JGD

Add me to the list of people who noticed it. As I mentioned in the main thread on the beta, the custom centre appears to snap, but once you let go of the mouse, it will fall on wherever the cursor was.

I noticed that too but hadn't yet gotten around to mentioning it here, thanks for addressing it. :) By the way, if you add guidelines, the custom rotation centre will apparently snap to them, but will actually be off by a few pixels once you let go of the mouse (i.e. it will snap to where mouse pointer actually is when you let go of it). By the way, since we're talking about snapping, do you reckon it could be possible, as I suggested many months ago, to snap an object to itself (meaning, to a ghost of itself on its original position or vice-versa – as in Adobe programs, only with reduced opacity fill and maybe opaque outlines in both cases instead of those horrible, aliased outlines they still use – with a toggle on preferences) when dragging or duplicate-dragging by option-clicking? Having drag operations be a WYSIWYG thing may be great for artistic stuff, but that would be an absolute timesaver when doing geometric stuff, such as patterns or typography, without having to be constrained to specific grids. Actually, I'd venture to say that even for composition purposes, being able to do before/after comparisons mid-drag instead of having to constantly Undo/Redo is actually very useful. Also, since you mentioned snapping the centre to the object itself, for the centre to be easily resettable, the best way would be to always have a default centre point for all objects/selections visible, which still seems to be missing and would be very useful for snapping purposes as well; the fact that there's already a custom centre point should make that also easily implementable, I'm guessing. While I'm at it, can you comment on the feasibility of an algorithm to calculate and display an actual centroid instead of the strictly orthogonal and, therefore, sometimes useless bounding box centre (again, displaying one or the other could be selectable, preferably on a more prominent place on the UI like the contextual toolbar)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centroid This would *really* give Affinity a leg up over the competition, especially as a possible default centre point for rotation operations or snapping of both individual objects and groups, IMHO. Just imagine how much cooler and easier working with polygons and isometric grids would be with such a feature… I know this isn't the proper thread for feature requests and I'll probably make them again in the appropriate channel, but I just couldn't resist mentioning them as they seemed so apropos.

Hi! I had the exact same question… I decided to install El Capitan Beta 6 on an external drive, just to test stuff. That includes, obviously, Affinity apps, both the MAS and the Beta versions. So I figured that I could just go to the preferences folder, but I couldn't seem to find them… Well, after some searching around, I did. They are housed in ~/Library/Containers. I just copied the four folders pertaining to Affinity apps, and voilá! Everything works fine with my previous settings… Though an export/import function, maybe like the Workspace functionality offered by Adobe, and/or even preference-syncing through iCloud would be welcome additions. ;) Btw, does this strange new location have anything to do with MAS app sandboxing? I found it interesting that said “containers” contained full replicas, in the form of aliases, of the Library folder… I would, however, advise you against mucking around that folder… Doesn't Affinity have its own shortcut, à lá Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Opt+click, to reset app preferences on app launch? Anyway, good luck to FCB and thanks in advance to the devs for that info, it can come in handy!

