JGD

What would be really interesting would be to also find a way to represent at least some of the common ones as handles on the letters (when zoomed in far enough!!!) the way that handles are used for rounding rectangles and shaping gears and the like...
The Typography panel would be a logical place for these otherwise, in my way of thinking.

As I understand the situation, due to lots of funding becoming available, Affinity can now become developed further and more rapidly than before.
Are there roles where people currently do not use Affinity products because Affinity products do not do what those people need and who might start to use Affinity products if Affinity products were to add some particular facility to what they do?
For example, unless things have changed recently, Affinity products do not have built-in colour font capability. What employment roles need colour font capability? Would adding colour font capability to Affinity products increase sales to an extent to make the cost of adding colour font capability worth spending?
Or is adding colour font capability something that will be added anyway because not having it looks unfortunate?
That is just one example.
No. I am retired, I am not connected to Canva, my only connection to Serif and Affinity is as a customer.
William
 

oki, will do so, as I too hate it when I can't finish reading something... (maybe I'll remove it again tomorrow or so, then)
Yep, I often make a local copy of what I wrote before I delete it, mostly if there's some conclusion I want to keep for myself or sth.

I know I joked earlier about the abuse of the laugh emoji, but I turned off Reaction Notifications a little while ago. They've become useless anyway. All I want to see in my feed is Patrick sharing the latest updates with all my unicorns achieved.
It's not going to happen. People are better off arranging their own offshoots for software enthusiasts. It wouldn't have to be limited to the industry, though we need the information on that use case the most to encourage competition, because there are a good number of smaller professionals as well who have communicated that they believed Affinity could be going for higher aspirations than it currently does. The messaging from Serif is so difficult that my simple hope is for Canva take over in such a way that we don't have to endure such poor communications ever again.
The navel-gazing that encompasses some of what I think can also be described as "non-serious" has largely been incentivized from Serif's OTT marketing and the speculation that that continuously generates. It sells cheap licenses but it is a far cry from incentivizing more discerning customers to jump onboard for the long haul no doubt when they see the amount of zealotry in the fanbase. Imo, it's toxic longterm for the userbase as some are turned off by the constant hype rather than being given straightforward and realistic expectations. It can leave the sense we stay in the dark as to whether these products remain a dependable platform for their longterm for our individual usecases. The messaging post-acquisition is not nearly enough to answer these questions and other than what we've seen, I've just accepted that for now at least this is not a safe ship for me.

I don't know that Serif ever promised to outright compete directly with Adobe, but the carrot was left out there for so long that it seemed at least a far off aspiration. Now Canva takes over and screams "We're going after Adobe!!!"... there's that hype train again. Can it actually deliver? Canva's market is no where near the industry space and is much larger. How much of the perceived aspirations are legitimate goals or are just clever marketing? And at what point are we just projecting into Affinity what we want it to be?.. those are the important questions for me.

I would be very happy with robust quality and improved output. Affinity does most of the things I need for what I have used it for. I happily keep other tools in my chest. The benefit of having most tools under one roof is to decomplicate output. Adobe tries to be a swiss army knife with their suite and it doesn't feel pleasant to be locked to a one-size-fits-all workflow. But where it excels, imo, is in final output. Of course it doesn't do everything perfectly. No software does, which is why many of us are still here like *knock knock* Hey...

So it would seem, sadly.
I’ve no idea. And ditto.
Definitely an area to keep a close eye on.

Support for Indic scripts (most of which are LTR, although there are some RTL variations) would be yet another game changer.

