Rudolphus

I’ve shown one method to do this in my attached video (the text below isn’t a step-by-step guide, just notes on the video).
“Enable Snapping” should be ON, “Snap to object bounding boxes” should be ON, and “Include Bounding box mid points” should be ON.
Part A – The first circle
If you are not using Designer, and therefore can’t use the Point Transform Tool, or you just want to do it quickly, then, instead of the instructions in this part, you can simply snap the left ‘side’ of circle B to the right ‘side’ of of circle A and then rotate all the circles to how you want them later.
Draw a line from the centre of circle A to anywhere.
Use the Node Tool to move the end of the line to get the angle you want.
Use the Point Transform Tool to move and rotate circle B.
Use the Point Transform Tool to translate circle B so that it touches circle A.
Part B – The second circle
The width of the first construction circle should be: width of circle A plus width of circle C.
The width of the second construction circle should be: width of circle B plus width of circle C.
If you aren’t using Designer (and can’t use the Point Transform Tool) you can draw a line from the intersection of the two construction circles (to anywhere, the end point doesn’t matter) and then use snapping with the Move Tool to drag circle C into place.
Note: If you don't want circle B to be rotated after this then you can just double-click the rotation handle to reset it.
Important: There may be tiny gaps between the circles but that’s because they aren’t perfect circles, and that’s because of the way the Affinity applications draw circles using bezier curves. I don’t think there’s anything we can do about this.

2024-02-04 08-50-06.mp4

Let's go back to school, with some of those common and well known school protractors for measuring in degrees.


 

... etc.
 
The protractor assets shared here ...

... are all vector based and do have printed on degree scales. You have to adapt/size the default assets protractor sizes to your document needs and thus scale them up/down so they nearly match your doc measurements.
Note that all protractors are just a bunch of grouped/layered together vector parts (curves and text) thus they can be modified in colorings and the like. Also you should always move & size etc. a whole reused protractor group/layer when needed!
Here is the associated assets file:
protractors.afassets Have a nice school day!
 
 

I am attaching a macro category called “Reticulated Gradient Map” which can be used for color grading or for creating an artistic rendition of a photograph. The look was inspired by a recently viewed YouTube video on the Texturelabs channel in which an image was posterized and gradient mapped, but with a specific type of grain applied to the borders of the colors. The original video can be found here.
The effect relied on a filter found in Photoshop’s Filter Gallery called “Reticulation”. Although the Reticulation filter is not available in Affinity Photo, this macro duplicates the effect fairly reliably.
Here is a before and after image, along with the User Dialog settings used during the image’s creation.

The macro creates a number of adjustments and other layers inside a Group called Reticulated Color Grade. Because the effect is entirely contained inside the group, the effect can be turned on and off by showing/hiding the enclosing group. Also, the effect is entirely non-destructive (with one exception, discussed below) and will respond immediately to any additional edits made to the original image.

I have also created a PDF (also attached to this post) with specific instructions for using this macro. However, in brief, invoking the macro will set up the Layers stack (as above) and present a dialog to the user for some initial settings. You will be asked to set the following:
1) Adjust Reticular Noise Size (destructive)
The “Reticulation Noise” layer is a pixel layer in which a reticulated pattern of noise is applied. The macro invokes an “Equations” filter to increase or decrease the size of the noise. The default value is 0.8, and the slider will accept values between 0 and 1 (although anything above 0.8 is capped at that value, since the math falls apart above that value). In general, the default setting results in the largest reticular noise available, but the noise can be decreased in size by setting the slider to smaller values.
2) Adjust Reticular Noise Opacity
This slider affects the opacity of the “Reticulation Noise” layer. The overall effect is that, at lower values, the graininess of the reticulation is held closer and closer to the borders between colors. The default value is 20% and the slider will accept values between 0% and 100%. In general, keeping the value to smaller numbers is usually going to be more visually pleasing.
3) Distribute Tones
This slider affects the Gamma slider in a Levels adjustment. Because the Levels adjustment is applied prior to the Gradient Map, shifting the slider to the left or the right will shift the colors toward the lighter or darker tones respectively. Play with this a bit, watching for the appearance or disappearance of colors mapped to whites and blacks.
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The first setting, in which the “size” of the noise is adjusted, is a destructive change. It cannot be edited once the macro has been finalized. This particular slider should be set carefully. However, other values can be edited afterward. I would suggest the following edits after the macro has been allowed to complete.
1) Open the Distribute Tones layer. This is a Levels adjustment, and sits inside of the “Monochrome Group.” I have found it to be helpful to move the Black Level and White Level sliders inward so as to meet the left and right borders of the histogram. Also, you can adjust the Gamma slider so as to shift the gradient mapped colors toward the lighter and darker values.