I am loving the character and paragraph palettes! But I have a few issues to point out… First up, I can absolutely reproduce this one. Interestingly, using the Opt+arrow shortcuts will adjust kerning correctly without affecting the adjacent characters… Secondly: both palettes are a bit less compact than Adobe's, though I can certainly live with that. And I can appreciate how convenient and obvious the selectively collapsible subcategories are, compared with the random and unintuitive “two/three/n stages” method of revealing information by clicking on that cryptic, microscopic double-arrow tab button used by Adobe. It may not be the most space-saving layout, but it's certainly more elegant, so good call, I say! It kind of reminds me of Macromedia's palettes, actually. ;) As for the “list” view, or list box for Tab Stops… Well, that may be a bit too much on the compact side. I will certainly miss Adobe's floating tab panel (though I always had to edit them manually anyway, as I didn't have much freedom when picking values by clicking the ruler). If you do keep this interface, there are two or three things you should definitely add, plus a bugfix: A way to see which kind of tab each one is, directly from the list; A way to fully edit each tab (instead of just allowing you to change its value)… Maybe by, upon double-clicking the tab on the list, allowing you to edit all parameters and change the “add new tab stop” button into a “commit changes” button?; Some kind of visible feedback, right in the text frame itself by means of a “ghost guideline” (not unlike Adobe's apps already do), when adding/editing each tab (though having a full-fledged, dedicated tab panel would be the best choice anyway); And, finally, a fix for a bug I found in this current tab list box. At present it isn't scrollable at all with mouse gestures (nope, I tried, and nothing happens, I don't even get a scroll bar). If you click and drag on the list items themselves you can actually scroll below/above the fold (and you also can, then, grab the corresponding scroll bar – which is, by default and just like all of its peers, invisible to multi-touch pointing device users until they trigger a scroll operation, as you know), but that is rather unintuitive. Oh, and by the way, said listbox is not very visible. The only giveaway for me was OS X's default striped pattern for list backgrounds, but I'm not really sure if that is enough… Maybe there should be at least a line separating the list from the right side of the panel? Or maybe the striped pattern should have a bit more contrast? Anyway, bring on multiple artboards, and I will be a much happier camper! I may soon start transitioning to AD as a first choice for most of my jobs, instead of just the off gradient stuff I've been using it for until now. :)

Just bought it! :D

Oh… did you mean a *special* discount for beta testers? ;)

I am pretty sure that, much like what happened with the Designer launch, there will be a discount for everyone – not just beta testers! – for a few days… A week, 10, 15 days?

The latest ones are a marked improvement over the first three versions (original, new without gradients and new with the simpler gradients). Using two-tone/hue gradients (and not just between two shades of the same hue), from the original logos and splash screens, no less, make them more enticing logos to look at, more recognizable in relation to the older versions (you just have to look at it right next to the Designer's [MAS version] logo on the dock, the resemblence is definitely there) and a piece of advertising to Serif's superb gradient engine. It actually makes the interim version's gradients look amateurish by comparison. As for readability and iconography: I think you nailed it. The interim Designer logo was too abstract, IMHO. It did look a bit too much like two mountains… The pencil tip is one of those cool “ah-ha, clever!” features that will probably go unnoticed on daily use, but will definitely stand out on your marketing materials, website and MAS page. And it is also a nod, as has been suggested here already, to your novel corner tool. Overall a nice identity… I am still not digging the weird shape on the back (which, as I've said earlier on Twitter, is probably more of a function of brand equity management than anything else), but it is more subdued and colourful at the same time (two apparently opposing goals, but hey, if it works, great). Alas, I also miss the möbius strip… Maybe you can go for a cleaner look still on V.2 and resurrect that element, too? I give it a solid 8/10 for the two icons you've shown as of now. As for Publisher: may I suggest something a bit more recognizable and iconic, like the classic folded corner on pages? I mean, since you are using an isometric grid, why not make the most of it and make an isometric projection? It wouldn't look too bad, and it could certainly silence the “way too abstract” camp. ;) On the other hand, you could easily draw the inner corner of a folded booklet, loosely based on the new Affinity Designer icon, and giving further significance to the diagonal line that shoots out of the logo, by equating it to a spine… Also, it would be a nod to the möbius strip theme, too. Check out my quick and dirty rendering: … or why not even a combination of both ideas, by folding the upper vertex of the booklet, which would play nicely along the equilateral triangles theme? By keeping the top triangle, you are already implying that Publisher not only works with typography, but is best suited for multiple page layouts… Like so: Aaaaand… while you're at it, and since Photo already has a big gaping hole in the middle of the icon, why not chop off a triangle from Publisher's icon as well and reinforce the booklet's proportions, while further reinforcing the möbius strip theme? Food for thought… :)

Hi guys! I just noticed, after all these months, that the Arrange pane toolbar button is lacking a feature that visually distinguishes it further from its simpler counterparts than just by its blue colouring; maybe a down-facing arrow, like the one at the right of the snapping button (except maybe smaller and closer to the icon itself, seeing that it would be integrated into the button) could do the trick?

