MattP
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Posts posted by MattP
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Hi Kevin,
If you have any examples where it is introducing nodes you think it shouldn't, can you send them to me? It should be *exactly* the number of nodes required - it works mathematically but with a tolerance and our tolerance is more accurate than the one in Illustrator which may occasionally produce an extra segment - but in theory if you took that segment away (and made it the same as the result from Illustrator) and zoomed in you'd start to notice the result doesn't match the source stroke as well... So I'm *very* interested in extra nodes - but perhaps only to validate that the extra nodes were actually needed - if it turns out they weren't then I have a problem to fix!...
Thanks!
Matt
- A_B_C, predick and Boldlinedesign
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Status: Beta
Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not submitted
Download: Download
Auto-update: Not available.
Hello,
We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the first beta of Affinity Designer 1.8 for macOS.
Affinity Designer 1.8 is a significant change to the currently shipping 1.7 version. Files edited in this version will not be backwards-compatible with the shipping 1.7 version. As such, we would not recommend using this 1.8 version for critical or production work at this stage. It is inevitable that there were will be a number of issues with 1.8 but we hope these will be minor and aim to resolve any issues very quickly, so please use it and explore the improvements, but also do keep in mind that you may find snags and we would appreciate your help with finding and reporting these to us.
If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry.
With all that said, we hope that you will enjoy the new capabilities introduced in this release and we look forward to any and all feedback you give to us.
Many thanks!
Matt
Fixes
- Overhauled the “File -> New” dialog - user templates are now supported
- Implemented unified toolbar for appropriately modern macOS versions
- Improved the results of Expand Stroke
- Improved the reliability of Boolean Geometry operations
- Fixed issues with grids which appeared to jump while zooming and had issues with gutters
- Improved dragging objects between artboards (takes into account "Edit All Layers" toggle)
- Improved geometric add to allow a single shape so we can unite shapes to remove overlapping areas
- Improved SVG export to not simplify structure, as some people require the original structure
- Fixed Styles to show styles that would normally be invisible
- Fixed selection of artboards and / or contents
- Fixed EPS import sporadically failing to load objects
- Fixed PDF export so embedding colour profile always converts image colour spaces to match the profile
- Fixed crash when loading some corrupt JPEGs (valid image data, but corrupt following data)
- Improved embedded document bounding boxes
- Fixed deletion of brushes / styles / etc to actually remove the raster data (to reduce file size)
- Fixed PSD export to include checks for empty rasterised layers
- Fixed PSD export of hidden layers
- Fixed angle cursors when the view has been rotated
- Fixed Layer Effects not handling changes to document DPI when the dialog is open (using Points as a unit would continue to use the old DPI)
- Fixed crash on vector export for specific arrangement of composites and clips
- Added Remove Columns button on the context toolbar for Designer and Photo for text frames with columns for documents created in Publisher
- Improved memory use with branching undo history and with replacing image nodes
- Updated PANTONE Solid and Bridge Palettes
- Fixed Create Palette from CMYK images results in RGB colours
- Improved performance of operations with large selections and improved performance of making selections of large numbers of objects
- Fixed selection problems with multiple objects of varying line weights
- Improved PDF import support for DeviceN bitmaps based on LAB colour space
- Improved PDF export of clashes between bitmaps with/without k-only
- Fixed PDF export "Rasterise nothing" allowing through bitmaps with alpha channels
- Fixed crash importing PSD files containing embedded colour profiles with unicode characters in their name
- Improved performance of PDF import with groups containing more than 5,000 children
- Fixed OpenType that could fail to apply 'liga' near end of line
- Fixed Text Justification to split ligatures correctly
- Improved PDF import matching of unknown fonts
To be notified about all future Mac beta updates, please follow this beta notification thread
To be notified when this update comes out of beta and is fully released to all Affinity Designer customers, please follow this release notification thread
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Apple have known of this issue and reproduced it in 2017 - apparently their loader fails for greyscale/monochrome images (ie RGB images where the image contains only greys) when there is 0% transparency in the image. They have 2 workarounds - the first is to make the image slightly off-monochrome (!!!) and the second, better one, is:
Store the image as an MTLTexture asset in Xcode and then the conversion is done at build time, not runtime and that will work.
