Hi All,
First of all, I love the applications, and for the price, they are incredibly good value for money (obviously). I downloaded the trial for both yesterday, and I will be purchasing Affinity: Photo when I get paid at the end of the month. Unfortunately, there are a lot of features I use in CorelDRAW that seem to be missing from Affinity: Designer, and as such, I can't justify purchasing it as it simply wouldn't be used. Don't get me wrong, this is in no way a dig at the developers, or the application as it's a great piece of software, it just needs to mature a little (which I'm sure it will).
So, from my short time using Affinity: Designer, and in an attempt to offer my input to improve it, here are my suggestions:
Comprehensive ability / toolset to measure and annotate the dimensions of any element / object of your document. I use CorelDRAW to create blueprints / diagrams, and as such, it's essential for me to measure distances, lengths and angles of any aspect of my designs (in real-world units, as in, millimetres / metres etcetera). I'm aware that you can see basic object dimensions, and the distance between them already, but a fully annotated design document requires so much more. Accuracy of at least two decimal places would be beneficial, also
Bezier handles that snap to the grid etcetera when amending nodes. I really miss the handles snapping to the document grid, so this would be something I’d like to see implemented (it helps a great deal with drawing accuracy).
Ability to specify degree increments to snap to when creating curves. I’m aware that you can constrain the angle you’re drawing when you hold shift, but it’s limited to 45-degree increments. It would be nice to be able to set the increment to snap to. For example, 22.5, 5 or 10 degree increments (again, this helps with precision drawing).
The transform panel needs to display more comprehensive information, for example, it’s beneficial to be able to see the co-ordinates of each node of the selected object, all in one place, at the same time. Again, this aids in precision drawing
Lastly, I really love the simplified / clean UI of these applications, and it’s a primary reason I want to switch to using them as my primary design tools. It’s just going to take a little time, I guess.
Thanks, and I apologise for the convoluted post!
P.S. A 'golden ratio' and a 'rule of thirds' overlay would be nice, too (but it's probably pushing it a bit!).
