Rudolphus

Hi All,
Excited to say this week's build is what we consider to be our first release candidate for 2.1. This means we are now at a stage where we are avoiding making any significant changes the code before release (unless we find some critical issue which must be fixed of course).
Fixes since the last beta build are in this post.
Thanks,
Ash
 

I can't be the first one to think of or suggest this (i only did one quick forum search), but it would be more than awesome to be able to have a secondary studio panel for lesser used panels that operates like the ipad version, where click the icon to show the panel, and it auto collapses once you click off of using it. Even using the ipad side bar offset from the main studio panels.
Something like the screenshot. 

This is indeed what we are hoping to do. 

BTW since you're delaying CR to 2.2, you might consider addressing this minor suggestion which is somewhat important and was likely just an oversight.
Cross Reference panel should show source page number: The Cross References panel shows the cross ref name and target page number. ID shows the source page number which I believe is more useful. When I'm viewing my document and there are 10 cross references to "John Smith" I need to know which page each is on, not that they're all pointing to page 123.

Couldn't agree more, that's one of the reasons we've put these examples up.  However I should re-emphasise that the examples don't represent everything that's possible with scripting, even at this early stage.  It's ok to find the examples underwhelming:
Note: "just to demonstrate" and "basic"  But like I said, constructive feedback is welcomed, just don't worry that this is all you're going to get.
This next bit is mainly for any devs who might be reading this.
The Javascript API is built entirely on top of the C API.  Actually, it's built on top of a header-only C++ SDK that minimally wraps the C API so we don't have to worry about explicitly deallocating any handles that might be used.  We've not cheated and called directly into the Affinity backend from the Javascript layer, it's all going through the C++ wrappers and therefore through the public C API functions.  This is great for testing, as tests written in Javascript exercise all abstraction layers.  We will likely release the C++ headers along with the C headers.
There is a low-level Javascript API that is as similar to the C API as possible, which has the benefit of reducing the amount of documentation we have to write.  There are some differences between function signatures, but essentially they are the same, with each C function "projected" into Javascript land.  We then provide a set of JS files that wrap those exposed JS functions into ES6 classes and hide a lot of the boring boiler-plate that no-one cares about.
For maximum performance, you'd use the C or C++ layer.  For convenience, you'd use the high level JS layer, which is what the examples use. For Javascript consumers who want to design a different OOP layer, they are free to require() the API functions directly and wrap them up however they like.  I would say that as a dev coming from a mainly C/C++ background, I was surprised at how performant the Javascript levels have turned out to be.
 

