Kal

Bug still exists in 2.3.1.

It would also be useful if the polygon tool had a rounded corner option. I'd use that more than the 'curve' option it has currently, which produces bloated looking shapes. Nine times out of ten we want a rounded triangle: Not a guitar pick:

Totally agree. The first thing I do with a new copy of InDesign is customise preferences, including the keyboard increments. I use 5 for kerning/tracking, and that shortcut gets a lot of use. But with Affinity, we're stuck with what their engineers thought was a good number. 🫤 Fixed that for you. 😉 It's a shame, because the shortcut really does save time when you use it over and over… and we're talking about the ability to change the value of a single variable in the code. This would not be a difficult or time consuming feature for them to add.

This is a rare case where Affinity actually makes it easier than Adobe. They have a pre-made set of shortcuts called 'Apple Defaults'. (Go to Preferences > Shortcuts and you'll find two buttons next to each other, 'Apple Defaults' and 'Serif Defaults' (which is more like Adobe). Unfortunately, they messed up the very shortcut this thread is about. When you switch to Apple Defaults, you'll find that Command-Option-<- actually increases kerning (or tracking if you have text selected) and Command-Option--> decreases it. 🤦‍♂️ But that's not too hard to fix by overriding the Text > Spacing shortcuts.

Ditto. I went looking for this again today only to notice that I've been here before. I don't think I'll ever quite get Affinity's logic behind their UI. Is it just because we're old dogs and these are new tricks? I don't think so. I can't think of a situation where I would want to lock transparency for one painting tool and not another. And I can't think of any real-world situation where modifying a painting tool would create this sort of magic. Locking transparency is more akin to applying a mask, and that's something which should happen in the layers panel.

A bug is really anything that doesn't work as intended. In my original post I acknowledged that 'You could argue about the expected behaviour at point 3'. So it really depends on what the Affinity devs think should happen. I've made it known what my expected behaviour is, but they may feel differently of course. Exactly.

Yeah, strictly speaking you’re right and I do realise that, but in my example the object is selected, which sets the current fill colour to match the object colour. (I just noticed that I could have been clearer in my original post and explicitly stated that the object is still selected in step 2. I’ve edited to make it clearer.)

Right. So really, there are two issues here… Swatch highlighting generally, and the way a selected object doesn't adopt the global colour created from it. Swatch management is probably the single most frustrating thing for me with Affinity.

In Designer: Create a simple object with a coloured fill. With the object still selected, press the 'Add current color to palette as a global color' in the Swatches panel. Notice that the new global colour isn't highlighted in the Swatches panel. However, if you click between different objects and back to the first object, the new global colour is highlighted—the UIs way of telling you that the object has that colour applied. Deselect the object and edit the global colour. Notice that the colour of the new object has not been updated. It seems that it never did have the global colour applied to it. You could argue about the expected behaviour at point 3. Should it automatically apply the new global colour to the selected object? I think it should. But even if the devs think otherwise, if selecting the object highlights the global colour in the palette, that should be a reliable indication that it has the global colour applied. It looks like this bug has been around for a VERY long time, as I just reproduced the behaviour in V1.

Pauls, this comment was over two years ago, and the bug is still there in V2.1. Bump?

I don't need competing apps to match Adobe feature-for-feature. CS6 would still get the job done 99% of the time. I just wish Affinity would get the fundamentals right. Version 2 is still missing basic features like support for 1-bit graphics, and aspects of their UI (especially colour swatch management) are terrible. The problem isn't that Affinity needs 10–15 years to catch up. The problem appears to be that they just don't understand why these things are a problem. If they did, I think we'd have seen them addressed in version 2. So I'm not terribly optimistic that Affinity will ever threaten Adobe's hold over the industry. I hope they prove me wrong.

For a monthly subscription, I suppose this would be okay. But again, the better model (IMHO) is the one where you make an initial payment for the app and then get 12 months of free updates, with an option to renew each year if you want to keep receiving updates. If you don't renew, you still have full access to the version of the software you paid for. This provides a true incentive for the developer to keep improving their product, without holding users to ransom. That was exactly my point when I said, 'the only reason they had the gall to do it, is because they had something off a monopoly when it comes to comprehensive design suites'. If you're a struggling small business or a one-person show (lots of those out there) it just might be a big deal—maybe not all the time, but if you hit hard times, as many people are now, with rising interest rates and inflation, you can't ever press pause on that subscription, even for a few months, without losing your very livelihood. Adobe may not send thugs around to your house asking for protection money, but they are using their position of power to force users into regular payments with the threat of loss if they don't. Tell me I'm totally sensationalising this now, and that you can't see any similarities. 🙂

I agree Ben, it’s not just about the money; the subscription-only model holds the user to ransom. Stop paying, lose access to your own files. There’s no justification for such a model if the company cares for its users—its 100% motivated by company profits, and the only reason they had the gall to do it, is because they had something off a monopoly when it comes to comprehensive design suites. More ethical software companies, like Panic and many others, offer a hybrid form of licensing these days, where you pay, at any time, for their software and get 12 months of updates. The big difference is, if you choose not to renew at the end of 12 months, you can still keep using your aging copy of the software and you still have access to your own files. There’s no practical or technical reason Adobe couldn’t do the same thing—just their own greed.

I 100% agree with the sentiments expressed here. As to whether Affinity are really aiming at the professional market, their marketing suggests as much. I unwittingly triggered an avalanche of resentment from some users for daring to even mention the word 'pr*fessionals', but I stand by it and point people to Affinity's own home page, where the very first word on the page is 'Professional'. They go on to say, 'Since its inception, Affinity has gained the trust of millions of professional users worldwide …'. I think @debraspicher is right though in saying that their focus is on screen media, not print. @Beniamino, I've been around as long as you have with a matching history by the sounds of it: Quark > InDesign > Affinity. I'd say ours is a pretty common story. I'd still be with Adobe if it wasn't for their greedy subscription-only policy. And Affinity version 2 was a real disappointment for me. Like many others, I was hopeful that V2 would fix the big issues we've been providing feedback on for years. When it didn't, I concluded that there's no point holding our breaths any longer—we just have to lower our expectations if we wan't to enjoy the sans-subscription freedom Affinity gives us. Incidentally, I've just started a new job where I'm back using Adobe CC. And oh, what a relief it is. I was worried that, after an absence of several years, I might have forgotten how to use it, but those old keyboard shortcuts were still there! Just like riding a bike it seems. 🙂

Open multiple files in Photo. Select 'Window > Float View to Window' to view one of those files in a separate window. Switch to one of the other (tabbed) files and open an adjustment dialogue. Close the adjustment dialogue. Result: Affinity Photo switches focus to the file in the floated window. When this happens, it is very easy to miss and you might wonder why further adjustments aren't being applied to the file you thought you were working on. I only worked out what was happening when I saw the wrong file in the layers' panel thumbnail!