Paul Mudditt

I updated my Affinity Special Characters chart. There are only minor changes so if you have it printed out I wouldn't bother printing it again, but I added a Dutch version of the chart.
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/176386-special-characters-in-affinity-quick-reference-chart/
 

The grids on the iPad versions have a 256px size limitation, unlike the desktop versions, caused simply by the data entry box for the grid size.
On Affinity Photo for iPad and also Designer and Publisher via Studiolink Photo, you can set much much large grids using macros such as those attached, proving the functionality works.
Unfortunately stand alone Designer does not support macros yet so you can’t use this work around.
This must be the simplest of fixes to the grid size data entry boxes.
iPad Big Grids.afmacros

I think being able to set the tolerance of auto-close feature would be helpful so folks can tune it to their liking, or set it to ‘maximum’ where it would always auto-close regardless of the distance.

The new smoothing algorithm looks good! Works really well with a mouse as well.

Left = Old
Right = New

 
I tried the new Auto Close and while I do think it is useful and creates more natural looking closed shapes, I still would like to have the old functionality still available. The gap is very narrow to be able to close it and not having the option to increase the spacing for the closing to happen removes my ability to create elongated shapes quickly. Not to mention that I can't make sharp straight lines when it closes. I would suggest adding a slider value for how much distance is required before Auto Close kicks in, with an alternative to have it always activate regardless of distance.


I can no longer get a closed shape out of this:


Here's an example of a type of shape I want to continue making:
 

 
Good update besides that! I hope we also get the option to auto-boolean our selection by either adding or subtracting from the shape in the future. It would be incredibly handy for silhouette paintings.

Apps: Designer
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad
Affinity Designer now includes a new width tool which is available by default alongside the pencil tool in your toolbar:

The Line Width Tool gives you an on-document way of editing the pressure profile of any curve. For example the curve below has 3 pressure points (5 including the start and end pressure). While in the Line Width tool the position of those points are shown along the curve, and you have the ability to drag to change the width and position of them. 
You can also click to add a new pressure point, or double click to remove any pressure point on a curve.

There are various modifiers available which you can see in the status bar:
Shift + Drag - allows you to modify the width at any point without adjusting it's position
Cmd (Mac) / Ctrl (Win) + Click - manually enter the width required at the chosen point
Ctrl (Mac) / Ctrl (Win) + Drag - move the point position without adjusting the width
Double click - remove pressure point
Additionally you will find some other options in the context toolbar when using this tool:

Adjust Line Weight - if this is turned on then should you drag the width of any point to be greater than the current line width (i.e. greater than 100% pressure) the line width will be increased to allow you to drag the width unrestricted. If it is turned off then the maximum width you can drag to is 100% of the set line width.
Allow point reordering - This option allows to you to specify whether you want to allow the tool to drag one point past another along the curve, effectively swapping their order, or not.
Snap to curve nodes - This will show any nodes on the curve as small white dots and will snap any pressure points to those nodes
Snap to widths on same curve - this will snap the width at any pressure point on a curve to other widths which already exist on that curve. This only applies when holding shift (i.e. you are adjusting the width without altering the point position).
Snap to curve geometry - this will snap the width to the geometry of any selected curves (again if you are holding shift). 

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS and Windows
Within grid and axis settings you can now set any of your grid settings to be the default, meaning any new documents will have that grid set when first created.
You can set / clear default grids from the burger menu next to the grid preset drop down:

There are a few other minor improvements to mention in 2.5:
1. Some new cameras have been added to LibRAW:
FujiFilm X100VI Leica SL3 Pentax KF (Rioch) Samsung Galaxy S23+ Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra Sony ILCE-9M3 (A9 III) [improved] 2. As was requested in a few places before and on the last beta, when you have "Transform objects separately" checked and have a multi-selection, if you type a value in either the width or height field and precede it with an equals sign (e.g. H: '=100px') then it will set all objects in that selection to have that specific width or height value entered. This is opposed to scaling the other objects in your selection proportionally based on the key object which is he result you get without the equals sign.
3. DWG polylines import improvements
We have made some substantial improvements when importing polylines, which now ignores the cached points which AutoCAD creates. This simplifies the resulting curves substantially.

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad
A new QR Code tool is now available from the shapes flyout in the toolbar, making it easy to add a QR code to your documents. 
After creating or selecting a QR Code object you will find a 'Payload' option in the context toolbar. Here you can type whatever URL you want the QR code to link to when it is scanned.


