Move Along People

I set the Thumbnail setting to 'Use Embedded Thumbnail' as you suggested and the result was quite interesting as all the images took a long time to display in Xnview! When complete however both the Photoshop created images and the Affinity Photo created images displayed thumbnails, so it looks like they are there.
One thing I did notice when I was viewing the folder in Explorer, was that the Photoshop images were described as 'Microsoft Office Document Imaging File' and have the extension .tif whereas the Affinity Photo Images were described as 'Affinity Photo File' and have the extension .tiff. I don't know whether this is at all relevant, but as it is a difference between the 2 sets of images I thought it worth mentioning.
 
The tifs in question are around 60mb so are a bit big to post.....

Yes you're dead right haakoo thanks for that.
John

I love you, thank you !

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I didn't fail to understand; I know full well what being concise is (and if you check some other posts you'll see that depending on the subject, I can be very much so). I just can't explain it any more concisely, threw in the towel and went about my merry business, sorry. Still trying my best, though.
And if you must, as I've said before you can just watch the videos and be done with it. It's probably quicker and less mentally taxing than reading stuff anyway.
Is it though? It's a way of working. And yes, maybe this was not the best example, but the one with the hexagon? Yes. There are practical applications for that, make no doubt about it. And I'm not just telling you that “you'll have to trust me on that”; once I find better use cases I will demo them as concisely as I can. I think that should be pretty much established by now.
Please don't dissmiss or second-guess your users so much. Maybe I'm not working with Designer in the most optimal way, but that doesn't make the use cases pointless per se. It's my (and potentially other users') work and workflows you're talking about, bear that in mind.
Unfortunately, not yet. As I've said, I'm on vacation with my family, but still doing some unexpected office work at the same time (yay for “vacations”), so there's not much time or mental energy left for trying new stuff in Designer. Hey, I did use Designer to do a logo yesterday, and I identified some quirks in the snapping behaviour which I'll address elsewhere, so there's that.
But I'll check it out next week, rest assured, and if I find it's better for *this* particular use case (translations and rotations with duplication, something which I did in Ai before, so I know the drill), I may use it instead; that doesn't change the fact that it may still be quicker and mentally easier to just clone the damn things by hand. It's kind of comparing AutoCAD with vector programs; yes, it can be more efficient for certain tasks, but only after the economies of scale and the extra complexity kick in (if, say, the distance between objects wasn't the same as their width, or half their width, or something, sure, I'd probably use a dedicated tool).
This particular bit caught my eye. You, of course, assumed absolutely right (though “elite” is a bit of a stretch; come on, man, it's more of a multitude of particular niches – mostly related to geometry and otherwise rigorous drawing – which can make use of that behaviour). And I, of course, have been saying as much for YEARS (also on this very thread, incidentally), and criticising you for that choice (or, rather, for your choice of not giving us one). And yes, I know it's a conscious one, and it has its own advantages.
But, as I've said, you can have your cake and eat it too (and I personally would very much would like to have both, as I've always said I don't have anything against WYSIWYG-only approaches in general, only when they hinder me; I don't want you to get rid of it, nor do I wish, for the umpteenth time, that Designer behaved 100% like Ai).
This also caught my eye, big time. That's what I've been suggesting all along. Yes, and no* (oh, I'd be totally happy of having it for this use case of snapping stuff, but I'll sure love to have it on hand for others I could try and demonstrate, yet are maybe too hard to really articulate; that won't stop me from trying, though). Also, that's what I was about to show in a video mock-up, in point #4.
Except, you see, right now I'm in this Southern-Atlantic internet backwater/hellhole that is the Algarve; nothing really works during Summer, so I can't even see your video demos (which I'm very much curious about, by the way). And upload speeds are even worse, so you can forget about those until, as I've said, next week (also, I'm working on a MacBook and I feel constrained enough as it is for regular work; the demos would likely be crappier than my – and your? – standards call for).
Anyway, spoiler alert: I proposed and, thus, will mock-up something like more of a “literal ghost”, i.e. a translucent rendition of the object in its original position, which may have visible outlines in a special non-preview mode à la InDesign. Not only but, yes, especially for snapping objects. That was the entire point of this thread, regardless of the practical application of that functionality (but more on that later, and you did address that and I will, too, as we'll see).
Fair enough. If I do indeed fail to convince you right now, rest assured that I'll keep coming back to this thread with examples until you are.
