PaulEC

It must be said that the old Plus/Legacy Serif software was sold as a "lifetime" licence (not subscription), but Serif washed their hands of those apps several years ago. Some do still continue to work, but others are problematical. Serif will no longer help with any support, either supplying product codes for people who have lost them, nor will they help with any technical questions. I can see that  this could well be the same case with the Affinity software in a few years. I really hope that Serif will provide some means of off line activation, in the event of the current versions of the apps being replaced with newer versions (under the Canva banner,) for people needing to reinstall their current versions. I suspect, that like Adobe, Canva will not be interested in maintaining online activation systems in perpetuity.

This is not at all clear.  There are plenty of companies which own other companies but have different business models from the companies they own.
Image-Line (makers of the DAW FL Studio) own several highly recognizable plugin vendors (ex. UVI) which have very different business models from I-L itself; they have owned several of those companies for several years now and have not made any attempts to change their business models.
I am taking a wait-and-see approach on this.  There is no point speculating, only time will tell.
 
No, in other words, you will need to pay for version 3 just like you had to pay for version 2 when it came out.  Free updates to v2 for those who own v2, then pay for v3.
 

So no change to the pricing model "at this time" and v2 will get free updates (they have to be free, they can't suddenly switch model). So reading between those lines it really sounds as though v3 will be subscription or they would have simply said it will always be a one off payment model. My guess is that v3 will be along fairly quickly in comparison to how long v1 was around. Acquisitions rarely seem to be good news for customers but the acquired do nicely from it. 
Unfortunately when it comes to AD there aren't a whole lot of options to switch to, well not decent ones that are non-subscription. Unless you do simple things I've not come across any that I'd want to use, hopefully that will change. AP on the other hand there's plenty of choice.
Of course until an OS update breaks things, which has happened before, then just keep using what you have and keep an eye on alternatives.

I have seen too many pieces of software die after acquisition by market giants, whether that's Adobe killing off services, Autodesk or any other billion dollar giant really. I sure hope Serif put lots of legal agreements in case that prevent Canva from pulling a big cash grab that screws with existing or future customers. I don't want future tools integrated in a web app, which, to be frank, Canva will eventually do as a cloud based platform. I have zero interest in that, the desktop based Affinity should continue to be developed, but I do fear Canva wanting to make a return on its investment is going to affect users. Even if the goal is to increase market share, price hikes are an important strategy in that business model.

I completely believe you and your sincerity.
At the risk of speaking for others, the concern isn't that there are immediate plans to move to a subscription model. It's that the transition to a subscription-only model is now inevitable.
What we would love to hear is, "The Affinity suite will continue to be developed with enthusiasm, and Canva and Serif commit that you will absolutely never be forced to subscribe to receive updates or new versions of our products." But, even then, we'd be skeptical, given what other companies have done after similar promises.

Wish you the best, thanks a lot for what you've done in the past 10 years.
I'll go back to sleep some more. 
Best regards!

When learning to use a new complex tool like the Affinity suite, watching tutorials and reading help files in advance can save hours, sometimes even days of one's life…
I remember when I started to work with QuarkXPress 3, it was so different from PageMaker 4 which I already knew by heart. I was quite lost at first. Then I went out and bought the "QuarkXPress Insiderbuch" by Samuel Hügli. It took me perhaps two nights of my life to read it through and to make notes. But for the years to follow, the knowledge I gained from it saved me so much time that this investment was worth it.

The PSD format is proprietary and not completely documented. Serif have chosen not to try to reverse-engineer all the undocumented aspects of text, which means they cannot save it in text format.

Export to PSD if you want a PSD file. As Walt mentions, PSD is a proprietary Adobe file format. Some PSD features may not be supported by Affinity, just as Photoshop cannot save to AfPhoto file format and retain all Affinity features. So, saving or exporting to PSD may not always preserve all features perfectly. Only standard file formats (TIFF, PNG, JPG, etc), which are documented and cross platform are fully supported by by most applications. 

Brushes can be dragged and repositioned within the Brushes Panel
The highlighting is to show the brush you are moving and its final position within the list of brushes

One thing to remember is that Photo *never* actually opens a JPEG.  It always works with its own custom document format.
When you "open" / import a JPEG image, it is being placed on a layer in an Affinity document.
When you "save" / "export" the document, you are exporting the Affinity document, not just the JPEG image.  Even if the image itself was not touched, you are not exporting the original JPEG, but the Affinity document which just happens to match its appearance.
Consequently, you are not "recompressing" the JPEG, but newly compressing the Affinity document which did not previously exist.

I made this account just because I found a real way to Crystallize in Affinity Photo. While this is a solution for V2, I keep forgetting it, and when I search for it I only keep finding this topic which isn't exactly helpful. So here's an actual solution:
The filter you're looking for is actually located in Filters > Colors > Voronoi.

