MattP

This is a minimalistic view of my layout on the desk at home.
I started out with the intention of only making the keyboard, but then I wanted to make more :D
 
 

It's amazing how well that works!?! :) The real version should be coming soon - but this way might get people out of a bind if they need something effective right now :)

Thanks everyone! :) Your good wishes obviously worked because my son slept better last night - he's only 2 but has diabetes and his numbers have been very scary recently thanks to a dreadful cold we've all been sharing. We nearly ended up in hospital again over the weekend with it, so hopefully we're past that now and things will return to normal :)
 
*presses Post button*
 
*wipes Post button*
 
*coughs*
 
*wipes Post button again*
  :)

Hi Steve,
 
Really glad you're enjoying the trial! :) You can open as many documents as you like - just go back to the File->Open dialog and try some more and they'll all open at once - you can even multi-select them in the open dialog to load/import many simultaneously :)
 
As Miguel says, Affinity Designer is only available from the Mac App Store, so you need to buy it through there, but it means that you get Apple's iCloud support and automatic updating so it's a nice way to buy things, generally :) Once you've got the Mac App Store version, why not try the beta version available on our forums here so you can try out all the upcoming features before they're released! :)
 
Thanks again!
Matt

Excellent - thanks for that :)  We'll add something to preferences when we get chance :)

That's I thought when I bought it.
I'm extremely PRO Apple and their products  ^_^
That's the reason I was very happy when I saw that someone was developing a software following the simplicity and power of Freehand.
 
 I hate Illustrator (so blur when you try to do easy things)  :ph34r:
 
I'll be aware to the little bug you mentioned.
 
Thanks!!

Thanks Matt, I really appreciate your positive attitude :)
 
In fact, I'm not used to Illustrator at all, neither other drawing apps except for Photoshop. Being rather UX than UI designer, I use prototyping tools more often (like Axure, for instance). So my point does not come from rather irrational "I am used to", but just from quite rational conviction that the same things should be achieved the same way. No more, no less.
 
Anyway, preference option, that would resolve this sometimes in the future, would be totally brilliant! :)

Hi Lojza,
 
As Miguel says, we're definitely always open to ideas and feedback - we just want to make the best program we can, so we don't ever want to be ignoring great ideas and saying 'we just do it that way' without there being a very good reason for it... During the beta of Designer we've had all sorts of combinations going on - from a version that had more rules than the current one for times when/when not to constrain with/without modifier, to versions that never constrained without modifier (just like Illustrator) because people were asking for different things and we were trying to make it fit... However, we've got to the point that the rationale behind the logic is simple (as Miguel says: if it has a natural aspect ratio - text and images, it will be honoured, otherwise it will not) and I think it's fair to say that if you have an image and you want to make it bigger you don't normally want to modify its aspect ratio, so why should you expect to hold down a modifier to make that happen? The answer is probably just 'because that's what other programs made me do for consistency, so it's what I'm used to' - this is fine, but we don't want to just be a clone of another app's decisions that we don't agree with 'just because'. Instead, I think I'd prefer to see the addition of a preferences option that made it act this way if you prefer it... just like how we have a preferences option to make selection act the same as in Illustrator (which I personally don't like as much)
 
Hope that explains some of the reasoning behind it :)
 
Thanks!
Matt

I see you point Lojza. I'm not arguing against you. I was just trying to explain the logic behind it.
Not everyone works the same way. There's other software that performs the way you describe (Corel). Illustrator does exactly the opposite (requires pressing shift to constrain proportions), so it's hard to find  solution that will please everyone. This was already discussed before, but we are still open to rethink it if the majority of users find this troubling.

Feel better Matt! Ohh and wipe down the post button before and after you click it! I dont want to get sick.

I feel your pain Matt, the plague has reached my house too.
Just about to spent my second night cuddling a roasting hot 3yr old...if im not ill by the end of the week it will be a miricle

Get well soon, to Matt and family.
 
Ps cartoonmike hasn't been feeling well either...maybe we should start a new board? Get well soon, good luck and best wishes, what do you think?

