jepho

I agree with you that master page functionality is a convention and is a vital function where it is included and implemented well. I would like to think that any of the elements which I attach to a master page are reflected throughout a document. Any change in master page composition should be reflected throughout the document contemporaneously. I suppose that it is the developers that tend to view master pages as a software program within a software program.
Herein lies the first problem... that the master pages sometimes have a life of their own because of their implementation methods and they may not act entirely in concert with the ordinary pages. The tighter that master pages are integrated into the general program, the more useful they are functionally, in my view. How difficult are these pages to implement, so that they can be independent of the pages that they determine the layout for, is unknown by me. Once I understand what it is that I want to achieve in terms of my overall layout, then I would hope that the software permits me to arrange my pages how I wish. My own use of master pages falls at one of the early hurdles when I find myself trying to apply several different master pages within the same document.

They are also very good for guides. I use that a lot.

Yep. Regarding master page object overrides, I've always thought that InDesign was extremely convenient, yes, but completely unintuitive at the same time… That entire voodoo of pressing a weird key combination to override a specific object (there seriously should be the option to just right-click the damn things and unlock them, just like in Apple Keynote), then not really knowing from which point will they become completely unlinked – if ever –, and finally having duplicate objects when reapplying master pages has always left me a bit confused. Even to this day, I sometimes get confused at the results, yes, and I have 10+ years of experience with it. Surely there must be a more elegant way of doing things.
However, that still doesn't change the fact that the “master page” convention exists and that Serif tried to implement it. From the moment they did so, they should at least keep it fairly consistent with and as useful as in competing programs. Master pages aren't just used for adding a background veneer of decoration, which seems to be the only thing they're good for in Publisher as of now; they actually serve an extremely important purpose when it comes to layout design and content management, which Publisher is trying to fulfil elsewhere, altogether sidelining master pages. I completely understand where they are trying to get, and which users they are targeting (people who really don't get how master pages work but may not even need them to the full extent of their functionality). And that is completely fine; you can allow for many different workflows with no ill effects on UX design. But a professional app, right now, Publisher is not because it is lacking a core feature (I cannot stress this enough, so I'll say it again: proper master page support in a DTP editor is as essential as layer support in a pixel editor).
And I'm not saying that Serif's implementation has to mimic Adobe's to a tee, absolutely not. But the equivalent functionality must be there, because comparisons will be made, whether we like it or not.
As for the whole layer vs. artboard conundrum in Affinity Designer, which Serif brought upon themselves, that itself warranted (and still warrants) an entire thread. There should be at least the option to have document-level layers and not have them be always artboard-dependent, and also allow for certain (or all?) objects to transcend artboards and be fully visible outside them. The fact that you can't choose which model to use, or have them both, boxes you into Serif's philosophy. Maybe their way of thinking is best for illustrators, but I can assure you that for UX design (a very big market for them right now), it's absolutely terrible. I used Designer to do a website mock-up, and that entire layer situation frustrated me to no end…

Yes, I get that the conventions with which we are familiar and have come to use and like are best left untouched. Looking a little deeper; we can see that conventions are merely those methods that are included with the software that has become flavour of the month or year. Some of those conventions (e.g. Photoshop mediated) were turned upside down with the arrival of Aperture. It was a fantastic software that was completely transparent to old fashioned film photographers like me and completely logical in its use. It soon became less popular with digital photographers who demanded curves adjustments because they had no understanding of how the software was designed or how film worked. Sadly, that software is no longer supported but I have never used such an easy and speedy bitmap editor with great image colour management.
The granularity of version 1 or version 2 software is never completely satisfactory. It takes many iterations to achieve a satisfactory level of fine control.  I like to see all numbers available to three significant decimal places but that level of fine adjustment is not necessary in many tasks. Arguably; one could probably manage with integers in a well-designed software package. Legacy beset software tends to take small evolutionary steps to overall improvements while new softwares can be as revolutionary as they like. I use Adobe's Acrobat a great deal and as yet,  I have not found anything to compete with it. There are plenty of PDF file editors around but none with the rather comprehensive and fine control of Acrobat. Much of what Acrobat can achieve could be described as convention but it is the overall reign of the software that dictates what features become an accepted convention.
Supporting Serif and Affinity software products and feeding back suggestions is the one way in which we can contribute to the software offered and its overall development. It is probably inevitable that new developments will be compared with existing developments. What seems to me to be very odd are the many loud calls to make any new software just like the old software. q.v. my reference to Aperture above. Progress derives from examining current methods and then making improvements in methods and capabilities. I may not know where the journey will end but for me it will always be exciting. The serious business of making money does not get in the way of finding new and interesting ways to accomplish repetitive tasks which result in better endpoints. YMMV 

