Wosven

Having waited eagerly for Publisher to arrive, I didn't hesitate to download the first beta and test it out. Rather than just 'tinkering around the fringes', I decided to give it a proper test by designing and laying out one of my portfolio photobooks, which would normally be done in InDesign, and then have it digitally printed by a commercial printer. In effect, I treated it like I would all other jobs I do for my clients.
My experience of Publisher, from a professional perspective, was actually surprisingly good (as far as beta software goes). As a highly experienced PageMaker, QuarkXpress and InDesign user (from the v1.0 days) the learning curve was very minimal. The end result was that this initial beta release managed to produce a professional product that I would have no qualms releasing to a paying client. However the journey involved to reach that point was, obviously, not straight forward – but by no means remotely anywhere near as painful as some of the discussions on here would indicate. Without trying to 'blow my own trumpet', I will readily admit that it does require the kind of mindset that is capable of coming up with multiple workarounds and and when required.
Aside from some of the initial issues that many had reported (ie. master pages, lack of visible bleed guides, sliders staying visible etc), the main obstacle that I had was at the output stage because I was unable to output a final press-ready PDF with reliable bleed settings on every page/spread. Some pages would output WITHOUT any bleed, some only output with about 1mm of bleed and some would output with the full 3mm that was set throughout the document. In the end, my workaround was to create a template document with my own trims and bleed on it. 
The second most frequent problem I came across was the instability of the application – there were A LOT of randomly occurring crashes which, if it wasn't for recovery files, could have been a massive problem. Whilst I fully expected beta software to crash, I didn't anticipate so many (more than 12) during this process.
Less of a 'user experience' and more of a future file management issue is that the file sizes are HORRENDOUSLY MAHOOSIVE. Despite having all images linked instead of embedded, this 32pp layout resulted in a whopping 1.5GB .afpub file. As a comparison, a previous 96pp photobook with the same spec created in InDesign resulted in a 50MB .indd file.
There is so much more that needs to be fixed and implementd but, overall, if the first beta of Publisher is already capable of this standard then I am going to chomping at the bit for the full commercial release.

It's by design. The tabstops along the top edge are positioned relative to the right edge of the column instead of the left. You can see the difference if you make the column wider. It's intended to do a similar job to right-tab in Indesign, but in a more general way. A common use would be to right-align page numbers in a header.

Hu… and when you need to modify or add something to your first page you need to go to each one and copy-paste something or make changes manually to 50 chapters???
Not my workflow to use copy where elements are not linked to a master page to ease modifications.

Master pages have 2 purposes : having static parts like decorative ones and number page, that should stay as it is mostly in a document.
And they help you create new pages with text frames and picture frames positionned, for not having to copy-paste them from page to page.
But those are not décor, you need to be able to "detach" them from the master page to modify the content.
ID and QXP have 2 different approches about those last ones:
ID permit you to detach them, but they are no part anymore of the master pages, if you modify them in the master pages, this won't apply to the related pages QXP permit you to sort of detach and modify their content, and for the text frames, if you only modify their length to adjust to their content, you can modify them on the master pages (styles, background color, etc.), and the modifications will apply to the frames on your pages. I think QXD got it right, and I hope APub will use a similar approach. I don't want to go back to the old days when you had to copy paste title/body/whatever frames from a page to another since the master pages are mainly for décor.
Same problem with long document with different left and right pages frames position. QXD was smart about the positioning of frames when you had to switch a page from left to right. 

+1 and +1 for linked files.
The best practice is to organize files in folders, folders on a server or a HD depending of their sort (commercial logos, organizational logos, xxx logos, posters, free use pictures, commercial pictures…).
And have a practical folder organisation for the current documents — main folder, image and fonts folders (< a must if the app can use those fonts without needing to install them, it allow different people to easily open/work/correct… a file shared on a server), and more folders if it's helpfull (i.e. for original files send by the client, PDF files, etc.).
I can remember when we used different ways and needed a specific file, it ended up with asking everyone in our small studio : "Who's got the last version of this logo?" (…and documents printed wit outdated ones sometimes…)
Improved workflow is to open last year documents and updating logos and adds or others updated linked files before saving it as a new document to work on.
For magazines and such, same principle with main templates. We'll save it with a new name for the current issue, and modifications can be made by someone else on adds or other linked files. Linked files are on a server and can be modified while people are working on the content of the pages.
We archive each issue and go on.
Doing this is so usefull that I do it for documents I produce at home, avoiding having same files in different folders or embedded in documents.
 