Getting Variable Typefaces out, as promised, on next week's beta would be a great sign. Getting colour OpenType-SVG by the end of the v2 cycle or at the beginning of the v3 cycle, an added sign of consolidation on that front. Getting RTL support would be a game-changer market-wise and show that Canva is really serious about this.
I know I sound too hung-up on typography, and I'm obviously biased, but, as I've said before, eschewing entire markets and cultures based on technical constraints and… on having bet mostly on certain text/cultural-agnostic professional niches, such as digital illustration, that are pretty much well covered already by competitors (either by Canva itself, which is no longer a competitor, or by other products such as Pixelmator, Procreate, etc.) feels, in hindsight, a bit misguided but arguably still necessary in that earlier context. I didn't personally like it, but I understood that it was necessary for Serif's Affinity's continued survival. 🤷‍♂️
Yes, Serif was trying to secure a few of those niches as their cash cows (and indeed sort of succeeded at it) while they were, as it turns out, strapped for cash (or at least not rich enough to properly tackle Adobe). Conversely, with Canva's backing, they can now go head to head with the proverbial 80lb gorilla and start chipping away at their legacy feature set and keep introducing novel features, i.e. they can walk and chew gum for a change instead of dragging on with development.
Again, I know fully well of the Mythical Man-Month fallacy, but it did feel as if Serif was biting more than they could chew, and I do believe that instead of having a tiny team spreading itself thin over three apps on three platforms, having a separate typography team, a separate vector design team, a separate pixel manipulation team, while keeping them tightly-knit – also unlike whatever the hell is going on at Adobe, with their sprawling thousands-strong team and dizzyingly comprehensive family of apps – is not only feasible, but the best way of going about developing a suite like this.
That's the optimistic view, which I know many – including myself – don't 100% subscribe to, but we have to at least consider it as a possible scenario. Does it assuage our fears or preclude us from pursuing asset and portfolio migration plans? Sadly, no. Does it at least provide us with a glimmer of hope that we will not only end up in a better place than we are in right now as DTP suite customers, but also better than we were even back when Macromedia MX was still a thing (i.e. not eleven, but twenty years ago)? Maybe…
By the way, and while on the subject of Macromedia and competition with Adobe in general, Flash and Dreamweaver, which were the main drivers behind the infamous acquisition (remember GoLive? Yeah, me neither 😂), are now relics of the past, but way before all that went down they did try to go head-to-head with Adobe also on the digital photography editing side of things with their Macromedia xRes product, and failed miserably and promptly threw in the towel by their very first and last attempt, v3 (because, mind you, they didn't even develop it in-house, instead having acquired it from Fauve Software, the true pioneers of layers before even Adobe)… Serif, on the other hand, managed to not only stay afloat for all those years with their Plus suite and then produce something competitive with freaking Photoshop v16 (the 25th anniversary, CC 2015 edition, which had been, by then, an actual verb-worthy product for around two decades and a half, and now for around 35 years), and stuck to it; they have to be commended for that.

Well, it is a Beta, after all… 😂
Anyway, thanks for the laugh and the historical architecture trivia, I had never heard of Fonthill Abbey (interesting name, by the way, seeing how variable fonts were always the proverbial hill I was going to die on 🙃)…
Looking at its design, it makes me wonder if it served as an inspiration for the design of Sauron's Barad-dûr, and reading the text, all with the tower collapsing twice before finally being made out of stone and surviving and whatnot, it also reminds me a bit too much of Monty Python and the Holy Grail's Swamp Castle and makes me think it might've also been a true source of inspiration for the latter's troubled development legend… After all, Terry Jones was a historian and, despite having specialised in the Middle Ages, he surely would've been no stranger to that kind of cultural reference. 😉

Serif is working on a modern version of Fonthill Abbey, but if they don't seriously slow down and correct mistakes, architecture, and refactor a lot, I now truly understand how big the problem is after trying the line width tool in the beta of 2.5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonthill_Abbey