Here's a list of some of the bugs which have been fixed in 2.1.0.1769
The Improvements in build 2.1.0.1769 are found in this improvements post
Please reply in this forum only 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.
Bugs affecting all platforms
Boolean operation causes objects to fall outside of group if performed outside an artboard [AFD-5452] Boolean Operation fails to apply fills to text objects Artifacts showing on dashed balanced lines at shape corners. Balanced dotted lines don't expand correctly [AFD-6503] Content Sync UI on secondary IPC instances is non-reflective [HUB-292] IDML file imports with all embedded images replaced with the same initial image - File specific [AFB-7612] Extremely short dash lengths draw and export improved. Bugs affecting Desktop (Windows and macOS)
Add provides incorrect results when using Smooth nodes, works as expected with Sharp nodes [AFD-6441] Applying Vector Flood Fill to an empty, non-overlapping curve will cause it to crash [AFD-6549] Attached documents cause app to crash when added as a Book Chapter [AFB-7490] Auto-select - alt-drag Hyperlink path button is too narrow Knife Tool is missing Straight Line mode [AFD-6066] use correct profile when converting asset bitmap in a vector fill. Use icons for Knife tool options on context toolbar Bugs affecting Windows
User file - Shape Builder crash on undo, crash when selecting groups in the Layers Studio, crash when creating a new shape [AFD-6304] App crashing creating RGB document whilst running in OpenCL on Intel Arc A770 Graphics [AFP-6077] Export Preview: WebP and JPEG XL formats do not zoom with the shortcut [AFP-5615] Crash deselecting text in specific document [AFB-7574] Crop preset greyed out on Windows [AFP-6106] Custom content not being migrated from 2.0.4 to 2.1.0 EXE installs Dash / Gap hover - mouse wheel behaviour Mouse scroll values for dash pattern are incorrect on Windows On Windows, New Document > Document summary does not show if it is a facing page document Add rename layer to layer menu in pixel persona Edit Pixel brush > Dynamics > Distance Max value box does not show as % on Mac and iOS Export dialog defaults can cause Zoom keyboard shortcuts to stop working. Quick FX panel: scrolling the mouse wheel over an input field to adjust the slider does nothing on Windows. [AFD-6550] Resize Document> Aspect ratio lock missing in Windows [AFP-6098] Rulers: Right-click menu is missing the tick for the document unit [AFP-6103] Shape Builder Tool: The + and - keys on the numeric keypad do not Create or Delete objects Use Fill and Auto Close options state is not correctly remembered/retained when switching Tool [AFD-6523] When using Select Object to remove from the current selection, the menu closes as soon as you hold Alt Add rename layer to layer menu in pixel persona Bugs affecting macOS
Shapebuilder Tool: hintline for Instant delete says 'Click+[TERIARY] to delete this edge' (should show alt/option symbol) Swatches on FX menu displayed as an RGB preview when document is set to CMYK [AFB-7219]  Correct some positioning/size of labels in the Text Style editor  Color Profile Manager should be initialised BEFORE loading saved data  Endnotes take <NoteEnd> into consideration when spellchecking providing unexpected results (Windows to follow) [AFB-7562] Bugs affecting iPad
Help Menu improvements { Help / Learning Portal / QuickStart Guide / What's New } If a document is closed on the iPad whilst editing an embedded file it will cause the document to fail to open again [AFD-5299] Adjusting settings in the PDF Options dialog can cause the page preview to break Assets Category Drop down menu is hard to read as text is black [AFB-7610] Contour tool: Contour Mitre incorrectly uses Miter US spelling in EN install Document viewer document dimensions cannot display decimal places Double tapping a layer in Compact mode doesn't zoom to selection. [AFD-6357] Double-tap of layer thumbnail doesn't Zoom to Selection [AFB-5832] Some UI improvements on 11" iPad Show tooltip when selecting a filter in My Account Export Panel Localisation Long press to show Quick Menu should be disabled in certain personas On Account window, control for selecting whether content is auto/manually downloaded renders incorrectly Change the studio toolbar order Show Curve Orientation option is missing [PD-601] Text Capitalisation options missing on iPad Double tapping on the < > chevrons no longer resets export zoom Place DWG dialog has some mashed text Color Profile Manager should be initialised BEFORE loading saved data Updated style picker/format dropper tool icons.

Hi Ezbaze, 
We'll have our hands full with JavaScript for the foreseeable future, but we aren't ruling out other languages eventually. 
In addition, the JavaScript engine is itself implemented using our plugin SDK, to which we plan to add support for alternative scripting engines (i.e. you could in theory write your own plugin to support Python or any other language).

Add a power duplicate or two, a join command and you have a spiral...
Spiralising.mp4  
 
 

Trying out building some flip book text effect in APh v1, though it would be overall better to have some reusable macro/script for creating such text effect tasks. Also undoubtly it would be overall better to do the whole with plain vectors instead of pixels here. - BTW it's also one of those things where one is then sadly missing some blend tool for creating intermediate steps.

 

For text not all letters/characters and fonts work & look well here, so using capitalized words in some heavy font is mostly recommended, as far as chars like an "J" or "L" aren't used, as those (as can be seen below) would produce unsightly effect gaps ...

 
 

No work on so thought I'd have a go at re-creating an old job that was originally all raster created in Photoshop - all Vector-
Turned out quite well so thought I may as well post it as it was all done in PUB

Some Affinity Designer v.1.10.5 based Easter Stuff vector assets. - Note: the assets are compound of unlocked, grouped vectors, thus when moving, resizing etc. inside docs, make sure to always select the outer group layer.


 

The assets file:

easter-stuff.afassets You will find a bunch of other Affinity related things under some of my other resources contributions, see therefor:
Retrospective of resources contributions
Have a nice and peaceful Easter time!

Hi All,
We are pleased to make available the next update to the 2.1 beta (2.1.0.1736). This will be available for you shortly on auto-update. Below are some of the main changes in this update...
WebP and JPEG XL now available in batch export
As has been commonly requested since adding these new formats to V2, we have now made them available as batch format options in Affinity Photo.