Again, not to prove some some grand point or come out on top of a discussion or whatever, but because I really miss this functionality and am dead sure that there are more than “0.01% of the time” use cases for it, and also that everybody wins when there's more choice even if it caters to, say, “5%” use case users (I'd say in such a vast application as a vector editor, that threshold is actually rather high; 1% should be enough). I would bet one of my kidneys on it if that sort of thing was legal.
So, yes, for me, personally but also as a designer and teacher who knows a thing or two about the visual creative process, it's absolutely “CRITICAL”, in all-caps and all (not as much as the universal layers and advanced selection tools, I'll give you that, and the fact that you'll be addressing those is great news). Please respect that, even if I didn't  fully make my point across yet.
Absolutely, point taken. That's why I'll be mostly doing those from now on; the accompanying text will be there mostly for clarification purposes if something isn't obvious enough. Still; I can't vouch for those until I try them, and even if they do solve that particular use case, if they are more cumbersome in any way or if there are still others unaddressed, well… as I said, expect more demos.
Ok, this is a big, BIG one. And very important at a deep, philosophical and structural level. Which I've also addressed since long ago in this thread. It is a throwback to that era, because there really was no other way of doing things. But it IS “What You See Is What You HAD (with a hint of what You'll Get)”, and it does allow the user some degree of before/after comparison, on the fly, which they can't have otherwise.
You can't argue against that, as it's just an incontrovertible fact, and while you may very well dispute its real usefulness (because, at the end of the day, you have a big app to manage and every man-hour is precious), I'll stand my ground and claim, point-blank and also for the umpteenth time, that having something as generic and universal as “immediate before/after WYSIWYG-ish” behaviour – even if one of the instances is crippled, in its outlined state, by a throwback to a bygone era, a convention which I never said Designer should stick to – is useful in more than, to quote you, “0.01%” of use cases. (*) Even in cases other than the one that irks the most (the entire snapping to itself thing), hence my “no” above.
I believe you're way off-base there, and maybe not many other users will agree with me because they are either illustrators who work in strictly additive workflows (as opposed to other workflows with lots of tweaking and comparing layouts, object arrangements and whatnot), or are used to the new model and can't even begin appreciate the old one (there's nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't make them right, either). Again, that's why I'm here for: to provide demos. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.
Yes, I'm all for “structurally WYSIWYG” (or, rather, functionally skeuomorphic) UX models, like a realistic Layer+Artboard model where the former behaved like universal planes and the latter behaved a bit more like paper sheets instead of containers, as I've said many times before. But sometimes our analytical designer minds do need more busy, dirty, information-rich working environments (more than the final output will look like), and stuff like Outline mode doesn't cut it as it's a bit too over the top.
Is that against your apparent “our app and the documents it renders must be squeaky-clean [and WYSIWYG] at all times” ethos? Well, maybe it is. But I'm telling you: this limitation goes hand in hand with others I've mentioned. Most of it revolves around UX and deep philosophical constructs around how a design application should operate. I'm posting here in a more constructive and respectful fashion than I was before, but these latests posts from you didn't get me any less worried than I was two days ago. These are serious issues which require more discussion and less dismissal. No matter how many coding hours they “waste”. I consider that discussion more of an investment, really, as I still stand by my earlier assessment of Designer's limitations, and this omission is yet another nail on its current metaphorical “coffin” (speaking of undead stuff, like ghosts, let's think of it more of like a vampire, as I do believe it'll leave it again sooner rather than later, but still  ).
To recap and to deconstruct a loaded expression which you've also used: there's no universally “correct” way of doing things. There's a correct way of doing them for each specific project. Some projects call for a strictly WYSIWYG behaviour (per your definition, not even an outlined object preview – like in Ai – or a ghost of the soon-to-be-former position of it – like I proposed and you've just acknowledged as at least viable –, but a live rendition of its final position once you let go of the mouse, and that's both a fine model and a good example of WYSIWYG), and some do call for an alternative (again, you never heard me saying that I wished for the alternative to be fully WYSIWYG; I've always said quite the opposite, and it couldn't be any other way by definition).
Maybe it's not a 50-50 split, but I'd wager the latter's percentage is potentially so high that it would justify being added to an entire dedicated Persona. A “technical drawing” Persona of some sort, if you will. Or a “structural view mode” (not the dumb, 1980s-ish “outline mode”, which we're all very much used to but also has its own limitations, such as making the selection process of filled objects a total pain, but something more in between), as opposed to the one-size-fits-all, totally WYSIWYG “preview view mode” (you call it “Vector”, but that's what it really is as of now, a “Vector [Print] Preview”). Sure, bring it on in v.2 or v.3 or even v.4 of the suite, but at least give it some proper consideration.

