MattP

*sigh* oh dear - well, I really thought the 1.0.21458 beta would have sorted it out - if you can manage to put any clues together then I'll definitely look into it further. Thanks, Tim :) Matt

Hi nikokoneko, Thanks for your post! I do agree with a lot of what you've said, but I also think that maybe you are also missing a few things that are perhaps colouring your opinion of the software, so I'll try to expand on a few things briefly for you: We intend to be ourselves - not copy someone else. Our older PC applications were consistently praised for their productivity and approachable presentation without over-complicating matters so we obviously tried to evolve this and to be honest, pretty much everyone else who has used Designer has been very happy with what it has enabled them to achieve - much more so than their experiences with other software, so I don't think we went too far off the rails with our evolution. The application itself, again, was not designed to copy others - we don't want to offer feature parity, we want to offer the features you need to achieve the tasks you need to but to make these core tools be better than the ones you may have used before - work better, smarter and offer an enjoyable experience. We aim to be faster and more stable than others. So, you see, we aren't actually aiming to clone anybody... A workflow-based auto-changing UI is great when there is a clearly defined set of things that you are likely to want to do - and if your application aims to target a specific thing like GUI design then you could usually do the right thing, but if you're trying to present limitless possibilities then your application shouldn't be constantly trying to suggest the (possibly wrong) next step. I do things in batches - I go into the Pen Tool, draw something, hold down the Cmd key to edit the nodes, draw the next thing, hold Cmd to modify it, maybe select the last one I created and modify it a bit more to suit, whatever - but I never leave the Pen Tool and if the program was trying to force me from one tool to the next because it had decided that I would want to make one curve, then do something else I would go crazy because it just doesn't suit the way I work. Of your bullet points... Number 1) is something we already do - all of our gradient controls are in-place on document, as are our transparency controls, shape node handles and as will be our corner tool node handles. We also offer panels to achieve the task simply so that people who like this methodology have a place to go too. Number 2) We already do a double-click from the Move tool changes to be the context-based editing tool for that type of object - the thing we don't do is change back again at some point - but I don't want it to change back, I like it to stay in the node tool (for example) because my node tool isn't just a node tool - it allows me to make new selections too so I didn't need to get out of it most of the time and in fact it means I just operate with less clicking - clearly you may not, but that doesn't mean we have done something wrong. Changing to the Move Tool again at any time is as simple as pressing the 'v' key. I personally hate all the clicking and double-clicking I have to do in the other program you mentioned - it does my head in and I get lost trying to select things and entering different modes... but I suppose it's all down to what you're used to - and I am not used to that. Number 3) We will have an inspector when we get time - in the meantime all of the context-sensitive properties of an object are repeated along the context toolbar in a consistent fashion - it's just getting used to seeing them there rather than in a panel really. We've had a property inspector panel in our PC products for at least the last 5 years, so it's not a new thing for us or something we hadn't thought about - it's just a time and order constraints thing. Number 4) I would argue that we do have a very consistent behaviour at all times until such behaviour becomes counter-productive, at which point we will favour productivity. That is our approach. Our internal architecture is able to cope with basically anything we could dream of without performance degradation so multiple lines, fills, transparencies, effects, etc are all no issue - our issue (and the reason they are still waiting to go in) is simply that we have been deciding what UI would work nicely for them - and I don't believe that Sketch has it completely right to be brutally honest. We have now decided how we intend to present it and will do so when we get chance. You mention that you think we are simply trying to be a cheap version of Illustrator and Photoshop - but I think you've missed the point of what we are trying to be: Neither of them. We are trying to be ourselves - Designer is a really damned good, solid and fast vector editor that also lets you be expressive and paint with pixel data in a non-destructive way. We're trying to let people be creative, do their jobs in a different, more effective way, enjoy themselves while they experiment... Our Affinity Photo application may put Designer in more perspective - then you'll see that Designer wasn't meant to be both of Illustrator and Photoshop - it was meant to be an empowering, different vector editor that crossed the streams a little to give you more power. Affinity Photo is our photo editing program and is much more analogous to Photoshop - it also has some vector tools but is also not trying to be Illustrator. We're not trying to be a 'cheap' anything - our price point was simply set because we sat down and said "What is a fair price for software that everyone in the world would want to use to draw things?". Other apps on the AppStore are priced lower than us, and others are priced higher - we just priced ourselves where we could actually imagine being happy spending the money and hoped that we thought along the same lines as our users. I hope that gives you some more background of what we were actually trying to achieve - and maybe with that comes perspective that lets you see where we are actually aiming. Again, thanks for your comments - I agree with a lot of the points and sentiments, but I just wondered if you'd made assumptions about our intentions or product lineup. Ask yourself this too - why do you think we're (the developers) so active on the forum? The answer is simply that we're genuinely really excited about what we're doing, we have an attachment to the features that we considered in depth and tried to make the best versions of that we could imagine and we're desperately typing to try to give you better tools - we're not sat copying existing ones (which is boring) Thanks again - and welcome to the forum :) Matt

