NIcholas van der Walle

Sorry, but this is not correct. What you just demonstrated was snapping to anchor points, not tangencies. This example may be nearly similar but it's not what the OP was demonstrating.
SubScribe remains a popular toolset for Illustrator and we've seen these requests for such tools to appear in Affinity previously. Hopefully, that will be the case one day, whether it's the Affinity team finding time to implement or their allowing 3rd parties to assist.
In the meantime, Illustrator will have benefitted from a very much enhanced set of these tools thanks to Astute Graphics...

Just to clarify, Affinity does not currently license or use any AG Tech. The suggestion on our site is that Affinity and other vector software can make use of it.
We’ve made things a little easier for developers since our original preview of the tech last November. A few weeks ago we demonstrated the tech running in Bohemian’s Sketch via our Web API. This approach is going to be deployed in various products including Adobe XD within the coming months and would be an ideal approach for Affinity on the iPad and desktop as explained here: https://astutegraphics.com/tech/sdk-web-api/
It is our understanding that Affinity don’t yet offer an ability for third party extensions. We’d naturally welcome this step, especially as we are now actively developing for products beyond Adobe Illustrator, whilst maintaining momentum in Illustrator itself.
Thanks to everybody’s continued interest; we receive more messages directly from Serif’s users about adding functionality than any other product!

Thanks Patrick!
 
We’ll keep an eye on Affinity developments with interest. As when an extension framework becomes available, please keep us in the loop.
 
Best wishes and season’s greetings,
 
Nick

Hi all,
I have been prompted to take a look at this thread.
Firstly, thanks to all for the interest from a user's level and kind comments about our products. We've had an amazing response since first posting the Astute Graphics Tech sneak peeks on YouTube a month ago.
Full disclaimer - I am the founder and MD of Astute Graphics, so my opinions are bound to be biased. But here's my thoughts and responses based on my personal experience in the market for years which includes considerable hours behind Affinity Designers since its original release:
Adobe Illustrator has a 25 year head start over Affinity. There is naturally overlap, but I have suggested - and have seen - users adopt both packages simultaneously for different reasons. I always encourage that creatives and technical users make use of the best tools that suit them. There are many reasons why Affinity will be the best for a specific workflow and/or budget. If you are a professional user, the opinions of cost (Affinity being low cost, Adobe Illustrator Cloud with its 20+ major apps also being very good value) can only be determined on the requirements of a user's workflow. If any tool saves time and money, it is worth its investment. When analysed fully (which is what we've been doing in detail for 10+ years), you may also come to the conclusion that the greatest investment is in the user's time becoming familiar with any new product. Affinity Designer is an incredible relative newcomer to the market. Long-established competitors to the clear market leader Adobe Illustrator, including CorelDRAW and XARA sadly only remained single platform (by and large). Affinity have taken a much longer view and invested heavily in both Windows and Mac OS platforms. That's not a small task and I personally hugely respect the results. Since Affinity's release, various other competitors have emerged, albeit for more specific markets such as UI/UX including Figma and Adobe's own XD. It will be interesting to see how these continue to develop and intertwine with Affinity's customer base. Why wouldn't a professional have Illustrator, Affinity and Figma all running in parallel? If one app saves hours on a specific task, then it's once more worth the investment. Adobe Illustrator is built around the concept of plug-ins. If you delve into the Ai package, you will find all the native plug-ins that make the default tools. This structure is largely opened out to developers over many years which allows Astute Graphics to integrate itself so deeply into the overall toolset. Several years ago, all our Ai panels had to have a colour banner added as customers were commenting that they didn't know what was native and what was Astute Graphics. I am not aware of Affinity's depth regarding extensions; they may feel they have no need to cater for "rich" plug-ins as it would require a significant amount of resources to bring about, maintain and provide 3rd party support for. This is purely a business decision for Serif. The functionality in our tools can be roughly split up between tools which require interaction (eg. brush-type tools) and "one-button wonders" (eg. path cleaning operations). For interactive tools - which is a significant number of our popular plug-ins - a deep integration would be required. In this case, from a development cost point of view, I am estimating it would be easier for Serif to develop into the core of the product rather than support a complex plug-in architecture. However, the one-button wonders should be easier to add as an extension. The Bézier vector technology available to license from Astute Graphics would naturally be a great asset to Affinity Designer and we've had too many messages to suggest this to count! But the requirement for an efficient, extensive and top-level workflow is not a requirement just for Affinity; Figma, Corel, Autodesk, et al, - and even Adobe Illustrator - could make immediate use of this. It's what the users are calling out for and has resulted in some very interesting potentials fro us. Please keep an eye out for news from ourselves on this front. I hope that we can work as well with fellow UK companies as we have proven to work for years with our US counterparts... I have reached out to Serif and look forward to hearing from them.
Thanks,
Nick