Hi guys! I've read a post by MEB about the RC1 coming out “next monday”… Is this the RC1? ;)

This. Thank you, deeds. You surmised most of my, err, little beefs with AD. *Iteration* is key! As I said: because AD shows dragged objects as fully rendered instead of phantom shapes (you know, much like the old outline window dragging behaviour in Mac OS Classic/Windows 3.x vs. the full “show contents while dragging” behaviour of OS X/Windows 9x), it doesn't support self-snapping of objects. If I want to iteratively produce a regular texture by exponential duplication in AD, I will have a hard time snapping things together (you could argue that I should use something like symbols or pattern fills instead, but what if I wish to manipulate areas of it?). And while AD's vector tools are, in many ways, more intuitive than Illustrator's, and snapping seems to be an area where Serif is investing a lot, it seems to be too spotty to be relied upon for rigorous, geometric drawing. I know that some killer features (central node – hopefully with snapping support? –, rotation with custom centre, etc.) are already in the official pipeline, but AD doesn't provide, by design (!!), some features that are essencial for a user to give it that extra rigour, like being able to easily drag a selection from a specific node and have it snap to another node (and not dragging it aimlessly around the target node, waiting for AD to guess where exactly you want to have it snapped and having it fail miserably at it). I know I am beating a dead horse here, but transform handles should be hideable in some way when initiating draggind operations (and nodes could and should be selected as preferential snapping candidates, a la Smart Guides behaviour) or, alternatively, the node tool should select automatically all nodes on a previously selected object for more precise dragging, *just like in Illustrator*. And that wouldn't, in and of itself, make AD “too much like Illustrator” (hey, the vector drawing would still be far better, hands-down) while both making the designer's camp *very* happy and not being detrimental in the least bit to the illustrator's camp. Oh, and when can we expect snapping to curve intersections? That would be a godsend, IMHO… deeds, you have pretty much nailed it. AD has, first and foremost, a bit of a naming problem (or maybe a problem of positioning, too, because there is, indeed, more of an overlap between AD and AP – namely the pixel brushes, which are, as you pointed out, more useful to illustrators than vector designers – than there is between Ps and Ai, and also because Affinity Publisher will attract even more people from the strict, hardcore vector design crowd, and those two factors will make AD's shortcomings become all the more evident), and Adobe Designer / Affinity Illustrator would, indeed, be more fitting monikers.

Hi all! What about these latest developments from BUILD'15? http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-introduces-tools-let-developers-quickly-compile-ios-apps-windows-10 http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-also-working-towards-swift-compiler-ios-developers-come-windows-10 Something tells me that if porting iOS apps to Windows becomes easier (and Serif, as far as we know, started development on Affinity products for iOS first, which is interesting), porting OS X apps will, too. I've read somewhere here in the forums that the underlying engine of Affinity was coded in a somewhat platform-agnostic form of C already (I don't recall which, but I do remember it wasn't Obj-C…), so porting the rest of the code (the UI part, I'm guessing) would be a breeze. While I know that porting is not the best way to addressing multiple platforms (hey, I should know better as I used the infamous Corel Draw 11 for Mac for a while before ultimately switching to FreeHand; it was buggy as hell), Adobe's approach isn't the nicest, either. And, snobbery be damned, it would be the ultimate irony: Windows users using a port of a Mac app and actually *liking* it (because, y'know, performance… ;) And I believe the team at Serif would do a better job at adapting/redoing the UI for Windows than Adobe did back in the day when they still kind of attempted it – and failed miserably at it, as the multiple layers of cruft and stupid pseudo-native UI controls still found in CS6 attest to –, anyway).

