This build includes an importer for the IDML ((Adobe) InDesign Markup Language) file format. Many entities, attributes and properties are not currently imported. In general if a feature currently has no native support it is unlikely to be imported entirely successfully. In addition to this, please find below a list highlighting features we know are not currently supported fully.
Document
- Document User details
Spread / Page Items
- Promoted master page items
- Overprint properties
- Arrowheads
- Text on path
Transparency / FX
- Directional Feather
- Gradient Feather
Text Frames
- Content transparency / FX for text vs text + frame
- First baseline offset
Story Items
- Text layout can differ due to differences in composition and metric vs optical kerning
- TOC
- Index 
- Page number fields
- Hyperlinks
XLSX Import
This build includes an importer for the XLSX (Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet) file format. Excel files are placed as tables. The following are not currently supported.
- Formulae are imported as their calculated result value, which Excel stores in the file alongside the formula
- Local formatting is imported, but global Table Styles currently are not
- Overflowing cell content is handled differently in that Excel allows content of an overflowing cell to draw on top of adjacent cell if the cells are empty
Column Rules
The facility to add (vertical) rules / lines between columns in a multi-column text frame. The rules can be configured via the Text Frame Panel
Fixes and Smaller Updates
General
(Mac) Unified Toolbar tweaks
'Edit Document' for Linked Documents now works correctly rather than editing the embedded copy
Layers Panel should now maintain the expand / collapsed status of objects when switching spreads
Fixed issue for specific document where placed Designer file prevented Save
Fixed issue where export was causing application hang for specific document
(Win) Fixed crash dragging fill layer to bottom of layers stack
(Win) Fixed freeze editing colour from Swatches Panel
Master Pages
Changing size of Master Spread now offers option to update size of spreads it is applied to
Fixed issue whereby duplicating a Master Page Instance could unlink it
Blendmode / Opacity not working correctly with Master Page Instances
Adjustments were not working correctly when used with Master Page Instances
Picture Frames
Empty Picture Frames weren't showing in Assets Panel thumbnail previews
Replacing Master Pages containing Picture Frames with promoted context could distort content
(Mac) Original Size button wasn't functioning for Picture Frame content
Text
Paragraph Panel layout fixes
Fixed crash transposing characters (e.g. <Ctrl>+T on Mac)
Fixed Drop Cap anomalies
Leading Override can now be set to Auto in Text Style Editor
Fixed crash changing capitalization on multiple Text Frames simultaneously
(Win) Kerning in Base text style is now set to "Auto" 
(Mac) Custom text style shortcuts were not showing in Text Styles Panel
(Mac) Spell check not learning words originating from Master Pages
(Win) Fixed crash adding tab stop in Text Style Editor
(Mac) Paragraph leading, wrong separator being used with non-uk locale settings
DocX
Importing docx with no Text Frame selected fails to import style
Importing docx fails to apply 'Normal' style 
---
To be notified about all future Windows beta updates, please follow this notification thread 
To be notified when this Publisher update comes out of beta and is fully released to all Publisher customers, please follow this thread

I did some investigations as well and noticed a few things:
- Viveza 2 works fine with all other plugin hosts except APh
- the wrong colours occur only on 16 bit images, it also occurs in 8 bit images with high resolution
- Viveza 2 shows the correct colour in 100 %, but shows for a short moment the wrong colour before rendering to 100 %, which doesn't happen within Viveza directly or the other plugin hosts.
- Viveza 2 shows wrong colours in  0% and 50 %, but the colours are significant different "wrong" between 0 % and 50 %
- this behaviour above is independently of the display settings (sRGB, AdobeRGB, whatever...)
My setup: latest Google Nik Collection, Win10 Home 64bit 1903 with GeForce drivers 432.00 and a Dell 2713H WQHD Monitor 2560x1440 on DisplyPort.
I hope it helps...
 

Hi IndigoMoon,
I believe we will be improving this during the 1.8 beta phase. Thanks for letting us know  

JFYI, in my case still an open issue (5DM3 with Tamron SP 24-70)....

