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Variable fonts
Apps: Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, Affinity Publisher
Platforms: All
You're now able to use variable fonts in all Affinity apps, providing a plethora of new typographic design possibilities.
As well as providing predefined font styles, such as light, bold and condensed, variable fonts give you fine control of specific design aspects known as axes of variation, or just axes for short.
To try out variable fonts in Affinity, apply one to some text and then:
- On desktop, click the Font Variations button on the context toolbar (or on the Character Panel).
- On iPad, tap the arrow to the right of Bold/Italic/Underline/Strikethrough on the Text Panel and then tap Variations.
Variation settings on desktop.

 
 
Variation settings on iPad.

 
You'll see settings for each axis that the font designer has made individually adjustable.

Axis' slider being dragged.
Many variable fonts allow you to adjust their width and weight axes, and possibly italic, optical size and slant. These five axes are common enough that they're defined by the OpenType specification.
All manner of other axes may also be adjustable, such as:
- the height of ascenders and depth of descenders to better fit your chosen line spacing.
- the stem terminals, to choose between straight and swelling.
- the width of counters, which are enclosed and partially enclosed spaces within glyphs.
For examples of other possible axes, check out the axis definitions that are available for variable fonts at Google Fonts.
You may see fewer axes in Affinity than are mentioned by a font provider's marketing. For example, Google Fonts lists 13 axes for Roboto Flex and Affinity exposes five of them. This is because we respect font designers' ability to specify that an axis should be hidden. This is part of the OpenType specification and means that software isn't meant to provide an interface for such axes.
Why would a designer do this? Well, a variable font might adjust an axis internally based on your choices for other axes that you can directly adjust. For example, observe how counter widths change when the weight axis is adjusted in the animation above.

Variable fonts and PDFs
PDF doesn't support variable fonts. So, when you export a PDF of an Affinity document that uses a variable font, we create a static instance of the font with fixed settings.
We've taken steps to ensure static instances of fonts are well named. You should find this minimises the need to identify the original variable fonts if you later import or place the resulting PDFs.

Apps: Designer
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad
Affinity Designer now includes a new width tool which is available by default alongside the pencil tool in your toolbar:

The Line Width Tool gives you an on-document way of editing the pressure profile of any curve. For example the curve below has 3 pressure points (5 including the start and end pressure). While in the Line Width tool the position of those points are shown along the curve, and you have the ability to drag to change the width and position of them. 
You can also click to add a new pressure point, or double click to remove any pressure point on a curve.

There are various modifiers available which you can see in the status bar:
Shift + Drag - allows you to modify the width at any point without adjusting it's position
Cmd (Mac) / Ctrl (Win) + Click - manually enter the width required at the chosen point
Ctrl (Mac) / Ctrl (Win) + Drag - move the point position without adjusting the width
Double click - remove pressure point
Additionally you will find some other options in the context toolbar when using this tool:

Adjust Line Weight - if this is turned on then should you drag the width of any point to be greater than the current line width (i.e. greater than 100% pressure) the line width will be increased to allow you to drag the width unrestricted. If it is turned off then the maximum width you can drag to is 100% of the set line width.
Allow point reordering - This option allows to you to specify whether you want to allow the tool to drag one point past another along the curve, effectively swapping their order, or not.
Snap to curve nodes - This will show any nodes on the curve as small white dots and will snap any pressure points to those nodes
Snap to widths on same curve - this will snap the width at any pressure point on a curve to other widths which already exist on that curve. This only applies when holding shift (i.e. you are adjusting the width without altering the point position).
Snap to curve geometry - this will snap the width to the geometry of any selected curves (again if you are holding shift). 

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS and Windows
As has been requested numerous times we have now converted the typography dialog from a pop-up dialog into a panel so you can now easily dock it / keep it available should you wish. 
This is available both fro the Window menu (note: this is currently at the bottom of the panel listing, but will be changed to be a sub menu from the Text panel options next week), and also from the typography button in the context toolbar  when you have text selected.
 