Affinity (and Adobe) can eventually get to where we are today with our vector tech. But by that time, we'll be years ahead. 😇
Good question about the app development; we actually did develop one over several years. But then Affinity came out (along with several vector UI apps such as a XD and Figma, plus the re-emergence of CorelDraw on macOS) and it proved that the major segment remaining was the one Affinity has successfully taken; the price-sensitive market. Our plugins is typically aimed at heavy-duty vector users who require Illustrator's breadth of tools and extensibility to ensure very efficient workflows. Affinity is very good for its price point, but from signifiant research on our side, it still lacks many core tools which too many professionals require on a daily basis.
Instead, we switched to concentrating purely on our 10+ years of vector tech development. It's our core strength.
We'd be happy to help our Affinity, but they would likely need to develop a very deep extension mechanism that caters for interactive tools and deep access to file structures, etc. if licensing is not for them. We're not in Adobe's pocket and are already licensing our tech elsewhere. We're a very independent company and don't do exclusivity with the licensable tech
Where Affinity have excelled is their iPad app. It's leagues ahead what Adobe have got around to doing and very arguably the best technical vector drawing iPad out there. Unfortunately, iOS doesn't accomodate conventional plugins (which is why we developed https://astui.tech/ ).
But never say never regarding an Astute app. Just not in 2020.

Sorry to read that your viewpoint on subscriptions doesn’t align with how Astute Graphics has adopted it.
The past year has never seen customers access a larger number of genuinely useful new tools and functions, only possible through the subscription model.
More exciting and truly innovative and class-leading tech has been brought to market by us than any other point in our 14 year history.
It would have been more profitable in the past 12 months to be non-subscription as it would require less effort. But that would be sacrificing the speed and breadth of developments that will now benefit our customers for another 10 years.
We have yet to be rewarded for any semblance of laziness. Sounds nice if possible. But that’s not
Different perspectives. I’m not for one moment thinking I’ll win you over, but I feel it important I describe the landscape from our, and our customer’s viewpoints.

To give an insight into our customer’s viewpoint and why they choose to invest in Astute Graphics tools:
https://astutegraphics.com/learn/survey/our-plugins-pay-for-themselves-after-3-days

Our customers are mostly commercial and choose typically on the basis of time saving + creative potential.
1. Time is much more costly than any software in this market. So, if one of our customers charges $100/hour, the cost of the Creative Cloud is relatively minimal. Same for the AG plugins. The potential saving of switching to Affinity is negligible, again on a relative basis.
2. Having the creative edge or the greatest number of design options is vital to many of our customers. It’s a competitive market, and being at the top of the pile (or within reach of the top) better ensures commercial survival.
We hear of personal dislikes to subscription a lot. I’m not going to argue that point as it is simply another financial and commercial decision for a professional to make. If it benefits as described above, it’s a valid consideration. If it doesn’t make financial sense for your particular environment, I’d also urge you to decline it.
If the decision is purely emotional, I understand.

Hope you don’t mind scrolling, and scrolling... and scrolling, to see what we achieved in our first year:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/celebrating-14-years-plugins-1-year-subscription-van-der-walle

Hope you don’t mind scrolling, and scrolling... and scrolling, to see what we achieved in our first year:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/celebrating-14-years-plugins-1-year-subscription-van-der-walle

To give an insight into our customer’s viewpoint and why they choose to invest in Astute Graphics tools:
https://astutegraphics.com/learn/survey/our-plugins-pay-for-themselves-after-3-days