Hope that helps!
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On 12/20/2019 at 11:40 AM, Mithferion said:
Hi!
I made another test and it still happens. Notice that there are two initial curves, with differente dimensions: 1 px and 2 px. They both had different results:
NOTE: The selected object on the Screenshot shows the original width of the stroke. On the left side, I changed the width to create the smaller object on the bottom left part.
Best regards!
It's probably just something I've missed with regards to the 'Scale with Object' setting on the Stroke? Perhaps?
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...not that we all like cats or anything...
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All I’m trying to say is that with the functionality shown in that video, I don’t know what there is missing that you can’t achieve - and if there’s something that’s still not possible then you’re trying to achieve a page layout task which is better performed in Publisher, at least I think that’s the case?
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With regards to artboards being ‘glorified clipping paths’ I’d argue that they are less like ‘glorified clipping paths’ than Illustrators artboards are like ‘glorified rectangles’ - our artboards are containers, as are XD’s artboards, even as are Photoshop’s artboards. We have pages in Publisher for when you’re trying to achieve things which would be more appropriately constructed that way..
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The only reason bleed is not shown for artboards is that I haven’t written it yet.
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I think, if I’m correct, that Adobe XD (targeted at UI/UX) acts the same as us - whatever that’s worth...
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@JGD - is this the unicorn layer functionality you are looking for?
- Mithferion, jmwellborn, JGD and 5 others
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Fantastic work, Adam!
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WOWWEE!!!!
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Glad you're enjoying it AnnieW!
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2 minutes ago, bures said:
I found the workaround. I add new stroke using "Expand stroke" function and set the new stroke width to 0,1 and colour to white. It is not perfect but good enough.
I am looking forward to your "different approach".
Incidentally, the 'Expand Stroke' function is about to get a LOT better very soon...
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Hi bures,
I'm really sorry you're encountering this problem. Sadly, this is a common artefact in many vector drawing applications that you'll see when you clip things... An 'inner' stroke is actually performed in the rendering engine by clipping, so you see the artefact when you perform this function. To illustrate that the problem is not just a Designer bug, here is the same artefact from 'inside stroke' in CorelDraw 2019:
We will work to improve this over time, but it requires a different approach. I think it's currently only Illustrator that renders these stroke styles without artefacts. I know this isn't what you want to hear, but in the meantime, I'd suggest considering how you can construct your shapes differently. Once you start working in other ways then it actually isn't a problem at all, but I appreciate that's not what you're used to doing, so can only offer my apologies in the meantime...
Thanks,
Matt
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To confirm what @fde101 rightly says, requests are read and acted upon. Nobody is deliberately not replying to things and we're also not trying to ignore stuff either - we're all just busy typing (as you'd hope!) so yes, I can confirm we do see the value in the request and I'll make sure to have another chat with @Ben about it as he has fairly recently refreshed a lot of these tools and I think he could add it pretty swiftly now
Thanks for your continued patience - we do appreciate it
Matt
- Mithferion and matisso
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9 hours ago, deeds said:
And, yes, you are suggesting using the integrated GPU. Exactly the thing I'm concerned about, you're doing. Rather than optimising the app for higher performance, you're asking users to compromise for the sake of the background efficiency.
As I've already said that is exactly what I am not asking you to do: I am asking you to test it for me to let me know if it solved your energy usage issue. This is to help me look into the problem. This is because I don't have any other users with the problem so I'm having to ask you to help me.
