tariq

Thanks for the link. Those (lessons and translations) don't look like "compatibility and stability improvements" ... we're heading into a world where they are even less transparent about the software....

So today all the apps were updated with the informative mysterious message "compatibility and stability improvements" ... is this a sign of things to come with Canva taking Affinity?

Decency. Which I agree is optional. Now can I ask you, why you would defend this poor state of affairs?

That is a post hidden in a forum. Affinity should put up a note prominently on the main website. And anyway that forum post you linked to does not do any of the following: confirm the root cause, or what diagnosis your team undertook (so we can judge how competently this was done) a plan to fix it a time-table does not set out precisely how apple has (or has not) helped All that post does is speculate about the cause and then say "Apple won't help". Finally, Dan, Patrick, and whoever else from Affinity is reading this - don't you think there is a real genuine issue given how many people are complaining? No - not the technical issue, the issue of Affinity's terrible response.

Hi Dan With the greatest respect, one would hope that after so many years a statement from Affinity was more definite than "perhaps". Affinity should publish a note on their website 1. explaining the issue, 2. explaining what precisely they've done to diagnose the cause, 3. what they intend to do about it incl a timetable. This transparency will expose any half-competent attempts to diagnose the issue - "perhaps" is not good enough. And also if it is the size or number of libraries then Affinity need to explain how other larger more complex apps don't suffer this problem. It will also put some pressure on the leadership at Affinity who are either unaware of think this is an acceptable way to treat its loyal customers. End the speculation on the forums. Make a public official statement. Call out Apple for their help/non-help, remember the apps won Apple app of the year awards....

@NotMyFault - why do the following apps, large and small, not suffer the problem? Firefox, Chrome, Adobe, Mathematica, SublimeText, Audacity, DaVinciResolve, Blender, Python, Visual Studio Code, Microsoft Office, Lyx, .... this is not a defensible position.

Nothing has been "cleared up".

I agree @mliving - it is INSANE. Affinity have been rather shifty on the cause (no benefits of open source here). Initially some suggested, with possible acknowledgement/confirmation from Affinity, that the Apps started including "web components" to enable access to user-profiles from the apps themselves. Since "web components" have wider security implications, macOS runs checks on the apps every time they start ... apparently. If this is true - big if - then this is bad software design. Keep the user profiles away from the apps. Let users log in via their favourite web browser to access and update their profiles, and to download purchased extensions. Don't bloat the app. This is serious feature creep and as we have seen, has had a disastrous impact on usability. If there was a competent product owner / software architect they would be insisting this code is sliced out and removed. Now, I've been using computers since the 1980s. I've never seen professional software do this. Today - in 2024 - I use a range of apps on my MacBook Pro - as do my family and friends on their Apple computers. None of the apps suffer this issue - Firefox, Microsoft office, Mathematica, Python, Blender, Audacity, Sublime Text, Cubase, DaVinci Resolve ... a mix of proprietary software as well as smaller open source tools. None suffer this issue. I saved up for years to get what I thought would be an insanely powerful machine to last me a decade or more. MacBook Pro M2 MAX with 32GB RAM and 2TB storage. It is insanely powerful. But my ancient Dell 8600 laptop with Windows 2000 ran software that started faster. My very ancient Acorn Archimedes from about 1995 loaded Impression Publisher (DTP) from a floppy disk in about the same time as Affinity ... Many of us want Affinity to succeed. We sorely need competition to Adobe and others. I personally would love a British business to do well. But really they need to listen to us - their customers, especially those of us who jumped from Adobe and convinced family and friends to do so too.

This is a new bug that seems to have only appeared in recent versions. The apps seem to remember the previous window size when started (that is closed, reboot, power cycle etc). However, the apps don't seem to check if the previous window size is too big for the current display. This causes the window control buttons (the red, yellow and blue dots on macOS) to be unreachable. I have to try to use the pointer to shrink the window size and hope the window moves such that the controls are in view again. This may only happen when using full-screen on previous application sessions - not 100% sure. Anyway this is a NEW big because I have used different displays (laptop, external display) and both normal and full-screen for years without problems. The problem definitely happens with Photo but if I recall I also saw it with Designer too. currently - Affinity Photo 2.3.1 (App Store), MacOS 14.3.

thanks @lacerto - the "passthrough -> interpret" option worked for me.

I've attached a simple Designer document. It was created by placing imported PDFs, one of which has blue colour elements. The document has the profile "Grey / Greyscale D50" (document settings) - and so the document overall appears greyscale, as intended. When exporting to PDF, the resulting PDF shows the original colours, and is not greyscale. This exported PDF is attached. I have tried messing with the export advanced options but have not succeeded. How can I ensure the exported PDF only has the grey colours. 13_simple_example.pdf 13_simple_example.afdesign

Thanks everyone for the replies. Can I check one thing specifically - the Olicana font has "ink splashes" and "fingerprints" - will these work in Affinity or are these SVG graphics?

I'm thinking of investing in commercial fonts - but I want to be sure Affinity suite supports the provided font features. See images attached - taken from the font vendor website (links below). I'm no expert, but these seem to be called "contextual alternative ligatures" and "opentype stylistic sets". Examples includes: "joining up letters" putting letters inside another - eg the Monterchi font which can place the second letter inside the first capital "handwritten" underlines that span the intended letters non-letter graphical elements, eg "ink splashes" as per Olicana full support to letter decorations (accents) for multi-language (Latin script) support - eg Brill Latin One of the screenshots shows a font config dialog which looks like Adobe, not Affinity. https://fonts.ilovetypography.com/fonts/zetafonts/monterchi https://fonts.ilovetypography.com/fonts/g-type/rollerscript-2 https://fonts.ilovetypography.com/fonts/liebefonts/liebeheide https://fonts.ilovetypography.com/fonts/g-type/olicana https://fonts.ilovetypography.com/fonts/tiro/brill-latin

Just to say this slow-startup is STILL happening in 2023, with Affinity 2.2.1 macOS App Store version 23 seconds on an M2 Max with 32 GB RAM and 1TB SSD It is bad design to include "web components" in the app, better to keep the app focused on design, and let users go to the website for web stuff like profile and downloads.

Thanks Dan - the OS is 13.4 and we'll try the 6.4.0-5 driver. Have you had others reporting similar issues?