Another important point for not embedding files is that when one of those rarely (= not enough to be in a special folder) but linked files is needed, it's faster not to open the old document but to search in the links/images folder and place it in the new document.

Just as a brief follow up. I hate to say it but most people when they "lay-out" a word-processed document to look decent and "professional" do not even use the provided tools to do so. (I mean correct placement and use of Tabs, spaces, paragraph line indents and margins, paragraph spacing and the like.)
I've regularly received documents by other company personnel who have clearly spent hours laying them out to look decent to impress their boss. When I have received them and opened them I am shocked at the complete layout mess that is revealed. I then have to strip-out all their messed up formatting so I can do a decent job my end. Unfortunately I have often had to convert the whole job to simple text format just to start again from scratch -- yes it's been that bad!
Trained personnel who submit copy to publishing houses and design studios know about this and simply supply text without formatting except for paragraph returns. This makes it easy for them and easy for the designer to work very efficiently. Just flow it in and away you go.
Yes I agree that decent formatting of word-processed docs, can be helpful, but unfortunately there is a HUGE difference between professionally designed layouts and those done by most untrained personnel. That difference is called "Typography" which, let's be honest, is not a word we hear much about these days.
Clearly, I am a big supporter of Typography and will remain so, after all it's part of my job.

The pupil is like a cat's, but lately I spend time looking at frogs and toads… Same pupils but horizontal … or perhaps it's a dragon, who know for sure?
We'll have to watch till it's out of its lair

Thank you...not sure about the easy bit!.. but AD is a very capable App now...
This one has taken quite a while but came together in the end even though it's nearly a metre wide!

As usual you "paint" with vectors and with a good feel for forms and colors. I'm always impressed by your Art.
Keep on, and kepp on posting here, you give me dreams of having time for learning and doing the same, it seems so easy!

Shy
Based on yet another sketch from Inktober 2017 [07:Shy]
All Vector!
Size in AD 800 x 350mm 300dpi (Uploaded Size:2834x1239px/300dpi/hq jpeg)

Merci pour l'info, (c'est pour faire un favicon qui à la fin ne fera plus que 16x16 pixels) j'ai sorti un png de 32x32 ; ça devrait-être bon !
bonne journée

Being able to set each gutter and each tab stop is good, but it would be better if there was a modifier key to modify all the values at once (of ± the same value) instead of deleting gutter/tab stops, increasing value and adding them again (or modifying each one).
Can it be possible to have automatically the visual frame ruler when adding tab stops?

I don't see how to create a feature (object/layer) that is visible, but won't print.

Being able to set each gutter and each tab stop is good, but it would be better if there was a modifier key to modify all the values at once (of ± the same value) instead of deleting gutter/tab stops, increasing value and adding them again (or modifying each one).
Can it be possible to have automatically the visual frame ruler when adding tab stops?

Merci pour l'info !

Really interesting points you mentioned.
I'll comment only some of them
FIND AND REPLACE (regexp)
Writing directly regular expressions is a must, search and click in a menu is not efficient when you know what you are doing, and people using this feature usually do. (But the menu is usefull for beginners who don't know each expression yet).
You use a lot Search & replace for glyphes, so yours requests seems a good addition/improvement.
 
STUDIO
+1
I didn't spend time learning keyboard shortcut for those when switching to ID, I have the main panels I used on a second screen, reduce the same way to only show the ones I need at the moment. (I override those shortcuts to use important scripts or other features I need. Some shortcuts need to much digits to do …I've got small hands!).
A revision of the colors palettes is needed, at least the document palette and the Pantone's one, etc. should be distincts to be able to choose colors and add the to the current palette without needed to display one and the other each time.
We need to add/import a palette in another one (not having 2 document palettes in a document).
STYLES
I hadn't time to test and read about the fine modifications for the use of those.
But my complain was about the "update style from paragraph" placed under "Apply style then next style" (greyed most of the time when it should be available). "Update…" should be with "Delete…" since that's an option we barely use but when creating documents.
Most of the time while working on text with set or fixed style we shouldn't modify, this option below "Apply next…" is a hazard.
CONTROL PANEL
+1
And a shortcut I miss from QXP: the one that put the cursor in the "select font option" (last time I checked it needed 2-3 key strokes to achieve in ID).
EXPORT SETTINGS
Or at least some sort of Export persona with main presets on another panel above like in AD and AP.
SHAPE TOOLS
3.      Adding captions specific/selected EXIF info
We don't use a lot of captions (client choice), but a requisite is copyright info. The way ID do it, with the possibility to add text before "© " we can delete/modify since it's not a variable, and position of the frame and Text style is a must.
It's an easy way to alway have the correct copyright when you replace an image, without zooming (We use the links panel to copy the caption if they are in the images, avoiding a variable in ID, that we would need to convert to text to adjust to the frame size).
FOOTNOTES
Not sure what you want to do… Aren't they already formatted by paragraph styles yet?
WORD COUNT
+1
When the layout is accepted by the client, we need to send him a version with calibration, and we add a layer (easily hidden) with those informations.
It would be easier than copying-pasting in a another app to cound characters.
 