New left swipe options on iPad layers panel
You can now access lock/unlock, rename layer and change compound type (if layer in question is a compound) by swiping left on a layer as shown below:
RPReplay_Final1680080397.mov
 
Brush panel improvements
Texture brushes in Designer persona can now be viewed in thumbnail view (i.e. you now have ability to uncheck "Show as list") Alt-Click on raster brushes now changes brush while keeping your current brush width as well as ignoring associated tool. If you just want to ignore associated tool then use shift-alt-click Auto-select
With auto select turned off you can now hold cmd (Mac/iPad) / ctrl (Windows) to temporarily turn it back on to make another selection on document.
Also note: We have encountered some problems with auto select being off with multi-page documents. For that reason it is currently disabled with a multi-page doc, we are hoping to have a fix for this soon.
Vector flood fill tool
When your bucket is loaded with a colour / fill you can now just click on any object to fill it even if it is not selected. In this case this will just fill the whole object - if you want the fill tool to take into account intersecting shapes and curves they all need to be pre-selected as before. While in the tool you can now just click on an asset or stock item to load your bucket with that bitmap texture (i.e. without having to drag drop as before). This is currently only implemented on desktop, but will be added to iPad in too in the next update. There are new controls for whether you want to add as an additional fill or replace the current fill. To be honest there is still some outstanding work which needs to be done with this, so we will talk more about this / what the expected behaviour is in the next update. A new option to "fill to visible boundaries". This means if any of the objects in your selection are obscuring any line segments from other objects, these can now optionally be ignored by the tool. In the example below - without the new option checked there are 12 possible areas you can fill to, but now you can alternatively choose to just show the 6 areas on the right. 
Crop tool
Cmd / ctrl / shift constrain modifiers are now available when in unconstrained mode as promised.
Dashed lines
We now accept zero as the 2nd and 3rd dash value to give different options, particularly when in combination with balanced lines. This example was discussed on the thread - the left option begins with a dot and when balanced dots are in the rectangle corners. The right option begins with a dash, but the 2nd "dash" can now be set to a dot (zero value) to enable dashes in the corners in this case.

Pencil double tap option for quick menu
If menu is already visible a second double tap will now dismiss it.
Rename Layers
You can now double click / tap on an artboard name to rename it!
 
Plus as usual lots of bug fixes as listed in the fix list thread!
To comment / give feedback on any of these changes please go to the relevant thread for that feature which is linked to in each of the headings above.

Thanks,
Ash

Thanks for this feedback - though getting a bit off topic from balanced dashed lines
It won't be in this update but a double line style is something we'll get on the list for future consideration. What we could also do with a a much better way to save any line styles you create yourself (with various dash patterns, arrow heads, multiple strokes in appearance, etc,) as well as us being able to provide a nice set of presets. These could potentially just be saved in other categories of the brushes panel within Designer persona. Again one for a future update...

Yes, I came across as a grumpy old man. Affinity apps do have some fantastic features. And, they do all the things I want right now. But the bugs and the experience of using them annoy me every day.

Firefly has no legal issues, because they trained their model on their own stock content. 
What I would like to see in Affinity Photo is "basic" AI stuff like upscaling, compression artefact removal etc. - not txt2img generation. 

Ok, I think probably the best compromise right now is that we just make it that:
- Single click: adds a mask
- Alt-click: opens the menu
The vast majority of the negative feedback with the V2 change was requiring two clicks to add a mask, so at least we get back to that behaviour. Only negative vs. what we have in the beta right now is will now require two clicks to add an empty mask (as that will be part of the menu options, along with range and compound masks)

The other possibilities of right click and long press I think we just want to give more consideration to, as both things we don't really have elsewhere on action buttons such as this.

Does this sound alright for now?
 

@Shrinks99
Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums  and thanks for your expert opinion on this topic. I think the overhaul of the engine would be needed for RTL (mixed direction) text, but I do not think that support for variable fonts is as difficult and I too hope it can be addressed before too long

I have now split off the unrelated posts into their own thread.

Please do not use these feature specific threads to report unrelated issues.

Thanks!
 

So just to quickly say - better node editing and more presets is certainly on our list for a future update, but will not be in 2.1 I'm afraid.

In the latest update we have added options in the burger menu so you can choose if you want to auto scroll and/or auto switch category when changing tool. 

I've felt the same minor annoyance with this getting used to V2. It would be cool to be able to move them up or down in the stack to whatever order you like.

