abarkalo

@MattP Really happy with this Beta 6 - all of the big issues are gone.  Thank you for all the great work.  I will let you know about any upcoming issues or if I come across anything 
 
Quick aside Q: I'm definitely not running High Sierra until it comes out officially, but would love to know if Metal 2 speeds will speed this up any, not that it's any bit slow now.
 
 
 
 

@MattP Really happy with this Beta 6 - all of the big issues are gone.  Thank you for all the great work.  I will let you know about any upcoming issues or if I come across anything 
 
Quick aside Q: I'm definitely not running High Sierra until it comes out officially, but would love to know if Metal 2 speeds will speed this up any, not that it's any bit slow now.
 
 
 
 

Hey Matt, 
Thanks for the improvement to the Expand Stroke. This is just a simple test but so far I am liking what I see...
 
 

 
That is just a simple line drawn with the pen tool and a pressure curve applied. If I had to guess it would seem like the Expand Stroke command in 1.5.5 created almost 200 points whereas in 1.6 Beta 6 it may have created 20 points? It would be nice to have an Info panel of how many points an object has when you select it, manually counting it isn't fun!

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: New features, fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Here
 
This beta version represents a substantial change to our codebase and as much as we have tried to ensure the quality of the code, it should be considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 version.
 
To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it.
 
Fixes/Improvements:
Fix for text appearing blurry while typing. Fix for artistic text creation jumping between different sizes while you drag out a new object. Also added a tooltip next to the cursor to show the size of the text you are about to create. Fix for boolean operations of overlapping areas failing since Beta 5. Fix for fonts not updating correctly when told to reset. Hopefully reduced 'over-eager to serve' behaviour of hidden left and right studio panels. Reduced complexity of the results from 'Expand Stroke' so that they're hopefully more usable. I have not rewritten what it does, just made the result more usable. I will improve this to provide better results on thin strokes for the next beta... Fix for a few OpenType text style bugs. Fix Beta App icons appearing all kinds of crazy colours on macOS High Sierra! Fix for Metal View grid not matching the legacy view's grid when gutter is involved... Added 'Find in Layers Panel' menu item to the 'Layer' menu so that users can assign a shortcut to it for improved workflow. Miscellaneous other tweaks.

I was getting weird effects from the glyph browser as well - almost unusable, and the first line was bumping up to the top.  But I just increased the appearance size to largest and all seems well now.
 
 

Hi Lenogre,
 
I also have a wish list of items - I've made several posts about them.  Illustrator has a certain look - it's evolved but it's strictly vector.  What I love about AD is that it's a different kind of tool altogether, a hybrid between vector and raster.  Tell me, do you enjoy shading in Illustrator?  Can you make a more realistic look with Gaussian blurs that make shadows and light sources realistic? Yes Illustrator can do a lot of things, but there are a lot of things that AD can only do, or do better.
 
But here's the real clincher - speed, performance.  Especially with the Metal update (Mac), AD just flies. I don't mean 2x or even 5x but somewhere like 10x+. Illustrator and InDesign stall.  I had to stop a project in InDesign because it wouldn't allow me to edit with a linked AI files - it was choking performance.  I ended up doing the whole thing in AD in several artboards even faking some page "templates."  Whatever time I lost doing that I saved more time at how fast everything was.  I'm utterly impressed at how fast it performed. 
 
I find myself using AD for vectors 99% of the time. 

I can definitely make it update text without fuzziness, so I'd recommend that in the next beta you set your settings back to Automatic. Incidentally, it's worth noting that the 'perfect clipping' option is done in CPU, so it will affect how long things take to draw in the document...

Fixed the ruler/guide issue too

Thank you, Matt.  Can't wait for next beta.  
 
BTW, the ruler/guides crash problem (see PNH) is causing me some big issues.  Luckily, Designer is good about recovering my doc, and I have set the file recovery period to 30 sec as a precaution.  Also I remember to save before I apply guides because it will crash predictably.  This seems to happen even if you save the document.  It is when you open a new document that the crash happens.  