Yes, I get that the conventions with which we are familiar and have come to use and like are best left untouched. Looking a little deeper; we can see that conventions are merely those methods that are included with the software that has become flavour of the month or year. Some of those conventions (e.g. Photoshop mediated) were turned upside down with the arrival of Aperture. It was a fantastic software that was completely transparent to old fashioned film photographers like me and completely logical in its use. It soon became less popular with digital photographers who demanded curves adjustments because they had no understanding of how the software was designed or how film worked. Sadly, that software is no longer supported but I have never used such an easy and speedy bitmap editor with great image colour management.
The granularity of version 1 or version 2 software is never completely satisfactory. It takes many iterations to achieve a satisfactory level of fine control.  I like to see all numbers available to three significant decimal places but that level of fine adjustment is not necessary in many tasks. Arguably; one could probably manage with integers in a well-designed software package. Legacy beset software tends to take small evolutionary steps to overall improvements while new softwares can be as revolutionary as they like. I use Adobe's Acrobat a great deal and as yet,  I have not found anything to compete with it. There are plenty of PDF file editors around but none with the rather comprehensive and fine control of Acrobat. Much of what Acrobat can achieve could be described as convention but it is the overall reign of the software that dictates what features become an accepted convention.
Supporting Serif and Affinity software products and feeding back suggestions is the one way in which we can contribute to the software offered and its overall development. It is probably inevitable that new developments will be compared with existing developments. What seems to me to be very odd are the many loud calls to make any new software just like the old software. q.v. my reference to Aperture above. Progress derives from examining current methods and then making improvements in methods and capabilities. I may not know where the journey will end but for me it will always be exciting. The serious business of making money does not get in the way of finding new and interesting ways to accomplish repetitive tasks which result in better endpoints. YMMV 

My bad, it completely skipped my mind. I could and maybe will link to the relevant topics, but I can give you a quick rundown of its shortcomings:
• Lack of in-line and anchored objects (having to reposition hundreds of objects by hand just because they won't reflow along with the text would be, to put it mildly, an infuriating chore);
• Lack of master page object/content override (especially for placing text), which is downright insane (yes, I know you can use your layout to automatically populate new pages with new text frames; but do you really have any fine control over them after the fact at the master page level? I think not… Comparatively speaking, it's almost as if Serif was shipping Affinity Photo v.1.0 without support for layers);
• Lack of multiline composer (but this one I was already expecting, as the Serif team was completely upfront about it since the whole suite was announced; it is kind of sad that we may have to wait several years until Serif comes up with anything similar, but that wouldn't preclude us from doing technical manuals and ragged-right justified compositions, which are extremely popular anyway).
Affinity apps still have some shortcomings when it comes to spot colour transparency and gradients (they have a tendency to convert them into CMYK), too, but according to my latest tests with the Designer betas they are on the right track, which makes me happy and optimistic about the future.
I'd also love to see them fully conform to the PostScript spec and allow for seamless copying and pasting between Designer and digital type design editors like FontLab or Glyphs, but I'm not holding my breath, as I know that's a niche within a niche within a niche. However, I'll test that use case every now and then and ask for improvements if need be; if they came to pass, I'd no longer be dependent upon Illustrator for almost anything when it comes to vector editing and Ai/PDF-to-.glyphs/OTF conversion, but my long-term plan is to convert my type designer partner(s) and students to a generic vector editor-free and end-to-end digital type design editor workflow anyway, so no biggie there. I can, then, basically use Ai CS5 to convert old modular fonts my partner and I have lying around and perform the odd auto-trace (which Affinity Designer still lacks and probably will for a few years anyway), so I'm already covered.
 
