JGD

Well, that was answered a few posts ago… Soon-ish?

Ahahaha I also wondered about that, too, immediately after the official announcement… ^^ You, sir, are a great captain, as the ship didn't leak from the top at all. ;)

… Five weeks later, I seem to have been proven right yet again and nailed Serif's strategy re the Windows port. So, when can we expect an IPO? ^^ Now, in all seriousness: I will indeed buy Serif stock if you do an IPO. :)

I absolutely concur with your quick assessment of AD… I've said as much many times in the forums: while AD probably satisfies a huge crowd of digital vector illustrators, it's still not up to spec for designers, which is a bit ironic since that means Illustrator is the best tool for graphic design, and Designer the best tool for illustration. Selection and object manipulation is, obviously, a big part of that. For instance: for all its smartness in snapping, I just wanted to be able to choose *which* nodes to drag from (I always have to select them manually, or by pressing Command+A with the Node tool or some other drag-to-select shenanigans, whereas in Ai I only have to select an object with the Selection tool, press Command – and that only if I wish to drag from a corner which coincides with the resizing handle –, pick a node and drag it to the node to which I want to snap it) and forgo smart snapping entirely. Most of the time I know exactly what I want to achieve, but sometimes I either have to resort to convoluted shortcuts or to rely on an impossible and useless “smartness” (especially in documents with lots of nodes). In fact, I think the best possible snapping behaviour, sometimes (especially for very complex artwork with lots of nodes), would be the old Smart Guides from Illustrator CS3, which only spawned after touching a particular node and gave a much finer, more manual control of snapping operations. Ai CS4 got a bit to “smart” about snapping and actually made Smart Guides harder to use, since they will spawn to whichever nodes are visible on the screen. The same goes for the “dragging with preview” instead of “dragging outlines” (you know, like the difference between the window dragging behaviour of OS X and that of Mac OS Classic); since that can actually be useful when duplicating by dragging (which is another behaviour that irks me; undoing just reverts the dragging operation and leaves a duplicate in place… why??), because it serves as, you know, a more useable preview that could very well be a toggleable behaviour right in the largely unpopulated Control bar… For all these little nags, though, there are a lot of revolutionary concepts and nifty tools, as you said. But those are the kind that Serif should guard from their competitors while they tick all the other boxes because, on that note… In fact, while I do agree that most of Serif's choices have been sound, I think you've got it backwards when it comes to priorities, sorry. :\ I've installed some CC apps recently (I know… I can neither confirm nor deny that I've subscribed to CC, and only installed those because I applied for a job in a professional design school and was afraid of falling behind), gave a quick look to Illustrator CC just now and was a bit dismayed to see that Adobe already copied AD's Corner tool, and even managed to integrate it nicely and intuitively into the Direct Selection tool… Their approach is a bit different, however: the original vertex becomes invisible – though it is restorable, but then you lose the corner radius – and the newly-created nodes are actually selectable and snappable, whereas in AD it's the exact opposite. Also, in Ai like in AD, you can adjust corners in concert or individually, but you can also do both in succession (as in adjusting an individual corner first and after that readjusting all corners equally from their current standing), whereas if you try to do that in AD, the Corner tool will reset any individual corner settings and readjust them equally from scratch. If AD is to regain gain the [absolute] functional high ground as far as this particular tool is concerned [Edit: Actually, it still has the functional high ground in one regard: Corners edited in Affinity are always persistent and editable until converted to curves regardless of which object they were added to, whereas in Ai, they are only persistent in rounded rectangles, so, kudos to Serif and a big fat booh to Adobe; the latter fail even at implementing copied features properly :rolleyes: ], it will already have both to match the ability to set corners both individually and in concert without resets *and* allow both vertices and new nodes to be selectable and snappable… and that brings us again to the basics of node selection, snapping, live rendering vs. outline previews, etc. So, you can already see the effects of the lurking I was talking about. It kind of saddens me to be right, sometimes, but I'm dead sure that if it wasn't for Affinity (or for a huuuuge coincidence, but, like Obi Wan Kenobi, I don't believe in such things :P ), the CC crowd wouldn't have gotten this nicety to play with. If I were on Serif's team, I would seriously reconsider that “novel feature” strategy (especially those “easier” to implement) and prioritize basic feature/UX parity and cross-platform compatibility ASAP, lest Adobe sucks out all reasons to switch for people who aren't that pissed at them, because the fact of the matter is that AD is already *almost* good enough to compete on a level field, nab a lot of Windows users right now (from Adobe, from Corel, from Quark very soon and don't forget about the Plus crowd…) and set itself as a new, true standard even while missing some advanced features (like, say, 3D… I've used those in Illustrator a few times, but they are super clunky and feel kind of grafted on hastily on an obviously 2D engine, so if I ever have