lepr

Think that's fair comment, we'll add it to Designer and Publisher too

Thank you both for the video and reports. I've reproduced here and will get it logged.

Also, stretching or scaling an object messes up its transform origin (TO) - deselect then reselect the object to see the new wrong location of the TO.
 

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows and macOS
New options added in file menu to close all currently open documents. If modified documents are currently open this will result in a prompt as to whether you want to save, with an additional option to Apply to All... 

The Default shortcut will be assigned as:
macOS: ⌥ ⌘ W
Windows: Alt + Ctrl + W

Expected behaviour on Close All:

All unmodified documents should close
The last modified document should produce a prompt to save, don’t save or cancel - with an Apply to All... check box option on the dialog.
Assuming Apply to All... isn’t checked then it goes through each modified file sequentially where you choose to save or not, still with the option to apply to all remaining documents at anytime.
Hitting Cancel at any time stops the operation at whatever point you got to, leaving open whatever documents were left. You should not get prompted to cancel for each open document, and Apply to All... is not relevant to the cancel operation.
If you have Apply to All... checked and hit Save:
All modified documents which have previously been saved just perform a save operation to overwrite the file and close.
All untitled documents give save as prompt, and goes through each one sequentially for you to give a file name / location for Save.
If you have Apply to All... checked and hit don’t Save, everything closes with no further prompts and nothing being saved.
 

I did a quick test and I noticed that if you have some curves under a wrap group, the vector flood fill tool "reads" the original curves and not the wrapped ones. Would be great to have an option for it.

The dot indicates the group contains at least one mask and no other type of object. You will see the same dot on a mask's thumbnail.
The blank indicates the group contains at least one vector or raster object. It may also contain other types of objects. The Layers panel burger menu has an option for displaying a preview of the group's content in the thumbnail.

If rasterisation in an export is acceptable, then an Adjustment can be applied to the objects in a Group. For example an Exposure Adjustment with a mask to give it shape can produce an effect like a cast shadow. Here's a simple example with an editable vector mask on the Exposure Adjustment: Cast shadow.afdesign

In the absence of a hybrid tool, it would be very helpful if the Photo Mesh Warp live filter used the same meshes as the Designer Warp Group, and we could copy the mesh from one to the other.

Knife Tool refuses to slice through straight lines which have a fill (which won't be visible in the case of a straight line, of course).
Your problematic lines have a redundant grey fill in addition to the grey stroke. Set their fill to none and then you'll have no trouble slicing through them.

Absolutely amazing. THANK YOU!!

Knife Tool refuses to slice through straight lines which have a fill (which won't be visible in the case of a straight line, of course).
Your problematic lines have a redundant grey fill in addition to the grey stroke. Set their fill to none and then you'll have no trouble slicing through them.

Apps: Designer (Pixel Persona)
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
As has been requested many times we have now added both the perspective and mesh warp live filters from Affinity Photo into the Pixel Persona of Affinity Designer. You can add one of these live filters from the Layer menu in pixel persona on desktop, or from the + button in the layers panel on iPad (again only when you are in pixel persona).

We understand these are convenient tools to have available from within Designer for occasions where you may wish to distort images, embedded documents, etc. within your designs. It is important to consider that these tools are raster-based filter effects. This means that while you can use them on vectors and text (or elements with mixed vector and pixel data) the output will always be flattened. e.g. if you had some text where you applied a pixel persona live perspective filter, if you export your design as a PDF that element will be rasterised at document resolution.
If you just wish to warp vector outlines you should be using the vector warp group functionality in the Designer Persona (added as a new feature to V2) which will always maintain a true vector result.

I also don't understand why this hasn't been added to Publisher and Designer Persona of Publisher

Thanks for the addition.
Surprised that Designer didn't get the same. Would be just as useful there.

Apps: Photo (and Photo Persona of Publisher) 
Platforms: Windows and macOS

The Mask to below function, previously only available from the right-click menu in the Layers panel, has now been added to the top Layer menu. This was requested primarily so that a shortcut could be assigned if desired.

This alone is great. Thank you!

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad (requires keyboard)
Keyboard shortcuts have now been added to change the blend mode of the current layer(s), or paint brush tool.
Holding Shift with + or - will go to the next or previous blend mode in the list. Additionally, you can use any of the shortcuts in the attached table to change immediately to a specific blend mode. These can also be customised (as well as assigning shortcuts to other blend modes where a default shortcut hasn't been given) within preferences.

This will change the blend mode of the currently selected layer(s) (in all apps, all platforms including iPad with keyboard attached), unless you are using the Paint Brush Tool (Pixel or Photo persona) in which case the shortcuts will change the blend mode of the current brush.

Please leave any feedback or notes of unexpected behaviour for this new functionality in this thread.

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
In all apps you can use the Option (macOS and iPad) or Alt (Windows) modifier on the expand chevron in the layers panel. If you hold the modifier that will now expand all groups, layers and other nested items within the parent, and going the other way will collapse them all. This provides a more convenient / accessible way to achieve the "Expand Selection" and "Collapse Selection" options which are available in the right click layers menu on desktop. For iPad this is the first time this function has been available at all (requires using the ⌥ modifier with command controller, or ⌥ key on a connected keyboard.

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
With any layer(s) selected in the Layers panel, you can now hold alt (Windows) or Option (Mac / iPad) and drag to create a copy of the selected layers. The duplicated layers will be inserted into the layer stack in the position you have dragged to.
Note: on iPad you will need a keyboard attached, or use the command controller to access the option modifier for this operation.

