davidlower8

I would like to add to this debate and also request this feature. OR if not this feature then at least have the boolean tools work properly. For me, there are 4 glaringly bad issues with the current Affinity Designer set up which I will try to explain.
1) When cutting different shapes from each other - if the shapes are quite complex, Affinity adds literally hundreds of nodes to the shape. It even does it if the shape is relatively simple. See screenshots.
2) When trying to select these completely pointless nodes I am given a square shape selector to highlight and select. It makes it extremely fiddly if I want to delete those nodes in a confined space where I don't want to delete other nodes from other shapes.
3) With these hundreds of nodes it makes any shape really heavy in processing power. It slows down the app significantly and in my case repeatedly crashed. Worse, however, is when you want to continue to cut out shapes from each other if one of those shapes has lots of nodes it simply refuses to work. Instead of the shapes cutting away or even adding together they both simply disappear. Affinity just can't handle it. Again in my case, it was so bad I had to manually redraw complex shapes from scratch or start over. Or on the shape with tons of nodes I had to manually delete them until Affinity was able to process the boolean command again.
4) When using circles and the golden ration to design (as an example) the divide boolean is pretty much the only tool you can use. However, what happens is it adds hundreds of tiny spec layers that in many cases are so small they offer absolutely no relevance. The other day I was making a logo using about 10 inter lapping circles. I selected them all to divide in the hope I could simply manually add the shapes I wanted with the add boolean. However, I ended up with over 400 layers. Good luck trying to select which shape/layer goes together and good luck trying to manually select the shapes with a square (fixed) selector.
These are my thoughts. Maybe the shape builder tool is not necessarily needed. Personally, I think it would improve Affinity and the workflow significantly. However, I am a big advocate for zero bloating of the tool. BUT the current boolean tools in my mind do not work, especially when getting into complex shapes and/or patterns. Which ultimately is what Affinity Designer should be handling.
I love Affinity and I appreciate the work you are doing.
 

Hey guys......so I was working on my new course...and got the the lesson on making brushes.....sooooo I had to amek some brushes. 
 
I made a set of fog/ smoke brushes in raster and a set of silky smooth stroke brushes for your vector applications. 
 
I have learned so much from the people on the site....I wanted to give back, so here ya go . I am working on new blog post and some new art using them....so I will keep you in the loop 
 
Feedback on them is always appreciated, I love making these sorts of tools 
 
Jeremy , www.7thseasonstudios.com
Stroke brushes -7th season studios .afbrushes
Smoke and fog brushes -7th season studios.afbrushes

I'm surprised to see so many people like that tool. I honestly never found any need to use it. The boolean operations work fine for me.
 
I do admit that Johnny's example is a good point. I never experienced such a complicated example, but I guess there are such cases if so many people want the tool. Well a reason I don't want it is because too many tools if more and more are added will clutter the workspace. I keep all of my tools on a single column, and I like how Designer is staying simple in terms of the interface. Something that could be implemented instead is to have another select mode of the Move Tool. With the mouse button pressed, any objects in the cursor's path will be selected. Then from there on, you could just use the booleans.

It seems to be fixed. I can't replicate the bug at current. If I see it again I'll report here. Thanks.

This should be fixed in the latest beta looking at the video.
Can you download it from here and let me know if you can still reproduce the crash?
Thanks

As regards (3), I find that if a click the row header arrow and select 'Insert Row', it does indeed add the new row above. However, if I ignore the header arrow and just right click on the row header the same menu pops up but this time if you select 'Insert Row' it inserts below the currently selected row! Of course, the operation should be clearly labelled as to whether inserting above or below.

Hi davidlower8,
Yes, I did check them. Please allow me some time to test/check a few things and to talk with the dev team.

Ok it has been a week since this post and I believe this solution has indeed fixed the problem. Thank you all for your input.

As OP emphasized "export persona constantly exporting images with a 1px gap", I believe antialiased 1px line problem is the actual point on this topic.
 

