affinityfan

Hi @abject39 
Unfortunately as NotMyFault has mentioned, there isn't a built in version of this feature to the app currently, my apologies.
I will be sure to move this thread to the Feedback section of our forums, for our devs to see and consider adding this in a future version.
I hope this helps!

Great job! If "Select Children" added will be perfect!

Status: Release Candidate
Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Submitted
Download: Download
 
Auto-update: Not available
 
Hello,
If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry.
This beta is no longer considered to be an incremental update to the 1.9.3 version recently released to all customers. As such, we strongly recommend that you do not use this beta for real work as data could be lost and the files you save are not guaranteed to open in previous / future versions of Affinity Designer.
Thanks again for your continued support!
Many thanks!
Matt

Changes This Time
- Added 'Select Parent', 'Select Top' and 'Select Bottom' for helping with selecting commonly required elements. This is super-useful for large documents where using the layers panel is very difficult
- Tweaked a recently introduced rendering issue with clips and blend modes
Changes Since 1.9.3
- Potentially huge performance improvements for large documents. We've spent a long time looking at this and have improved performance many-fold for large documents and improved scalability. If you have particular documents that still appear 'too slow' then feel free to share them with me and I'll do my best to look into them 
- Memory handling improvements
- Support for Emojis in text tools! 😁👌🏻
- Further performance improvements to general operations
- Misc text performance improvements
- SVG import and export tweaks
- Fixed PDF Export group opacity potentially being applied twice
- Fixed potential crash when quitting with layers still on the clipboard
- Fix for Trotec Job Control incompatibility
- Improvements to noise rendering when used on colours
- Fix for inserting an embedded document, which was incorrectly favouring an in-memory version of the document if you were trying to add it again
- Fix for a potential deadlock most often noticed while painting with a pixel brush
- Fix for documents being offered to the clipboard in RGB8 format even when the document is CMYK, for example
- Fix for SVG export failing to correctly deal with stretched text when the user selects 'flatten transforms'
- Fix for SVG import not functioning correctly with whitespace between the keyword "translate" and the following opening bracket
- Fix for a potential deadlock when opening files with many (potentially large) images
- Many text tweaks - particularly relating to how pinned objects are handled when opened from a Publisher document
- Potential view drawing speed improvement
- Localisation improvements
- Help improvements
 

Hello!
What if the Affinity products were relying more on the community ?
I've been testing a lot of softwares and games, and what i can observe is that the one that are still up even though low prices or even being free, is the community that's behind.
I originally come from the 3D world, working with Blender, Unreal, Unity, Godot Engine and a few others, all being free.
First Point - Blender has always been free and open source (well except at the very start, but lets not make history here), and had a sluggish UI, weird counter industry standard shortcuts etc. Today, we can see how it evolved. They have a really dedicated community, developpers from all around the world, and most importantly (IMO) the scripting capabilities for people that don't want to touch the source code but have to adapt the software to there needs. And i think Affinity products is lacking that point. This would eventually allow users to temporarily solve some lacking features until they are officially implemented by the dev team.
Second Point - Unreal and Unity were not free in the early years, and have now became free until you earn a certain amount of money, past which you'll have to give a percentage of your profits. This might not fit Affinity philosophy or business mind or whatever it's called, and that leads me to that other point.
Third Point - Relying on contents instead of the software itself. By this, i mean establishing an official asset store where Serrif would take a percent of the sale. That's what Epic and Unity does, and i think they have been alive long enough to prove that combining this with the previous point generates enough founds to keep things going.
Fourth Point - Why not going open source or adding a donation system (or both) ? That's quite sensitive i know, but look at Inkscape, they have a ton of features, even a modifier system like in 3D softwares (and damn, i miss this so much in 2D softs). On the other side, the UI is terrible (let's be honest). I wish AD would get the features from Inkscape, and Inkscape to get the UI and smoothness of AD.
Another things is that a lot of opensource softwares can get people involved in it, either by donating there time or giving money. Plus, Epic Games tends to encorage open source by donating some money (Blender had been given 1.4 million if i remember well, Godot Engine got 50K... look at the Epic Mega Grant nominees).
I also think that Affinity products got really interesting things, like the persona system, but they could have more. This is something that was innovating from other softwares, but it seems that the innovation stops here, sadly. I wish your softwares kept going with "out of the box" ideas. Right now to me, lots of 2D softwares look similar, with the same design philosophy and lacking or 20 years old workflow. I could make a 30 pages comparison of features that are in 3D softwares and could have there place in 2D but that's not the point.
I hope you will find some interesting things in there.
Cheers