Interesting and well-thought reasoning… But isn't Serif only supposed to look at other platforms only 12 months from now? ;) The thing is, Helvetica has been, by default, available on OS X installations since its very inception… Then again, so is Arial, since it's considered a “web-safe” font and, thus, has to be available on OS X on account of its ubiquity. So I can see why choosing Arial isn't such a big deal, and well-justified… And, come to think of it, having the default be Arial will free you from the “AvantGarde/Myriad/Minion effect”, which are the tell-tale signs that a particular “designer” probably lacked training and just went with the default font (which can very well be and indeed sometimes is the best choice for a given project, thus triggering some false-positives) of the software package of his choice. That, in itself and IMHO, is not a very good endorsement of neither Corel or Adobe… If Affinity uses Arial as the default, professional designers (and some rare non-designers, and I know a few) will be left thinking that a lesser “design” (and, really, I may come of as snobbish for using such wording but those are very easy to spot and should have no place in a society were many professional, properly-educated designers *are* starving or forced to migrate – I come from a country where that is, indeed, the norm) done in Affinity was done by someone without font (or even design) knowledge in either Affinity or any of the aforementioned software packages (or even, dare I say it, some random old version of Microsoft Publisher or even PowerPoint)… Well played, Serif, well played. That's some fine piece of extremely convoluted reverse-psychology “non-branding” (or “white-branding”?) you've got going on there. ^^ Well, random and snobbish considerations aside, if I may add and since you brought it up, could Serif look into some deals with font foundries and type designers? I'm guessing that one of the reasons Affinity products are so inexpensive is that, as far as I can tell, it doesn't come with any bundled fonts. I wouldn't say that CS5/5.5/6 was competitive (not the full, professional version, that is), but the fonts were a bit of a “consolation prize” after the price-gouging. On the other hand, you ended up paying for fonts which you might never use anyway… So, can we expect someting (optional, of course) along the lines of TypeKit in the future? Or maybe discounted fonts bought as In App Purchases, which could become available system-wide? Who knows, maybe even a full-fledged font store like FontExplorer had? As long as its OpenType support is best-of-breed, as it looks to be shaping up to become very soon, I don't mind Affinity being fully BYOF (bring-your-own-fonts, I just coined the term), but it surely would be great to see Affinity supporting leading independent type designers and cutting deals that could make everyone win, without necessarily having to jack up the price tab of the apps themselves…

I find that to be an excellent suggestion; I did precisely the same suggestion on this post. I am not sure just how legal that would be, and at least MattP isn't, either. On that subject, I'm still waiting for a more definitive answer and, in the lack of it, whether the guys at Serif could, by themselves or through a proxy (like me, for example) sort it out. But I'll add my €0,02: all of the Affinity suite components should be able to place a .PDF as a linked file and still make use of the embedded glyph data, much like Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop already do, even though it might not be editable. The fact that even the latest betas of Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo both ignore said embedded glyphs and use a fallback font instead makes me believe that either it's a bug or, more likely, a feature that has yet to be implemented. Am I right in that assumption? Anyway, I will add it seperately to the feature requests if I don't find it there or on the roadmap, to make it more visible.

+1 for me as well! I have done a nifty project in Ai that used a trick combining this feature with a clipping mask in order to make a more controlled, spiralling colour blend (it was a monogram of two extra bold characters, and I wanted their fills to also blend at their junction, while following their general stroke direction)… It's a killer feature of Ai CS6, indeed. And the great gradient support in Designer has left me salivating for more… ;) While I'm at it, it is *so good* that it was the only feature, for now, that I've used in a production environment (in my day job, no less). I had to do this project with a gradient background, assembled in Photoshop, and I actually made it in bitmap form, exported directly from Designer. Seriously, it is *that* much better than Adobe's… I will rehash this year-old Photoshop.com forum topic on gradients, which I linked to earlier in these forums, as it goes to show just how out-of-touch (some would even say downright nasty and borderline autistic!) Adobe devs are with their most technically-minded users: http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/photoshops_gradient_editor_needs_an_overhaul

Hi Matt, Once again, thanks for the frankness. Do you have a typography guru over there who might get around to find more about .PDF font embedding and licensing issues? I don't mind working as an ersatz type guru kind of guy and do that myself, but if you have one already, all the merrier (I do, after all, have to tend to my day job and clients already). I think this kind of thing could, say, be escalated to a Typophile thread, as those guys really know their stuff… You know, if it's not illegal (I'm afraid it might be, but hoping that it isn't… Wishful thinking, I know), it could really become a differentiating and, I'd venture to say, killer feature. Adobe doesn't have anything even remotely similar, and our work sometimes lives and dies by typography, so there's that.