I fooled around a little with AD for the iPad, and came up with an illustration for my rockin' band :)

Thanks haakoo. I understand now. But using a single text frame would be neater.

My way to do this in Design would go as follows (I created the third Rectangle with Power Duplicate, that is Ctrl + J):

Demo Pattern.webm Also, I always go crazy with the Snapping Settings. Works for my 90% of the times:

Best regards!

@JGD I just had to read through all your comments to make sure that I wasn't missing any pertinent points of value.  Turns out I wasn't... but it sure took me a lot of otherwise valuable time. Your videos illustrated enough of what we already knew anyway.
 
Seriously - no more waffle.  I'm getting pretty serious about the 100 word limit.  My time is better spent writing code.  If people want to wax lyrical and go completely off-topic, don't blame us when we fail to read your actual points related to this software.
 

I'm considering rejecting any post with a word count over 100.

Red Eyed Tree Frogs are native to Mexico, Central America and go all the way down to Colombia (perhaps on holiday). Its scientific name is A. callidryas, which comes from Greek words kalos (beautiful) and dryas (a tree or wood nymph).
I was chatting with someone about drawing and she liked to do Victorian style flora and fauna illustrations (I think there’s a proper name for it but I forget). I said that I usually try for realistic when I mess around for fun and she wanted to see something. One her favourite things are frogs, she has lots of ornaments etc in her house. So I did this, I think it might be the first living thing that I’ve done properly although I'll probably do a bit more to it sometime.
Just the pen tool, no textures.

 

Hi Matthias J,
Welcome to the Affinity forums!
Yes, it's requested several times. They also call it "global layers".
Which, by the way,  are not to mix up with layers on Master pages, like some dislikers try to make believe the friends of global layers.
You can do a forums search for "global layers" to dive into the controversial discussion of quite a few threads already.
It sounds to be a work in progress meanwhile ...
 

We are trying to invoke a serious discussion with the Affinity Photo TEAM, not with the Serif company, yet.
 

Nope - it will produce a loop when Hole radius is set to 100 and Convert to Curves.
Cheers