Great response, thanks! Well, I fully concur. I don't want another “InDesign 2.0”… But there are some basic conventions that are best left untouched. For simpler projects and less demanding users, sure, I'm all for options and for having your software work for you from the get-go, but I – and most pros – absolutely need to have finer control over my layouts at the master page level and have those changes reflect upon the entire document. The workflows currently suggested are, for lack of a nicer term, completely broken in my view. If they are good enough for you, great, more power to you. I just know for a fact that I couldn't reproduce most of my older projects in Publisher in its current form without it taking me 10 times longer, even excluding the time it would take me to redo the masters. And seeing how time is money… it'd still be cheaper to pay for a CC subscription, I'm afraid.
Just my €0,2.

I think if I would make money out of my creations I would still go with Affinity to lower my prices or have a higher revenue. All the money Adobe demands in the end has to be paid by someone and that is eventually the end user.

@jepho Thanks, I liked reading your post. 
And you brought this really good to the point. 
Affinity is a good thing and I hope they will not get one day the same idea that it's time to squeeze out as much money as they can get. At least it's unlikely since a new sucessor would come and fill in the gap that this leaves.
As individual I don't see me paying for a subscription ever.

Yes, up to a point you may be correct. It is clear that software which falls into the category of 'professional software' has to be capable of fulfilling tasks which would not fall within the scope of amateur work. i.e. Photoshop Elements does not compete with Photoshop if you want to create CMYK separations. How would you deal with dot gain, screen angles or traps and knock outs with software intended for amateur uses?  Grids are likely to be found in professional DTP software but not in less well specified applications. DTP of course was known as CTP before DTP supposedly freed everyone from the constraints of printing. Frame, PageMaker, Quark Express, InDesign were softwares that grew from original CTP applications like Impression on an Archimedes computer. 
Everyone and their brother could then produce a Parish magazine from home. We have all seen the amateur 16 page monochromatic productions produced on 80gsm coloured paper that uses 70 different fonts. If you were a local letterpress/offset litho printer, you probably could not afford to own 70 families of typefaces in different sizes and weights. Amateur software also does not address issues for the designer who wanted to produce long runs of high quality documents by the photogravure printing process, for example. 
Interestingly, despite being introduced in the mid 90s, Hexachrome printing requires Adobe's Photoshop or Illustrator software to adopt and use plugins like Pantone's Hexware, Heximage and Hexvector in order to be Hexachrome aware. My point here is that even the industry 800lb gorillas of today are somewhat less capable than they could be. One software solution will not be the answer to every user's problems. I have always kept many different bitmap editors and utilities on hand for file conversions and ease of use. Likewise with design and publishing softwares.
Not wanting to be locked into a one size (from one manufacturer) fits everything philosophy was my rationale for owning many different pieces of software. After many years of Photoshop (v2.0 onwards) I got sucked into the Adobe CS nightmare with version one and somehow realised it was the beginning of the end. The assurances and promises from Adobe that prices would stay reasonable were quickly forgotten (shades of QXP from its position of market superiority?) and it seemed as if the updates broke more than they fixed. I skipped versions so that I could keep essential funds to myself rather than exchange more cash for doubtful 'features'. Adobe CC has been a bit of a nightmare and truthfully, was the final straw.
I have learned to do what I need to do in Affinity products. Photo does all that I need from a bitmap editor. Designer is a delight to use and shows Illustrator the way forward. Publisher looks set to be a killer program and all Affinity software is priced so that users do not need to have a mortgage to purchase it; nor is the software on some endless merry-go-round of paying the piper. I think it is likely that the Affinity suite will be purchased by many users rather than pirated because it represents excellent value for money. There has been some commentary from professionals who want the Affinity products to work like Adobe products. Learning some new methods may not be a bad thing, especially when it means that the code is lean, purpose built  and not beset with legacy issues.
Brutal honesty is a double-edged sword and cuts in both directions. Living in the past and reliving old glories is less than helpful. Who remembers what InDesign was like when it first appeared? It was not the perfect software that some reporters would have us old dogs believe. I would say that is better to learn some new tricks and support the developers who want us to have better software at a reasonable price.
0.2₵ 