Yes this does indeed crash if you follow the steps above.  

Seeing a consistent crash in this version that I have been able to replicate numerous times. Here are the steps to replicate:
 
Navigate to File -> New and create the file (in my case 16"x20")
Drag a guide from the left ruler to the artboard.
Navigate to File -> Close and from the dialogue select Don't Save.
Navigate to File -> New and create a new file.
Attempt to drag a guide from the left ruler.
Crash...bang...boom!
AD-Crash.mp4

If we want to consider full migration, there are issues where the experience is win some/lose some, or sometimes just plain a deal breaker.   Designer is already part of my regular workflow - I can work faster and it feels like a lot more fun - especially blurs, shades and the incredible performance due to real Metal integration.  Sure there are things I can do only in Illustrator - like envelope/perspective warp, two very badly needed features - but I will go to the slowpoke Illustrator when I need to do that.
 
As for Photo, oh well, I want it to get there and I really love the paradigm, but top of my list of missing features is smart objects or something to replace them.  Going back to Designer for a sec, I can already see similar functionality.  If I paste any kind of Affinity file, or AI, EPS, PSD whatever, it is placed an embedded object.  I can skew it, transform it (except perspective, grrr) and then I can edit the embedded object.  I can blend it, apply a filter - so that's really a smart object.  But in Photo, if I change the perspective the embedded object instantly changes to a pixel layer.  
 
This and the issues with displacement/distortion and the blotchiness in mask refine.  Also, can't work on perspective without guides - that's not workable.  
With full respect to Serif for the hard work on development, I will continue trying out Photo and will be there as it develops.   And further, can't wait for this type of paradigm shift (blurring lines between vector/raster/style guides/text) in the upcoming Publisher.  

If we want to consider full migration, there are issues where the experience is win some/lose some, or sometimes just plain a deal breaker.   Designer is already part of my regular workflow - I can work faster and it feels like a lot more fun - especially blurs, shades and the incredible performance due to real Metal integration.  Sure there are things I can do only in Illustrator - like envelope/perspective warp, two very badly needed features - but I will go to the slowpoke Illustrator when I need to do that.
 
As for Photo, oh well, I want it to get there and I really love the paradigm, but top of my list of missing features is smart objects or something to replace them.  Going back to Designer for a sec, I can already see similar functionality.  If I paste any kind of Affinity file, or AI, EPS, PSD whatever, it is placed an embedded object.  I can skew it, transform it (except perspective, grrr) and then I can edit the embedded object.  I can blend it, apply a filter - so that's really a smart object.  But in Photo, if I change the perspective the embedded object instantly changes to a pixel layer.  
 
This and the issues with displacement/distortion and the blotchiness in mask refine.  Also, can't work on perspective without guides - that's not workable.  
With full respect to Serif for the hard work on development, I will continue trying out Photo and will be there as it develops.   And further, can't wait for this type of paradigm shift (blurring lines between vector/raster/style guides/text) in the upcoming Publisher.  

Adobe Systems
Employees - 15,706
Photoshop development time - 30 years+/-
Serif
Employees - 190
Photo/Designer development time - 4 years+/-
Other serious contenders against the Adobe Goliath - 0
So disappointed? Me? No Sir. Rather impressed if anything

I know this is more of Publisher feature, but for now as many of us are working in Designer with multiple artboards as doc pages, can you guys look into a search text or find/replace?  I realize this is a main thing missing.  I badly needed to do that today for a deck.  (Or better yet, give us Publisher!!!! - I know, later in the year  )
 
And before one starts to ask why don't I do this thing in InDesign (which I have) and why I love Designer - two words:  Guassian blur.  You can't do realistic shadows without, and don't want PowerPoint-like drop shadows on 3D objects on screen!  ID doesn't have that, or masks, or pixel persona, or embedded-editable objects.  Illustrator has Gaussian blur but theirs is more of an inner blur - nothing I can use for realistic shading - what on earth is that btw?  Did I forget to mention that you can't drop in SVG files?  Or better yet that mildly complex vectors (their own AI files) slow down ID to 0.0002 FPS.  So yes, while I bitch about what is needed or wanted I appreciate what I have with AD.

