Kal
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Posts posted by Kal
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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:
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On 1/17/2021 at 6:10 PM, shields.up said:
Super surprised today to discover you can only use the keyboard shortcut for kerning by increments of 10% — for certain types of work, that's enormous. A custom increment option would be really helpful! Has this been mentioned on any roadmap or acknowledged as a feature request before?
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. 🫤
On 1/17/2021 at 11:47 PM, loukash said:I just don't think something like that will land anywhere near
the top ofSerif's to-do-list.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.
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On 1/18/2021 at 5:54 AM, loukash said:
Ah, yeah. Same as Illustrator. So annoying on Mac because that's elsewhere the systemwide standard for Move Cursor Word Left/Right. InDesign lets you override it, Illustrator doesn't (or didn't: don't know about current versions).
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.
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On 8/27/2022 at 12:50 AM, dtmp said:
I keep forgetting this, as a long time PS user this one always frustrates me. It would be nice to have an overall protect transparency option.
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.
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5 hours ago, walt.farrell said:
I agree that this subtlety is confusing, though, and should perhaps be improved as you suggest. But I don't think it's a bug.
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.
4 hours ago, lepr said:OK, that may be so, but we must hope the Serif bug report gatekeepers still understand there is a definite bug with swatch highlighting.
Exactly.
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36 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:
When you use the Swatches panel to add the Global Color (your step 2), you aren't adding it from the object. You're just using the current color, and you might not even have an object selected.
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.)
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22 minutes ago, lepr said:
The incorrect swatch highlighting has been a problem throughout the six years I've used Affinity apps, if I remember correctly.
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.
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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.
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On 4/28/2021 at 7:34 PM, Pauls said:
There's a known issue with copying groups -I've added this report to it
Pauls, this comment was over two years ago, and the bug is still there in V2.1. Bump?
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9 hours ago, VectorVonDoom said:
Which is why your best hope is someone makes products that are on parity, or close to, but for a one off cost. Not going to happen any time soon though. Look at AD for example, very slowly getting closer to where AI was. But as AI didn’t stand still you could argue it’s almost as far behind now as it was when it was first released. Which is why my guess is 10-15 years assuming AI runs out of things to add, which isn’t going to happen for a while.
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.
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51 minutes ago, VectorVonDoom said:
Even read only, like Office 365 does, would be OK.
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.
1 hour ago, VectorVonDoom said:But not enough people dropped it (or couldn’t) so why would they change if they can get away with it?
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'.
1 hour ago, VectorVonDoom said:I guess if you’re making money using it then it’s not such a big deal being locked in and continually paying for it.
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. 🙂
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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.
- debraspicher, Beniamino, VectorVonDoom and 2 others
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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. 🙂
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- 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!
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My experience in V2 is that Undo isn't even available when an adjustment modal is the focus. Undo is greyed out in the menu and pressing Command-Z does nothing but sound an alert. I have to close the adjustment modal to restore any undo/redo functionality at all.
This is absolute madness, and I can't understand why anyone would expect it to work this way. I agree with the OP: each individual change while working in the adjustment modal should be undoable. If that got consolidated into one undoable event after closing the modal, that would be fine by me. (I can't remember if Photoshop behaves like that, but I do know it allowed me to undo individual adjustments.)
Affinity seems to have a unique knack for adding things to history when it's not helpful and not adding them when it would be helpful.
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12 hours ago, Dazmondo77 said:
Thanks for the link Kal - I've heard of photopea but never got around to trying it and discovered it has PUPPETWARP not quite as good as photoshops as you don't seem to be able to rotate around joint points, but a real life saver for some quick puppet warping without having to boot into Mojave to use Photoshop CS5s puppet warp
No worries! I was only using Photopea to load old mockups I had previously created in Photoshop. I just needed to replace the original artwork without losing the mesh warps—something neither Affinity Photo or Photoshop Elements could do. (Photoshop Elements could easily do it if Adobe wanted it to, but of course they don't. You can get there with a commercial plugin, but the whole thing feels clunky, whereas Photopea is surprisingly smooth for a web app.)
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In the meantime folks, check out this incredible online software by an indie developer:
I was able to upload a PS file with a warp mesh applied, double-click the layers to swap out the old originals for new ones, and save it out to a new PS file—flawlessly. And the software is free (or $15 to remove ads for 3 months and support the developer).
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As Walt says, you get 'basic' support for PS Smart Objects by selecting that option. But if you try importing a PS file with a warp mesh applied to the Smart Object, you're going to be disappointed.
No, for this kind of advanced functionality you need to rely on free tools by indie developers like this one:
I was amazed to find that it works flawlessly.
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On 11/24/2022 at 11:42 PM, NathanC said:
This is an improvement which is currently logged with the development team and may be implemented in a later version 🙂
Would it be rude for us to ask for some more clues about where this feature might be on the roadmap? When you say it 'may be implemented in a later version', is that an indication that it's likely to be implemented, or just a wild guess at this stage? And when you say 'in a later version', would that be a version 3 kind of thing that we might expect around 2030, or something that could be in a minor update?
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@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. 🫤
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7 minutes ago, debraspicher said:
Sending prayers and condolences
I didn't know we could run out until I think launch day. I actually PM'ed one of those mods because I thought it was the forum glitching out 😂😂
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!! 💩🎉
- debraspicher, AllAppsUser, Brian_J and 3 others
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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).
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2 minutes ago, A_B_C said:
@Kal, seems we cross-posted, so my post shouldn’t be read as a direct answer to yours. Rather to the endless discussion about the term “professional” that derails useful threads like this one in a regular manner. 🙂
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.
18 minutes ago, A_B_C said:Forget about labels like “professional,” as they really do not tell anything in themselves. Rather talk about use cases and tasks. That will be more fruitful.
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'.
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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:
QuoteI'll still purchase all the apps, and I'll still recommend them to family and friends. They do a lot of great things, and you certainly can't beat the price.
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.
Scaling and effects
in V2 Bugs found on macOS
Posted
Bug still exists in 2.3.1.