Rudolphus

* Attachments updated Apr 22, 2024 with minor edits and the addition of a Dutch version
I've made a chart of the Special Character symbols shown when you choose Show Special Characters in Affinity Publisher, Designer, and Photo, including some characters that can't be inserted from the Text menu and which must be entered as Unicode and some that aren't mentioned on the Affinity Help page for special characters. Please let me know of any errors so I can update the chart. I apologize for any translation errors.
I've attached the original afpub file so that others can use the embedded images of the special characters for other training materials or purposes.
Special Characters.pdf - English
Caracteres speciaux.pdf - Français
Sonderzeichen.pdf - Deutsch
Speciale tekens.pdf - Nederlands
Special Characters.afpub - editable version
 

While you’re at it, would it be difficult to add the following feature for collapsing and expanding panel sections to all panels?
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/202656-please-improve-panel-visual-depth-management/#comment-1205284
A better explanation of the feature is provided by fde101:
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/202656-please-improve-panel-visual-depth-management/#comment-1205349
 

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;;

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.

I love this! Works great! 
Only thing that's related to this tool that I hope gets improved is this panel:

It's too small. Being able to resize it and making the Profile feature more global so other features could reuse them, i.e. brush settings, would make it even better. It also needs an option to invert the curves.

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). 

Variable fonts
Apps: Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, Affinity Publisher
Platforms: All
You're now able to use variable fonts in all Affinity apps, providing a plethora of new typographic design possibilities.
As well as providing predefined font styles, such as light, bold and condensed, variable fonts give you fine control of specific design aspects known as axes of variation, or just axes for short.
To try out variable fonts in Affinity, apply one to some text and then:
- On desktop, click the Font Variations button on the context toolbar (or on the Character Panel).
- On iPad, tap the arrow to the right of Bold/Italic/Underline/Strikethrough on the Text Panel and then tap Variations.
Variation settings on desktop.

 
 
Variation settings on iPad.

 
You'll see settings for each axis that the font designer has made individually adjustable.

Axis' slider being dragged.
Many variable fonts allow you to adjust their width and weight axes, and possibly italic, optical size and slant. These five axes are common enough that they're defined by the OpenType specification.
All manner of other axes may also be adjustable, such as:
- the height of ascenders and depth of descenders to better fit your chosen line spacing.
- the stem terminals, to choose between straight and swelling.
- the width of counters, which are enclosed and partially enclosed spaces within glyphs.
For examples of other possible axes, check out the axis definitions that are available for variable fonts at Google Fonts.
You may see fewer axes in Affinity than are mentioned by a font provider's marketing. For example, Google Fonts lists 13 axes for Roboto Flex and Affinity exposes five of them. This is because we respect font designers' ability to specify that an axis should be hidden. This is part of the OpenType specification and means that software isn't meant to provide an interface for such axes.
Why would a designer do this? Well, a variable font might adjust an axis internally based on your choices for other axes that you can directly adjust. For example, observe how counter widths change when the weight axis is adjusted in the animation above.

Variable fonts and PDFs
PDF doesn't support variable fonts. So, when you export a PDF of an Affinity document that uses a variable font, we create a static instance of the font with fixed settings.
We've taken steps to ensure static instances of fonts are well named. You should find this minimises the need to identify the original variable fonts if you later import or place the resulting PDFs.

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One feature I hope gets added is the ability to have automatic incremental saves of a document. There have been times when of some unknown reason my documents get corrupted and lose data as a result of a save (happened to me just the other day). Having the option to have back-up copies that are a bit older than the latest save would help in safeguarding documents from getting unrecoverable data loss. 
Auto-save with a timer is also a feature that goes hand in hand with the previous feature. It makes it easier to ensure you have a reliable back-up copy in case of breaking documents.
Being able to set these things up as either on a per document basis or done globally would be even sweeter.
 

Yes, I'm thinking also beyond testing and typical bugs there are potentially areas that might need different approaches for the "We didn't think of that" type of use cases. Things that might require changes in the API. Good to have a preview early enough to sort those things out.