We are pleased to make available the next update to the 2.1 beta (2.1.0.1730) This should now be available for you on auto-update.
Below are some of the main changes:
Dashed line / stroke panel improvements
The big new feature here is that you can now choose to set dashed lines to be "balanced", meaning spacing is automatically adjusted so cusps (e.g. corners of a rectangle) look correct. Additionally available dash lined patterns have been extended to 3 dashes and 3 gaps and there is a new "Clear arrow heads" button.
Running headers
You can now add running headers to your document in Publisher using the new running header field.
Adjusted mask behaviour
From customer feedback the drop down menu when hitting the mask button in layers panel has been removed, and logic for how the assistant determines if a mask should be added as a new layer or a child altered.
Some file management changes to iPad versions
New option to "Find in files" added to document burger menu iPadOS default Photos browser now used when opening a photo. Redesigned Edit menu on iPad
Taking on board various feedback regarding readability and loss of icons for Isometric options
Crop tool 
Problem with the hit area when dragging a corner has been fixed
Auto clean in paint mixer
Setting is now remembered
Special characters view in Designer and Photo
This has now now been added to the iPad versions of Designer and Photo
Additional select options added to iPad shortcuts / quick menu
Select next, previous, top and bottom now available in iPad shortcuts and quick menu
Brush Panel improvements
You can now optionally decide to turn the new auto scroll / switch category functionality when you change brush tool on or off
Auto-select
Auto-select is now it's own checkable toggle separate to the drop down options of selecting group or objects. Position of auto select options has moved to be after any context options based on selection Guides
Mouse wheel / arrow keys can now be used to nudge values that have focus in guides manager. Option to lock margin and spread original values added to guides manager dialog. Vector flood tool
Various changes to behind the scenes logic to try to do a better job at combining fills together.  A new scaling option of "None" when tool has a bitmap or gradient fill. Migrate your release version content to beta
A new option has been added to preferences in the desktop versions where you can transfer any content you have in your retail versions over to the beta versions at anytime.
 
Plus various bug fixes as listed in the fix list thread.
 

Apps: Affinity Publisher
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
Running Headers are field which refers to text of a particular style elsewhere in the document. The most obvious cases are of a novel where the title of the chapter is repeated at the top of each page or of a dictionary where the first and last word defined on a given page are denoted in the header.
A Running Header is treated much the same as other fields such as creation date or current section and is found under Document Sections on the Fields Panel. The … button allows you to configure the header, whilst double-clicking the field’s name inserts a header with the current settings into the text. Once placed, the field’s settings can be edited from the right-click context menu’s Edit Field... option.
The Running Header’s settings allow you to choose which text will be chosen for the instance and how it will be presented. You can identify the paragraph or character style which should be tracked and whether you are interested in the “first on page” (which will show the first text of the tracked style on the current page or the previous text of the tracked style looking backwards through the document if none is present on the current page) or “last on page” which will show the last text of the tracked style on the current page or nothing if there is none on the current page.
N.B. Frames containing running headers are not considered as sources for tracked styles. This is because, in the case of using “last on page” it is entirely possible a running header would, when evaluated, push the source text off of the page and thus render itself invalid. Running headers are therefore intended to be placed in separate frames - usually as page headers.
The settings for constraining the running headers are much the same as for Cross-References. You can limit the number of words or stop on a specific character, include or exclude paragraph numbering and so on. Additionally, you can also apply case adjustments, None to leave the text as you found it, or Sentence, Title, Upper or Lower to reformat the text in the same manner as if you applied the text case commands to the original text.
N.B. At present, composition of fields doesn’t allow them to flow onto multiple lines. A running header which exceeds the length of a line of text will truncate to fit the frame.

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
A few new features have been added to the stroke panel...
1. As has been commonly requested we have now added the ability to 'balance' dashed lines using a new toggle button on stroke panel. This means that the dash pattern is automatically rescaled between any cusps in a curve - making things such as corners of a rectangle or the start and end of a stroke look correct.

2. An additional dash and gap have now been added to build up more complex dashed line patterns (now giving you 3 dash and 3 gaps) making, among other things, two dot chain patterns possible. On desktop you can also click-drag the dash and gap indicator as shown to adjust the value. 

3. A new button has been added to clear any arrowheads on a stroke - just making it more convenient than having to open the drop downs to set both ends to "None".
 

 
 

Hello,
I know it's an asked feature a few times for the V1, but now that V2 is out, why not adding this one?
A "Timeline" feature for creating GIFs, and tools like creating frames from layers, image stacking...