to do 3D stuff again I'll probably resort to a full-blown 3D package instead) or not having that many *unique* features (I mean… They have already proven to be very creative and technically proficient, so their promise alone of new features atop a modern base would already be more credible than Adobe's vague and false intentions of providing “constant updates”). Affinity has a faster, slicker, more modern engine under the hood, and that is already impressive and extremely difficult to replicate without breaking compatibility with older file formats. We all know that Adobe is lazy and won't bother with that unless outright forced to… And many of their users are lazy and conservative, too; they won't bother to switch (and convert huge numbers of files in the process) if the only thing they gain is a bit more performance, a better UI and better interoperability (something which even Adobe may get right one day). That's why I think that throwing new tools out there for the competition to copy, before reaching basic feature-parity and being able to compete on a level field, could be suicidal in the medium term. :( I am so very sorry about insisting on the urgency of a Windows port; I am constantly reminded of my early years of Mac evangelism back in 2004, when I tried to convince people who absolutely didn't have the financial means to buy or interest in Macs, out of sheer survival instinct (and belief that it was a superior choice software-wise, obviously, though the hardware was severely underperforming at times because of the discrepancies between PowerPC and x86, especially during the great wait for the PowerBook G5 that never came, and that kind of made me a bit of an “embarassed evangelist”). The turning point was, indeed, the switch to Intel… Many in the community cried foul before, during and after the switch, because the Mac would cease to be as “unique” and “exclusive” as it used to, but the fact is that Apple managed to make that transition without much fuss or loss of users (whichever users defected were largely offset by switchers, but I'm willing to bet not many went to the PC camp… Since Macs became more affordable and powerful, why would they?), and the rest is history. I, for one, eventually ceased actively evangelizing people or fearing for the future of the platform; after the switch, from 2006 to 2012 (and beyond, but I'm just recounting my experience as a Machead and, later, during a two-year stint as the Mac room monitor at my Faculty), my colleagues actually came to me, at first, to ask whether it was a good idea to buy a Mac, then they had already decided on buying one and asked which model was the best for them, then they had already decided on which model but just wanted to check first with me, and finally they started showing up unannounced, at first trickling in and then in droves, at the Mac room with brand new Macs, asking me for software and technical advice. Now *that's* what I call a transition… I know that considering a Windows port of Affinity as Serif's “Intel switch” moment is a bit of an exaggeration and would entail a bigger investment relatively (since it wouldn't be a transition, but a new commitment adding to the current one, and done by a much smaller company, mind you), but it would have an equivalent effect, Mac userbase's opinions be damned (I know that I'm referring to almost everyone in this forum, and I'm sorry for being this blunt, but business strategy is just like that and facts are facts… And it also think that whoever is afraid of some terrible fragmentation, UI/UX inconsistencies or an unacceptable slowing down in development because of a Windows port/branch is not giving Serif enough credit, IMHO). I certainly feel the exact same way now as I did in 2004: going up against the 800lb gorilla, trying to stir up a grassroots movement without really having yet a leg to stand on (but with a firm conviction nonetheless that I'm doing the right thing), and think we would all gain from being more than an underground niche; for starters, we would never get strange looks from someone if we sent them .af* files without checking or if we put them on identity packages, press kits, etc. (we don't even think of doing that currently, now, do we?) and could do last-minute tweaks at the printing shop without lugging our MacBooks around. And, above all, we would definitely stop being afraid of seeing our suite of choice losing out features and users to you-know-what-company (sure, there would be copying and switching between both sides, like with Apple and Microsoft, but the status quo would be much better for everyone here). By the way, for those Mac users afraid of losing that warm fuzzy feeling of exclusivity, Serif could maybe restrict synchronization between the desktop and iOS versions of Affinity to the Mac (maybe using iCloud Drive? I mean, who here doesn't fully expect that kind of feature from Affinity for iOS?). PCs, of course, wouldn't pose a challenge, since the Surface Pro and other tablet-like PCs run the full version of Windows anyway… And, quite frankly, very elaborate cross-platform cloud solutions and collaboration schemes wouldn't really be necessary for the time being (in fact, apart from TypeKit, I don't really think they are all that useful, and are mostly just “features” hyped by Adobe as being the best invention since sliced bread… not); I don't think that Serif will be aiming at the ultra-high-end market of large corporations with tens or hundreds of seats for the foreseeable future, and that's just fine the way it is. Schools, maybe, because they are an instrumental market in attracting new users, but those are not hugely collaborative environments (except for smaller groups, of course), and computer laboratories are usually standardized on one platform and sometimes even on one model/brand/supplier anyway.