Our customers are mostly commercial and choose typically on the basis of time saving + creative potential.
1. Time is much more costly than any software in this market. So, if one of our customers charges $100/hour, the cost of the Creative Cloud is relatively minimal. Same for the AG plugins. The potential saving of switching to Affinity is negligible, again on a relative basis.
2. Having the creative edge or the greatest number of design options is vital to many of our customers. It’s a competitive market, and being at the top of the pile (or within reach of the top) better ensures commercial survival.
We hear of personal dislikes to subscription a lot. I’m not going to argue that point as it is simply another financial and commercial decision for a professional to make. If it benefits as described above, it’s a valid consideration. If it doesn’t make financial sense for your particular environment, I’d also urge you to decline it.
If the decision is purely emotional, I understand.

Hope you don’t mind scrolling, and scrolling... and scrolling, to see what we achieved in our first year:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/celebrating-14-years-plugins-1-year-subscription-van-der-walle

To give an insight into our customer’s viewpoint and why they choose to invest in Astute Graphics tools:
https://astutegraphics.com/learn/survey/our-plugins-pay-for-themselves-after-3-days

Our customers are mostly commercial and choose typically on the basis of time saving + creative potential.
1. Time is much more costly than any software in this market. So, if one of our customers charges $100/hour, the cost of the Creative Cloud is relatively minimal. Same for the AG plugins. The potential saving of switching to Affinity is negligible, again on a relative basis.
2. Having the creative edge or the greatest number of design options is vital to many of our customers. It’s a competitive market, and being at the top of the pile (or within reach of the top) better ensures commercial survival.
We hear of personal dislikes to subscription a lot. I’m not going to argue that point as it is simply another financial and commercial decision for a professional to make. If it benefits as described above, it’s a valid consideration. If it doesn’t make financial sense for your particular environment, I’d also urge you to decline it.
If the decision is purely emotional, I understand.

To give an insight into our customer’s viewpoint and why they choose to invest in Astute Graphics tools:
https://astutegraphics.com/learn/survey/our-plugins-pay-for-themselves-after-3-days

Our customers are mostly commercial and choose typically on the basis of time saving + creative potential.
1. Time is much more costly than any software in this market. So, if one of our customers charges $100/hour, the cost of the Creative Cloud is relatively minimal. Same for the AG plugins. The potential saving of switching to Affinity is negligible, again on a relative basis.
2. Having the creative edge or the greatest number of design options is vital to many of our customers. It’s a competitive market, and being at the top of the pile (or within reach of the top) better ensures commercial survival.
We hear of personal dislikes to subscription a lot. I’m not going to argue that point as it is simply another financial and commercial decision for a professional to make. If it benefits as described above, it’s a valid consideration. If it doesn’t make financial sense for your particular environment, I’d also urge you to decline it.
If the decision is purely emotional, I understand.

To give an insight into our customer’s viewpoint and why they choose to invest in Astute Graphics tools:
https://astutegraphics.com/learn/survey/our-plugins-pay-for-themselves-after-3-days

Our customers are mostly commercial and choose typically on the basis of time saving + creative potential.
1. Time is much more costly than any software in this market. So, if one of our customers charges $100/hour, the cost of the Creative Cloud is relatively minimal. Same for the AG plugins. The potential saving of switching to Affinity is negligible, again on a relative basis.
2. Having the creative edge or the greatest number of design options is vital to many of our customers. It’s a competitive market, and being at the top of the pile (or within reach of the top) better ensures commercial survival.
We hear of personal dislikes to subscription a lot. I’m not going to argue that point as it is simply another financial and commercial decision for a professional to make. If it benefits as described above, it’s a valid consideration. If it doesn’t make financial sense for your particular environment, I’d also urge you to decline it.
If the decision is purely emotional, I understand.