+1 from me as well… I work mostly in print and, more often than not, our projects have light backgrounds (you know, with them being related to healthcare, pharmaceuticals and all). So, having the interface match what I work with would be a plus. Also, I have been using Illustrator and Photoshop with the dark theme, in order to get used to it for when I eventually switch to Affinity for good, but I really don't find it that easier on the eyes (I wouldn't say that I am strongly affected by it either, but the whole “lower contrast between contents and UI chrome” argument seems very sound so I'm running with it as well). In fact, I will try reverting it to see how I feel about that. Anyway, as for the whole “this may slow down our development” stance, yes, I am aware it would, but with all of your magnificent tools you'd make lighter versions of the UI elements in a cinch. It'd really mean having only a second set of interface elements and the UI Gamma slider go all the way to light grey, plus some testing and coding (and then, economies of scale would kick in as I'm guessing said code would work equally well in all of the suite components). I am aware that's how Adobe Illustrator manages it, but that is, indeed, the only sensible way. I am with all the others: stuff like multiple artboards and pasteboard editing must stay at the top of your priorities, but a customizable UI shouldn't be that far down the list either. It is, after all, something your users will have to interact with on a daily basis, and there's no running away from it as there's not really any sensible workaround (maybe short of inverting the interface colours on the Accessibility Pref pane? ^^ Well, actually, it doesn't look too shabby! ;) ). Also, I really don't agree with your assumption that since Apple now has some pro apps with darker chrome, that automagically makes it a good fit for the task at hand. Apple, as we all in this board may agree on, is not necessarily the single best authority on UI design (even though they were its pioneers, yes), as the whole skeumorphism trend (going back as far as QuickTime and Panther's brushed metal theme) and at times excessive use of transparency/translucency (see pre-Panther iterations of OS X and iOS 7) attests. Also: Helvetica. I'm yearning for the days when we had a decently hinted UI font (I know that Retina displays partially obviate the need for such hinting, but please bear with me… Besides, they are still launching updates to their old, Retina-less models, which, frankly, render Yosemite's UI in general and Helvetica Neue in particular in a not-so-great fashion), with proper, wide apertures (as for the impact of those on legibility, Retina or no Retina is a moot point), and hoping that Apple comes round and brings San Francisco from the Watch to iOS and OS X, STAT (not because it's the best-looking font around, but because it at least fits the bill function-wise). I was ecstatic when I saw they were replacing VAG Rounded with it on the new Retina MacBook keyboard already, even before shipping the watch, but seeing that they are still so fond of the progressively anorectic Myriad Pro, I'm not holding my breath… Can't you see just how all-over-the-place, typography-wise, Apple is? It's downright cringeworthy for a company that size and with such a reputation, and it's always been that way (even in the dawn of the DTP revolution, right on the Mac, Apple was using a crappy, optically condensed version of an already badly traced Adobe Garamond instead of a proper font commissioned to, oh, I don't know, a high-profile type designer like Matthew Carter… And don't even get me started on Motter Tektura. :P ) And while I'm at it, even Apple, the king of forcing-UI-decisions-down-our-collective-throats (even moreso than Microsoft…! Yes, do check this video out: you could actually upgrade from Windows 2 all the way to Windows XP, while retaining your color scheme… Crazy, am I right?), got around to that and added a dark mode *in addition to* (not in replacement of!) the light mode for the dock and system menu. So, even if they might be veering off into an overall darker theme, they still acknowledge that one size does not, indeed, fit all. As for Adobe (which, if I may remind you, is still your #1 competitor), well, they also pretty much nailed it. They might have started – or at least heavily contributed to – that trend as well, but at least they still give people a choice (on that regard, I find it telling – if a bit incoherent – that the InDesign team didn't even bother to make a dark theme on CS6… Maybe they were prioritizing bug fixes instead? Even so, it has been a lighter shade of grey than the rest of the Creative Suite for many years in a row, which is interesting).