You'll be greeted with a familiar slider box offering you to pick the cell size, there will also be a second slider for the separator lines between the cells, you can move it all the way to 0 to achieve an effect similar to photoshop's Crystallize.

Et voila!

(taking this opportunity to say hi to my future self who will forget how to do this in approximately 6 months and will find this exact thread on Google again. Hi!)

🇬🇧 Hi, in 1970 Bob Moog and Bill Hemsath introduced the Mini Moog Model D, a sound revolutionary at the time and still today. Little tribute to this wonderful machine with these illustrations. I had to “slightly” modify the height proportions so that the whole thing fits in a 5120 x 2880 px format!…
🇫🇷 Bonjour, en 1970 Bob Moog et Bill Hemsath présentèrent le Mini Moog Modèle D, un son révolutionnaire à l'époque et encore aujourd'hui. Petit hommage à cette machine merveilleuse avec ces illustrations. J'ai dû “légèrement” modifier les proportions en hauteur afin que l'ensemble tienne dans un format 5120 x 2880 px !…

It is not an inconsistency, I think it's by design. With text frames you would be using text formatting such as paragraph, character and text frame parameters, you would be considering how to snap to the frame not the text, that is why the text frame is highlighted when the pen tool is selected.
I don't think I've seen a single post where someone has queried why they can't I snap to words and letters in a text frame.
But for artistic text it has practical applications.

Easiest way. Select the layer you want to adjust. At the bottom of the Layer's Panel click on the Adjustment's button, choose Brightness & Contrast. Note that this adjustment is non-destructive, (unless you hit Merge,) you can close the dialogue either by clicking on the  X, or with the Escape key. The adjustment will show in the Layer's Panel and you can readjust it by clicking on the adjustment in the Layer's Panel.

^^ This ^^
Any DTP app should essentially be a layout app. Anything else is ‘bells and whistles’.

Off-Toppic
I wonder how you did it for years with Adobe's programs. If I remember correctly, to make significant changes to pixel or vector material, Photoshop or Illustrator had to be opened, the file to be edited opened, edited and saved. Then tab back to InDesign and 'synchronize' the linked or embedded files.
And in Affinity Publisher? Simply switch to the Photo or Designer Persona or, if more sophisticated editing is required, switch to the corresponding program via the file menu and return to the Publisher after editing. I think that's somehow "smarter". Am I wrong?

I'm a bit puzzled by what any remaining questions there may be here, but I'll pick out some points raised, comment on them and hope that all the bases are covered.
You bought directly from us on March 12
 
I believe this is because "it is too advanced for the operating system that (your) Mac can handle" and not anything to do with where it was purchased.
 
If this is referencing reverting to V1 which I presume it is given the operating system comments above, that would not be possible irrespective of where it was purchased and was answered perfectly by Paul ⤵️
 
If you are considering buying again in the hopes you will receive a license to use V1, do not. It is not possible to acquire any of our V1 apps in any way since the launch of V2 on November 9th 2022.
 
Can you highlight this glitch for us so we can take a look?
 
Clients who buy Affinity (V2) software from anywhere are not able to switch to an earlier (V1) version.
 
We hope that no one will expect to receive our V1 apps with a V2 purchase especially as there is no mention of V1 on our V2 product pages, that said...
 
...Anyone reading this in the future who is considering purchasing an Affinity app, please note that you will only receive the items that you add to your cart after completion of the purchase.
 
Can you please elaborate on this?
 
Hopefully you already know the answer to this from the comments above but to re-iterate - purchased Affinity Publisher 2 directly from Affinity (again) would not grant you access to any of our V1 apps.
 
You would not, but we would discourage adding multiple Affinity Store accounts to the confusion.

Why do you think that buying the same product again would be of any advantage? You can only buy v2, which you say won't work on your system. You cannot buy v1 directly from Serif, nor from anywhere else. If you do not already own v1 you cannot now "switch" to it. Version 1 and Version 2 are separate products – if you buy v2 you do not get a copy of v1 included with it! (This applies to all Affinity software whether you buy the Universal Licence or the individual apps).

The trouble with Roman numerals is that there’s almost certainly someone out there who will read ‘Affinity Photo II’ as ‘Affinity Photo Eleven’!!

Why do you think that buying the same product again would be of any advantage? You can only buy v2, which you say won't work on your system. You cannot buy v1 directly from Serif, nor from anywhere else. If you do not already own v1 you cannot now "switch" to it. Version 1 and Version 2 are separate products – if you buy v2 you do not get a copy of v1 included with it! (This applies to all Affinity software whether you buy the Universal Licence or the individual apps).

There is – Use Caps Lock.

This isn’t the first time anyone has questioned Microsoft’s strange decision to hide filename extensions by default, since it makes it easier than it should be for malicious actors to distribute trojans and viruses by giving them names like ‘prettypic.jpg.exe’. With the known extension ‘.exe’ hidden, the above appears in Windows File Explorer as the seemingly innocuous ‘prettypic.jpg’.