AWESOME - massive time saver for me  - great work👍👍
Also had a request for a re-run of some old artwork, one being CD artwork which need's to be re-purposed for old school gatefold 12" album release and thought I'd just have ago at moving over the original .indd by opening up in slow and clunky InDesign cs5 and re-saving as .idml then opening in Pub Beta 1.10.0.1109 - what a great and smooth conversion with everything intact with all layer names, master pages and intact global colours + embedded multi layer PSD's all accessible direct via studiolink  - the original .indd is very laggy even in low res view, yet in Pub it flitts around super quick and smooth - very very impressive👍👍

New beta is around, time to bump this up and see if it comes around this time.
We really need this to produce good packaging and print mockups.

I believe the situation we're in is largely caused by Affinity's business model everyone likes to praise. Since the software is a one time purchase for a rather cheap price (when compared to similar commercial software), their revenue is largely dependent on gaining new customers indefinitely. To do that they periodically release new versions that introduce a bunch of big, marketable features at the cost of the ever crumbling and deficient foundation of the software. Once the new features are introduced, they might get some bug fixes later but rarely are they fundamentally improved even if they are effectively unusable in a professional setting. The team then focuses on the next set of big, marketable features or new products to sustain the company. And with every new product their resources grow thinner and thinner. I absolutely hate Adobe's subscription but this is no alternative, never has been and it seems it never will be either.

Or devs just like to work on something new and don't care about basic vector features like per node stroke width control.
EDIT: Just tried VectorStyler mentioned in this thread. In 30 seconds I found stroke width tool so it's already superior to Affinity Designer in my eyes. This basic tool has been requested in multiple threads here as far 6/7 years ago. Affinity have made 0 improvements in all that time to stroke width control. Pressure graph is as janky as it has always been, creates ugly results and in no way it's even comparable to manual per node stroke width control.

@PaRunk
All nice and right what you're saying. But in the end the question for people who use the software to do their work and to generate income is: does it have the functions I need to do the job? At first, can it do the job at all, and second can it do it with the least amount of afford and the less time that's possible. And as sad as it is, I have to say that the Affintiy Suite is not the tool at the moment.
It is allways claimed that it's hard work to develop such software. Of course it is, no doubt! But if you look around, there are some softwares that are also created by smaller teams and that develop much faster. For me the most impressive example are the two guys behind Photoline. But take Vector Styler for another example, or Vectornator. And after all, there has been the knowledge at Serif to implement the features. They were mostly there in Draw Plus! and the other Serif softwares. Thus it's not the point that they have to invent the wheel another time. And last but not least, not all concepts and software techniques behind the features are intellectual property of individual companies and thus inaccessible. Many things are just mathematics, many are published as white papers or part of open source libraries. And many features that are missing in the Affintiy softwares are just small extensions to the existing ones (just make solo mode permanent, for example. Just don't leave it by clicking somewhere on the canvas).
And finaly, there's the point that we live in the year 2021. There are softwares that have evolved over decades and set the standards today. If you come into the market today (or better 7 years ago) and claim to have a professional software, you have measure yourself against the existing standards of professional software. You can just as easily not enter the car market today and say, "Hey, our car now has a gasoline engine and even manual transmission!"
I'm afraid Affinity has found its niche in the semi-pro market, both in terms of features and price. And at least for me, it's not the costs that count. I would happily pay more, really more, if the Affinity softwares would be pushed to a real professional level.

Lack of features such as properly functioning boolean operations, vector brushes, perspective deformation and distortion, convenient possibility of fast merging of vector objects makes me think about going back to Adobe Illustrator. Unfortunately. I am a big fan of the Serif products. But the lack of some features causes me despair.