I agree with you completely, more or less. My question was also more to illustrate my despair.
Agreed. From cringe-worthy to embarrassing and back again. And completely bypassing professionalism and visible market shares in the truly interesting segments of the market. I mean visible, measurable, real, where people outside this forum and the marketing know Affinity, and the programs play a role.
I don't believe so, but the hype created by many without a professional background—especially the numerous online 'reviews' claiming these are Adobe killer programs—has turned the hype into a bunch of bullshit that got out of control, which Serif has ridden without trying to regain control. It seems like it eventually ended with empty words and programs that can't live up to it. If Canva continues with Affinity on this track, then it's definitely not a safe ship.
If Canva doesn't start a professional revolution in Nottingham, then I don't believe the products have a future other than being acquired functionality for Canva, which again are completely irrelevant products for the segment of creatives I'm talking about.
So, I really hope Canva protects Affinity as a suite and elevates it after a thorough self-education on what it takes to break the bubble and improve the programs and reach the customers they've mistakenly believed they were communicating with for years. They missed the mark completely.
And I can see that customers I have had something in common with for a decade have tried to awaken Serif and talk sense into them here. A lot of wasted time for a lot of good people, I hope Canva can make it worthwhile anyway. But I doubt it. Miracles are few and far between, but loud market sellers are just a short distance apart.

Ah, that is unlikely. Gravit is a relatively simple program that didn't have that many customers, but it was an exciting web-based approach with online review mode for clients that Corel was interested in, and they made a CorelDRAW version of it, which is far out, because it's not CorelDRAW. 
It seemed more like a loose plan Corel had the money to experiment with, and then the internal wind at Corel changed, and this irresponsibility, seen through a societal lens, plucks a product out of the market. Yet another one.
Gravit's creators, like Serif, worked hard during the acquisition to ensure existing customers were respected, even in terms of pricing, but such pledges and agreements do not have long-term viability. One can still access Gravit/Corel Vector, but it is not being developed or improved, and who knows how long it will be kept running online. That's my whole point; Serif had control until they handed it over. From there, we can all lose the tool we had.
As I said, one has to be more than youthfully naive if one believes that THIS time a miracle will happen in an acquisition scenario. My risk assessment is printed in flaming red letters.

That is exactly what I was instantaneously thinking about when reading Serif has joined a family.
Gravit was a good software with potential but after they had became a family member it got quickly quiet around it... and eventually will disappear. The difference to Affinity is that it was really basic and not a suite and Corel had already its very good counterpart. Taking over Gravit was merely to stop it becoming a dangerous competitor. 

@Bit Disappointed
I'm curious about this since a while... So... I'm going to finally make the question. 
If you are so disappointed with the Affinity software, the team, the buyout, Canva, the community... Why not just using a suite, or separate tools from different vendors (there are a few options now, luckily it's not as spartan as we had it the 90s anymore) that you consider actually professional and a better fit ? As you would probably be happier taking that route and saving your personal time and energy, as well.

I promise! It is just curiosity. As, me, when I don't like a software because I think it's lacking key stuff and/or I just absolutely dislike it, I do the practical thing and leave it alone, to move to a solution that suits me better. I've seen some people in this same situation, through the years and in a few communities, with different tools. And it keeps me wondering...
 

Welcoming Gravit to the Corel "family"
https://medium.com/gravitdesigner/welcoming-gravit-to-the-corel-family-9cd0c7f3a32c
Does this press release and the promises sound familiar? What happened to Gravit? It was barely a year before Corel had new plans, their new "family members" were obviously dismissed, the support quietened, then the support forum disappeared, and Gravit Designer (now Corel Vector) has not been developed on since either.
You have to be more than youthfully naive to take a business risk and base your work on software from companies that let themselves be adopted with crossed fingers and business promises of a bright future.
Did Corel then lie at the acquisition? No, not at all. Reality just looked different inside the big cog at Corel just a year later, and there was nothing the formerly happy employees at Gravit could do about it. It was no longer their company, and thus they were powerless. And then they were no longer welcome in the family either.
I was reminded of Gravit today, when I read a sad news about a company with quite a success here in the country. Last year, they made the same maneuver with big words and promises, they had built a quite solid, technologically strong, and popular online product over 15 years and now joined a FAMILY (again as the little brother), and yesterday all 95 employees suddenly were told that they no longer have a job. The plans in the family had changed. And how many times have I seen this happen now? I've lost count.
I do not allow the subconscious to drive me towards optimistic bias - a well-known psychological phenomenon that I see plenty of around here.