 
This stand for other apps, in this case we do some alternate characters styles. But mainly, fonts use bold, italic and bold italic, so it would be used in main cases.
 
Here we have a problem in APub. (Is it the one you talk about  @Petar Petrenko?)
How it's working in ID:
We select a font, we select a variant (if no font is selected when creating a character style, we can choose between all variants possible)
It's the same in ID control panel (but it first displays all options when selecting the font family: Dax - light, Dax -Light italic…)

 
APub display variants as font family, we can't choose "Dax":


 
This could lead to have too many character styles, unless some feature can correct this or apply without error the corresponding bolder and italic version…
This is not easy, since there's lot of fonts and there's no consistenty for the variants (trials and errors for the last decades)  and a lot of old fonts in use (impossible to buy new versions of thousand of fonts we already have).

Effectively, it's not here yet.
If we want to do a rotation different than the center of the selected nodes, we would have to create a circle that encompass the nodes we want to rotate with its center at the exact center of rotation we want.
We can select more than one objects and sub-select the desired nodes > the ones of the circle + the ones we wanted to rotate, then rotation of thoses, and deletion of the circle once done.
But a center-of-transform for more than rotation would be better, perhaps a perspective and a transform grids.

@JET_Affinity ,
Part (?) of the new nodes/transformation/Snap tools are in Publisher now. Most of the bêta testers are testings and commenting text/styles/frames/master pages, etc., but I didn't see any comment about those.
Perhaps it's not the right app to test them, but since they are in APub, and it's possible to comment and debug them (before 1.7 release of Affinity suite?), your comments about them would be interesting.
Warning: AD files modified in Apub can't be opened back in AD (no backward compatibility), so doing/debuging this would improve the tools but wouldn't be productive unless the work can be usable once exported to PDF or SVG…

Ok this is a better version I think and hopefully better quality.
 

Till now, when I received PDF files and needed to modify them in AD or APub, but I don't have all the fonts, there's nothing I could do.
In AD, opening the file with the option "text as curves" do nothing, and APub replace missing fonts with other ones.
Aside:
It seems more interesting to open PDF in APub since visible bleed is possible and elements out of the page area are displayed too.
In the futur, AD will be able to convert text to curves when we have missing font.

 
Back to the problem:
To get the missing fonts as curves (if you can't use a well know CC app), the trick is to open the PDF pages in InkScape that'll do the conversion if you select the option "Import Poppler/Cairo".


 
You can save this as a PDF with InkScape.
Don't use this InkScape PDF as is, since it'll miss the color profile, and all the text is converted to curves, but open it in AD or APub, and select, copy and paste the parts you need from InkScape's PDF to APub/AD's PDF.


 
Next, you can hide or delete the text frames with the missing fonts.
 
Another usefull point with this, is you can add bleed easily when the original PDF miss it.

Really interesting points you mentioned.
I'll comment only some of them
FIND AND REPLACE (regexp)
Writing directly regular expressions is a must, search and click in a menu is not efficient when you know what you are doing, and people using this feature usually do. (But the menu is usefull for beginners who don't know each expression yet).
You use a lot Search & replace for glyphes, so yours requests seems a good addition/improvement.
 
