AK21

The things you’ve described make sense on a technical level. Still we can see other native apps handle this better. Not in a full collaborative way, but that is fine. I know very well that working with files in the cloud can be hard on a technical level with all the things that go wrong. Though, take the iWork apps by Apple. They also work quite classic by default. Yet, when you save/close a file it automatically gets synced with the cloud and automatically fetches changes from the cloud when the document isn’t open. They even handle sync conflicts by letting the user choose the version they want to keep. Seeing how much faster and simpler the flow can work with the same document based approach, I would like the Affinity developers to take on that as well. The current flow is too confusing and requires too many steps.

That is a good analogy! This makes sense the way it works. Though, I’d still challenge this behavior and would suggest to improve it. First it’s hard to understand those two concepts as a user. And I think it’s even something the user shouldn’t have to care about. Why can’t the Affinity apps get the latest iCloud changes while being in the lice docs view of the app? The doc isn’t actively open anyway. Or at least show that there are changes and offer a button to manually sync or something. I use the Mac and iPad apps interchangeable quite a lot, as the Mac app is just more powerful and on iPad I can use my pencil. Right now I always have to save → close → (later) reimport the files on iPad. Pretty cumbersome …

@Lee D Yes, it does work with the latest update! 👌 Working with files in iCloud Drive is still quite cumbersome though. The iPad apps don’t sync back with the iCloud versions. When doing this… Open iCloud file on iPad app. Edit & save back to iCloud. Open iCloud file on Mac app. Edit & save back to iCloud. … I have to first delete the local file from my iPad and import it from iCloud again to get the latest changes. Neither simply opening the file nor importing the file from iCloud (without deleting it local first) shows up the changes. This has such a high potential to confuse and lead to issues!

As reported by @DM1 here, you can bring back the undo/redo buttons via: Preferences > User Interface > Show Undo and Redo Buttons Alternatively you can use: 2-finger-tap to undo and 3-finger-tap to redo More gestures here: https://resources.serif.com/spotlight/learning/shortcuts/Affinity-Designer-2-Shortcuts-iPad.pdf Feedback for Devs I don’t know the buttons are hidden by default. In my opinion this is a bad decision and should be reverted. Also neither the menus have those crucial actions, nor does pressing the help button show that there are gestures available for it. Please consider changing this in an update.

Hello! I am not able to save a document I’ve opened from iCloud Drive back to it. As you can see in the attached video, when pressing Save in the document view it doesn’t update in iCloud Drive and the [M] badge also stays active. I did the following steps: Open Affinity Designer Selected Open in the home view Selected an .afdesign file from the Affinity Designer folder in my iCloud Drive Opened the newly imported file (in Live Docs) and made some edits (changed font and a new artboard) Pressed the Document menu button (☰) and selected Save The Saving overlay appears shortly After the saving is done neither the existing file is updated nor a new one appears in my iCloud Drive folder I am running Affinity Designer for iPad v2.0.1.2 on iPadOS 16.1 Screen Recording.mov

I could see the grid on my master page, but not on the "normal" pages. Using OpenGL (basic) fixed the problem for me!

Awesome, thanks for mentioning that @Mithferion! I didn't know that it works like this! I thought you can only select all nodes of all shapes ⌘+A (or ctrl+A). Clarification of others: Select a node of the shape you want to select and press ⌘+A (or ctrl+A on Windows) to select all nodes only of this shape. –––––––––– What a in depth feedback @JET_Affinity. Though it doesn't directly correspond to my points I hope Affinity is reading and listening. Good idea, better than selecting all connected nodes on a path after deleting the first one (my suggestion).

Hello Affinity Team, I think the node selection tool could need some improvements for selecting multiple nodes and nodes along a path. See at my attached video for a use case. I've expanded a stroke and now want to delete the inner shape to make it solid. As of Designer v1.7.3 I have to either select all nodes by hand or use the lasso selection tool (drag + ⌥). With complex shapes this can be quite tricky! And it would be much faster to select all nodes along a path with e.g. ⌘-clicking on a node. This also includes the problem that it overlaps with the scrolling when keep holding the option-key. I was just accidentally finding out that you can release the option-key to work around this. Inspiration: Adobe Illustrator does a great job here. When selecting one node and deleting it all of the missing nodes connected to that shape will be selected after this. Alternatively Illustrator also allows to select whole objects in one group of shapes. See here (at 5:14): Screen Recording.mp4

Now as iPadOS 13 supports font management it would be nice to also support this. But please don‘t remove the old option to add fonts, as the user system wide font adding is only supported via other apps. Next to the user font support all Affinity Apps should support the default system fonts (SF Pro, …). This would allow us to use the new SF Symbols in the app and create better app design drafts.

You can change the default safe location in the settings general tab. Though when opening a file from iCloud Drive pressing safe should also safe it back to iCloud.

Hi! If someone is also still looking for this problem and thinks about trying it. Following these steps still helped to fix the problem with: macOS 10.14.4 Affinity Designer v1.6.1 + Affinity Photo v1.6.7 I tried it today. Thanks!

Thanks for the video. At least now I know the difference. Though I think this could be much more clarified with better labelling. I still think "opening" a file should sync changes automatically back to (and also get changes from) the "Files" app. That would make a true difference and a faster workflow.

Ahh, thanks! Never expected it to be there.

Hey, I've just started using both Affinity Designer and Photo on iPad. I think both apps should better integrate with Apple's "Files" extension/app! This should lead to an easier cross platform and app exchange. The current solution with "open from cloud" and "import from cloud" are confusing and don't work as I would expect. My idea was that using the "open" option it just saves any changes I made directly back to the "Files" app (no matter if the document is located in iCloud Drive, Dropbox, iPad or some other location). There could be a little icon next to the document (in the overview), that indicates that it is linked/located to the "Files" app. So you can easily distinguish between app documents and documents in the Cloud (or any other location). In this case the wording of "close" (in the popup menu of the document overview) would also make more sense. When "importing" the file I would expect that the app creates a copy of the document inside the app. To save it back to "Files" I would have to press the "Save" button in the document overview. I tested it and this isn't the case. What is the actual difference between "open from cloud" and "import from cloud"? The icons are also extremely confusing to spot a difference. Thanks for making great Pro software available on iPad! Cheers! PS: Hope the label translations are right, as I use Affinity in German.

Actually there isn't a way to duplicate layers – or did I miss something? I don't think that a duplicate button should be located next to the help (and undo/redo) button. Though it should be added in the layers panel and maybe as option if you tap and hold on a layer.

+1

I wish I could rearrange the right side of the tools (layers, effects, typo, …), because I think the layers panel is way too hidden in this toolbar. It should be at the very top if you ask me. But sure, anyone uses it differently.

Depends on your workflow! And more options are always better. You may want to use Affinity Photo and Designer side by side or always show a reference image without overlapping the UI.