@SrPx thanks for the response buddy. Setting the decimal place to zero unfortunately achieves nothing. In essence all it is doing is hiding the decimal places so you can’t see them. But under the hood it is still introducing fractured pixels. So ultimately the pixel persona will still export slices with a 1px gap. This is the biggest grip for me because it is so freaking obvious when uploading these slices to client websites.
Your other solution is a nice idea (thanks for that) but again it far more work than it should be. I don’t want to have to consciously be aware that my various layers are being contained in boxes. It completely defeats the simplisticty that affinity is suppose to be boasting. Until affinity decide to fix this I can’t see a walk around. As this has been a problem since launch (2014) and they have done nothing about it, does sadden me. I was / am a huge fan of affinity. But the work flow to export all my slices, symbols, images etc from my designs is simply making this a product I can’t use anymore. For messing around and chilling it’s fantastic. But for real client work uploading all your artwork with a white 1px gap is tragic. It even did it for a professional brochure I made (26 pages) with hundreds of layers. You can imagine my frustration when I had to refactor every single layer making sure both the physical size of the layer was solid pixels only, but also the position on the art board being solid pixels. If any one of those 4 measurements has a fractured pixel then it will upload the entire slice with a 1px gap. It is actually a really shocking  error/bug and I can’t believe this hasn’t been given more light.
thanks for the input

Hey I want to flag this bug/issue again since it is still not being address or fixed and is creating a workflow in affinity that I can no longer continue to use. Please see video below of the example of how force pixel alignment does not work.
It is becoming a serious headache, namly the export persona constantly exporting images with a 1px gap. I have since, through shear perservance learned the work flow to get around this problem. Forced pixel alignment should do what it says and the whole document works precisely on whole pixels regardless of scale, snapping or repositioning. Perhaps affinity should even add this as a clear option when creating a document in the first place. Add a tick box option next to the 'document units' dropdown menu and call it 'work with whole pixels'. Then have the additonal forced pixel button in the toolbar.
My problem I face now is when a scale an object, let's say a simple piece of text. It does not scale to whole pixels. It introduces the fractured pixels, even though the whole documnent is working in forced pixel alignment. Due to this I have to constantly monitor and be aware of resizing everything to make sure it is working in full pixels. Is there a way when I scale an object, ie grabbing the blue handle points and increasing or decreasing its size, while maintaining full pixels? This would help massively on my end in solving how affinity works.
Like others though this is really beginning to dent my ability to use Designer going forward. It is literally adding hours to my work flow.
https://www.loom.com/share/d4d68bbd50ac4a68892ca40852a5cf72

Hmm, this is kinda annoying.
Serif should offer some kind of fix at least if it's a pixel based artwork.

Hey I want to flag this bug/issue again since it is still not being address or fixed and is creating a workflow in affinity that I can no longer continue to use. Please see video below of the example of how force pixel alignment does not work.
It is becoming a serious headache, namly the export persona constantly exporting images with a 1px gap. I have since, through shear perservance learned the work flow to get around this problem. Forced pixel alignment should do what it says and the whole document works precisely on whole pixels regardless of scale, snapping or repositioning. Perhaps affinity should even add this as a clear option when creating a document in the first place. Add a tick box option next to the 'document units' dropdown menu and call it 'work with whole pixels'. Then have the additonal forced pixel button in the toolbar.
My problem I face now is when a scale an object, let's say a simple piece of text. It does not scale to whole pixels. It introduces the fractured pixels, even though the whole documnent is working in forced pixel alignment. Due to this I have to constantly monitor and be aware of resizing everything to make sure it is working in full pixels. Is there a way when I scale an object, ie grabbing the blue handle points and increasing or decreasing its size, while maintaining full pixels? This would help massively on my end in solving how affinity works.
Like others though this is really beginning to dent my ability to use Designer going forward. It is literally adding hours to my work flow.
https://www.loom.com/share/d4d68bbd50ac4a68892ca40852a5cf72

@SrPx thanks for the response buddy. Setting the decimal place to zero unfortunately achieves nothing. In essence all it is doing is hiding the decimal places so you can’t see them. But under the hood it is still introducing fractured pixels. So ultimately the pixel persona will still export slices with a 1px gap. This is the biggest grip for me because it is so freaking obvious when uploading these slices to client websites.
Your other solution is a nice idea (thanks for that) but again it far more work than it should be. I don’t want to have to consciously be aware that my various layers are being contained in boxes. It completely defeats the simplisticty that affinity is suppose to be boasting. Until affinity decide to fix this I can’t see a walk around. As this has been a problem since launch (2014) and they have done nothing about it, does sadden me. I was / am a huge fan of affinity. But the work flow to export all my slices, symbols, images etc from my designs is simply making this a product I can’t use anymore. For messing around and chilling it’s fantastic. But for real client work uploading all your artwork with a white 1px gap is tragic. It even did it for a professional brochure I made (26 pages) with hundreds of layers. You can imagine my frustration when I had to refactor every single layer making sure both the physical size of the layer was solid pixels only, but also the position on the art board being solid pixels. If any one of those 4 measurements has a fractured pixel then it will upload the entire slice with a 1px gap. It is actually a really shocking  error/bug and I can’t believe this hasn’t been given more light.
thanks for the input