2) Select the Reticulation Noise layer and fine tune the Opacity of that layer. You will find that adjusting the opacity of the layer will shift how much the graininess of the reticulation involves the individual colors. In general, keeping the Opacity low will keep the reticulation noise closer to the borders between the individual colors.

3) The macro uses a Gradient Map that uses purple and orange colors for its default. Obviously, you can change this (and you probably will want to!) Open the Gradient Map Adjustment layer and change the colors as you’d like. Using an adjustment preset will make this easier, but those presets are up to you. Be aware that the macro sets the Posterize adjustment to 5 levels, and the Gradient Map has stops at 0, 25, 50, 75, and 100%. This means that the end result will give 5 posterized colors, as represented by the colors chosen for those stops.
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The attached macro category should be imported into the Library panel, using the “hamburger menu” at the top right corner of the panel. The macro was created in Affinity Photo 2, and will not be compatible with version 1. Also, once the macro category is imported, you can drag the macro to any other category you already have set up. (I have placed the macro inside a Category that I created called “Color Grading” but you can set up your categories as you would like.)
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As with all of the macros that I have submitted please remember that I am one person working with one computer. I have tested the macro in a fairly limited fashion, and it works well for me. I believe that the macro functions as stated, but of course I cannot make any guarantees.
On the other hand, if you like the macro you should keep it and enjoy it. It is free to use for personal and/or commercial work, and you do not need to credit me in any way. My only requests are these: (i) please post a response in this Forum topic to let me know that you are using the macro and (hopefully) enjoying it; and (ii) please remember to “pay it forward” by contributing to the forum in any way you can. It is by sharing your experience and your expertise that we all improve our skills and our enjoyment.
Reticulated Gradient Map.afmacros Using the Reticulated Gradient Map Macro.pdf

Vector portrait of movie director, actor, visual artist and musician David Lynch. All 12 stages of progress in my portfolio blog: https://communicats.blogspot.com/2024/01/david-lynch-vector-portrait.html
In aforementioned blog I briefly explained how the effects used have been created, but I will repeat them here for clarity:
In Affinity Designer there are what Serif calls 'Vector Brushes' that actually are based on bitmap images. So, this in fact is not a 100% vector portrait. Users can draw these brushes themselves in vector format, that are exported as png-files. For almost every 'vector' portrait, drawing specific brushes have to be created, since no hair strand or pore texture in a person's face are the same. To such brushes Gradient Fills and Gradient Transparency effects are applied and sometimes they are Duplicated using Filters (below the Layers panel) that in some cases are offset, re-sized, skewed or mesh warped a little. In a number of cases it helps to apply the 3D lighting effect - highlights and outer shadows - to these brushes too. In the Gradient Tool there is an option to use bitmaps as the fill, which also is useful to achieve the desired effect. To these type of fills the same effects can be applied as used to manipulate the Vector Brush strokes.
 

 
 
 
 

 
 

 

Designed some neuemorphic icons for the Affinity Suite in Designer. Inspired by @yeye's Affinity Designer icon on Dribbble.
Hope you guys like it! I'd love some feedback or ideas!

     
 



Affinity Designer Neue.afdesign Affinity Photo Neue.afdesign Affinity Publisher Neue 2.afdesign

Almost every time I need to save exported files in the same folder where the edited image is saved. If it would be possible to specify e.g. ".\" and the application would not ask for the folder, that would be good.