Hi All,
Below is the list of all new feature and improvements which are included in the 2.5 beta (bug fix list is available here).
To learn more about these features please click on the link to go to each feature's dedicated post. To give feedback or report bugs against any of these features please reply to that same post (also check out bug reporting and feedback tips).
Variable Fonts  Line Width Tool Pencil Tool Improvements QR Code Object "Default preset" for grid Typography Dialog turned into a Panel Other Improvements Getting the 2.5 beta
If you have not enrolled into the beta program yet and would like to take part, you can do so here. This will immediately give you access to the latest 2.5 beta builds to try for yourself.
If you are already enrolled in the beta program you have two options:
1. If you still have the 2.4 beta installed, you can now run up those beta versions and you will be prompted to update them to the 2.4 beta.
2. If you have uninstalled the 2.4 beta, you will need to go back to Your Account -> Downloads and product keys and find your previous order for the Affinity Beta Software Program, and you can download the 2.5 beta from there.
Thanks,
Ash

We expect to start 2.5.0 beta during April.

There are genuinely no plans for us to remove the availability of our apps to purchase as a perpetual licence. I will say it is possible in the future there may be an optional way to have them via a Canva subscription plan (which could also include other integrations with Canva / cloud services which you would not get with the perpetual version). But it’s very early days and there isn't a firm plan on that.
I honestly think you'll all be pleased with the outcome of this. With the additional financial backing we have no pressure at all to release a V3 anytime soon, so can be 100% focused on ploughing all our efforts into free V2 updates for the foreseeable future - and we've got some great updates in the works. 
Realise this announcement has come as a surprise and I understand the feeling of uncertainty which is brings, but I do think it's all very positive for the company and our customers. 

Not in development yet?

This is my impression from the result of super scaling a very low-res image.
So AI/DL/ML tools are lucrative.
Feel free to comment. additions/revises are welcome.
Great
Gigagixel AI (commercial, Mac/Win)
Upscayl (free, Mac/Win/Linux)
Pixelcut (freemium, Online & iOS)
Replicate (freemium, Online)
Nero AI (freemium, Online)

Good
ON1 Resize AI (commercial, Mac/Win)
Upscale.media (free, Online & iOS/Android)
LetsEnhance (freemium, Online)
Remini (commercial, Online & iOS/Android)

Mediocre
Photoshop, PS Elements (commercial, Mac/Win/iOS)
Luminar Neo (commercial, Mac/Win)
PhotoZoom Pro (commercial, Mac/Win)
Paintshop Pro (commercial, Win)
AI. Image Enlarger (freemium, Online& Mac/iOS/Android) 
Bigjpg (freemium, Online & Mac/Win/iOS/Android)
 

Haven't tried Pixelmator,

Would be nice if the warp group affects bitmap fill on objects within.

It was introduced last year: https://www.w3.org/TR/png-3/
So far, FCPX and Davinci Resolve appear to support this (I haven't tried other editors yet), as well as macOS Sonoma and various web browsers, so it's getting fairly decent adoption. It looks to be a good solution for interchanging HDR broadcast imagery in a lossless format. OpenEXR is supported by most NLEs but has non-user-friendly colour management.
JPEG-XL was possibly going to be a good solution, but Chrome dropped it (not long before/after we released V2, I think) and support for it isn't widespread.
The cICP chunk in this PNG format allows the image to be tagged and processed with various video-centric colour spaces, which is more robust for broadcast workflows where the imagery needs to integrate seamlessly with video content, rather than being dependent on ICC (particularly for HDR content where you have HLG/PQ colour spaces with different transfer characteristics).

Apps: Designer
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad

Affinity Designer now supports both DWG and DXF export, available from both File->Export and the Export Persona.
It's important to note that both these file formats are primarily concerned with vector outline data, with limited support for many of the features Affinity offers. However, it's been a heavily requested feature particularly as it means outlines created in Affinity can be easily exported and consumed in various CAD applications as well as utilities for things such as vinyl cutters, plotters and CNC tools.
Because of this, as well as some of the other fundamental differences in the file formats such as layer structure, while both import and export of DWG is now available we do not consider this a format which is suitable to round trip in Affinity. Or put another way we would not recommend collaborating with an AutoCAD user on the same DWG file.
Within export we do offer various options on how to deal with some of the unsupported features / differences in the file format:

 
Layers
All entities in DWG/DXF belong in a layer. There is always a default “Layer 0” in a valid DWG/DXF file. Affinity also has layers. This setting determines how Affinity layers are mapped to DWG layers, and therefore which DWG layer an exported item belong in

Gradient Strokes
Determines what to do with strokes with a gradient fill applied, which DWG does not support.