To address some of what is being said on this thread...
Firstly to be clear I'm not a founder, but have been with the company for 25 years. I'm officially appointed as Managing Director of the company, but also use CEO as my title as that is my role in terms of how other countries would view it.
Both Canva and us have made 100% clear we are committing to perpetual licences always being available. That will include V3 or any other future major upgrade of our apps which are released. What's more I will say with Canva's backing we are not under the same financial pressure we would have been to release a V3 anytime soon, meaning those of you using V2 will actually benefit from more features as free updates which may previously have been held back for a V3 if that makes sense. This is of great benefit from an engineering standpoint too as we are far better testing and releasing features in smaller chunks than saving them up to package up as a sellable upgrade. 
https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/affinity-canva-pledge/
https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/27/24113423/affinity-canva-acquisition-pledge-license-price-subscription
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/press/newsroom/affinity-and-canva-pledge/
As we have made clear there will at some point be a subscription option also which people can take if they choose to. I'm sure there will be additional benefits to that subscription in the future such as asset and document sync, sharing and collaboration and other things which naturally require a subscription as they are features which incur ongoing cost. It may also include other things which can be leveraged with a Canva subscription such as greater stock libraries of images, graphics and fonts. Hopefully that would just be considered reasonable and understandable. There will certainly not be any cynical cutting down of features or limitation of ongoing support in our existing apps just to force a subscription play.
I understand examples of previous acquisitions can make some of you fearful, but they are just historic examples - it has no bearing on what will happen in this case and we are genuinely doing something here which is very different and special. Everything I said on Tuesday, and what both Canva and us pledged yesterday, is 100% true and we are going to stand by it. That includes keeping our entire team here with no layoffs, and continuing to be based in Nottingham. 
If you want to believe this or not is up to you, I'm not sure what more we can say at this point to convince those who doubt it. We'll deliver on this over the coming months and years so whatever is being said right now I know it's going to be all good and assuming you are still using Affinity apps you will be happy with how they have developed and that we have continued to be fair and inclusive with our pricing.
Also to follow on from Patricks point - I can take some of the personal attacks on me, but I have to say some of the conduct on this thread with some of you being very quick to attack other community members just because they hold different opinions is really disheartening to see. You can absolutely give your opinion on this deal for sure, and we are happy to leave this as an open forum within reason, but that does mean being courteous to other forum members and not just repeating the same points over and over.
Thanks,
Ash
 

This announcement was a shock. While Version 2 was oversold, and the recent slow pace of bug fixes and limited feature updates is concerning, I understand there was a lot of V2 under-the-hood work. Regardless, we were more than happy to pay for the Version 2 ‘all options’ package, even though we don’t (at the moment) run Windows machines and the iPad apps remain something to be explored. The value from V1 was so great that buying version two was both a V1 'thank you’ and a V2 encouragement.
The new ownership compels us to examine of our continued use of Affinity software.
Background
We are a small publishing operation creating image-rich print and multi-media ebooks, based in regional Victoria.
We used PageMaker and then the Adobe Creative Suite from its inception until it went subscription. It was not cheap software – $AU600 to $AU800 a seat with half-price updates that, particularly toward the end, were of diminishing worth. We always had the option to skip an update, over the nine years we probably skipped half – skipping more often towards the end. The Australian pricing was at times up to twice that Adobe charged in the US after allowing for the $AUD/$USD exchange rate. It was very expensive software, but as we purchased outright we could partially control the cost. When the subscription ‘model’ was introduced it effectively doubled our already high costs (again charged at much higher prices than to US users), and the moment we stopped paying we would have lost access to our files.
We limped on with CS6 for publishing and drawing while we pivoted photo processing to Apple’s Aperture – based on this being flagship software from a major corporation. This prove to be a major mistake. We also started producing multi-media ePub projects in Apple’s iBooks Author. Another mistake.
Affinity journey
As CS6 faltered, we waited impatiently for Affinity Publisher for our print-based work, taking part in the beta testing. The moment it launched we moved some projects across, even though key features were missing (compared to In-Design) and there were strange bugs. The killer aspect for us was/is the seamless integration of the three apps. This more than compensated for missing functions and ‘managing’ bugs.
When Apple abandoned Aperture we moved to Photo. The first in our string of abandoned software experiences.
For ePub we are still, just, managing to use iBooks Author but expect that ability to ‘break’ any day. We were hoping Publisher would have a robust ePub capability before that final break.
Continue or abandon
The sale is forcing us to review the place for Affinity in our workflows.
We need software longevity. It is not uncommon for us to revisit projects across a decade. We have just spent weeks updating a project from 2014 where the hundreds of photos processed in Apple’s Aperture have to be redone. So my overriding concern is: what are the odds that the Affinity apps will still be viable in 2034?
Our other requirement is perpetual licence software we can to continue to use.
Unfortunately, ‘wait and see’ isn’t a option as we are due to begin several major projects. Do we continue to pour time, effort and capital into projects based on Affinity software or do we look for alternatives now?
This is a summary of our thinking.
Adobe takeover
One of the concerns raised in this thread is the potential for Adobe to buy Canva – given the mood and direction of Australian competition regulators I think this is so unlikely that it does not figure in my calculations.
VC cash grab leading to enshitification
Two of the three Canva founders are on record as holding 18 per cent of the company each, I guess the third also holds 18 per cent – that would give the three a controlling holding. For short-term VCs an IPO allows them to cash out, so there is a path for control to remain with the founders – parties to the assurances we are receiving today – while VCs can grab their cash.
Institutional shareholders
Two of Canva’s institutional shareholders are Australian ‘industry’ superannuation funds that together manage $250 billion of investments. We have two types of super funds – the commercial ‘for profits’ run by financial institutions etc. who make profits for their owners (and generally lower returns for their member) and ‘non-profit’ – the much larger group – of ‘Industry’ funds run only to benefit their members, often union-controlled, and generally long-term ‘ethical’ investors. That Canva’s institutional shareholders are in the second group provides some comfort.
Entrepreneurs with social conscious
Australia has a small group of billionaire entrepreneurial software developers with strong public conscious. Reports suggesting the Canva founders fall into this group – the pack leader is Atlassian co-founder Mike  Cannon-Brooks, a major driver of large renewable energy projects.
Serif’s fate
A few posts have pointed out that Canva acquired Pixabay and Pexels five years ago to support their offering. Both continue to operate as they had pre-acquisition – as stand-alone organisations with previous management – while providing that support to the main Canva product. It is not a leap to see Serif treated this way as the professional offerings would not make sense being folded into the current Canva 'anyone can design' offering.
The driver for Canva is adding ‘professional’ capabilities. In buying Serif, Canva has paid a lot for that capability. Canva senior management are very astute – they have built a $26 billion business from scratch. Dismantling or compromising Affinity software is not an ‘astute’ path, while strengthening it is. And knowing that a very large part of the attraction to Affinity users is perpetual licences, why would you change this major selling point over Adobe?
However, offering AI or cloud-based services requires a subscription to cover the ongoing costs – the template for that is Luminar Neo – you can by perpetual licences with optional AI-based ‘add ons’ with a subscription.
Much of the angst in this thread is around assurances being given by people who are/will not be in a position to deliver/honour those assurances. On reflection, I think there is a reasonable chance those people will remain in positions where they can honour those assurances for several years beyond an IPO.
Our decision
Making the wrong choice – stay or go – will have a substantial financial and resource impact on our business/operation. It is not a decision to make lightly.
For the moment that decision is to delay the major projects until 2.5 is released, see if there is an improvement in bug fixes and ePub features. If so, we will tentatively begin one of our major projects on Affinity software and remain watchful until Version 3.
If not, the search for alternatives will begin.
There are paths for this to be a net positive for Affinity, and we who use the software. I really hope this is the outcome.