Hi MattP, Speaking of caches… What's the legality and feasability of fetching the glyph information embedded inside a .PDF exported by Illustrator or InDesign and using it to render all the corresponding text strings present in said file, even if the font isn't installed and activated in the system (at least until the user tries to edit it, not unlike smallreflection proposed for .afdesign files and .PDF readers already manage to do by design)? Also, while I'm at it, do you reckon that those glyphs could be convertable to outlines? Or… would that veer off too much into the “downright illegal” camp? I am posing both questions not because I might wish to pirate fonts (as I said before, I am enrolled on a typography-related master, so I am very much against that as a matter of principle; and, besides, even if I did want to do that, that would be the stupidest way of going about it, as not only the glyph sets are incredibly limited for all but the largest documents – say, multilingual or reference editions like encyclopedias –, you are also certain to lose the kerning tables and OpenType features in the process), but because of the odd logo I sometimes have to rebuild or extract in vector form at my day job. I am pretty sure that many colleagues around here can relate to that. :\

Now, I wonder, who would've thought of that… http://evergreenterrace.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Machine.gif Sorry, couldn't resist lightening up the mood a bit. ^^

Hi Matt! Thank you for your quick and frank response… Sorry, I sometimes forget just how finicky coding on large-scale projects like Affinity can be. I stand corrected… And you're right, I'm a bit of an impatient guy. But I do like the way the suite is heading and how it is shaping up to be a serious contender (and, yes, I will be buying both Photo and Publisher when they show up in the MAS). Well, maybe was I underestimating your localization efforts… Sorry for that, too. I see you might be aiming higher than even Adobe, as pt-PT is, admittedly, niche at best (Adobe does offer a pt-BR localization, but that's kind of moot; pt-BR always rubs us the wrong way as the differences in vocabulary and grammar, *including* technical stuff, are way bigger than between en-GB and en-US, thus making us feel a bit like “second-class” users and, more often than not, opt for the english versions instead – word!). But hey, if you are considering it, consider us spoiled in anticipation, then! ;) By the way, while I'm at it and since you mentioned that MEB may participate even if his role inside the company isn't specific to localization, well, I might as well reiterate: if you also need volunteers or paid consultants, sign me in (if I were paid, all the better, but mostly I just want to watch Adobe crash and burn, while securing a decent and peaceful future for me and many colleagues as, potentially, strictly freelance designers… The only reason I ask is because I'd have ethical qualms about robbing my freelance translator friends of a potentially well-paid job). I've been working with DTP software since the early '00s and, being enrolled in a typography-related major, I have unfettered access to academics in the field and all the best portuguese literature on technical nomenclature (titles like “The Dictionary of the Book” by Almedina editors or the [waaaay] out-of-print “Graphic Speller” by renowned printer Vilela, just to name two). Also, I personally know (nay, I am actually friends with, as I said) three freelance translators, one of them being an ex-girlfriend of mine (and a damn fine translator, if I may add; she attained her master's degree with flying colours, having scored a whopping 19/20 on her final dissertation and an overall 18/20 course grade), and another one of which works specifically in UI and documentation localization (but they are all eclectic enough to work on it regardless of their specialty). I am not sure if they are currently available, but, judging from the current job landscape here in Portugal, they very likely are, and I can definitely vouch for their competence. If and when you so wish, PM me and I can get you in touch with them. Anyway, as always, keep up the great work! P.S.: While we're on the topic of localization, how universal will the hyphenation support be? Do you, as purveyors of PagePlus (which, admiteddly, I barely got to know by anything other than name… I believe I launched a trial under a VM once or twice, but that was pretty much it), already have access to full hyphenation dictionary licenses? I am just asking because that will be an essential feature to have in Publisher – though I'm assuming that Publisher will not foist cumbersome shenanigans upon us like Quark did (like having to get a separate, “Passport” version… ha!) and be more like InDesign in that regard, am I right?