Now *that's* an interesting idea… However, I think it would only work for the 1.x suite, or at least for tools aiming at feature-parity with the competition, and not for outright novel features. I think Serif, for all its openness, might be taking a page from the Apple playbook here. Just look how hush-hush they are when it comes to their upcoming DAM, their iPad apps and even Publisher (not that a DTP app is much of a mystery, but seeing how digital platforms are all the rage now I can see how coming up with decent e-book authoring tools at affordable prices is probably an opportunity too good to pass on, and so far we haven't seen much in the way of a roadmap for Publisher, which I expect to bring to the table some goodies to make up for the – I'm hoping temporary – loss of basic professional tools like multiline composer). They are holding some of their cards close to their chest because they know it generates buzz amongst the community and keeps the competition a few steps behind. Adobe would be *very* stupid not to have some lurkers in these forums, IMHO… ;) Though I think they've shown such hubris and such disdain for their users recently that they may very well be dismissing Affinity and its community as a niche. They are very Microsoft-y in that regard… I know I may be going out on a limb here, but don't forget that I'm that guy who wrote a huge letter to Serif just a few days after Adobe announced their CC-only move, back in May 2013, pleading them to come up with an alternative and even promising to buy their Plus suite and run it in a VM as long as they announced a Mac port and provided cross-grade or cross-platform upgrade licensing, without even knowing they were already coding alpha builds of Affinity. On a side note, I've also been kicking myself ever since 2004, when I thought it was probably a good idea to buy Apple stock but was too afraid and/or ignorant about the whole stock buying process to actually do it. :P I can recognize a winning company when I see one and, though I believe that Serif still has a long way to go before they can go head to head with Adobe (and I'm not just talking about cross-platform support or feature-parity here; stuff like localization, plugin support, a strong push into education and sustained community-building outside of these walls come to mind), I'm pretty damn sure they are the ones who will eventually do it. I also think that at least internally, they believe in that, too, even though they never acknowledge it publicly. All that apparent modesty is just common sense and corporate diplomacy 101; if the giant is, well, sleeping (as it seems), do not wake it up until you have a better chance of beating it… In fact, if I may add, if they were developing alpha builds of Affinity for four years (!) without revealing anything to the world (and that could have been a bright move if done a bit earlier than the first beta release, right after the infamous CC announcement, as it might have just caused a bit of a “third-party Osborne effect” and pent-up demand for quite a few users), they could conceivably be developing early alpha builds of Affinity for Windows already (they do have Windows devs in their company, so, why not? Apple did the same with x86 builds of OS X and just look at where that got them)… They are transparent, alright, and that's extremely refreshing considering how opaque (and unresponsive!) the competition is, but I think they are shrewd enough not to be *too* transparent, which makes this a very fun exercise. ;)