Hi all,
I have been prompted to take a look at this thread.
Firstly, thanks to all for the interest from a user's level and kind comments about our products. We've had an amazing response since first posting the Astute Graphics Tech sneak peeks on YouTube a month ago.
Full disclaimer - I am the founder and MD of Astute Graphics, so my opinions are bound to be biased. But here's my thoughts and responses based on my personal experience in the market for years which includes considerable hours behind Affinity Designers since its original release:
Adobe Illustrator has a 25 year head start over Affinity. There is naturally overlap, but I have suggested - and have seen - users adopt both packages simultaneously for different reasons. I always encourage that creatives and technical users make use of the best tools that suit them. There are many reasons why Affinity will be the best for a specific workflow and/or budget. If you are a professional user, the opinions of cost (Affinity being low cost, Adobe Illustrator Cloud with its 20+ major apps also being very good value) can only be determined on the requirements of a user's workflow. If any tool saves time and money, it is worth its investment. When analysed fully (which is what we've been doing in detail for 10+ years), you may also come to the conclusion that the greatest investment is in the user's time becoming familiar with any new product. Affinity Designer is an incredible relative newcomer to the market. Long-established competitors to the clear market leader Adobe Illustrator, including CorelDRAW and XARA sadly only remained single platform (by and large). Affinity have taken a much longer view and invested heavily in both Windows and Mac OS platforms. That's not a small task and I personally hugely respect the results. Since Affinity's release, various other competitors have emerged, albeit for more specific markets such as UI/UX including Figma and Adobe's own XD. It will be interesting to see how these continue to develop and intertwine with Affinity's customer base. Why wouldn't a professional have Illustrator, Affinity and Figma all running in parallel? If one app saves hours on a specific task, then it's once more worth the investment. Adobe Illustrator is built around the concept of plug-ins. If you delve into the Ai package, you will find all the native plug-ins that make the default tools. This structure is largely opened out to developers over many years which allows Astute Graphics to integrate itself so deeply into the overall toolset. Several years ago, all our Ai panels had to have a colour banner added as customers were commenting that they didn't know what was native and what was Astute Graphics. I am not aware of Affinity's depth regarding extensions; they may feel they have no need to cater for "rich" plug-ins as it would require a significant amount of resources to bring about, maintain and provide 3rd party support for. This is purely a business decision for Serif. The functionality in our tools can be roughly split up between tools which require interaction (eg. brush-type tools) and "one-button wonders" (eg. path cleaning operations). For interactive tools - which is a significant number of our popular plug-ins - a deep integration would be required. In this case, from a development cost point of view, I am estimating it would be easier for Serif to develop into the core of the product rather than support a complex plug-in architecture. However, the one-button wonders should be easier to add as an extension. The Bézier vector technology available to license from Astute Graphics would naturally be a great asset to Affinity Designer and we've had too many messages to suggest this to count! But the requirement for an efficient, extensive and top-level workflow is not a requirement just for Affinity; Figma, Corel, Autodesk, et al, - and even Adobe Illustrator - could make immediate use of this. It's what the users are calling out for and has resulted in some very interesting potentials fro us. Please keep an eye out for news from ourselves on this front. I hope that we can work as well with fellow UK companies as we have proven to work for years with our US counterparts... I have reached out to Serif and look forward to hearing from them.
Thanks,
Nick

Wrong. We still allow pre-subscription plugins to be installed and activated. Please contact our support. We no longer support CS6 or below actively with current or future releases. It's 8 years old already and the OS support is dubious for CS6 to say the least.

Affinity (and Adobe) can eventually get to where we are today with our vector tech. But by that time, we'll be years ahead. 😇
Good question about the app development; we actually did develop one over several years. But then Affinity came out (along with several vector UI apps such as a XD and Figma, plus the re-emergence of CorelDraw on macOS) and it proved that the major segment remaining was the one Affinity has successfully taken; the price-sensitive market. Our plugins is typically aimed at heavy-duty vector users who require Illustrator's breadth of tools and extensibility to ensure very efficient workflows. Affinity is very good for its price point, but from signifiant research on our side, it still lacks many core tools which too many professionals require on a daily basis.
Instead, we switched to concentrating purely on our 10+ years of vector tech development. It's our core strength.
We'd be happy to help our Affinity, but they would likely need to develop a very deep extension mechanism that caters for interactive tools and deep access to file structures, etc. if licensing is not for them. We're not in Adobe's pocket and are already licensing our tech elsewhere. We're a very independent company and don't do exclusivity with the licensable tech
Where Affinity have excelled is their iPad app. It's leagues ahead what Adobe have got around to doing and very arguably the best technical vector drawing iPad out there. Unfortunately, iOS doesn't accomodate conventional plugins (which is why we developed https://astui.tech/ ).
But never say never regarding an Astute app. Just not in 2020.