I understand that it may be the only choice for YOU.
Facts: $49 x 12 = $588 pa.
In the UK the same monthly paid fee is £49.94 which equates to $63.25 monthly and totals $759 at current exchange rates. This is $171 more than the US rate. Enough for almost 3 months additional subscription. Why does Adobe indulge in this price gouging when it costs no extra to deliver software globally via the internet?
The next monthly fee includes membership of Adobe Stock at £73.93 per month. This the equivalent of $93.63 per month and totals $1,123.56 annually. Of course only the first ten images are included in that stock fee component. 
The costs of Adobe Stock can be chosen from the following scale depending on your needs...
£19.99 ($25.32) £47.99 ($60.78) £99.99 ($126.63) or £119.99 ($151.96)
At the current exchange rates you could pay an additional annual fee of $303.84 up to an eye watering $1823.52 per annum. So if I wanted the best package including Adobe Stock, I would need to find the sum of $2582.52 as rental for the software and the use of Adobe Stock, every year! 
Adobe is very definitely NOT the only choice. YMMV. 

Good heavens!    What in the world did you have for dinner?    I am currently revising a 300-page book In Publisher.   Smooth as can be.   It was originally produced with InDesign, which I used for years!   Also Pagemaker, which I used for many years until Indesign took it and wrecked it.    Publisher may not suit you, but that does not mean that it won’t make hundreds of thousands of people extremely happy.    And not simply for the local church newsletter, either, which was, if I may be permitted to say so, not a very kind remark.  Merry Christmas, all the same!
 

Yes, up to a point you may be correct. It is clear that software which falls into the category of 'professional software' has to be capable of fulfilling tasks which would not fall within the scope of amateur work. i.e. Photoshop Elements does not compete with Photoshop if you want to create CMYK separations. How would you deal with dot gain, screen angles or traps and knock outs with software intended for amateur uses?  Grids are likely to be found in professional DTP software but not in less well specified applications. DTP of course was known as CTP before DTP supposedly freed everyone from the constraints of printing. Frame, PageMaker, Quark Express, InDesign were softwares that grew from original CTP applications like Impression on an Archimedes computer. 
Everyone and their brother could then produce a Parish magazine from home. We have all seen the amateur 16 page monochromatic productions produced on 80gsm coloured paper that uses 70 different fonts. If you were a local letterpress/offset litho printer, you probably could not afford to own 70 families of typefaces in different sizes and weights. Amateur software also does not address issues for the designer who wanted to produce long runs of high quality documents by the photogravure printing process, for example. 
Interestingly, despite being introduced in the mid 90s, Hexachrome printing requires Adobe's Photoshop or Illustrator software to adopt and use plugins like Pantone's Hexware, Heximage and Hexvector in order to be Hexachrome aware. My point here is that even the industry 800lb gorillas of today are somewhat less capable than they could be. One software solution will not be the answer to every user's problems. I have always kept many different bitmap editors and utilities on hand for file conversions and ease of use. Likewise with design and publishing softwares.
Not wanting to be locked into a one size (from one manufacturer) fits everything philosophy was my rationale for owning many different pieces of software. After many years of Photoshop (v2.0 onwards) I got sucked into the Adobe CS nightmare with version one and somehow realised it was the beginning of the end. The assurances and promises from Adobe that prices would stay reasonable were quickly forgotten (shades of QXP from its position of market superiority?) and it seemed as if the updates broke more than they fixed. I skipped versions so that I could keep essential funds to myself rather than exchange more cash for doubtful 'features'. Adobe CC has been a bit of a nightmare and truthfully, was the final straw.
I have learned to do what I need to do in Affinity products. Photo does all that I need from a bitmap editor. Designer is a delight to use and shows Illustrator the way forward. Publisher looks set to be a killer program and all Affinity software is priced so that users do not need to have a mortgage to purchase it; nor is the software on some endless merry-go-round of paying the piper. I think it is likely that the Affinity suite will be purchased by many users rather than pirated because it represents excellent value for money. There has been some commentary from professionals who want the Affinity products to work like Adobe products. Learning some new methods may not be a bad thing, especially when it means that the code is lean, purpose built  and not beset with legacy issues.
Brutal honesty is a double-edged sword and cuts in both directions. Living in the past and reliving old glories is less than helpful. Who remembers what InDesign was like when it first appeared? It was not the perfect software that some reporters would have us old dogs believe. I would say that is better to learn some new tricks and support the developers who want us to have better software at a reasonable price.
0.2₵ 