Hi dkistner, I just went to save it out of my older version, but I actually found I could load it in my current beta version? If you open your beta version and in the menu click 'Affinity Designer'->'About' does yours say it's version 1.0.21458? That's the version I'm using - and the version I created it in :) EDIT - I should also mention at this point to please not use the adorable kitten photograph in the file for anything because it's not mine so I do not own copyright for it. Let me know if you still have a problem :) Thanks, Matt

Preflight is agreeing that the file correctly contains the 389dpi image I intended, isn't it? :) When I print I am also seeing exactly the same results - it places the image into the stream at the placed resolution (in this case 389dpi). We are using the OS X print path, but the data we give to it has sufficient resolution. I've attached the same file printed to PDF for your reference. I might've misunderstood what you meant though, so please forgive me if I have. Either way, I think dkistner shouldn't have problems now as they are able to output at the correct resolution now. This file was produced from the Print dialog... PDFdVersion.pdf :) Thanks, Matt

Thanks Lescot! Merry Christmas to you too! Hope you have a great one! :)

Hahaha! Merry Christmas to you too! (oh heavens, did I give away what it says?!?)

Hi pullapooh, We do intend to add this functionality - and it's probably going to be off the space bar too (there's no point us adding functionality to help Illustrator users but then putting it off a different modifier, hehe) it's just a matter of time. I absolutely couldn't agree more that the Pen Tool is the most important for vector creation - but we obviously have different methodologies because I have been designing in vector packages since around GEM desktop days (I even wrote a vector drawing program for my Acorn Archimedes back in school!) and I wasn't even aware of the space modifier so didn't know that people found it so useful. I have always placed my nodes where I wanted them and then dragged out from that - if I made a mistake I enjoy the hassle-free Cmd modifier to move it to somewhere else or modify any part of my curve at will - much easier than my productivity when I try to use Illustrator. Your use-case is every bit as valid as mine though so we'll try to get this in - but please don't think it's because we've tried to 'scrimp' on our design or implementation with our tools - we simply don't have that use case because I don't work that way so I didn't know it was possible and none of our designers or featured artists have come back with this as a request. It will get done as soon as I can find time to add it - which hopefully won't be that long. Thanks, Matt

Hi dkistner, Take a look at my attached files. The .afdesign file I have attached was used to create the .pdf file. The content is output at the resolution I placed it at - it's a picture of a cat that I placed at 389dpi, and if you open the pdf into Affinity Designer you can see that it is placed at 389dpi as you'd expect :) BookCover6x9_BW_90_SetTo300DPI.afdesign BookCover6x9_BW_90_SetTo300DPI.pdf (EDIT: I tried to upload the .afdesign file containing the high-dpi cat image and it failed because the file size was too large to attach here. Instead, I have replaced it with an image of a lower dpi kitten, but just replace my kitten images with your own and they will correctly go out at the DPI they report being - sorry about that) This file should hopefully help to get you on the right track... I think that all that was basically wrong was that your original document contained elements that were the wrong physical size? Your document was set to 300dpi, but your front/back cover for example were specified as being 666 pixels high - which would equate to 2.22 inches high (666 pixels / 300 dpi = 2.22 inches) whereas they were meant to be 9.25 inches high. They would have been 9.25 inches high if the dpi was 72 dpi, so the numbers weren't crazy it's just that you were working in pixels at 72 dpi when talking about physical sized output which is a confusing thing to do. I'd suggest that all you really need to do is just have a document set to inches, set the dpi as you desire and then start making objects which the transform panel reports are the correct dimensions - then everything will be happy :) Incidentally, whenever you import a PDF it will always report that the PDF is 72 dpi - that's because a PDF doesn't have a DPI itself, only the elements in it have an effective DPI. PDFs are specified in a points unit type and always at 72dpi - this is why the document setup dialog will be reflecting this. The fact that it says 'Devices' in the category type is just misleading - no information is ever stored in a file to show what type of document it may be, we just try to infer what type of document it is based on a number of criteria - unfortunately in this case, the 72dpi setting is leading the dialog to think that it's probably something that was created for a screen - so try to ignore that information and we'll look at sorting something out there to be less confusing, sorry :( As I said, look at the attached .pdf file in Affinity Designer - you'll see that the document may report it is 72dpi, but when you inspect the image used in it you can see that the context toolbar is reporting that the image is placed at >300dpi as expected. Hope that helps a bit :) Thanks, Matt