I know this is more of Publisher feature, but for now as many of us are working in Designer with multiple artboards as doc pages, can you guys look into a search text or find/replace?  I realize this is a main thing missing.  I badly needed to do that today for a deck.  (Or better yet, give us Publisher!!!! - I know, later in the year  )
 
And before one starts to ask why don't I do this thing in InDesign (which I have) and why I love Designer - two words:  Guassian blur.  You can't do realistic shadows without, and don't want PowerPoint-like drop shadows on 3D objects on screen!  ID doesn't have that, or masks, or pixel persona, or embedded-editable objects.  Illustrator has Gaussian blur but theirs is more of an inner blur - nothing I can use for realistic shading - what on earth is that btw?  Did I forget to mention that you can't drop in SVG files?  Or better yet that mildly complex vectors (their own AI files) slow down ID to 0.0002 FPS.  So yes, while I bitch about what is needed or wanted I appreciate what I have with AD.

Thank you guys for this version!!!!!!!!!   
Doesn't seem to crash on export anymore but I will continue to use - I always save before exporting anyway. 
Also thank you for fixing Metal on Sierra.  Wow is this thing fast. Faster than Adobe by a mile.  
 
Happy Camper 

Guys found a new bug but I have a workaround on my end.
 
If you open a file in beta 5, it opens normally and you can export, and I see no crashes anymore.  However if you close the file, but don't close AD and try to open the file again either from Finder or from the Open Recent menu in AD, then there is an error message  - see images here.  I don't open the recovery file, then close AD and open up the file again and all is fine.  It's when you leave AD open and close the file.

Have the same Macbook Pro with 460 4Gb GPU.  I think this is the first time ever that I see what Metal can do. 

Ha! My MacBook Pro with AMD 460 GPU is comically fast - it'd achieve over 1200FPS (if there was any way to present it that fast!!!) with the Metal view enabled!
 

Thank you guys for this version!!!!!!!!!   
Doesn't seem to crash on export anymore but I will continue to use - I always save before exporting anyway. 
Also thank you for fixing Metal on Sierra.  Wow is this thing fast. Faster than Adobe by a mile.  
 
Happy Camper 

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: New features, fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Here
 
This beta version represents a substantial change to our codebase and as much as we have tried to ensure the quality of the code, it should be considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 version.
 
To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it.
 
Fixes/Improvements:
Fix for crash when exporting Fixed incorrect colours when using Metal view option in Sierra with AMD GPUs Added support for macOS file system tags when saving Fix for crash changing between Asset categories with an active search term Fix for editing a colour in the system palettes Fix for SVG import of scaled content (found in certain CorelDRAW exported SVGs) Fix for some panels crashing in the Light UI scheme Performance increase for boolean operations performed on many objects at once Fix for 'Always show crosshair cursor' not being honoured for non-round pixel brushes Fix for exporting 'Selection with background' causing artefacts if the same area is included in the selection more than once Miscellaneous other tweaks

YES please.  I really love the new features but this crashing makes it unusable.  

Hi, i've noticed, in both AD and AP, that the right hand side studio panels make the apps crash if you want to re-arange them. When dragging out an individual studio panel it's all fine, but as soon as i want to drag out the last remaining studio panel, (or if you drag out the full panel set, i.e. Layers, Effects, Styles in one go) there's crash. This happens consistently.

Hi Larsene,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
No, we are working on it. We will announce it here in the forums and social media when there's some news regarding the Public Beta.