You're not the only one to say that. We've just doing a customer survey and many responses say they only keep to Illustrator due to the plugins. Really great to read that we're of use :)

Affinity (and Adobe) can eventually get to where we are today with our vector tech. But by that time, we'll be years ahead. 😇
Good question about the app development; we actually did develop one over several years. But then Affinity came out (along with several vector UI apps such as a XD and Figma, plus the re-emergence of CorelDraw on macOS) and it proved that the major segment remaining was the one Affinity has successfully taken; the price-sensitive market. Our plugins is typically aimed at heavy-duty vector users who require Illustrator's breadth of tools and extensibility to ensure very efficient workflows. Affinity is very good for its price point, but from signifiant research on our side, it still lacks many core tools which too many professionals require on a daily basis.
Instead, we switched to concentrating purely on our 10+ years of vector tech development. It's our core strength.
We'd be happy to help our Affinity, but they would likely need to develop a very deep extension mechanism that caters for interactive tools and deep access to file structures, etc. if licensing is not for them. We're not in Adobe's pocket and are already licensing our tech elsewhere. We're a very independent company and don't do exclusivity with the licensable tech
Where Affinity have excelled is their iPad app. It's leagues ahead what Adobe have got around to doing and very arguably the best technical vector drawing iPad out there. Unfortunately, iOS doesn't accomodate conventional plugins (which is why we developed https://astui.tech/ ).
But never say never regarding an Astute app. Just not in 2020.

Affinity (and Adobe) can eventually get to where we are today with our vector tech. But by that time, we'll be years ahead. 😇
Good question about the app development; we actually did develop one over several years. But then Affinity came out (along with several vector UI apps such as a XD and Figma, plus the re-emergence of CorelDraw on macOS) and it proved that the major segment remaining was the one Affinity has successfully taken; the price-sensitive market. Our plugins is typically aimed at heavy-duty vector users who require Illustrator's breadth of tools and extensibility to ensure very efficient workflows. Affinity is very good for its price point, but from signifiant research on our side, it still lacks many core tools which too many professionals require on a daily basis.
Instead, we switched to concentrating purely on our 10+ years of vector tech development. It's our core strength.
We'd be happy to help our Affinity, but they would likely need to develop a very deep extension mechanism that caters for interactive tools and deep access to file structures, etc. if licensing is not for them. We're not in Adobe's pocket and are already licensing our tech elsewhere. We're a very independent company and don't do exclusivity with the licensable tech
Where Affinity have excelled is their iPad app. It's leagues ahead what Adobe have got around to doing and very arguably the best technical vector drawing iPad out there. Unfortunately, iOS doesn't accomodate conventional plugins (which is why we developed https://astui.tech/ ).
But never say never regarding an Astute app. Just not in 2020.

Affinity (and Adobe) can eventually get to where we are today with our vector tech. But by that time, we'll be years ahead. 😇
Good question about the app development; we actually did develop one over several years. But then Affinity came out (along with several vector UI apps such as a XD and Figma, plus the re-emergence of CorelDraw on macOS) and it proved that the major segment remaining was the one Affinity has successfully taken; the price-sensitive market. Our plugins is typically aimed at heavy-duty vector users who require Illustrator's breadth of tools and extensibility to ensure very efficient workflows. Affinity is very good for its price point, but from signifiant research on our side, it still lacks many core tools which too many professionals require on a daily basis.
Instead, we switched to concentrating purely on our 10+ years of vector tech development. It's our core strength.
We'd be happy to help our Affinity, but they would likely need to develop a very deep extension mechanism that caters for interactive tools and deep access to file structures, etc. if licensing is not for them. We're not in Adobe's pocket and are already licensing our tech elsewhere. We're a very independent company and don't do exclusivity with the licensable tech
Where Affinity have excelled is their iPad app. It's leagues ahead what Adobe have got around to doing and very arguably the best technical vector drawing iPad out there. Unfortunately, iOS doesn't accomodate conventional plugins (which is why we developed https://astui.tech/ ).
But never say never regarding an Astute app. Just not in 2020.