The question is not so much whether Affinity Designer is still developed (it obviously is) but whether Serif still has any kind of ambition of delivering a viable Adobe Illustrator competitor, and are devoting the development resources needed to do that.
The answer to that question once appeared to be yes, about five years ago. Today, I think the answer is pretty clearly no.
When AD launched back in 2014, its biggest shortcomings versus the industry leader were acknowledged and actively pursued. Artboards were at the top of the list, and indeed, were one of AD 1.4's marquee features the next year, proudly marked off the now-infamous 1.x roadmap. 
Then Affinity Photo happened, and AD development slowed to a trickle. Not a standstill – updates such as improvements to the pen tool continued to show up a few times a year. But by the time Affinity Publisher came around, the original Designer roadmap had not only been abandoned, but deleted from the site. Six years after Affinity Designer 1.0, most of the software's original ambition remains unrealized. The improvements that continue to ship every now and then are certainly welcome, but are a far cry from what was once planned.
The intended use for AD has clearly shifted. Once positioned as a tool for working professionals, it's now aimed at hobbyists and people who need vector software for side projects. And as someone who uses AD for side projects, it works well for that! If I were doing vector illustration in my day job, though, there's no way I'd choose AD over Illustrator. The time savings of features like shape blends, vector art brushes, envelope distorts, scatter/pattern brushes, isolation mode, and more would have me (however grudgingly) paying Adobe's stupid subscription fee.
Of course, Adobe has teams upon teams of developers, product managers, UX designers, and QAs working on Illustrator. Serif, as best I can tell, has one person working on Affinity Designer. But I guess that's not a bad fit – Serif's side project is the tool I use for my own side projects.

Alt-clicking an object/layer is not useful at all, as far as I can tell. Unless I did something wrong. It seems to be for viewing only. As soon as you click anywhere, everything is shown again. So it is not possible to isolate a group and edit it without showing/interference of other objects. Wouldn't it be useful to isolate objects like Alt-click does now, but staying in this mode unless you press ESC or something similar.
Right now editing groups is cumbersame. As soon as you deselect an object you are out of the group, and have to double-click to select an object within the group again. Having multiple nested groups is quickly becoming annoying. With such an isolation mode I would always stay within the group and could directly select the objects by just clicking them. That would be some relief....!

+1 I would need this badly.
Looks like VectorStyler will be our companion for a couple of years. It'll take forever for serif to add the basic features, and I don't even dream about a shape builder tool or recolor artwork... these are all in VS and that's a beta app. UI is clunky, but the vector engine is great. So, man up Serif! 

I started with Freehand 7 in 96 which did everything I needed it to 25 years ago, and back in 2014 saw Designer as a shining light as it showed so much promise, looking at all the missing basics planned back then, I thought within a couple of years I'd at least get similar basic functionality as freehand - now we're approaching 7 years from release and I just want to get work done, which is ultra frustrating as Designer is a brilliant beast - brilliant we recently got select same and contour tool but it took 6 years - 
Now at the point - wish someone could find the grave of Freehand and do a super Frankenstein job on it (no subscription)- massive shame Adobe got it hands on it.
Yes I know missing basic features aren't everything, you only have to use VectorStyler to realise how good the Affinity user interface is, I'm just tired of the workarounds on workarounds to get functionality I was getting 25 years ago with Freehand
Also some of us need to print CMYK to CMYK devices!?!?!? 
(Vincent Price type voice) 'O' RISE GREAT FREEHAND' 
Moan moan eff-in moan😕
Sorry guys woke in a mood realise the team are doing all they can to achieve - just getting stuff off my chest

I was shocked that there are no tools like Eraser, Knife, Shadow, Distort, Envelope, Extrude and some transform tools (Roughen, Smudge) in AD 😮
I've just tried Affinity Photo and it's really great so I thought that I will finally get also some good vector graphics tool for occasional personal use because Corel is extremely expensive nowadays and it's "cheaper" version has less and less tools every year... but AD doesn't have some tools that I've seen in Corel TWENTY or at least SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO!
I don't understand it, since many of them are really basic and as other users noticed Serif offered them in their previous app DrawPlus X8 (last version from 2015 if I'm correct)!
Even Gimp seems to have more tools... It's sad because some of them are really crucial for less experienced users (for example Eraser, Knife, Envelope, Extrude...)
It would be great if we knew if and when some of these tools will be finally added. Without them buying AD makes no sense, especially that 2.0 version will be a separate product. 