It's been a year since this progress report was posted by Tim. I wonder whether we could have another one soon. 🙂

Here's a list of the bugs which have been fixed in the beta build 2.4.2 (2356)
(fixes since the last release 2.4.1.2344)
Please reply in this forum to comment on any fixes which are in this list (in particular to let us know if you notice that something we say is fixed isn't!) To report any new bugs please do that against the relevant new feature post, or if unrelated to new functionality in the Other bugs & issues forum.
Changes/Bugs affecting all platforms
Export Preview does not correctly display results when using Rasterise = Nothing AF-2284  Bugs affecting Desktop (Windows and macOS)
Customer .docx file placed within a text frame in a new doc gives "Failed to Save" message. AF-2158 Tables: Update from Selection on Default format enables 'Delete' causing app to crash when deleting format. AF-2142 Bugs affecting Windows
Pixel and Pixel Grid gridlines are thicker in v2.4. AF-2167 Attempt to fix RAW files having Artefacts when opened. AF-2178 Crash when changing between Light and Dark UI with stroke panel and unselected curve on page. Crash - adding pages from files and specifying a section to add. Layers panel: layer drop zones broken. AF-2394 Can't undo live filter or adjustment layer creation. AF-2265 CTRL modifier for boolean Add now makes compounds. AF-2432 Grids fail to instantly update on document when modified. AF-2224 Using a keyboard shortcut for Geometry > Add results in a compound shape as if ctrl \+ add was clicked. AF-2444 Builds on arm devices failing to render documents with OpenCL enabled. AF-2173 Bugs affecting macOS
Crash when dropping Promised files into a document. AF-2264 Threadlock opening documents on some devices. AF-2264 Crash clicking Regular Expressions with the layer name text field active. AF-2139 Mac Apps crash when an image is dragged and dropped from a Zip file. AF-2264 Bugs affecting iPad
"Lessons" tab name changes to "Samples" after opening settings. 

It would be interesting to be able to add (colored) tags to the pages in the Pages panel, in order, for example, to point to pages that still need a lot of work.