Judging by the current rate of launches (which is astoundingly fast compared to the competition, by the way) and the feature & release roadmap (which includes the as of yet unreleased – even in beta form – Affinity Publisher – which should be simpler to code once Affinity Designer is more feature-complete, since they all share the same engine and file format), I'm willing to bet that an hypothetical mid-2017 1.9 release will be enough to accomodate all the promised features and go toe-to-toe with Illustrator. By then, Affinity 2.0 will probably be in pre-release beta, and will be a full-price suite (seeing as the MAS doesn't yet allow for paid upgrades). I, for one, will happily plunk down another €120 for the three apps at their launch discount pricing. While on the subject of pricing, if and when paid upgrades become available in the MAS (and with the recent management reshuffle at Apple, with Phil Schiller taking over the app stores from Eddy Cue, it's conceivable they may try those), it would be more than reasonable to slightly increase the base app pricing, while providing more affordable upgrade pricing (definitely lower than the current full price) and increasing the trial period to two months. That way, Serif will beat Adobe in all camps, and will get happier and more loyal customers. Win-win situation, IMHO.

Hi all. Maybe this is too much to ask at this time, and I know I've already mentioned this earlier, but I've been testing Affinity Designer periodically for proper spot colour gradient support (sometimes I miss a beta or two and I may skip the one that finally brings that feature to the table, hence my method). I cobbled up two similar files in Affinity and Illustrator, with gradients from spot colour to spot colour, spot colour to white, and spot colour to 0% opacity spot colour, and exported them to .PDF. For good measure, I also threw in a 50% opacity spot colour as a control swatch. After opening both files on Acrobat Pro and checking the Output [separation] Preview, I was a bit disheartened to see that Affinity still supports flat spot colour transparency only, whereas gradients are all converted/flattened into CMYK. For now, I can accept this omission, and the fact that it may be due to technical limitations in Affinity's engine or something, but I'm obviously expecting much more from it in the future (and that may include Affinity Photo duo/multitone support too, perhaps?), especially for colour-critical work like in logos, where tight budgets for print production more often than not call for the use of spot colours (and, yes, that also includes spot colour gradients). Though this would be fairly easy to correct (especially for simpler artwork) via a small trip through Illustrator before sending my work to the printing shop, I would really love to ditch it altogether from my workflow, and this would be yet another proverbial nail in its coffin. Can you comment on the feasibility of such a feature and maybe give us a rough ETA? Thanks guys. Once again, kudos for your great work! Pantone test.afdesign Pantone Test-AD.pdf Pantone Test-AI.pdf

Custom rotation centre is not working at all in a document made from an imported .PDF page… AP just ignores it and uses the default layer centre instead (and also rotates the custom centre along with it :P ), what gives? I created a new document with the same dimensions and pasted the troublesome layer into it and, lo and behold, the custom rotation centre is working again. If you wish I can send you the faulty .afphoto file so you can give it a spin (ha!) and check what's going on.

Well, Mike, I don't think that releasing Betas in short intervals and with small fixes close to a GM release is an indication of panic at all… In fact, it's perfectly normal; if you look at other software companies, like Apple itself with iOS and OS X Beta builds (public or otherwise), it's pretty much standard practice. ;)

You know what, I don't really agree with you… If you consider my earlier post, going the “as native as possible” route is the way to go to keep it simple development-wise. If devs focus mainly on features and always use the native UI toolbox offered by the target OS SDK instead of doing those crappy “UI branding” shenanigans Microsoft and Adobe enjoy so much, sure, the learning curve will be a bit steeper for OS switchers (be they temporary or permanent) but the apps will always look as native as possible, regardless of which OS you're running them in (and regardless of specific OS versions; don't forget those stupid “pseudo-native” widgets both Microsoft and Adobe – and even Apple, in the ever-egregious iTunes – also use, which stand out against more recent or even older versions of the OS). And that's a win for everybody, IMHO.