There IS a workaround however I add my voice to getting a colour range selection tool too as I know that Serif would make an awesome one.
What you can do is a little long-winded but can work well.
1) Duplicate (Apple / Command J) the layer you're wanting to make a selection on.
2) Add an HSL adjustment layer to the newly copied layer.
3) Use the tools in there to select the colour range you want.
4) Change the colour using the Hue Shift and Saturation Shift sliders radically!
When you have a good 'selection' change this layers blending mode to Difference.
Add Black & White and Levels adjustment layers above those two layers and adjust so you get closer to the result you're after. You can then use Edit->Copy Merged then Edit->Paste to get one pixel layer with everything in and then use the paint brush in overlay mode to help speed things up there a bit.
You should then end up with a black and white image which you can use as a mask for your image.
I know, I know, a fairly convoluted process for something which would be great if it were built-in so hopefully Serif will add something like this in the future. Would definitely be greatly appreciated.
Hope that helps a bit in the meantime though. Once you have done it a few times then it's a fairly quick process.
Best wishes,
Mark
 

Hi Randy Williams,
After installing 1.7.1.404 again, I can confirm your issue here.
I will get this looked into by the developers for you.
@amekassa89 - can you confirm your lens and supply a file so I can chase this too?
You can reinstall 1.7.1 from here if you need to:
https://store.serif.com/en-gb/update/windows/photo/1/

Hey Serif, what are you doing??
I'm a ambitious and passionated photographer, switched to Serif because of Affinity Photo. I'm not a graphic designer or DTP artist, but purchased in the beginning just out of curiosity Designer and now Publisher, and what shall I say? It's really fantastic, easy to use, a joy to work with these apps and expand my creativity around photography!
Really, really well done of all of you and thank you very much for that!!

Yes, that is really annoying, how it works now. Please don't lose sight of quality of the tools, features and algorithms

Hey Serif, what are you doing??
I'm a ambitious and passionated photographer, switched to Serif because of Affinity Photo. I'm not a graphic designer or DTP artist, but purchased in the beginning just out of curiosity Designer and now Publisher, and what shall I say? It's really fantastic, easy to use, a joy to work with these apps and expand my creativity around photography!
Really, really well done of all of you and thank you very much for that!!

Hey Serif, what are you doing??
I'm a ambitious and passionated photographer, switched to Serif because of Affinity Photo. I'm not a graphic designer or DTP artist, but purchased in the beginning just out of curiosity Designer and now Publisher, and what shall I say? It's really fantastic, easy to use, a joy to work with these apps and expand my creativity around photography!
Really, really well done of all of you and thank you very much for that!!

For what it's worth, I have bumped an improvement request that we have logged with the developers. Thanks for your feedback.

There will be an option to use the old filter. I will seek to make improvements to the new filter in the future.

Focal length has been added now in .404 for Windows as well. Thanks for that!

I guess the longer developing time is caused mainly by the new noise reduction. Uncheck the noise reduction in Develop Persona and try it again...

The LensID in your exif is "unknown" so we cannot automatically detect it. I've tried a few other RAW engines and they all failed to open it, which is expected. 
---- Composite ----
Aperture                        : 7.1
Drive Mode                      : Single-frame Shooting
ISO                             : 200
Image Size                      : 3504x2336
Lens                            : 17.0 - 55.0 mm
Lens ID                         : Unknown 17-55mm
 
Not a bug with our software, but perhaps an issue with your camera/lens

I guess the longer developing time is caused mainly by the new noise reduction. Uncheck the noise reduction in Develop Persona and try it again...

I guess the longer developing time is caused mainly by the new noise reduction. Uncheck the noise reduction in Develop Persona and try it again...

I guess the longer developing time is caused mainly by the new noise reduction. Uncheck the noise reduction in Develop Persona and try it again...

I'm sure you won't change this before release, but please check this again after the release of 1.7
- The former Shadows/Highlights filter was fine, or at least much better than the new rewritten one
- On the other hand the Shadows/Highlights adjustment layer needs a fine tuning compared to other app algorithms
Thank you very much!