Megnusin

Web-based graphic apps are not for serious work. Even Figma's workflow is optimized for composing layouts from imported components, with most of the heavy lifting being done in the Adobe suite. Even then, it draws heavily on resources. One of the three developers behind the open-source project you've linked to won't even reveal their real name. People's eccentricities always get in the way of either scale or output when it comes to open source. Management with authority is required to organize and focus a group of people towards a single vision, and that authority comes from the financial hierarchy inherent to any business. Throwing together an open-source web app from existing vector libraries isn't the answer. It's been done many times before. You need a serious organization of a critical size with compensation for developer skill, time and effort, and that means paying for people's living expenses at an absolute minimum.

There are plenty of open-source 2D graphics apps around, all either lacking direction or impetus. The lack of financial incentive is the inherent challenge to any open-source project, which is why a different business structure is necessary. The saving grace in the case of an appropriately organized open-source competitor to Affinity is that the software is complex, so a sole developer can't just take the ball and leave or an outsider start their own game, if the organization has enough scale and output.

Time to form an open-source co-op, anyone? Ironically, I think many users otherwise opposed to subscription-based apps would be open to paying recurringly if the product cannot be sold to speculators.

@stokerg Thank you, I appreciate the help!

Hi @stokerg, Thanks for getting in touch and for looking into the issue. I've uploaded the file.

I don’t think so. This issue fits the description and is concurrent with the other reports. Affinity 2.2 was released on September 28, two days after macOS Sonoma was released. I think the tie to Sonoma is mistaken and that it's likely just a bug in Affinity 2.2 itself. There are no linked resources in the document. The document was saved as a new file that was never synced with iCloud, and when placed on a separate computer with iCloud disabled, the issue still occurred. I don’t believe iCloud is the culprit. Thanks.

Yesterday, I reported Designer 2.2.0 getting stuck loading a document. Shortly before then, a pinned post was published, tying the issue to macOS Sonoma. I'm experiencing the issue on Monterey on a 2015 MacBook Pro as well as on an M2 MacBook Air that's still running Ventura, not Sonoma. Additionally, the pinned post suggest the issue will resolve itself if the document is left to fully load. In my case, I'm still waiting up to 15 mins for the document to load after having already let it load completely yesterday. The load time is not improving. It's suggested the issue is related to use of iCloud. The document has spent some time on iCloud Drive, but I've since moved it back to local (internal) storage without seeing any change in load time. I've also made a copy which hasn't touched iCloud with no improvement in load time. It's also been suggested the issue relates to embedded images. This seems to be accurate in my case. I've saved a third copy of the document with all embedded images and all snapshopts deleted (to truly remove the images). Load time improved to near instant and the file size is down from 261 MB to 47 MB. Finally, in addition to taking a long time to load, I've noticed it takes a similarly long time to save the affected documents. Here are the troubleshooting details: MacBook Pro early 2015 macOS Monterey 12.6.8 Affinity Designer 2.2.0 (installed via AppStore) 8GB RAM no antivirus iCloud Drive enabled document saved locally on internal storage browser only other app open in addition to Designer (500 MB memory use; <10% CPU use) Affinity uses 16GB of memory and 60-100% CPU while loading and saving affected documents MacBook Air M2: macOS Ventura 13.2.1 Affinity Designer 2.2.0 (installed via AppStore) 8GB RAM no antivirus iCloud Drive disabled document saved locally on internal storage Affinity uses ~16GB of memory and 90+% CPU while loading the affected document The document (original copy): File size is 261.3 MB Created in Designer 2.1 Contains embedded images (~100 of which ~40 unique) No linked resources Snapshots used extensively (100+) 13 artboards 12 fonts I can't share the documents publicly, but Serif staff are welcome to get in touch for a copy to troubleshoot.

You can disregard the last post. I just got the file opened on the M2 after trying for a while. If someone from Serif is interested in troubleshooting, you're still welcome to get in touch. I'll be happy to send the file. @Leigh I just saw your recent pinned post and it sounds like the exact issue I was having, except I'm stuck on Monterey 12.6.8. The M2 that was able to open the file is running Ventura 13.2.1. It also took several minutes of letting it sit and load.

I'm in the same situation. I'm stuck trying to open a document with embedded images that I keep on iCloud. I haven't moved the file recently, however, it just stopped working since last time I opened it. I've tried the steps suggested in the thread to no avail. If someone wants to take a look at the file, please send a DM or share a dropbox link here. I can't share the file publicly. I'm running Designer 2.2 for MacOS. I've sent the file to a friend to open it on their M2 MacBook, but it's stuck loading there too.

Paste FX (ctrl+⌘+v) seems to be working normally for me on Designer 2.2 for MacOS.

I recently restored to an old snapshop on a document that includes symbols. The symbols were unaffected by the restoration, i.e., they kept all changes made after creating the snapshop. I would expect symbols to be rolled back to their appearance at the time of the snapshop, not to have an independent history separate from the rest of the document. Is this the intended behavior or a bug? I'm using Affinity Designer 2.1.1 on macOS Monterey 12.6.6 running on a MacBook Pro. symbols and snapshots.mov

Thanks for the workaround. The bug is still present in the latest release, 2.1.0.

Thank you for the help! I didn't need the change in opacity to simulate a dynamic change in pressure with the Brush Erase Tool, but it's good to know how to achieve that too. Here's a before and after:

I'm trying to erase pixels along a path in Affinity Photo 2 for MacOS. Using the Brush Erase Tool can be slow and fiddly, so I've been looking for a way to apply the tool along a path, but applying brush tools along paths doesn't seem to be a feature. Is there a workaround for deleting pixels along a path with a gradient effect exactly like with the Erase Brush Tool?

There's very little use for paragraph justification without automatic hyphenation.