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I deleted (used the hide feature)  a thread that could have been revealing in quite some aspects... It was too long and melodramatic, so I got rid of it some minutes after posting it.
But will only rescue one of the thoughts I had in that kind of post-book chapter. More than "paying customers", we are users who bought a product "as is" (as it was), as we are not paying for a sustained service(neither really for the updates, as was/is the traditional model) , is not a service, but a product, how it was, at an exact moment in time (ie, you don't buy a coffee pack and expect it to replicate itself and keep providing you with more coffee beyond the grams it had at purchase time), which had a trial version for you to test. Already that, was a super bargain, for 50 miserable bucks. Apps that have this super broad scope of functionalities, being able to be the main tools of an entire studio for many varied projects, its real value could go up to 2k or 3k dollars. Easily. Yes, Serif, for those who knew them from before, has always given a lot for very little money. But that does not change the fact that you are getting an incredible bargain. Even if we were paying for all these FREE updates (which are long lists of tasks done and implemented, and very frequent) for 50 bucks each, still we'd be STEALING from them (just check Corel's update pricing, Autodesk had that till very recently, etc. Now Autodesk main apps (EACH one) are 250 euros per month). We just paid a ridiculous donation (I've paid more to the FOSS Wings 3D as donations, without even been asked to) at the start, and are getting free updates for years. Might not be the exact feature you want what you are getting, or not in the way you want? Oki, but are we considering REALLY what we are getting for just 50 bucks ?  I don't do an illustration for 50 bucks. Not even for the family. Those you get for free, will serve you for a large collection of tasks you will be able to do along your projects.
So it embarrases me to crazy levels to read that we deserve more as "paying customers".... Sorry, but is how I see it. It's embarrassing as heck. Even if is not me saying it...
A lot of people don't seem to remember (but this is a different argument than the above. A counterargument to this (these are other times, yadda yadda... as if the value wasn't the same or more, lol ) wont defeat the above paragraph's truth) that suites or isolated apps used to be really expensive, and were only in the reach of middle-large and large companies. And rich individuals. Yes, this is not the 90s or the 80s, not even the early 2000s, but still, even today, 50 bucks is an absolute steal to the company doing a product of this importance and extensive capabilities (be it Designer, Photo or Publisher). It is an absolute crazy bargain already as product "as is", in the usual take it or leave it fashion, as is dirty cheap for the value. Which is how it is sold a purchase-only (just way more expensive for this type of product), no subscription product (or a coffee pack), but they have the grace of providing free updates (and paid back for that gentle act in the worst way, by many). Is not a service we are paying for. Is the old model where you paid for upgrades (besides expensive vs free, often were released just once a year, or twice, BTW), just that they give you a ton of the upgrades for free. You could argue that a lot of updates are "logical and essential to have, they should be there". But no, you purchased a young product knowing the fact. If I tell you how many cr4ppy and unstable unfinished stuff has released as paid update in its history, the giant and the almost-giant, and in way later moments in time than their first 5-10 years.... they still do that, lol. But they charge you even for them sneezing. Even if its a bad sneeze. No offense to those other companies, they are great. But EVERY company has the same issues pointed here to Serif (actually, Serif tends to have way more virtues), just that they bill you with 300 , 700 or 3k to start with, 50% + of that for next upgrades , or set a limiting subscription model (which in a way forces you to many technical limitations) to pay monthly yes or yes, for ever, and with total control (you are under ransom there) to do any raise on that renting quantity at any time given. Without the "terms of comparison" and not only thinking of the giant and the others, Serif's offer (legacy was so, too) is in any case and possible consideration an incredible GIFT (the ones owing something is US to them, not the other way around).  So, if I need to begin with what is out of place of most of the general complaining, I wouldn't finish typing today.
With all respects, I can't agree. Your suggestions and videos are very good, the one of the metro map (not saying I agree with the main point), I carefully watched it from start to end, you explain your points clearly, and very well, probably due to the teaching experience. It'd be great if it was all just about that (videos for a suggested change of workflow/structure, succinct suggestions without complaining, bugs hunting, screenshots of a problem, etc). I'm positive that they've surely watched it too (surely not only one staff member), because they are over everything, despite their small staff numbers, and would do with any next one (although the tone of a request, depending on if it's a polite and succinct video to help, or if, otherwise, becomes a lengthy complaint, sets the ones in charge of reviewing all that (or to view it at all) in a particular mood and motivation. We are all humans. They'll be professionals, but if desiring your stuff to be considered... all have its influence). But all those things surely enter in debate in internal meetings, it's probably studied what things can be integrated, what not, or leave them for when, etc. But I have the urge to post at least something when I see some statements really off ( and highly unfair to one of the best and most generous developers out there).  

Hi all. James has made some changes to the online help so everything should be searchable no matter what device you are on but we now have a small heading at the top to indicate if it is an OS specific topic.
If you come across any we have missed, I'd appreciate you letting us know Thanks! 

I've mentioned this a few times now, but Designer was released 5 years go, and since then we have continually added new features and bug fixes, for free. I understand that in this thread, people are disappointed about the lack of DXF support, and in other feature request threads you'll find other disappointed users. However, we have to balance our work loads and prioritise features over other ones. That doesn't mean we aren't listening, it just means we're busy. When Designer shipped it didn't support Artboards, Symbols, Assets, Arrow Heads, Multi-Fills & Multi-Strokes, etc. And these were all requests that came from users (you can find the old feature request threads on these if you search). 