I mean, guys, *seriously*? I am disappointed that Affinity still doesn't honour the users' regional settings… I could very well even have OS X set up to display all the interface in english (I have it in pt-PT, but that's besides the point anyway, as it will take ages – or maybe not even come to pass – until we get a pt-PT localization – and I'm fine with that… I've been living in english-UI land for 23 years now and have no issues with that fact), and still want it to recognize different decimal separators, as per my country standards (and also have it recognize international ones and convert them on the fly to the local ones, as I might wish to copy measurement info from foreign websites or documents – I'm hoping that the comma support is *added* to the period support and not an “either one or the other but not both” proposition). I'm taking back the nice compliment I gave you on the Photo Beta forum right now, sorry… Can you still straighten this out before the final RC is submitted to the MAS? Btw, @MEB and @ruimac, are you with me?… I know for a fact I'm not the only portuguese guy around here (and MEB is even, AFAICT, a spokesperson of sorts for your company), and I'd very much like to use my commas just like I was taught to at school. It's been, what, 24 years worth of muscle memory already? And I'm guessing you must have at least as much if not even more experience than I do (I find the latter more likely), so there's that. [Edit and P.S.: Out of morbid curiosity, I did indeed try to change the UI language to see if I could try the decimal comma separator support but didn't get it to work in Designer with any of the localizations, nor did I find any preference whatsoever with which I might toggle it – not that I think, as I very clearly stated, that should even be a configurable preference but something universal and activated by default, but still. As for Photo, yes, I tried it in spanish and it worked just fine, as it should on *all* localizations and does in all Adobe apps already, so since you already have the necessary code in place, I'm hoping you can activate it in time for the final Designer update RC.]

Hi guys! I've just found the most exciting article about haptic feedback on OS X apps… It seems Apple is experimenting with it already! http://www.wired.com/2015/03/apples-haptic-tech-makes-way-tomorrows-touchable-uis/ Which reminds me of one of my favourite features of Freehand (though it was extremely annoying for everyone else nearby), which was sound feedback (namely for stuff such as snapping). I wonder if Affinity could stand to benefit from these brand-spanking new trackpads that Apple is sure to be rolling across their whole Mac lineup very soon (the 13'' Retina MacBook Pros already have them, too, so it shouldn't take more than two or three revisions for them to trickle up and down the other product lines – maybe even including the external magic trackpad and mice?)… Maybe you could implement some sort of quieter form of feedback that leveraged those newfangled capabilities? That would be incredibly cool, IMHO. As for the implementation of said features, I have no idea whether Apple is using private APIs but, even if they are, it stands to reason that those should be included in the next version of OS X and Xcode, am I right?

This! It's the little things, you know… Sorry, guys. Thanks but no thanks for *incomplete* and *useless* support for “localised decimal separator”… What good is that for me? I am certainly not switching my UI to spanish or french just to get that, right? This kind of stuff should *not* depend on the users' language settings and, while I'm at it, neither should it be affected by the regional format and measurement unit settings. Not when Adobe pretty much nailed it already; Affinity products should, besides being able to perform on-the-fly conversions between formats (say, if I paste a value in inches or points into an input field, it does indeed convert the value to whichever unit I'm using by default), recognize something as simple (but not less niggling) as a comma… The fact that it supports the first sets up the expectation that the second should work, and the fact it doesn't, makes the app look amateurish. I mean, for the love of all that is holy and sacred, pop open some Adobe app and see how unit- and region-agnostic they are. And those guys are pretty much the kings of UI/UX inconsistency… I seriously expected better from you before, and I very much hoped that you got it right the first time you got around to fixing it. The worse kind of disappointment is the one which comes after heightened expecations. And that, my dear friends, includes something, as I said, as tiny as a comma. [Edit and P.S.: Out of morbid curiosity, I did indeed try to change the UI language to see if I could try the decimal comma separator support, and it *did* indeed work out-of-the-box with both commas *and* periods. I mean, that's the way it should work under all language settings, IMHO. There is 100% benefit and 0% disadvantage for users, much like on Adobe apps… So it seems you are on the right track and I am optimistic you can maybe fix this one in time for the final Designer update RC…]

This. It happens on my work setup too (an Early 2009 Mac Pro running 10.9.5)… I'll be sure to check it also on my iMac (a 27'' Late 2009 running 10.10.2) once I get home.