+1 for separate gutter

Don't worry, I guess we all have our individual "Affinity pet peeves".  

This.
The scripting devs are going to have to dedicate a significant amount of time towards documentation. We can't expect our docs team to document the ins and outs of an API (technically multiple APIs), it's simply not fair or realistic. Besides, we'd have to tell them what to write, which would mean pretty much writing the documentation anyway. Sure, they'll be able to present it in a way that looks good and integrated with the normal app documentation, but the devs are going to have to provide much of the content.
We're planning to use one of the many available documentation tools to do most of actual generation for us. The current favourite is Doxygen, largely because most of us have had at least some exposure to it.
Please remember too that the scripting team sometimes has to do bits of work away from scripting development. As the dev who wrote the DWG/DXF importer (and now exporter - see here 🙂), I tend to be the one tasked with its fixes and improvements. The same goes for Move and Shape Data Entry. Everyone in dev could put in those fixes, but it makes so much more sense if I do them because I'm most familiar with the code and should be able to do the work faster. The members of the scripting team do spend most of their time doing scripting work, but it's not 100%.

And Swatches also. Swatches are painful right now to rename. Right Click > Rename; Move cursor to box usually in the center of the screen. Type in value...

Yeah think it's a good idea. Potentially we could achieve this by allowing you to add your own custom tags to layers - so you could do a selection and tag everything selected as #Selection1 for example and that could both be exposed as an option in a state query as well as offering the full list of tags you have created in some way via the select menu (e.g. a Select Tag > menu item alongside Select Same and Select Object which lists all the custom tags you have created). You could also then manually tag additional layers as #Selection1 as you see fit.

I think a 'lock insertion' checkbox beside the buttons would be a lot more findable than a hidden modifier, might just be me 🤔

At first I thought your observation made perfect sense, but upon reflection, I do think there is a need for both buttons, and that is because the visible state of the different objects that make up a query could have their visibility changed from the layer panel. For example, let’s say that you have some objects matching a state query that are currently invisible, and some others matching the same query that are currently visible. In that case with mixed visibility, which state should a single toggle show? In the current implementation, the two buttons are effectively “make all visible” and “make all hidden,” and they will both have an effect when the objects have mixed visibility settings.

Three Additional Feature Requests
The option to duplicate Queries... Quite often you may have an almost identical set of Query criteria where you only need to change one or two settings so rather than recreate from scratch each time it would be great to be able to duplicate an existing Query, rename it and just change the relevant setting/s...
  The ability to reorder Queries similarly to reordering Asset categories in the Assets Panel via drag and drop...
  The ability to select multiple Queries together using Shift or Cmd (Ctrl) Click so they can be deleted (or dragged) to a new location in the stack... Currently, Queries can only be deleted one at a time...

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
We have now added the ability to lock all insertion targets (Behind, On Top and Inside) in all apps. This is activated by holding Alt when pressing either of those buttons in the toolbar. This is particularly useful for those who like working from top to bottom in the layer stack, meaning you can now lock Insert Behind on so all new objects you create are inserted below the current selection.
The insertion target buttons are available in the top toolbar on Windows and macOS:

And can be found in the edit menu on iPad as shown below. On iPad you can lock these either by holding Alt when you tap on the appropriate option (from command controller or attached keyboard), or alternatively by long pressing on the button.

Yes this does apply to pixel layers and you can always cycle back to any objects original "Base Box" - nothing destructive is done to any layers you do this to.

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad
Previously when you cycled your selection box this was only a temporary operation. You can now make this permanent...
From the select menu there are two options:
- Cycle selection box (this was the existing option)
- Set selection box (the new option)

Also note the shortcut for these - [Full Stop] to cycle and [CMD + Full Stop] to set on macOS and iPad or [Ctrl + Full Stop] to set on Windows.
The new feature is that after cycling to the selection box you want you can now permanently set that for your current selection by using the Set Selection Box command.
In the example below, I have two shapes which are rotated by the same amount. Therefore when they are selected by default the selection box is oriented to match the shape's rotation. Now if I want to permanently make those shapes have a selection box which is oriented to my page I can cycle to regular bounds and then Set Selection Box, which will now make that persist every time I select those items in future.