Yes, up to a point you may be correct. It is clear that software which falls into the category of 'professional software' has to be capable of fulfilling tasks which would not fall within the scope of amateur work. i.e. Photoshop Elements does not compete with Photoshop if you want to create CMYK separations. How would you deal with dot gain, screen angles or traps and knock outs with software intended for amateur uses?  Grids are likely to be found in professional DTP software but not in less well specified applications. DTP of course was known as CTP before DTP supposedly freed everyone from the constraints of printing. Frame, PageMaker, Quark Express, InDesign were softwares that grew from original CTP applications like Impression on an Archimedes computer. 
Everyone and their brother could then produce a Parish magazine from home. We have all seen the amateur 16 page monochromatic productions produced on 80gsm coloured paper that uses 70 different fonts. If you were a local letterpress/offset litho printer, you probably could not afford to own 70 families of typefaces in different sizes and weights. Amateur software also does not address issues for the designer who wanted to produce long runs of high quality documents by the photogravure printing process, for example. 
Interestingly, despite being introduced in the mid 90s, Hexachrome printing requires Adobe's Photoshop or Illustrator software to adopt and use plugins like Pantone's Hexware, Heximage and Hexvector in order to be Hexachrome aware. My point here is that even the industry 800lb gorillas of today are somewhat less capable than they could be. One software solution will not be the answer to every user's problems. I have always kept many different bitmap editors and utilities on hand for file conversions and ease of use. Likewise with design and publishing softwares.
Not wanting to be locked into a one size (from one manufacturer) fits everything philosophy was my rationale for owning many different pieces of software. After many years of Photoshop (v2.0 onwards) I got sucked into the Adobe CS nightmare with version one and somehow realised it was the beginning of the end. The assurances and promises from Adobe that prices would stay reasonable were quickly forgotten (shades of QXP from its position of market superiority?) and it seemed as if the updates broke more than they fixed. I skipped versions so that I could keep essential funds to myself rather than exchange more cash for doubtful 'features'. Adobe CC has been a bit of a nightmare and truthfully, was the final straw.
I have learned to do what I need to do in Affinity products. Photo does all that I need from a bitmap editor. Designer is a delight to use and shows Illustrator the way forward. Publisher looks set to be a killer program and all Affinity software is priced so that users do not need to have a mortgage to purchase it; nor is the software on some endless merry-go-round of paying the piper. I think it is likely that the Affinity suite will be purchased by many users rather than pirated because it represents excellent value for money. There has been some commentary from professionals who want the Affinity products to work like Adobe products. Learning some new methods may not be a bad thing, especially when it means that the code is lean, purpose built  and not beset with legacy issues.
Brutal honesty is a double-edged sword and cuts in both directions. Living in the past and reliving old glories is less than helpful. Who remembers what InDesign was like when it first appeared? It was not the perfect software that some reporters would have us old dogs believe. I would say that is better to learn some new tricks and support the developers who want us to have better software at a reasonable price.
0.2₵ 

