abarkalo

When previewing Affinity Designer files in Mac OS or in an asset manager the previews are too small, in fact too fuzzy to discern any good detail. I have thousands of Affinity Designer files and this lack of detail in the preview (for instance by pressing spacebar) makes it necessary for me to open the file to see what's there. Contrast this with an SVG file where there is live drawing of the file in the preview. So what I am doing is converting many of my AD files to SVG (especially logos or simpler files). But SVG is a subset of AD functionality so this is limiting for me. What I notice that Adobe Illustrator does is save a PDF alongside the file. I realize this takes up more space but it really does help. Is there or can there be an option like this?

no I haven't experienced this stall in Photo or Designer as of yet, only Publisher, and only when going to the Export > More section. I just tried opening a super big Photo file in the latest beta and I don't have any stall so far, and did try Export > More was well.

I realize I have a big working Publisher document (only 15 pages but a lot of graphics) but when I go to Export and then select More for other export options I very often have a stall that last 30 seconds or so. It's quite annoying. It doesn't seem to happen if I don't click on the More options - although I very often need to go there to change the image downscaling, etc. I've been working with the same document in previous AP versions and this didn't happen before. Perhaps it is related to Mac OS 12 stall bug that was reported, and which AP 1.10.5 beta was created to solve. Not sure but please look into this.

actually this has been less of an issue - but actually prefer the quasi full-screen view because I can see the menu bar all the time

Before I say anything in Serif Affinity is slow, I need to say that on my MacBook Pro M1, anything Affinity is lighting fast, especially 1.10.4, certainly lightning faster that anything Adobe. However the full screen toggle (fn-F) is really uncomfortably slow, and sorry for the comparison but in this one single area Photoshop is lightning fast, meaning quite usable in the sense that it doesn't cause lag distraction. I have written an AppleScript to toggle the window bounds to {1680, 1050} but the window will only resize to {1670, 1040} or something like that. This script is very fast, much faster than the toggle but a little bit of the desktop and the windows behind it peek through - not anything show stopping but not a super clean full screen UI.

what do the stock art owners have to do with this? For the most part, the stock art is fine if it opens in Illustrator, and it's grouped nicely and laid out in smaller artboards. Nothing wrong there.

this is always a big issue for me. I buy a lot of graphics stock art - objects that are places very closed together, and when opening in AD directly and becomes incredibly tedious to re-group, especially when there is no lasso select tool in AD. However, one quick work-around: open the file in Illustrator and save as SVG. Then open the SVG in AD - this works for me. The only issue is that are often issues between EPS, AI and SVG files. For instance SVG is the common design language that both AD and AI read with good fidelity. But AI has different shading and coloring that is specifically only to AI.

I am on an M1 (not Pro or Max) - will this beta do anything for me? Also, I just noticed a bug in the beta vs the latest MAS version. Please see attached file. Notice that if you open in the MAS version the SVG file loads perfectly. But notice that if you load in this beta, the ying/yang symbol doesn't render well (border thickness) and the leg of that unspeakable symbol is missing an arm (better that way, but still..)Religious symbols.svg

Right now it is painstakingly slow to install LUT folders, especially if you have a lot of them. I have over 100+. So for each folder containing a LUT theme, I have to 1. go to adjustment layer 2. create new LUT category 3. rename the LUT category (why can't this at least be accomplished when I create) 4. click on import the LUT items 5. go to the LUT folder, open the folder, select all, then click import, then wait up to a minute 6. Repeat all this for the 100 other folders! Why can't there be a batch method with all the nested LUT folder that I have? Also, once the LUTs are all installed, why can't I rapidly scroll through the LUTs on an image just like the way I can rapidly scroll through blend modes? It would really help me, and I'm sure other designers, to have a less painstaking method to install large LUT libraries, and a more rapid creative visualization method to view all the LUT looks?

This beta is very fast indeed! Also, I don't know if the GPU speed enhancements directly affect the speed of the inpainting brush but it is much faster now. One of the things that I considered the gold standard in Photoshop was their spot healing brush (inpainting) but now I can say that yours is better on many pictures that I have recently tried, in content-aware mode. One feature request - and I don't know whether to address here or in the non-beta forums, but will start here is that I would really like the last used settings pertaining to inpainting on current layer or current and below to be remembered. Or better yet to have a preferences setting to choose current and below. This is alway a slight annoyance for me when starting to add layers.

Yes I am having the same issue on the iPad with the Apple Pencil. You have to make a selection with your finger not the pencil. The inpainting brush works well with the Apple Pencil on the iPad but it is a pain to figure out how to use the Clone Brush Tool with the Apple Pencil. Is this is bug or am I not doing something correctly?

thank you for this. I never knew about the types of fills. This greatly helps.

Very often I am unable to subtract the top layer and punch a hole in the bottom layer. 95% of the time it works but a few times it doesn't. Please see the attached AD file - trying to carve out a simple "A" - can you please tell me what is going on or if this is a bug? I am using AD on Mac OS 11.6, AD ver 1.10.1. I am on an M1 Mac. Why won't this work.afdesign

yes I know all that and to be honest there has been only one beta that did crash a few times and that was the earliest beta version of Publisher. Most betas have been very stable, even those "legally" marked as "don't use for production work." This says a lot about the quality of your releases. I am much happier with the improved performance and new features of the betas. But my complaint here isn't about that, but just with the requirement to have both the store and beta version to run alongside each other. I really want to have just the beta installed and be able to register that version. Otherwise, and to repeat, all the benefit I obtain from the beta is outweighed by my system mess. So, for the meanwhile, if minor releases or bug fixes will be soon updated for the store versions then I guess I'm just happy to wait for the store fixes.

I love Affinity so much but, honestly, the Affinity beta system is a real negative for me. The requirement to have the store bought version to run alongside the beta versions leaves my Mac confused as to which software to use. And in many of my creative workflows I cannot select the beta version since the non-beta version has been selected. This leads to a lot of file confusion. I have tried workarounds for the past few years but there aren't any. I use a lot of software in which the beta version just needs a registered license to run on its own, so really why can't this be here??? Also, I've been very confused by messages that tell me to use the beta in preference to the store bought version, and then on the very next beta to not use the beta version for serious work, and then I can't open the updated document in the store-bought version. For now, I will not use these beta versions. The confusion outweighs the new features, and if there is a serious bug on the store bought versions please fix those.