Kal

@NathanC Sorry for taking so long to reply. I’m on macOS Monterey (latest version I think—out of town ATM and can’t check). No, I haven’t had it happen again, and I don’t know how to reproduce it. 🫤

😂 Thank you Debra. It is quite traumatic to reach into your little bag of love hearts and find it empty. But let us be consoled by what the Affinity forum administrators have allowed us… no limits on verbal diarrhoea!! 💩🎉

If anyone is interested, here's my own personal context. I was a pr*fessional graphic designer for many years, doing both digital and print work. Around the time macOS stopped supporting CS6, I was transitioning away from print work anyway, and focusing more on software design/development. And so for me, it seemed like the perfecting opportunity to say goodbye to Adobe and hello to Affinity. (I detest the forced subscription model, where your personal files are forever held to ransom, so I was not willing to keep paying Adobe for that indulgence.) I found the transition frustrating. IMHO, UI/UX is not Affinity's strength. Like someone else said in this thread, all those little annoyances do add up, and they contribute to a less enjoyable experience. You learn to adapt of course, but I've never been able to say that I truly enjoy using Affinity software. And then, occasionally, I still pick up a print job, where I feel like I'm p*ssing into the wind trying to make things work. I've come to the conclusion that Affinity either doesn't understand print very well, or they just don't think it's important. If it's the former, then they need to enlist the help of some knowledgeable consultants (which is what I was trying to say in my infamously contentious post).

Thanks for that. I've used up my daily allowance of 'reactions' again, but you've been a voice of reason here, and I appreciate it. Sure. Words and labels without context are always prone to misinterpretation. When I said that Affinity needs to 'listen to the pros', that was just a succinct way of labelling a very diverse group of users who would, in the process of sharing feedback with Affinity, provide the necessary context. But I think you probably understood that, and I agree, it would be good if we could 'leave this debate behind us'.

😳 Holy disastrous dialogue derailment Batman! Does Affinity need a Meta forum for this kind of thing? I'm the one who triggered this whole thing with my offensive use of the word 'pr*fessionals', so let me be the one to try and end it. Who cares what happened on other threads with other forum members? On this thread, I used the word, and when brought to task over it, I explained exactly what I meant by it. And I stand by that. Now, you're free to agree or disagree with the point I was making, but let's play the ball and not the man. Many have commented that our society has largely lost the skill of respectfully disagreeing with one another, and forums like this one seem to prove the point. Now, to those who resent the very existence of this thread, because I dared to complain about software which only cost me A$159… In my original post, I said: For those who are still offended, let me spell it out. It's not about the price. The price is great. So, you get what you pay for? Yes. So, that denies me the right to express any disappointment over this V2 release? No. I am disappointed because the software is clearly positioned as a competitor to Adobe's Creative Cloud software. As others have pointed out, Affinity uses the word 'pr*fessional' in their own marketing! Go take a look—it's the first effing word on their home page!! Oh but that's just marketing hyperbole right? We all know not to trust marketing, right? Well here's a thought… If you want to take someone to task over their use of the word 'pr*fessional', why don't you start with Affinity? If you think it's marketing bullsh*t, why not hold them accountable?! Why take it out on me when I simply come here to express my personal disappointment that the experience doesn't match the hype? I've been pretty patient on this thread up 'till now (even when the first two comments tried to shut down the discussion before it even began). But the way some people make things personal (even getting precious and defensive on Affinity's behalf), is reminding me why I tend to avoid the Apple forums—so many precious Apple users who take unofficial residence outside the glass walls and guard their turf ferociously. I have better things to do with my time—and so do you I suspect.

Oh dear, it seems I've been too generous with the love. Amen. Remember this guy…?

Thanks!! Done. 😊 I don't believe I ever 'made' that setting, so I'm assuming the 'Automatic (based on selection)' (i.e. inconsistent) behaviour is the default?

I couldn't agree more! Speaking of constraining the aspect ratio, another UI annoyance I should have mentioned in my OP is the inconsistent way grouped and non-grouped items respond to the Shift modifier. With ungrouped items, you hold down Shift to constrain the proportions, and with grouped items it's the exact opposite! It's a perfect example of bad UX, where you're forcing the user to have to stop and think, 'are these items grouped?' before performing the operation. It shouldn't matter!! I don't want to stop and think about such details while I'm working, so in practice, I just start with the Shift key down, and then let it go if it's doing the opposite of what I want it to.