Gradient Fills
Determines what to do with fills with a gradient fill applied

Bitmap Strokes
Determines what to do with strokes with a bitmap fill applied, which DWG does not support:

Bitmap Fills
Determines what to do with fills with a bitmap fill applied, which DWG does not support:

Pressure Strokes
Determines what to do with strokes with a pressure profile applied, which DWG does not support:

Overweight Strokes
Determines what to do with strokes with a line weight > 2.11mm, which DWG does not support:

Dashes Strokes
Determines what to do with strokes with a dash pattern applied. DWG does support dash patterns; however DWG dashes do not scale automatically with line weight, as they do in Affinity. 

Scale dash patterns
If any line weight adjustment is made to an exported curve (e.g. it is clamped to the 2.11mm maximum), you may expect the dashes to stay the same length, or you may prefer them to scale automatically as they do in Affinity. The former is similar to AutoCAD’s behaviour - when you change an entity’s line weight, it does not recompute the dashes, which is effectively the opposite of Affinity’s behaviour. If “Scale dash patterns” is on, Affinity’s behaviour is used, so dashes will be scaled down if the line weight had to be scaled down.
Apply drawing scale
When enabled, the drawing scale is honoured. If you export an rectangle that is 1 inch wide and your drawing scale is 1:10, the rectangle will be exported 10 inches wides. Note that Affinity documents support multiple drawing scales within the same document, which cannot be honoured in a DWG/DXF file, so only the first/common drawing scale is applied.
 

Here you go

That's what  it is for now.
Users have to adjust preflight settings.
This is shared problem in East Asian languages.

I posted a suggestion for the default settings in Japanese.
Same goes to Chinese I think.
 

The initial picture quality significantly impacts the quality of the final product produced by a photo enlarger. The AI attempted up until this point. 🙂 

Just reposting this v1 feature request in the v2 feedback forum.
Would be good to know if implementing this feature is even possible, I assume the inner software architecture doesn't allow it (only bitmaps) and it might only be possible with a hacky and unstable implementation, but if you can confirm it at least we can close the question with a definite answer.
Here's the v1 thread: 
 

Developing the plugin api takes way more time than implementing certain features.
And it has been being planned since a long time ago or already in development if you search in this forum.
Means it's taking years already and still no sign of release.

This is my impression from the result of super scaling a very low-res image.
So AI/DL/ML tools are lucrative.
Feel free to comment. additions/revises are welcome.
Great
Gigagixel AI (commercial, Mac/Win)
Upscayl (free, Mac/Win/Linux)
Pixelcut (freemium, Online & iOS)
Replicate (freemium, Online)
Nero AI (freemium, Online)

Good
ON1 Resize AI (commercial, Mac/Win)
Upscale.media (free, Online & iOS/Android)
LetsEnhance (freemium, Online)
Remini (commercial, Online & iOS/Android)

Mediocre
Photoshop, PS Elements (commercial, Mac/Win/iOS)
Luminar Neo (commercial, Mac/Win)
PhotoZoom Pro (commercial, Mac/Win)
Paintshop Pro (commercial, Win)
AI. Image Enlarger (freemium, Online& Mac/iOS/Android) 
Bigjpg (freemium, Online & Mac/Win/iOS/Android)
 

Haven't tried Pixelmator,

In Affinity, virtually every object is a "smart object" if you're comparing to PS CS5.
In theory it may have worked up to Mojave, but I have never bothered to try because I stayed with El Capitan just until earlier this year (for many reasons). But PS had its issues already on El Capitan though, same as Illustrator CS5, while InDesign CS5.5 was relatively the most stable one of the CS5 bunch.

So then why not also - (minus) & all of the other applicable formulaic field expressions? AFAIK, support for that is already built into apps so it should not be too hard to add that to the move data fields -- IOW, add one & the others should come in for free, so to speak.

I'm making a set of icons in SVG format, and have them all on their own artboard in 1 document.
Exporting an artboard to SVG (with no border or fill) includes a <rect> tag named like the artboard. I'd expect the artboard to just set the width/height & viewbox properties of the export, not to have its own rect path.
Maybe this could be just a checkbox in the export options?

Perhaps including the operator would be necessary... 
+1cm
Original square is 4cm, so each duplicate gains 1cm.
-1.5mm
Each duplicate reduces by 1.5mm.
I think the aim is to allow absolute differences in addition to the relative scaling that Affinity currently uses. 

Suggestion for the Export window

SVG
Flatten Transform = 変形を統合

It would be nice if I could input a number with a unit in the scale instead of percentage.
Also formula support would be great.

It would be nice if I could input a number with a unit in the scale instead of percentage.
Also formula support would be great.

It would be nice if I could input a number with a unit in the scale instead of percentage.
Also formula support would be great.