Spoiled by design

Hi djvflyfish,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
If you are referring to an automatic tracing tool, no, this is not available in Designer yet. There's plans to implement/develop one but it will only be integrated if the development teams are happy with the quality of its output. Currently you have to use a third-party application like Inkscape (open source), Super Vectorizer 2, Vector Magic or a web service.
Check those threads for more info:
- [ADe] JPEG, bitmap tracing to covert to vector
- Image Trace - Raster to Vector conversion

Ah, nice, this was a request of mine too.  :)
 
It's still a little hidden IMO. I feel like it should be a universal (optional?) box below the colour menu. It's tremendously useful to be able to cut and paste specific colour values, even if you're not doing web development.
 
Speaking only for myself, I like to see this even when working in HSL or other modes. The different modes are just different ways of creating the colours I want, and the hex value is just a convenient way of transporting that information.
 
Also, if possible, it'd be nice if it supported RGBA (alpha) values.

Hey everyone, I'd like to chime in here (and yes, I'm all for group hugs!) 
 
I purchased the full CS 6 master suite just months before Adobe switched to the insane subscription model, and happily used it for a couple years with mostly no problems. This was a relatively good thing, for I found out later that the Adobe customer support is beyond horrendous, it is non-existent. Then, with every upgrade to macOS, it became more and more difficult to keep it running adequately. First, it was needing an antique version of Java to run, then little other things kept popping up. I would go for months without the ability to use one the apps or another. Finally, by the time MacOS 10.11 came around, I gave up altogether and just ditched the whole thing. Thus began a multi-year search for a replacement, which kinda culminated when I discovered the Affinity family. just a couple months ago. I say "kinda" because I still have not found a suitable replacement for the InDesign app.
 
These Affinity apps represent the epitome of how truly well engineered applications should be made. It is readily apparent that an incredible amount of forethought, engineering, testing and refinement goes into every tiny detail. As a result, every interaction, button click, and visual feedback just feels right, natural and intuitive. I cannot remember how long it has been since I actually enjoyed using a piece of software, but it really is a pure joy to use these Affinity apps, big time! Take the pen tool for example, like most designers out there, this was always my least favorite tool to use, and consequently I almost never used it. However, in Designer, it is just the opposite, and for the first time ever, I am actually using the pen tool, and enjoying it to boot! The way it feels, interacts and provides feedback truly makes it a tool that is easy and pleasurable to use. The Affinity dev team has truly taken the Apple philosophy of design and engineering excellence to heart, and it comes through in every detail of these applications.
 
The reason I share this here is that I hope to convey to the development team just how painful it really is to us to not have Affinity Publisher available yet. One major problem with all of the temporary alternatives offered in this discussion thread is that after spending just a small bit of time working in Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo on macOS, all of the other just feel like crap. Really, after being absolutely spoiled by the ease and joy of the Affinity suite, using any of the others feels downright disgusting. It is akin to taking off a finely crafted and tailored Italian suit and putting on a pair of scratchy worn-out jeans. Like innumerable other Affinity users, I have a very real and pressing need for Publisher. Of course, I do appreciate the need to do it right, I really do. But know also that there is a huge gap in today's software availability, one that can only be filled by the forthcoming release of Publisher. So if there is any way to allocate more resources to the Publisher dev, design and testing team, please do it, please!

Creative Suite is quite nice, no doubt, but not the 50 / month for life tether that it comes with, and the fact you had to get the entire cc suite just to get indesign, or pay for it by itself for 30 a month. What a joke Adobe turned their business model into. Not a joke for the investors though. I'm happy to wait for Affinity's entry into market. Not to mention they are probably developing a iPad app version in tandem which would probably add to the delay. 
 
They have raised the bar on their own software over the last two years, so it's probably increased production time on Publisher making sure it meets their quality.

Hi Jen,
 
Welcome to the forums
 
If you email affinityorders@serif.com they should be able to provide you with the information you are looking for!
 
Thanks
C

Perhaps I am spoiled. I've used every version of Photoshop up to CS6 since before v1.0 (I was a beta user back in 1989). And once Affinity Photo supports macros and batch processing I likely will stop using Photoshop altogether. Having used image editing programs for as long as I have it is clear to me that the engineers for AP and AD "get it". For most things I can just intuit where the feature I want is and sure enough it ends up easy to discover. Again, easy for me. Likely not easy for a beginner. So yes, documentation is needed. Yet the free videos supplied by Serif are a superb resource. As much as I have a ton of experience with image editing, I have watched every single Serif support video multiple times. Each time receiving a little bit more insight. So my take is that the more you invest the more you will be rewarded. The fact is, there is no "hurry" here -- if you can't produce quality images with Photoshop you won't be able to produce quality images in Affinity Photo -- and vice versa. I'm a big fan of rewarding those who stick their necks out. In this case, Serif has done just that and I feel they deserve the kudos due them.
 
YMMV
 
Michael

Serif do NOT save your credit card details. We save the last 4 digits of the 16 you entered, and your name, but not the security number, and a tokenized version of the transaction. This is standard practice and it is not enough to do anything further with.
 
To give some background, all responsible merchants shouldn’t be storing credit card information for over half a decade now…instead they swapped to credit card tokenization where a token is stored but the credit card information no longer exists. Our order gateway is Stripe, who are fully PCI compliant. For PCI-DSS compliance since June (summer of 2010), most Merchants started the journey of not storing credit cards natively in their database, some store the last 4 digits and then may store a token that links to the accompanying payment information to the gateway processor. As the token is only undecipherable using a private Serif owned Stripe key, that token would be useless to anyone but Serif.
 
We have to store this token to show you the card that was used to place the order and for legal tax reasons. However we do not have to use offer that token for your next purchase. At the moment you can replace a card when placing your next order but not remove the used one from being offered again (i.e. "delete the key" outside of an order). I think it is a very sensible suggestion to add the option to remove that token from being available future purchases by you. Being a new shop we have had a few useful suggestions like this that we will implement.