Well, I personally don't get what this fuss with porting is all about… First of all, Windows ports are essential for Affinity so that it becomes the industry standard and Adobe CS/CC alternative it deserves to be, at least in the Design/Photography/DTP market. Technically, a port, done right, can easily offer a great experience, as long as the UI conventions specific to the target OS are respected. If you look at the Studio UI, you'll see that most of it is made up of 100% native (albeit dark-tinted) OS X UI widgets but, if you think about it, Windows and OS X being both WIMP GUIs that took a lot of ideas from each other over the years, porting the Studio to Windows (especially Windows 10, which is as flat as the latest versions of OS X and, in fact, initiated that trend with Metro in the first place) wouldn't be *that* difficult. Sure, some reshuffling would be in order (the obvious being moving the menu bar and window widgets to their default places in Windows, and that would be an easy task as I wouldn't see that stupid ribbon thing making any sense for a creative app anyway), but it would be mostly limited to cosmetic changes like button, widget (drop-down menus, disclosure triangles, lists…) and scroll bar shapes. As for code optimization, well… Getting its performance up to snuff would be hard, but I distinctively remember reading here in the forums or maybe in Affinity Review that the engine was written mostly in C and was, thus, inherently portable. Add to that the experience Serif developers already have with Windows apps, and it suddenly looks quite feasible, actually. The only problem would be keeping up the feature parity between both versions, especially with the betas… And as for the forums? Well, the user- and post-count would skyrocket (I mean, a lot of the professional creative market is already using Macs, but Affinity being as affordable as it is, it could attract a lot of honest but budget-constrained PC users who would otherwise pirate Adobe CC – coming from a crisis-sruck EU country I personally know a lot of them and would never help them pirate Serif apps as a matter of principle) and they would be twice as confusing. Would they be segregated by OS? Would there be feature-specific sub-forums encompassing both OSes? Or would everything be jumbled together, with the inherent and tacit requirement that all users specify their OS platform when reporting issues (much like they already do when it comes to the OS version)?

As a typography student, I can totally feel your pain. I always like to say, on a related subject, that a prime is not an apostrophe is not a single right quote, and these are the kinds of nits we like to pick. ;) Robert Bringhurst, which I clearly remember quoting (or at least suggesting as *the* best reference for all things typography, either here or on a private e-mail to Serif) some time in the past, will concur if asked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style Since you did not specify it, and to save the devs/translators the trouble of researching that, for reference, the german (de, not de-ch) quotation marks are these: „…“ I know, they look weird as hell to the untrained, non-german eye, but that's just the way they are. By the way, you can type them by pressing Option+Shift+W and Option+[ (on a UK ISO keyboard, at least).

This is actually a great idea… And if you manage to add some graphic marker to overprinting colour swatches, like the cut corner and the dotted cut corner (which, btw, would be a welcome addition to spot colours, too) used by Adobe, that would make it even more obvious… That shouldn't, however, obviate the need for some sort of preflight panel, especially on Publisher, but would make it extremely easy to replace a specific colour with an overprinting one and vice-versa ine one fell swoop.

Well… I'm also running FEX Pro and, and first, it didn't seem to be an issue here (I am not getting the crashes you speak of, at least). I get a spinning beach ball for a few seconds, but fonts appear and disappear from the drop-down menu, and render properly on the list (when deactivated, they will still appear on the topmost, “recents” section, albeit rendered temporarily in San Francisco, which is pretty much standard behaviour). However, the text itself will not update properly, and “reset fonts” will not work, as you said. :\ By the way, now that you brought it up, I have to ask: can we expect FEX Pro plugins for Affinity apps in the future? And would those be provided by you or by Monotype? This is just ignorance on my part, I have no idea where they come from, I only know that they're available from the Plugins panel… This would be an absolute must for going head to head with Adobe and Quark, IMHO…