Here's a preview for anyone interested... Incidentally, it's much quicker than this in real life - the screen recorder slows everything down!
 
flowing_text.mov

...well, I couldn't possibly say... but, yes ;)
 
Flying hair (and cat fur, of course) have been tested to destruction - it should be able to take care of professional tasks without needing plugins.
 
Photo's looking like it's really coming together now - expect to see something very, very soon...

That's caused by the stroke weight being so heavy that as it strokes both sides of the inner hole the inside edges on each side cross over each other and cause an artefact. I will sort this out as soon as I can get to it. Sorry for any inconvenience in the meantime :(

Thank you *very* much for detailing this, Matt! Great to have you all here on the forum! What a difference to other companies ... would give you a double Like if possible ...  :)

Of course :)
 
You always want to be using the hardware Open GL support - the option is only there to turn it off simply for people who are experiencing problems and might want to try turning it all to software to see if hardware Open GL support was causing their problems... Software Open GL is going to be a slow experience... We know we support back to at least a 2007 MacBook because we managed to get hold of one, but we didn't know if there would be any issues with other old hardware, so thought it safest to add the option to revert to software only mode.
 
You can force the application to only use the integrated GPU if you have more than one available (MacBook Pro with additional discrete GPU for example) if you want to save battery power. By default, OS X will choose to use the right card based on what your application is doing - and in Designer's case, because it fires up a GL surface, it typically says 'discrete GPU is best' and that uses more power. However, we're actually not using an awful lot of Open GL horsepower and your integrated GPU would probably have been completely fine (although sometimes not quite as good - one of our devs can tell the difference slightly between his integrated HD4000 and discrete NVIDIA GPU on his 2012 first-gen retina MacBook Pro) so our default is just to let your computer do whatever it thinks is best, but at least provide you the option to maximise your battery life if it is more important to you than ultimate performance.

Here's a few examples of the work I'm doing with AD. I usually start with a hand drawn piece (pen, ink, marker) than scan, convert to vector (unfortunately not in AD (yet) and do additional processing with AD. (sorry for the big images, not sure where I can scale in the post)
 

 

Actually it was not, taking too much time (I think 1 hour in total)  :)
With "ronniemcbride's" suggestion to use custom brushes it is even faster to do! But still using that way it would be much faster if there had been a blend curves function :rolleyes:
Every time I open up AD, I find new ways, and I become much more impressed the maturity AD is at just at version 1, really well done!!!

All I know about digital brushes I learned from @Paolo, or the italian-brush-yoda, as I like to think of him...

How about something like this? Some icon placement on the layers list might need to be tweaked, but you get the general idea...
 
I've always disliked Adobe's use of palette controls at the bottom of the palette, SPECIALLY the layers palette, which is usually the tallest palette I have open, which means my most often used controlls are at the bottom edge of the screen, sometimes interfering with OS X's hidden dock...

I'm guessing it's not the Layer Opacity (on the Layers Panel) that's being changed in this example - I think you're actually changing the Colour Opacity (on the Colour Panel), perhaps? Layer Opacity acts exactly as you'd imagine - just affecting the global opacity of the selected layer(s). Colour Opacity does the iterative application that you've described - but that's because you've asked it to change the alpha component of the colours of the selected objects. An example would be: Changing to a red colour would change each of the children in a selected group to be in a red colour, rather than applying a red recolour to the group, so the colour opacity acts this way too.
 
So, in summary, if you try adjusting the Opacity shown at the top of the Layers Panel you should find it all works as you'd expect :)
 
Hope that makes some sense?
Matt

...well, I couldn't possibly say... but, yes ;)
 
Flying hair (and cat fur, of course) have been tested to destruction - it should be able to take care of professional tasks without needing plugins.
 
Photo's looking like it's really coming together now - expect to see something very, very soon...

...well, I couldn't possibly say... but, yes ;)
 
Flying hair (and cat fur, of course) have been tested to destruction - it should be able to take care of professional tasks without needing plugins.
 
Photo's looking like it's really coming together now - expect to see something very, very soon...

Look at that you posted in November and now replied in January. lol Apology accepted. There is much to be excited about but the community growing  and things get missed but if you want responses anywhere you have to show a bit more involvement. through sharing, commenting and helping others. that what community is all about. Welcome back Dameon.
 
So, what else have you been working on?