Hi, I'm jepho.
I have a little experience of technical writing, pre-press work and graphic design. I have used Photoshop, Illustrator, Pagemaker, Frame, Tex, Pixelmator, Acorn, Acrobat, Art Text and Impression (Acorn Archimedes and the very first computer to plate software I have ever used). I adore photography, like page layout/imposition and am interested in typography. My first work in Photoshop was during the mid 80s. I used to produce a weekly edition of a full tabloid newspaper, using a Canon BJ330 bubble jet mono printer which could just manage A2.
I have used Affinity Photo for a few jobs and I like its feel. The Affinity Designer program is a worthy replacement for Illustrator and I found myself wishing for very little from the Adobe 800 pound gorillas of image processing and design. I have played around for a few days with the beta of Affinity Publisher and I like it a lot. The ability to edit any affinity file type when it is enabled is going to be a killer feature. No more round tripping in and out of software that fills the holes in one's favoured applications.
A great suite of software and highly capable it is too. Editing PDF files inside Affinity Publisher feels more relaxed than when I am using Acrobat. Great job Serif! 

The Maltese Cross ✠ is Unicode character U+2720. The symbol ✙ is an Outlined Greek Cross (Unicode U+2719).
https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2720/fontsupport.htm
https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2719/fontsupport.htm

Hi @Creativeelc
That is a good helper. It is very easy to set up a grid of choice, download and import the PDF into APub and use it as a seperate Master Page.
Thank you for 'diggin round' 
d.

It sounds like you made the cog a child of the picture instead of its mask - that looks like this when you are dragging the cog in the palette - note that the purple line is underneath the layer but indented to show that you are dragging it in as a child:

 
To make it a mask the target you are dragging to is a bit smaller, and the purple line will be vertical and to the right of the thumbnail:

 
 
When collapsed with a mask applied the entry in the layers palette should show two thumbnails:

 
Giving results like this:

 
It can make a difference when there are other child / adjustment layers.

https://blog.marvelapp.com/better-grid-systems-ui-design-tools/
This software appears to be the sort of approach to grid and column layout that is required. Sadly, the beta program is now closed. 
More about the software at the link below... 
https://subformapp.com
Having a single software program that creates precisely what is required is probably more useful than having any jack of all trades software solution. For me, I really like the direction Affinity Publisher has taken. I don't happen to have any legacy files in other publishing software. I will happily use Affinity Publisher for all my layout work and send a PDF file to the printing house.
Imposition abilities was my one hope for Affinity Publisher but there is software which is available for that task. I like to be able to create all of my potential grid layouts before working on any project. The quote at the top of the article is instructive and it is certainly one with which I agree. viz
"Designers must be able to explore the consequences of grids visually—not just in code." 

I prefer to send pre-press work to the print house complete... all in a PDF file format so that it cannot be messed with. Fonts I have bought remain useable under my licence. I don't want my final output to be adjusted by anyone. Ironic that it is in Adobe's proprietary format too. 

Unfortunately, that particular abbreviation has another common meaning (and I'm not thinking of "AutoFocus")!
 

I am sure I do not know WTF meaning are you referring to.  

Some use "AF" for Affinity Photo. For myself, I created 3 character keyboard text substitution shortcuts in the Mac's System Preferences > Keyboard > Text tab for both current apps (an exclamation point followed by either AD or AP). So when I am at my Mac, while it may look like I took the time to type the full names, I actually just type 3 characters & they automatically expand into them.
 
It is an OS feature I use for a lot of short phrases -- above I typed an exclamation mark & SP instead of "System Preferences," & there are many others I use. I even created a substitution for "teh" so when I too often type that it automatically corrects to "the."
 
I don't know if Windows has anything similar but if it does, it might be worth considering for those who post to these forums frequently.

Hi @jepho,
 
We cannot confirm or deny any features for Affinity Publisher until the beta is released. Sorry
 
Thaks,
Gabe. 

It’s clear enough in the present context, but to avoid confusion in the future might be a good idea to get used to a different abbreviation such as ‘APub’. I personally use the abbreviation ‘APh’ for Affinity Photo, but many forum members use ‘AP’.

Winnie looks as if he may have been a fat controller on the railway.