Hi @Rudolphus,
Thanks for reporting this. I confirm it's indeed failing to work on Windows. I'm logging the issue to be looked at.
@tzvi20
The issue reported in that thread is a bit different and was already fixed for Beta 2.5.0.x

Hi,
In Designer, in Windows 11, when my keyboard is in English pressing Ctrl + ; shows and hides the Guides as expected.
But when I change to Greek, the keyboard shortcut doesn't work anymore.
I found found out that the ; key on the Greek keyboard is the Q key on the physical keyboard. So when pressing Ctrl + Q while in Greek the Guides show and hide again.
But when I chage to another language, ex Bulgarian, now the keyboard shortcut for showing and hiding the Guides is different again.
I havent tested, but I assume this happens for all the keyboard shortcuts in Affinity Designer and the other two apps.
My point is the keyboard shortcuts should be the same on the physical keyboard on every language, because the key combinations changing on every language change is ridiculous.
 

I have already mentioned this. For anyone who works with keyboard shortcuts, the Affinity solution is a disaster. Serif sees it as an original solution without considering that it artificially limits many work options.
A separation between the normal and extended keyboard is essential for professional use.

It is a minor thing, but would be very handy. Example: if you're trying to find a shortcut to customize but you are not sure of what section it is in, or the exact name, you could quickly search for a few terms that you believe the function could be named in order to find it. A lot of other professional software has this functionality. 
For personas to be considered, it could be a general search, which shows all shortcuts, but with an additional column to show which persona they are a part of. This way you could search for a function, have all of its shortcuts for each persona appear, and quickly assign the shortcuts for all personas at once, instead of navigating to the relevant persona from the drop down each time, then finding each one in the list. 

🙂

International Flags.afassets

Affinity Pictos.afassets

I realize that we're limited to the Hunspell hyphenation dictionaries and that Hunspell doesn't allow user hyphenation dictionaries like it does for spelling, but would it be possible for us to create an Affinity-specific exceptions list in Settings (like AutoCorrect) that Affinity could use to override what Hunspell would do?
For example, Hunspell (US English) hyphenates cardiopulmonary as car~diopul~monary which is awful, it should be car~dio~pul~mo~nary.
Users could enter words with tildes at the desired break points. And to prevent a word from being hyphenated, enter it without any breakpoints. For example, Hunspell hyphenates Facebook as Face~book but a product name should never be hyphenated.
Thank you

🇬🇧 Here is a rework of the Asset, with new icons and the most basic Live Filter integration possible.
Unfortunately, I still had to create subgroups in order to guarantee the largest possible thumbnail (the rendering of Affinity Designer on these thumbnails was difficult for me to understand because it seemed so random to me...).
Good reception and if you find any errors, please share them with the community, I will correct them. But, I'm almost certain that Serif, in his great goodness, will very soon integrate these Live Filters into AD like he did in AP... and who knows, maybe one day, in macOS, we will have the functionality QuickLook with very large and beautiful thumbnails!…
NB: Serif could also better qualify these .afsssets files with a personalized icon rather than a generic file icon!…
 
🇫🇷 Voici une reprise de l'Asset, avec de nouvelles icônes et l'intégration du Live Filter la plus élémentaire possible.
Malheureusement, j'ai dû quand même créer des sous-groupes afin de garantir une vignette la plus grande possible (le rendu d'Affinity Designer sur ces vignettes m'a été difficile à cerner tant il est m'a semblé aléatoire…).
Bonne réception et si vous trouvez des erreurs, merci d'en faire part à la communauté, je corrigerais. Mais, je suis presque certain que Serif, dans sa grande bonté, intégrera très prochainement ces Live Filters dans AD comme il l'a fait dans AP… et qui sait, peut-être qu'un jour, sous macOS, nous aurons la fonctionnalité QuickLook avec de très grandes et belles vignettes !…
NB : Serif pourrait aussi mieux qualifier ces fichiers .afsssets avec une icône personnalisée plutôt qu'une icône générique de fichier !…
 

Live Filters v2.afassets.zip

🇬🇧 Hi, here is a asset containing Affinity Photo's Live Filters for Affinity Designer (which by default does not include them).
These contents were therefore created by copy/pasting between the two applications. These contents are classified by family and in the order of appearance in the Layer menu –> New AP Dynamic Filter Layer, with a personalized icon to better distinguish them.
There was a lot of manipulation to create this resource: I hope I didn't make a mistake. Good use…
 
🇫🇷 Bonjour, voici une ressource contenant les filtres dynamiques d'Affinity Photo pour Affinity Designer (qui par défaut ne les inclus pas).
Ces contenus ont donc été créés par copier/coller entre les deux applications. Ces contenus sont classés par famille et dans l'ordre d'apparition dans le menu Calque –> Nouveau Calque de filtre dynamique de AP, avec une icône personnalisée pour mieux les distinguer.
Il y a eu beaucoup de manipulations pour réaliser cette ressource : j'espère ne pas m'être trompé. Bonne utilisation…
 

Live Filters.afassets

I could have called this Many hands (and feet) make light work. We're all getting browned off with Artificial Intelligence stealing copyright works. I thought it was time I made a stand and made my own AI image. In this case, it probably means Astonishing Inaccuracies.