 
A couple of other notes on this feature:
As well as cycling to the base box and regular bounds of an object, if you have a grid set which has a different rotation to your page (or, are working on an isometric plane for example) you will additionally get the option to cycle and set the selection box to be aligned with the the current planar bounds of the selection. If you have a multiple selection which includes objects rotated by different amounts, if you wish to set your selection box for all objects in your selection to match the orientation of one of them you can set the one you want to match to be your key object. Then when you cycle your selection box the "base box" option will match that object's rotation.  
 

I looked all the forums to see if this has been suggested yet, but having Affinity Designer "automatically" selecting the node tool whenever I convert text to curves, is really annoying. Especially since I have to switch to the selection tool in order to use the convert feature. Can this at least be an option I can turn off?

We have start , main repeating and end.   3 sectors only.    Old expression had up to   10 alternating  repeating sectors .  Old serif products  had more too.      It allowed to create  unique and not visually repeating things easily . Was a great feature.   
Now I have to constantly switch to Microsoft Design  soft that  hardly even working now.   Just for a great vector brushes .
Make it with option to deform along spline or  having random offset please
 

We are planning to release a 2.3.1 patch to address a handful of important things and then start 2.4.0 beta.
We think it's important to address a few high customer impact bugs quickly in a 2.3.1 release, in a fast/stable manner.
The release of 2.4.0 with improvements and features and many fixes will likely take a while to be "release ready" (need a longer beta testing cycle due to having more significant code changes).
We have builds for both 2.3.1 and 2.4.0 in internal testing at the moment. I would expect these to both be with you in the first half of this month

Forgot to share this one, but still happy with it 
The graphics were fully designed using Affinity Designer and animated using Moho Pro. The music I made using Ableton Live.
Hope you like it!
 

BTW, I was replying to a suggestion today to not break at a period or comma in a number (e.g., 123.456 or 123,456,) which requires manually fixing with no break. Affinity breaks at all periods and commas but that's not the way word processors and layout apps have traditionally worked. Implementing that suggestion - break at a period or comma only when the following character is whitespace or a break character - would avoid all these issues with breaking between periods and quotes without having to make a language-specific fix.

I would appriceate it if numbers like 10.000 or 2,54 (10,000 / 2.54 if you're anglopnone) would not break at the dot or comma at the end of a line in Publisher.

I need that and a little more.
It's an oversimplification of reality to say that hex values are mostly for web graphics. Like it or not, it has also become a colour exchange format that I encounter just as often as RGB. In addition, there are many palette generators (e.g. create palette from jpg) and other places where you only get hex. So that's what you have.
So I often find myself in the scenario where I get a colour value in a non-optional format, very often HEX and RGB, sometimes CMYK, values I copy from a PDF or the web and need to paste into Designer. And then apply them from there. So there are other scenarios than those where you have to use, for example, exact CMYK colour values.
I have often missed a functionality where you can enter or paste a colour value in hex, rgb or cmyk, which in the worst case must be approximated by Designer - Serif should feel free to notify and warn me that the entered/pasted value is approximated in the selected colour space by Designer and may differ from what is desired. It can be done elegantly.
It's a need I have in ALL colour selectors and swatches too, and regardless of whether I use HSL, wheel or anything else. Now that Serif has parsers for math in input fields and also supports regular expression in search and replace, it's time to support color codes in such functionality as well. But it can be done in several ways.
I also think it should be basic functionality for all of us who work with programs and data from a world much bigger than Affinity. Beyond that, it's just a functionality that is gentlemanly and value-adding.

New version! I have uploaded a new version of this unofficial Publisher manual to the first post of this thread. In addition to being updated for the changes in Publisher 2.3, this version covers character and paragraph formatting, text styles, and all the other text-related features. It is 120 pages longer than the original version.
Although it's written for Publisher, most of the text features are the same for Designer or Photo so you may find it useful for the other Affinity applications, too.
Cheers