YES!!! Please make Astute Graphics plugins available/compatible with Affinity Designer! I use them a lot and one of the few things keeping me using Illustrator.

I LOVE AG's plugins. I see the difficulty of integrating or adding on as a plugin, but hope something happens. 

Astute Graphics is now in its 12th year (approx double software company lifespan according to https://mitosystems.com/software-evolution/). Typically produce free updates to the latest Adobe release within 1 month (often 1 week, dependant on changes). Customers commented our plugins were too integrated - ie. hard to tell the difference from native - so we added color bars to the panels to assist on request. Fully customizable UI presence as per native functionality. Hell yeah, we're not cheap... that's because we produce tools which cost a lot to develop to make so good and save 100k+ users so much time (typically ROI in the first day). But all IMHO, of course. Your mileage may vary.
However, if Astute Graphics' kind of functionality appeared in Affinity, it would be the overall market that decides on these things
Have a nice weekend!

Hi all,
I have been prompted to take a look at this thread.
Firstly, thanks to all for the interest from a user's level and kind comments about our products. We've had an amazing response since first posting the Astute Graphics Tech sneak peeks on YouTube a month ago.
Full disclaimer - I am the founder and MD of Astute Graphics, so my opinions are bound to be biased. But here's my thoughts and responses based on my personal experience in the market for years which includes considerable hours behind Affinity Designers since its original release:
Adobe Illustrator has a 25 year head start over Affinity. There is naturally overlap, but I have suggested - and have seen - users adopt both packages simultaneously for different reasons. I always encourage that creatives and technical users make use of the best tools that suit them. There are many reasons why Affinity will be the best for a specific workflow and/or budget. If you are a professional user, the opinions of cost (Affinity being low cost, Adobe Illustrator Cloud with its 20+ major apps also being very good value) can only be determined on the requirements of a user's workflow. If any tool saves time and money, it is worth its investment. When analysed fully (which is what we've been doing in detail for 10+ years), you may also come to the conclusion that the greatest investment is in the user's time becoming familiar with any new product. Affinity Designer is an incredible relative newcomer to the market. Long-established competitors to the clear market leader Adobe Illustrator, including CorelDRAW and XARA sadly only remained single platform (by and large). Affinity have taken a much longer view and invested heavily in both Windows and Mac OS platforms. That's not a small task and I personally hugely respect the results. Since Affinity's release, various other competitors have emerged, albeit for more specific markets such as UI/UX including Figma and Adobe's own XD. It will be interesting to see how these continue to develop and intertwine with Affinity's customer base. Why wouldn't a professional have Illustrator, Affinity and Figma all running in parallel? If one app saves hours on a specific task, then it's once more worth the investment. Adobe Illustrator is built around the concept of plug-ins. If you delve into the Ai package, you will find all the native plug-ins that make the default tools. This structure is largely opened out to developers over many years which allows Astute Graphics to integrate itself so deeply into the overall toolset. Several years ago, all our Ai panels had to have a colour banner added as customers were commenting that they didn't know what was native and what was Astute Graphics. I am not aware of Affinity's depth regarding extensions; they may feel they have no need to cater for "rich" plug-ins as it would require a significant amount of resources to bring about, maintain and provide 3rd party support for. This is purely a business decision for Serif. The functionality in our tools can be roughly split up between tools which require interaction (eg. brush-type tools) and "one-button wonders" (eg. path cleaning operations). For interactive tools - which is a significant number of our popular plug-ins - a deep integration would be required. In this case, from a development cost point of view, I am estimating it would be easier for Serif to develop into the core of the product rather than support a complex plug-in architecture. However, the one-button wonders should be easier to add as an extension. The Bézier vector technology available to license from Astute Graphics would naturally be a great asset to Affinity Designer and we've had too many messages to suggest this to count! But the requirement for an efficient, extensive and top-level workflow is not a requirement just for Affinity; Figma, Corel, Autodesk, et al, - and even Adobe Illustrator - could make immediate use of this. It's what the users are calling out for and has resulted in some very interesting potentials fro us. Please keep an eye out for news from ourselves on this front. I hope that we can work as well with fellow UK companies as we have proven to work for years with our US counterparts... I have reached out to Serif and look forward to hearing from them.
Thanks,
Nick