Utilizing in-browser support for its native text support is very different than implementing an entire text engine into software...

By the way, BRAVO Canva. It was super quick to jump right into registration (I used my Google login) and straight into a new design. Less than a minute.

The text frame I created...


The text "entry" itself... 100% browser-based.


Convert these elements into a final bitmap image and "done".

From a very quick perusal of the Canva site, it would seem they support many different RTL languages, so it is possible this will help with adding RTL support to Affinity.
I guess time will tell ....

@Ash, it’s great to see support added for this format of fonts. Will this new font support upgrade also feature support for single stroke /centerline fonts used in CNC applications? Single stroke fonts do not define glyphs using a perimeter outline filled with color, but by a single path (just like handwriting) to define the centerline of the letterform, with no outlines around the glyph.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE include support for this font format. It dovetails perfectly with the new DXF support. I can’t use ANY affinity apps for typography bc support for single stroke fonts is missing….

Variable fonts are a useful addition also with regard to use in web designs.
But there is something strange i found when using the "new" Roboto Condensed from fonts.google.com. I guess this is not a bug, it also appears in the current v2.4.2.
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Roboto+Condensed
For compatibility reasons with current web projects i installed the 18 "static" font styles, not the single variable font itself (RobotoCondensed-VariableFont_wght.ttf).

Here is the test file:
2024-04-19-variable-fonts-roboto-artefacts_1-1.afpub
As soon as a drop shadow or other effects are applied to the text frame, visible artifacts occur depending on the letter.

This doesn't seem to be an affinity bug, but rather due to the way certain letters in variable fonts are constructed. Instead of the usual compound paths, the letters consist of individual shapes that only visually merge into an overall shape through overlapping. Your can see this in the wireframe view even without converting the text frame to pathes.

The problem now seems to be that for certain letters, especially the bottom and top edges, the effects are applied to the internal individual shapes instead of to the entire letter (composite shape). Depending on the font size, this results in “bumpy” outlines.
This doesn't just seem to be a display problem in the editor only. Some of the artifacts are retained even when exporting for the web (PNG, JPEG).
Did the developers also experience such artifacts during the integration of the real variable fonts? Or is this a special case that occurs when a variable font is broken down into individual font styles ("static") for compatibility reasons. Like Google did with the Roboto Condensed variable font.

Actually currently for SVG we will always convert a variable font to curves.
For PDF as Walt suggests we effectively create a new static font with the attributes applied which we embed within the PDF file. i.e. if you use 5 variations of the same variable font within your document, the PDF will have 5 'different' static fonts embedded.

For SVG you can use variable fonts if the rendering application supports it. ie: you can use variable fonts in most web-browsers available today. For other contexts such as importing into other applications; CAD, 3D tools, cutting tools, etc I suspect most SVG implementations in these contexts won't support variable fonts and converting text to curves will likely produce much better results.

For PDF, presumably the same as every other application that supports Variable fonts and PDF: the application must generate a Static subset of the Variable Font and embed that in the PDF. Or it must Convert to Curves.
I have no idea about SVG, except perhaps using Converting to Curves.

An important step, but don't discount that color font support is also important.
If not in parallel to variable fonts, please make sure these are not neglected either!

We are adding variable support to 2.5 but is still going through some final internal testing. This should be available in a beta update next week.

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS and Windows
As has been requested numerous times we have now converted the typography dialog from a pop-up dialog into a panel so you can now easily dock it / keep it available should you wish. 
This is available both fro the Window menu (note: this is currently at the bottom of the panel listing, but will be changed to be a sub menu from the Text panel options next week), and also from the typography button in the context toolbar  when you have text selected.