Hey I want to flag this bug/issue again since it is still not being address or fixed and is creating a workflow in affinity that I can no longer continue to use. Please see video below of the example of how force pixel alignment does not work.
It is becoming a serious headache, namly the export persona constantly exporting images with a 1px gap. I have since, through shear perservance learned the work flow to get around this problem. Forced pixel alignment should do what it says and the whole document works precisely on whole pixels regardless of scale, snapping or repositioning. Perhaps affinity should even add this as a clear option when creating a document in the first place. Add a tick box option next to the 'document units' dropdown menu and call it 'work with whole pixels'. Then have the additonal forced pixel button in the toolbar.
My problem I face now is when a scale an object, let's say a simple piece of text. It does not scale to whole pixels. It introduces the fractured pixels, even though the whole documnent is working in forced pixel alignment. Due to this I have to constantly monitor and be aware of resizing everything to make sure it is working in full pixels. Is there a way when I scale an object, ie grabbing the blue handle points and increasing or decreasing its size, while maintaining full pixels? This would help massively on my end in solving how affinity works.
Like others though this is really beginning to dent my ability to use Designer going forward. It is literally adding hours to my work flow.
https://www.loom.com/share/d4d68bbd50ac4a68892ca40852a5cf72

Oh I thought you meant issues with Metal compute on. It sounds like you need to keep Metal compute off but try experimenting with OpenGL and Metal (Display) to see which works for your setup. 

They are just different renderers. Software uses your CPU and is slower whereas OpenGL and Metal will use a discrete card. The Display setting is used to render what is drawn on the screen. Metal compute (in Designer) is used for brush performance.
Try and use Metal instead of OpenGL unless you are experiencing performance issues but keep Metal compute off. 

Disabling 'Metal compute' from Preferences > Performance may be the solution. Alternatively, if it isn't enabled—try enabling it.
Metal compute will heavily depend on your type of GPU so try experimenting with the setting to see what works best. 

Disable the "Enable Metal compute acceleration". That including using OpenGL fixed it for me. There are HUGE changes in performance depending on the settings, but Serif haven't been very vocal about it.

My machine is exactly as you describrd yours now. Ever since the upgrade I have had a lot of problems with it. Slow and very slow, high memory use and a couple of times my mac has hung up and I had to reboot. Deffinately the upgrade.

Hi everyone!  Here is the video tutorial.  I hope this is helpful
 
 
In the video I used a gradient swatch downloaded from a set posted by Design Art Studios  if you want to use the same gradient I used here is a link to the facebook post  https://www.facebook.com/groups/AffinityDesignerPhotoPublisher/permalink/1108543209314275/

Thanks @PMudditt and @Alfred for this.
@PMudditt I did not notice that feature before. I am almost certain it did not exist. Admittedly it was a good 6 months or more before I last checked. I just remember I couldn't get anything to work for ages. Anyway that feature worked very well. I imported all my fonts relatively painlessly. I have not noticed a lag in performance which is great.
@Alfred I tried setting up individual profiles and although it worked it was too painful to do for 400-500 fonts. At the moment I only need the fonts for affinity designer. But it is a nice idea and useful to know.
Thanks for the help everyone.

Thanks @PMudditt and @Alfred for this.
@PMudditt I did not notice that feature before. I am almost certain it did not exist. Admittedly it was a good 6 months or more before I last checked. I just remember I couldn't get anything to work for ages. Anyway that feature worked very well. I imported all my fonts relatively painlessly. I have not noticed a lag in performance which is great.
@Alfred I tried setting up individual profiles and although it worked it was too painful to do for 400-500 fonts. At the moment I only need the fonts for affinity designer. But it is a nice idea and useful to know.
Thanks for the help everyone.

A screenshot of the Transform panel with the vector object selected with the Move Tool might help us see what the issue is. Also, in Preferences > User Interface, check to make sure the value for Pixels in the "Decimals Places for Unit Types" section is set to 1 or more -- if it is set to zero you won't see factional pixel values in the Transform panel because they are rounded off to whole pixel values for the display (but internally all the values retain the decimal part).

I just wanted a screenshot of the Transform panel in the Draw Persona with the object selected with the Move Tool. There is no Move Tool in the Export Persona, so I neglected to mention it was the Draw Persona's Transform panel I was hoping to see.
In retrospect, I should have made that clearer -- sorry about that.