Apps: Affinity Designer
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
When editing a vector warp group, nodes will now snap based on your snapping preferences (if you have snapping turned on). As with nearly all operations in Affinity you can temporarily toggle snapping off while dragging a node by holding Alt.

Below is the list of all new features and improvements included in the 2.1 beta. This new functionality is in addition to the many bug fixes and stability improvements in this version (currently 2.1.0.1790).
Depending on how the beta goes / how many issues there are to fix it's possible some more items will be added to this list before 2.1 is officially released - follow this topic if you want to be notified if that happens.

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).
Features and improvements affecting all platforms
Balanced dashed lines and other stroke improvements (new in build 1730) Running headers in Affinity Publisher (new in build 1730) Show special characters added to Designer and Photo (added to iPad too in 1730) Adjusted Mask Behaviour (new in build 1730) Auto-select options in move tool (new in build 1713/1714) Square bracket stroke width adjustment expanded functionality Blend mode keyboard shortcuts Alt / Option - drag to duplicate in Layers panel Alt / Option click to expand / collapse all in Layers panel Crop tool improvements Auto clean added to paint mixer brush Paste inside picture frame Vector Flood Fill Guides improvements Vector warp nodes now obey snapping Brush panel improvements Raster perspective and mesh warp live filters added to Designer Search bar added to your add-ons (new in build 1713/1714) Analytics Windows and macOS features and improvements
WebP and JPEG XL now available in batch export (new in build 1736) Migrate retail version content and settings to beta version (new in build 1730) Cross references available in Affinity Publisher (this has now been pushed back to 2.2 as announced here) "Close All" added to File menu Asset panel reordering improvements Rename... added to Layer menu & tab behaviour Mask to below... added to Layer menu Measure tool now available in Photo and Publisher Place tool now available in Affinity Photo Drag / Drop bitmap fill to colour and swatch panel Zoom tool context options in Develop persona iPad features and improvements
New left swipe options on iPad layers panel (new in build 1736) Redesigned edit menu (new in build 1730) Some file management changes to iPad (new in build 1730) Style picker added to iPad apps (new in build 1713/1714) Drop down menus with checkable options no longer auto close New keyboard shortcut options added Reset rotation in navigator with double tap Pencil double tap option to open quick menu Long press geometry operation to create compound Tapping warp group thumbnail now selects node tool PDF options now exposed when opening Modifiers now available for Select Object Hide Layer type icon now available Main view rulers added  
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 2.1 beta builds to try for yourself.

Apps: Designer
Platforms: All
A new vector flood tool has been added to Affinity Designer. This is denoted by a paint bucket icon in the Tools Panel (on iPad you can find it nested with the gradient fill tool, on Windows it will currently need to be manually added via Customising the Tools Panel).
This tool allows you to automatically fill areas created by overlapping / intersecting shapes and open curves in your document. This tool requires you to make a selection first of the curves / shapes you want the tool to consider. You can then choose a colour from the colour or swatches panel, and tap within any enclosed area to create a new shape with that fill colour. While in the tool you can also drag swatches from the swatches panel onto any area.

There are two insertion modes to this tool you can select from the context toolbar:
Inside. This will attempt to create the new shapes / fills and place them inside existing shapes where possible. In-between. This will break fills and strokes apart in existing shapes, and insert the new fills in-between.  The difference between the two is shown below. 


While using the tool you can hold Cmd (macOS / iPad) or Ctrl (Windows) to make new selections (also combining with Shift to add / remove items from your selection). You can also click-drag the tool to quickly fill many areas all at once, a simple example is shown below with some text:

The tool works with any type of fill - solid colour, gradient or bitmap. The options in the context toolbar for min, max and stretch to fit are relevant only to gradient and bitmap fills, and refers to the method used to scale the fill to the new shape.
For bitmap fills you can select a bitmap fill swatch to use, alternatively you can create bitmap fills on the fly by dragging a texture file or asset directly into the active colour in the toolbar. Below is a video showing that in action with using assets to create bitmap fills:
Texture Fills.mov
For bitmap fills if the texture has any transparency then the fill will be added as an additional fill to the shape. This allows for overlay style textures to be easily added on top of an existing colour fill. We will look at a way to make this behaviour optional.
Finally it's also worth pointing out that when you are in the tool you can also drag swatch from your swatches panel directly into any area in your selection, to quickly add multiple different colours to areas without having to select them first.
We would love you to try this new tool out and let us know what you think or if you encounter any bugs or unexpected results.

That's a non-destructive transformation of the pixel selection. It's the very same as how we can non-destructively transform Masks and Pixel objects (despite some people being in denial of that functionality).

You are confusing sub-pixel area with pixel intensity.
A pixel selection must, by definition (the word pixel is your clue), conform to whole pixels. A pixel selection is a raster object very much like a raster mask, and it is comprised of whole pixels like any other raster object. In Affinity, selection pixels conform to the document pixel grid, not pixels of a particular layer/object of the document.
Each pixel of a pixel selection has a value on a gradated scale representing the range from not selected to fully selected, just like each pixel of a pixel mask has a value on a gradated scale representing the range from fully transparent to fully opaque.
The marching ants do lie on document pixel boundaries, yes, but they only enclose regions of the pixel selection where the selection values are at least 50%, and so they very often do not reveal the true extent of a selection.
 

The Compound Mask operators aren't really Boolean although they effectively are Boolean when combining a pure "black" mask pixel with a pure "white" mask pixel.
You might be more comfortable with the operators when you consider that they are really the equivalent of layer blending modes:
Add == Add Subtract == Subtract Intersect == Darken Xor == Difference