STUDIO
+1
I didn't spend time learning keyboard shortcut for those when switching to ID, I have the main panels I used on a second screen, reduce the same way to only show the ones I need at the moment. (I override those shortcuts to use important scripts or other features I need. Some shortcuts need to much digits to do …I've got small hands!).
A revision of the colors palettes is needed, at least the document palette and the Pantone's one, etc. should be distincts to be able to choose colors and add the to the current palette without needed to display one and the other each time.
We need to add/import a palette in another one (not having 2 document palettes in a document).
STYLES
I hadn't time to test and read about the fine modifications for the use of those.
But my complain was about the "update style from paragraph" placed under "Apply style then next style" (greyed most of the time when it should be available). "Update…" should be with "Delete…" since that's an option we barely use but when creating documents.
Most of the time while working on text with set or fixed style we shouldn't modify, this option below "Apply next…" is a hazard.
CONTROL PANEL
+1
And a shortcut I miss from QXP: the one that put the cursor in the "select font option" (last time I checked it needed 2-3 key strokes to achieve in ID).
EXPORT SETTINGS
Or at least some sort of Export persona with main presets on another panel above like in AD and AP.
SHAPE TOOLS
3.      Adding captions specific/selected EXIF info
We don't use a lot of captions (client choice), but a requisite is copyright info. The way ID do it, with the possibility to add text before "© " we can delete/modify since it's not a variable, and position of the frame and Text style is a must.
It's an easy way to alway have the correct copyright when you replace an image, without zooming (We use the links panel to copy the caption if they are in the images, avoiding a variable in ID, that we would need to convert to text to adjust to the frame size).
FOOTNOTES
Not sure what you want to do… Aren't they already formatted by paragraph styles yet?
WORD COUNT
+1
When the layout is accepted by the client, we need to send him a version with calibration, and we add a layer (easily hidden) with those informations.
It would be easier than copying-pasting in a another app to cound characters.
 
 
This stand for other apps, in this case we do some alternate characters styles. But mainly, fonts use bold, italic and bold italic, so it would be used in main cases.
 
Here we have a problem in APub. (Is it the one you talk about  @Petar Petrenko?)
How it's working in ID:
We select a font, we select a variant (if no font is selected when creating a character style, we can choose between all variants possible)
It's the same in ID control panel (but it first displays all options when selecting the font family: Dax - light, Dax -Light italic…)

 
APub display variants as font family, we can't choose "Dax":


 
This could lead to have too many character styles, unless some feature can correct this or apply without error the corresponding bolder and italic version…
This is not easy, since there's lot of fonts and there's no consistenty for the variants (trials and errors for the last decades)  and a lot of old fonts in use (impossible to buy new versions of thousand of fonts we already have).

Till now, when I received PDF files and needed to modify them in AD or APub, but I don't have all the fonts, there's nothing I could do.
In AD, opening the file with the option "text as curves" do nothing, and APub replace missing fonts with other ones.
Aside:
It seems more interesting to open PDF in APub since visible bleed is possible and elements out of the page area are displayed too.
In the futur, AD will be able to convert text to curves when we have missing font.

 
Back to the problem:
To get the missing fonts as curves (if you can't use a well know CC app), the trick is to open the PDF pages in InkScape that'll do the conversion if you select the option "Import Poppler/Cairo".


 
You can save this as a PDF with InkScape.
Don't use this InkScape PDF as is, since it'll miss the color profile, and all the text is converted to curves, but open it in AD or APub, and select, copy and paste the parts you need from InkScape's PDF to APub/AD's PDF.


 
Next, you can hide or delete the text frames with the missing fonts.
 
Another usefull point with this, is you can add bleed easily when the original PDF miss it.

Hey guys,
just a quick and clean Designer file: a round sticker mock-up for your … mock-upping needs.

You can change almost everything and layers are named accordingly to their purpose: rotation, colour, outline.

Also let me know if you need a rectangular version, so I’ll add one with the same style. 
Edit: Rectangular sticker added.

Sticker.afdesign
Cheers and have fun!
MrDoodlezz
 

For doing this, you'll need to set a document grid (better than a frame's grid), since it's set once and for all pages, you'll need a texte frame with colums and forms the same width as those columns.
To set your columns (note the width of your columns):

 
You show and set your page's grid here:
(Dont forget to have snapping enabled)

 
Snapping:

 
Now you can add a first rectangle:
(it need to be the same width as your columns, snap it to the grid)

Next part, duplicate it once (ctrl+J) and put this new rectangle next to the first.
Keep on hitting ctrl+J to dupplicate until you've got a full row of rectangles.
Make sure the first one and the last one snapped to ggrid correctly, and use the Alignment options so they would be evenly placed.

 
Keep this row selected, and dupplicate it, put them below, and use ctrl+J again to populate your page.

 
Done!
 

+1
It would be nice to be able to set color to guides, and individually would be nice too.