I love the fact that the Character/Paragraph panel bug that was causing crashes is gone in Affinity Photo at least, so I'm guessing that Designer should be in the clear, too… Great work from the team, and I can't thank Andrew Tang enough for his patience and dedication! :D The only problem is… I've downloaded the AD Beta .dmg twice already, and I got that dreadful “damaged application; must trash it” warning from the Finder. Could this be some sort of issue with your AWS server? :\ Oh, by the way, the Finder doesn't detect any errors during the .dmg checking stage, which makes it even more weird. Certainly, if it was corrupted, it shouldn't pass that test at all, right? [Edit: nevermind. I searched the fourms and found this thread: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/4866-cannot-download-beta-due-to-damaged-file/ I should've guessed that something could be amiss with Gatekeeper – maybe there's an issue with your certificate? – so, like the last poster, I turned it off for the first run and, lo and behold, it opens just fine now… And yes, the bug is gone! ;) ] [Edit #2: Holy cr*p, what a pleasant surprise! Affinity now puts my floating panels on the secondary screen where they belong when my iMac wakes from sleep! Thanks guys, this wasn't even a critical bug, but talk about a quick turnaround… :D Also: Serif – 1, Adobe – 0 ^^ ]

Well, I was so focused on the Character panel bug (which Andrew Tang has already pinpointed, yay!) that I totally forgot I've been itching to ask you this, which is totally apropos: I know Dave has already stated this is currently unsupported, but is it even remotely possible that you may add monotone/duotone/etc. spot colour (Pantone) gradients that separate properly into their respective printing plates (instead of being converted to CMYK straight away like Adobe apps often did but, apparently, no longer do as long as you keep them in vector form) in Affinity v.1, along with all the whizbang features that are coming in the next beta? That would be HUGE. And I just checked AI and was… I won't say “pleasantly”, because I want to steer away from it ASAP, but rather bittersweetly surprised to see that it actually does that properly. And since I've been using gradients a lot lately… It would be a bummer if I had to keep using AI just to output print jobs. Judging from the current trends in graphic design, I'm willing to bet I'm not alone in this wish. ;) Also, I see that one of my requests, custom application and document palettes, was already implemented, which is great! My bad, it seems I spoke too soon…They are, however, still lacking all the other abilities I mentioned (having multiple floating palettes open concurrently, drag'n'drop swatch management, etc.), the swatch size is not customizable in either grid or list view (which would be really handy for people who have larger or secondary screens) and spot colour names are, rather unfortunately, lost when adding their swatches to a custom palette.

Hi Andrew, I still haven't tried your suggestion, but I did try replicating the bug on my MacBook, on a fresh user account; I couldn't, so it definitely must be something common to both my Macs' main user accounts (some startup item/daemon/driver/setting, perhaps?). Also, both the crashes and crash loop are related to the Character and/or Paragraph tabs, so maybe there's a common cause there. Since those deal with font rendering, I am suspecting that FontExplorer X Pro might be the culprit… [Edit: It wasn't, and I can't seem to find it]. I will try messing around with my settings a bit on both accounts, to see if I can pinpoint what's causing the issues, and will send you my console logs anyway. [Edit: Nope, I have no idea what's wrong… If you'd be so kind to provide me with a support e-mail, I'll send you my crash logs right away].

Well, I can't do it without triggering a crash on two different Macs. It happened on the previous beta under Yosemite, and on the current one under El Capitan. It could conceivably be caused by some third party software or something, so I'll try running the betas on a guest account or under Safe Mode.

Loving the Pantone support! :D By the way, will there be a way to load floating palettes à la AI, or having at least a “Custom” palette (empty or default, but on the sparse side) in the swatches panel? Also, dragging swatches around would be a very practical and intuitive way to manage your own custom document palette, instead of always having to press the “Add current fill to palette button”. That always forces you to create a new object or change the colour of an existing object in order to add a colour to a palette (I am using the “Greys” palette as a starting point, seeing it is the smallest), which is not very practical nor intuitive. Also, while on the subject of panels, you still haven't corrected the crashing bugs on the Studio found in the last beta. Sometimes, dragging some tabs (can't remember which, sorry) to and from the docked panels will crash the app(s) (Photo is also affected), undocking specifically the Character and Paragraph tabs individually still crashes the app(s) 100% of the time, and having them opened and forcefully floating (by undocking their whole group and removing the remaining tabs) upon exit will also always send the app(s) into the crash loop I mentioned before. I am aware that this is a beta and not at all intended for production work, but panels (especially those two) and panel customization (including having floating panels in smaller computers like the extremely popular 13'' MacBook) are extremely important for a big number of designers. Having them work properly would enable us to acually work with the betas for the time being without risking too much… Can you provide an ETA for a fix (not necessarily on a definite timescale, but the target version)? Maybe on the next beta, I'm hoping? It is a rather egregious and catastrophic bug, after all… Without true workspace/Studio export/import support (calling it Studio instead of workspace would be a wise branding choice), it's a real bummer forgetting to close those two floating panels before exiting and having to reset and customize the whole Studio all over again. :\