Just did a group of 100 RAW/NEF pics, processed, cropped, tone mapped and custom exported. I used to be able to get some coffee drinking done and checking email etc. during each stage! Now APh is TOO FAST! I'm not even getting my coffee consumption where it needs to be! 
Thanks for getting this version working so much faster! 

The majority of software houses listen to their users and update their products to meet their customers requirements or at least keep them aware of devopments.
Serif Affinity obviously don't. 

Maybe the high and mighty Serif do read them but they evidently don't pay any attention to them. They don't mention their total lack of interest in what the customer wants when they are selling this stuff, which, With this core design flaw is essentially useless to people want to actually make things. 

I just learnt something ALL by myself  I have been doing image mirroring manually for years; however affinity photo has a very snazzy mirroring tool ---- I learnt that long ago >> filter > distort > mirror .
What I didn't know there is a tool icon for mirroring that can be added to the toolbar (red). 
But there's even more; you can use the arrow keys to adjust the effect -- left and right arrow select the input or output dials [blue] while the up and down arrows adjust the amounts . 
Not finished yet ; click the green marked window and you can then use the up and down keys to adjust mirroring effect ; although I do prefer 1 usually .
Second pic is a bit of wood [#3] I photographed yesterday and mirrored in Ap. I have developed an eye for the little things inside the bigger picture and am always on the lookout for subjects that can used in other ways; like mirroring . 
For me; there is more satisfaction doing them manually but the affinity way is rather mesmerizing and a great way to waste time.






Question>> does the last pic look "sharp" on your screen? Keep in mind the original was a raw 12mg Panasonic FZ300

Questions and comments welcome 
Cheers

I just wanted to pass on my praise and thanx for creating Publisher (completing the trio - layout, vector & pixel) that most designers use each day). I can't imagine the amount of work that goes into creating a piece of software from scratch. But i appreciate it.
And my 2 cents worth about making it being able to open InDesign files: I don't see the necessity that some people feel it is. InDesign couldn't open Quark files. You needed to buy a third-party plugin. Quark can't open InDesign files (last i checked). The design studio i worked for made the switch from Quark to InDesign some years ago and the transition was awkward at first for large jobs created in Quark that we then needed to edit/update in InDesign. But we simply started creating new files in InDesign from scratch sometimes, despite having the Quark file. So, i think if you're changing software, it's to be expected there's a bit of extra work to be done at first, but in end it's worth it...especially in this case, if it gets up Adobe's nose.
My only request for Publisher in a future release is if you could have more than 2 pages facing each other. I create a brochure which is 3 x side-by-side A4 pages, double-sided, as a roll/C fold. I output one PDF as spreads to go to the printer and one PDF as single A4 pages for online use. It's nice to be able to have a single Publisher file that will do both.
Once again, thank you for creating Publisher, Designer and Photo.

I completely agree with 2mi about Publisher. Very nice job done for the Affinity team. A colleague of mine told me that in her opinion, Designer and Photo are for professionals, Publisher is for hobbyists. She cannot be more wrong. The integration with Designer and Photo makes the whole suite very powerfull. With Publisher, we have a complete graphic studio at our fingertips to create our documents and artworks.
Do I have other wishes? Yes, I do have. But for the moment, I am still too busy to learn the ins and outs of Publisher. If I can make some suggestions myself these are  the ones :
Graphics, illustrations, photo's, icons which are flowing with the text. However, pinning them works fine for me.
A knife tool in Publisher, Designer and Photo.
Mailmerge based on a database (SQLite or XML)
Saving directly to the cloud (Google Drive, OneDrive,...)
I am glad I am an Affinity user from the first second. No other application let me do what Affinity let me do. It is a pleasure to use and I do not look back to the Plus range. I am sure in the years to come, we will see a lot of innovations and improvements in the Affinity range.
Nice work Affinity Team! A job very well done.
Chris

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