In addition to URLs you can use other syntax as detailed below to have the QR code trigger other functions when scanned by a device:
SMS
Payload structure: SMSTO:number:text message
Eg. SMSTO:07513123456:Hello mate!
GEO location
Payload structure: GEO:lat:lon:height
Eg. GEO:40.71872,-73.98905,100
WIFI credentials
Payload structure: WIFI:S:ssid;T:type;P:password;;
Eg. WIFI:S:MyWiFiSSID;T:WPA;P:MyPassW0rd;;

Hi All,
Below is the list of all new feature and improvements which are included in the 2.5 beta (bug fix list is available here).
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).
Variable Fonts (coming soon) Line Width Tool Pencil Tool Improvements QR Code Object "Default preset" for grid Typography Dialog turned into a Panel Other Improvements Getting the 2.5 beta
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 2.5 beta builds to try for yourself.
If you are already enrolled in the beta program you have two options:
1. If you still have the 2.4 beta installed, you can now run up those beta versions and you will be prompted to update them to the 2.4 beta.
2. If you have uninstalled the 2.4 beta, you will need to go back to Your Account -> Downloads and product keys and find your previous order for the Affinity Beta Software Program, and you can download the 2.5 beta from there.
Thanks,
Ash

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS and Windows
As has been requested numerous times we have now converted the typography dialog from a pop-up dialog into a panel so you can now easily dock it / keep it available should you wish. 
This is available both fro the Window menu (note: this is currently at the bottom of the panel listing, but will be changed to be a sub menu from the Text panel options next week), and also from the typography button in the context toolbar  when you have text selected.
 

Enhancement using Bevel/Emboss filter effect. Mainly I used inner bevel.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing!".

What? This deal was done 3 weeks ago and you seriously think "noticeable progress" (by which I assume you mean new features) will be beta ready by the very next cycle, as a consequence of Canva influence or involvement? It's hopefully starting this week. The contents of 2.5 are no way to judge any influence in my opinion as it's really early days. But I do love your thread and the scope of it's ambition.

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @cinew.
You can use the Rectangle Tool to create a flexible cropping window. Draw a filled rectangle anywhere on top of the photo, make it semi-transparent so that you can see the part of the photo that lies underneath, and then alter its size and position (zooming in or out as necessary) until it covers the target area of the photo. After changing the fill to fully opaque, drag the rectangle layer in the Layers panel and drop it onto the thumbnail of the photo layer to execute the crop.

I did a full reinstall today. So far so good. Stress test over the next few days. 

If you want to crop a layer in Photo:
use a rectangle shape to define the crop area, either as mask (nested) or clipping path  (used as parent). You can use this layers, it is non-destructive  If you want do destructively remove the cropped area, rasterize and trim layer. It will bake in the current document DPI, too.

Thanks! @walt.farrell is correct. Previous versions don't appear in the downloads section of the account. It would probably be smart and convenient to have them in there too?

Google likes to track everything you think and everything you do so it can push advertising your way. It won't like that it can't open affinity files to inspect the contents unlike the more common data file formats hence greyed out. Because of this it is the worst cloud service, change to a proper cloud service like iCloud, Dropbox or Onedrive is the only advice I can give.

While i fully understand the (probably) good intentions, i have seen to many apps from other vendors going to total disarray because older versions lost attention and help get totally out of sync. It really helps nobody if online help works reliably only for the bleeding edge release of the app, and provides misleading or completely wrong results for slightly non-current releases.
The help documentation is an dedicate deliverable accompanying the app releases. It s no „optional“ or „if we find time“ low priority thing. As Affinity updates UI and features in every minor update, we need a perfect fitting documentation for every minor release. The offline help can include links to additional online-only resources like videos. This is never a reason to go fully only only.

Thank you. The point is I wanted to stay in the vicinity of where I was drawing. The replay above does that by simply double tapping the end point.

Or tap the X icon just above the trashcan icon (lower left of screen, for me).
If you press the ? Icon you'll see the X is labeled Deselect.

Double tap the last point.

Although the screen recording. doesn’t show it, I end each line segment by a double tap rather than a single tap.

RPReplay_Final1712912197.mp4

If you are using these images in a website,  then the dpi is irrelevant. What counts is the xizein pixels.
John

Hi Paul, hey I found my error. I had turned “show scale override options" on, oyyy! After turning it off it's working like it used to.

Thanks all for your comments! I just wanted to let you know that these have all been logged and with development. 
Regarding the actual missing search bar, unfortunately, that is currently to be expected due to (as I understand it) its reliance on the macOS Help Viewer. However, we are aware of this and are looking into a replacement for it!