YES. Bring on PMS, artboards and bleeds/trim marks to Designer and I might just switch from AI for good. :) (Although PMS alone would already be good enough for a few projects, especially smaller stuff that I'd export to .pdf and link into InDesign anyway…)

Ooooh… so *that's* the hard-reset shortcut. Okay, I'll be sure to try that out and I'll let you know how it went! :) Edit: Yes, it works like a charm. I like this way better than Adobe's “scorched earth” reset… Having fine-grain control over exactly which preferences are reset is a big plus, IMHO. As for the floating Character and Paragraph panel crash loop, it's definitely there, and is always reproducible (both on Designer and Photo). Until the next Beta, I'll be sure to toggle them on a need-to basis, and not to forget about closing them before quitting the Betas… I guess that's the price of staying on the bleeding edge, right? ;)

Update #3: After erasing both Library containers (the Beta one and the MAS release one), restoring the Beta to v1.3.5.2 and rebooting, the Preferences were responsive again. Full of confidence, I decided to, once again, rearrange the panels to my liking. Upon restarting, to check whether the preferences stuck or not, I got v1.3.5.2 (not the most recent one) trapped in that loop as well, with the exact same look as in the screenshot. Guys, this is a terrible user experience, even for Beta testers. You absolutely MUST implement a Preferences/Studio hard-reset of some sort to fix this kind of mess (yes, do take a page from Adobe's playbook if you have to; even if they do use an obscure and convoluted key combination, the fact is that it saved me and my colleagues a lot of trouble many times in the past). I'm going crazy here!!

Update #2: I've restored the Library container from the 20h snapshot, way before even installing the new beta, and I've got AD Beta stuck in that loop again (yes, with the pallettes in the same position as in that screenshot). Since Time Machine doesn't actually do time travel, and I don't expect it to be meddling with older backups, either, it couldn't have retroactively pushed the latest changes to that particular snapshot. Therefore, Troubleshooting 101 tells me that the pallette position must be stored elsewhere in my system and is probably what's wreaking havoc. Could you give me some pointers as to where it is, so I can reset it and sort out this mess?

Ok, guys, HELP!!! AD Beta is now utterly stuck when it comes to preferences. They produce no immediate effect (Gamma UI and Background Grey Level, for instance), and they don't stick (both the main preferences and the panel positions). Changing UI language doesn't work either. The only thing I did was trash the com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner.beta container in ~/Library/Containers. I mean, that should be the new method of resetting MAS apps' preferences, right? I am so confused right now. I thought this should be as easy as trashing .plists. So much for being a savvy Mac user… :angry: Anyway, I'll try and restore the preferences from the last beta via Time Machine and will keep you posted.

Ouch. You have some massive Studio bugs to iron out. When docking some of the panels, like Brushes, the app crashes. It did so, I believe, on the last beta as well. Now, when undocking the Character panel separator, the app also crashes (this one, unlike the other, I could reproduce 100% of the time). So, what did I come up with? Instead of undocking it individually, I undocked its containing group altogether (that actually worked) and undocked the remaining separators until I only had the Character panel floating (which was my intent). Guess what, now I got AD stuck in a loop; all my heretofore docked panels now appear floating a bit to the left of the center of the screen when opening AD (check the enclosed screenshot: ), and it crashes a few seconds afterwards. Great, off I go about resetting its preferences… :\ (I should add that I am testing the pt-BR localisation, and that the Character and Paragraph panels do seem to be untranslated yet, by the way…)