Hi guys! First off: congratulations on finally getting this baby out! Even though I am not a photographer or illustrator and won't spend most of my time on Affinity Photo, I do have to do some photo editing every now and then and, for my use cases, it's probably the best tool available around. I've always found Photoshop convoluted anyway and, never having gotten around to fully master it, I'm not really all too bothered by the APhoto “learning curve” I've read about on the forums… But I digress. Anyway, me being the nitpicker I am, I already have a little nit to pick, and that is window zooming behaviour, specifically in separated mode. I should begin with a pre-rant rant, a repost of sorts, as an introduction: I don't really like Serif's approach to a free-floating, non-dockable separated mode UI (in other words, I mean I'd rather have a fully dockable, auto-stretching, edge-to-edge panels *and toolbars*) and much prefer Adobe's approach, which not only allows you to fit all UI chrome to the screen's edges, it also restricts zooming of your windows all the way to the edges of said *UI chrome* and not of the screen itself. Serif's approach seems clumsy at best, as windows zoom all the way to the scren edges and, thus, both the toolbars and panels end up getting in the way. One of the few reasons that up until recently made me use the “separated mode” (a.k.a. classic, multi-window mode) in CS6 was being able to use Application Exposé to switch between open windows; nowadays, since I've quickly adhered to tabs (how could I not, with the number of files I must have open at any time now that I'm a proper professional?), I only use it for saving some precious vertical space (the sheer waste of space caused by that stupid, nearly useless and empty Adobe “Application Bar” is dumbfounding… As for Affinity, the top title bar also wastes some space but at least we can get around it by using fullscreen mode)… That is, except for Photoshop, where I live and die by the Classic Mac OS-like windowed approach and would never even consider using Adobe's windowed mode. I mean, it just *makes sense*, as image proportions and resolutions can be wildly variable, I sometimes have to process considerable numbers of mid- to small web/screen-ready images (and I'm sure I am not alone in that), and that also has the added benefit of allowing you to drag layers and effects between different windows/files… As for Affinity Photo… Even though I don't really like the current “Separated mode” approach, as I said, I was willing to put up with its [current, I hope] limitations if that meant I would get the same functional benefits as in Photoshop (I haven't put APhoto through its paces yet, but I'm willing to bet that I will). There is one choice on your part, however, that I find inexcusable, which is the zoom button behaviour. Since the separated mode and full-sized windows (not to be confused with fullscreen windows) are, as I said, mutually incompatible (or, at best, clumsy), shouldn't the zoom button (under Mavericks and below; I obviously also mean the classic behaviour still achievable in Yosemite by option-clicking the fullscreen button) adhere to the lifelong Classic Mac OS/OS X/Adobe standard of zooming to fit content instead of zooming to fit the screen size? I know this “zoom/shrink-to-fit content vs. zoom-to-fit screen” debate is as old and tired as OS X and its more proeminent full-screen apps (like, say, Mail – which goes far back into the NeXTSTEP days –, iTunes and iPhoto), but please bear with me and my rational for this suggestion: If I wanted to use the screen to the max for one particular project I could (and very likely would/will) just toggle the unified mode temporarily, plus the fullscreen mode if I *really* wanted to kick it up a notch… As it stands and as far as I could find it, there isn't a way to achieve that “zoom/shrink window to fit content” function, am I right? Ironically enough, you *can* zoom the content to fit the window size, so it stands to reason that, much happens already with content boxes in InDesign/QuarkXPress/Affinity Publisher (which I'm salivating for and will obviously feature such functionality), the opposite should be possible, too… All in all, I believe the current trend towards unified-window approaches and, concurrently and helathily, allowing for its classic counterpart (hey, choice is good, even if I find the implementation lacking a bit of polish and flexibility as I said), could finally put that debate to rest, at least in document types that have well-defined content boundaries. This default behaviour would, of course, make absolutely no sense in Affinity Publisher layouts or in a future version of Affinity Designer featuring multiple pages/artboards (AFAIK, that is still in the pipeline, right?), but it would fit in perfectly with many Affinity Photo use cases, IMHO… If you don't think they are enough to warrant it as a default, non-customizable behaviour, well, you could at least make it a toggeable preference on the User Interface tab.