I didn't mean to sound pompous or condescending by referring to 'pros'. Neither did I meant to be divisive (us vs them). I acknowledge that there are many users who don't make a living from the software, but whose needs are still relevant. However, I think it's fair to say that people who do make a living from the software are naturally going to (a) push the software to its limits more frequently, and (b) be able to provide more insight into what certain industries require. I think it's also fair to say that Affinity has positioned itself as a competitor to Adobe and its Creative Cloud suite, and that software does target professional users. Let me add that I believe pro software can be suitable for casual users when it is designed well. One principle of good UI/UX is progressive disclosure—where the core features and tools that everyone (pro or casual user) needs are front and centre, while more advanced tools are available, though not immediately obvious. If done well, this allows beginners to intuit how things work, while still providing advanced users the features they need. Apple software tends (though not always) to be a pretty good example of this principle. You might notice that I included 'good UX designers' in my comment that you took issue with. I didn't expand on that, but this is precisely why I said it. Good UI/UX benefits everyone—beginners and advanced users alike. Everyone wins.

I agree—they need to listen to the pros. I'd say their 'target market' should actually be pretty broad, given that they're really going head-to-head with Adobe in offering an entire suite of graphics products—something no one else has been brave enough to do. This forum no-doubt reflects the diversity—I gather we have graphic designers (both print and digital), illustrators, photographers, animators, UI designers, etc. Get at least half-a-dozen professionals in each category, each with say 10+ years experience in their field, as well as some good UX designers, and listen carefully to what they tell you!

I'm assuming you can still use variable fonts in Affinity, but that you are just limited to a standard set of weights (normal, bold, etc). Or cannot you not use them at all? (I confess, I haven't tried.)

Yep. Coming from Adobe, colour swatch management was the most jarring thing for me too. To be fair, Adobe didn't get everything right IMO. Upon launching a new version of Illustrator, the first thing I would do is delete all the useless pre-made colours they put in the main Swatches panel, save over the default document templates (Basic RGB.ai, Print.ai, Web.ai) and set the panel to 'Small List View'. I did more logo than illustration work, so a blank canvas and a set of Pantone books was where I liked to start from. I found myself using the 'Select All Unused' and 'Add Used Colors' panel options a bit too. While the initial setup was a pain, I only had to do it once, then managing a set of global colours became fairly easy. Then I entered the world of Affinity, and like you say, swatch management seemed to be an afterthought. Funnily enough though, I find myself using Affinity's recent colour feature! Not because it's a particularly great feature, but just because it puts swatches within reach without all the other gymnastics required to manage your own 'Document' (or 'Unnamed') palette. 😆

Hi @tatanka. We're talking about two different things here. My comment was referring only to exporting a PDF from Publisher with the default print-ready preset, 'PDF (press-ready)'. If you want to know more about that, there's a whole discussion about it here. But I think you already discovered the main take-home from that discussion anyway, because later you said: Regarding your other issues, it might be worth starting a new discussion? From memory, there are also some existing discussions about black not printing as black from Affinity apps. That's not something I have personally come across—aside from the lack of support for true 1-bit (black) images.

I’d say that’s mostly determined by the size of the user base and the overall level of engagement on the user forums. I see no real correlation between the size of the company and the number of staff that are engaged on their own forums—more often than not, I’d say it’s inversely proportional. @deeds said, “companies have now isolated themselves from their prole users and customers“, and I think that’s true of the big companies like Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, etc. If you’re lucky enough to have an Apple Store near you, and the time to book an appointment, you can get face-to-face support with a real person, which is great. But when it comes to online support, in my experience the best support (by far!) tends to come from the smaller developers.

You should probably get that looked at. Seriously though… sounds like we might be on the same land mass. Just a crazy hunch. 🦘🙂 The big ones yes, and that's been the story for some time. When was the last time you thought about writing directly to Adobe with your software issue? And yet, indie devs (of which I am one) are expected to offer personalised support for our $15 apps (which we do). Ironic huh.