7 years is way too long for blend tool, warp, transform, shape builder. I belive it is not a rocket science for people who built designer. 

It’s kind of got to the point that the only way I can fathom out why we don’t yet have any form of vector distortions is probably because it can’t yet do it - I gather they started development in 2010, and for any software company who decides to build brand new vector design application aimed squarely at pros, vector distortions / Free Transform / Perspective & Warp Tools or whatever you want to call it would be pretty high on the features list, my guess is they must have been working on this from the start and maybe judging by the problems with boolean operations in the past maybe it’s still too glitchy for release - it will be seven years since release on the first of October —— gradually losing faith

When changing the position of the stroke on an object using the stroke alignment panel (Inside, Middle, Outside) please provide the ability for the object to snap to either the Inside, Middle, or Outside of the object when snapping is activated. Currently the way the program works... when an object has the stroke aligned to the outside, then the object still snaps to the inside edge where the fill or image begins. If the stroke is aligned to the middle, then the object still snaps the the fill edge, so the stroke is on top of the snap line. And the same is true for the stroke when aligned to inside. So please allow for any one alignment option of the stroke to be combined with any one snap position. This would result in 9 possible alignment-snap combos.
1) Stroke Outside - Snap Outside 
2) Stroke Outside - Snap Middle
3) Stroke Outside - Snap Inside
4) Stroke Middle - Snap Outside 
5) Stroke Middle - Snap Middle
6) Stroke Middle - Snap Inside
7) Stroke Inside - Snap Outside 
😎 Stroke Inside - Snap Middle
9) Stroke Inside- Snap Inside
 
Thanks,
David

Please, please make the export preview option available for Studio Link, it's a real pain having to open in Designer or Photo to get the export preview feature ....
 

Just wanted to add my voice to this. I'm waiting for this feature too. Unfortunately there's some advanced functions that makes very difficult to dismiss illustrator.

I understand that there are a lot of ways to create the result of using the shape builder tool, but I think the point people are trying to make is that the tool is used during the creative phase. To be able to manipulate curves efficiently while designing and experimenting is critical in logo design for example.  Not having it makes the process clunky.   Just my two cents.

I'll make a purchase and switch from Illustrator to Designer as soon as the ShapeBuilder tool is implemented or in the roadmap.

There is no support for RTL paragraph. I am in the middle of a massive project and I have ended up to do a paragraph line by line. Unfortunately Affinity do not see the value of RTL and whatever you say falls on deaf ears..

何时能支持亚洲语言，添加中文字典

I've done a couple of sessions of curve editing in the last few days, and have a request for enhancement for joining curves.  When working rapidly with already trimmed curve segments, I do not want to have to zoom in on nodes and painstakingly drag one node over another to join two curve segments.  I want to quickly box select both nodes and weld the two nodes together. Bam. Done. Move on to the next joint.  Repeat.  Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.  No fussy business, no delay.  Just efficient work.
What I get right now with the "Join curves" Action of the Node Tool (A) is an additional line segment between the two nodes.  This segment is usually hidden by its tiny size, until I apply an operation like a boolean or the new beta contour, or apply a wide stroke.  Then the insanely high curvature of a curve doubling back on itself twice makes it clear there's a little glitch that absolutely must be cleaned up before I can go on to the next step.  Slowly, and painstakingly.
So I would like to see another toolbar Action for the node tool, where selected nodes are not joined by a line segment, but merged into a single node.  Adopt a rule that the highest (or lowest, I don't care) node in the layer stack is moved to the position of the lower, so if you are working with a precise design, you can reliably preserve known locations.  Moving both nodes to an average location is much less useful than keeping one readily-identified node in a fixed location.  Please do not base the rule on selection order.  The node visual indicators are usually overlapping, and having to select the two nodes in a particular sequence would be a huge pain in the patoot, and require more of that slow, zoomed-in, painstaking work. Box select, weld, done, repeat.  That's what I want.

You do understand that by explicitly saying what not to expect, they might be giving hints to their competitors both on which areas those might improve, and maybe even on what features they were indeed working on by elimination, right?