I like your final design too - it looks bold, uncluttered and clear - all you could really hope for in such a small space! :)

Thanks, Mike! We didn't want anyone to be suffering seemingly random crashes caused by the context toolbar changes in the last beta, so really wanted to push this one out sooner, rather than later :) Happy Christmas to you, too!

Haha! Very Picasso! :)

Purpose: Improvements, Features, Fixes Status: Beta Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer Mac App Store: Not submitted Download: https://s3.amazonaws...stomer Beta.dmg To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it. Important Notes: - This beta does not include the Corner Tool that you may have seen in our social media - it is still in development and is not ready for public beta today. - We’ve added three new blend modes in preparation for Affinity Photo: Lighter Colour, Darker Colour and Linear Light. If you use these blend modes in your document, then your document will not look the same when you load it back into the Mac App Store version as they will be replaced by Normal blend mode. Improvements/Fixes: - Colours used in the document should now match those shown in the UI and output. - Colour picker now picks the correct colour from the document. - Fix for stability issues caused by context toolbar changes. - Fix for Layers panel sometimes not allowing drag operations. - PSD export improvements. - Fix for Pan/Zoom spacebar functionality being intermittent, especially when using shortcuts to change tools. - Fix for right-click in brushes panel, etc. - Fix for missing histograms in the adjustment dialogs. - Improved Layer -> Rasterize logic. - Fix for document save logic that inadvertently caused an unmodified document to grow in size when saved. - Text highlight and caret now respect baseline advance. - Fix for many font UI-related issues. - Fix for gradient fill flyout menus not initialising with the correct gradient fill. - Added 'preserve alpha' option to Gaussian Blur effect. - Fix for studio tab logic causing incorrect placement of tabs. - Fix for window not restoring to correct size after switching away from Separated Mode. - Numerous other small fixes and tweaks.

Hi Martin, I agree that there is currently a lack of useful context menu options for the Layers panel. This will be improved :) Thanks, Matt

Hi PyrosBrother, I think you'll find this is fixed in the current beta version if you wanted to give it a try? :) Thanks, Matt

It just means that right now the beta version has a bug when creating CMYK EPS files - it'll get fixed soon :)

Byrne, Have you got 'Edit All Layers' active? It's the little button at the bottom left of the Layers panel - it lets you select your objects across all layers, rather than limiting to just the active layer :) Thanks, Matt

This is caused by the document being in CMYK colour space. If you go to Document Setup and change it to RGB8 it will work fine. I'm sure we can get this exporting properly, thanks for the file :)

Hi yanis, There's a sneak-peek of me playing with the Corner Tool on Twitter and Facebook - I've nearly finished it and it'll be in one of the next betas, just as soon as it's ready. It goes way beyond the version you refer to - it's more like the Illustrator version but allows you to edit the curve afterwards without forcing the corner to become 'baked-in' to the curve geometry like Illustrator's does (which annoys me!) It'll be available to try soon :) Matt

Another great video, Ronnie! :)

Wow! That's cool! :D

Hi limitlis, This is already in the latest beta version - it's an option in preferences :) Thanks, Matt

I don't know what it's supposed to look like? Can you show the original or better still, just post the .afdesign file here so we can take a look? Thanks :)

I think the only real way to do away with antialiasing on small lines is to do a super-sampling trick at export - we used to do this automatically as an option in the old DrawPlus and it worked very well. Perhaps we'll need to look into this. Another option is allowing you to define your own antialiasing ramp so that pixel edges which you view as too harsh can be adjusted?

Hi puggerspaniel, Yes there will be - I thought it was on the roadmap, but if not then rest assured that it is definitely on our list Thanks, Matt

It's me playing with the new Corner Tool - I'm still tinkering with it, unfortunately, but it'll be ready to pop into the beta soon :) You wouldn't believe how much maths is involved in this thing!?! I still keep thinking - "Should've just done the easy version, should've done the easy version!" but I wanted to write the good version, so it's taking me a while, sorry! On the plus side, I've just written the functionality we need to make a Contour Tool and I could rewrite the boolean operations now to be much faster and more accurate - so that's good :)