I have suggested to you that I personally don't think you should see a difference in the performance of Designer irrespective of what GPU it is running on so I'd just run it on the integrated GPU if I was experiencing your problem. This does not mean that we have now said 'there is no problem!' and it does not in any way imply that we will not look at what is going on with your energy usage when it's using the discreet GPU.
I hope that is sufficient information
Matt
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Hi deeds,
I'm not suggesting any of the things you're saying. I was simply asking if you'd try something out for me and tell me if it fixes the problem you're seeing, that's all - I just simply wanted to know and I'm trying to help you. Other people are not coming forward saying they have this problem. This doesn't mean the problem isn't real, it means that you're the only person I've spoken to about the problem and I'm trying to get as much information as possible about it from you so I can look at it.
For reference, as I said earlier, changing Affinity Designer to use the integrated GPU should make essentially no difference to the apparent performance of the application - we use only a small amount of hardware for presentation of the document's render so you shouldn't even notice a difference. My laptop shows no noticeable difference running integrated or discreet. If yours is showing a very marked difference in performance then something is wrong somewhere - not necessarily with our application. All of the heavy work is done on CPU no matter what option you've chosen and we're asking to draw a few hundred primitives to the screen which even a 1990s GPU would've excelled at, so if your integrated GPU is chugging at that then there is a problem...
Thanks again,
Matt
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Errr, I'm not asking you not to use your discreet GPU for everything on your machine - I'm asking you to try to use the setting in Affinity Designer to just use the low-power (integrated) GPU and see if it gets rid of your problem. Your discreet GPU will carry on working just fine in any other applications... If you could let me know what your results are that's all I'm asking. As I said, it's in the Affinity Designer -> Preferences -> Performance tab and it's labeled as "Use only integrated GPU". It only affects how Affinity Designer requests a hardware surface from the OS and it will have no other knock-on effects for your other programs.
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When I set my preferences to 'Use only integrated GPU' I don't even see the Affinity apps appearing on the 'Using Significant Energy' area of the battery dropdown... Have you tried this option?
Edited to say: I believe the 'energy usage' you're seeing is as a result of the fact that the app is keeping the full GPU 'alive' due to the hardware render surface requesting this... If you use the integrated GPU (as per the option I mentioned) I see basically no usage at all...
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Hi deeds,
Can I check what you've got set in 'Preferences'->'Performance'->'Display'? I'm using 'OpenGL' (which is the default) and I have 'Enable Metal compute acceleration' enabled (again, the default if your Mac supports it). I am running a 2018 MacBook Pro, 6 core i9 with Radeon Pro 560X GPU and I run these apps (Designer, Photo and Publisher) all open, all day along with many other apps - my Mac is not running hot, not using excessive battery and is not showing any adverse effects from having the apps open.
As an example, here is my Activity Monitor from a moment ago - both Designer and Publisher are running but inactive...
As you can see, neither application is preventing the system from sleep (so they are not rampantly generating messages or poking things to refresh) and they both support App Nap, so are playing nicely with timers. The only thing I can think of that may be affecting you is that you'll note they both state 'Requires High Perf GPU' which is because they are allowed to use the Radeon GPU. If you don't want this, you can choose the option 'Preferences'->'Performance'->'Use only integrated GPU' which will force the hardware display to run only on the integrated Intel GPU which will be more than adequate for the view requirements.
I'm not saying there's nothing we could do to improve things, but I'm saying that a good first step will be to check your preference options and see how it affects the behaviour you're observing. It is true to say that I'm not experiencing the problems you describe, but I've also not got your software, nor am I undertaking your workflow, so there may be something to investigate.
Just to add, lets please keep all comments on-topic and about the software, not personal comments or attacks - that goes for everyone
Many thanks,
Matt
any problems then just pop a bug report in about it and I’ll take a look! 
Expand stroke weird results
in [ARCHIVE] Designer beta on macOS threads
Posted
Exactly this - I've obviously missed an 'if' for this case - it'll be very easy to fix, but I messed up. Thanks for spotting it!