Ash

Yes if Align To is set to "First Selected" that will align to your nominated key object (or your first selected object if you have no key object nominated). This hasn't changed in this version - it is existing functionality.

Yes, as it happens in the case of alignment if you nominate a key object that effectively becomes your first selected object. In other words if you have a key object nominated then aligning to "First Selected Object" does align to your key object. Perhaps that could be clearer!

The setting of a selection box is a command that has an undo step itself. So if you were to rotate and then set selection box the first undo will undo the setting of the selection box, the next undo will undo the rotate.

Hi All, Thanks for this suggestion. We have now added Space as a modifier for Lock Children which you can try now in the 2.4 beta which is available now. Hopefully it achieves what you were after! More info here:

Hi @Ezbaze Thanks for this suggestion - we have now added filename to the variables available in export persona in the 2.4 beta of Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. More details here:

Yes this does apply to pixel layers and you can always cycle back to any objects original "Base Box" - nothing destructive is done to any layers you do this to.

Hi, DXF (and DWG) export is now available in the 2.4 beta of Affinity Designer if you wanted to give it a go. More info here:

Hi, DWG and DXF export are available in the 2.4 beta of Affinity Designer which is available to try now. More info here:

Hi, DWG and DXF export are now available to test in the 2.4 beta version of Affinity Designer which is available now. More info here:

Hi - at least one thing from your list of DWG export has now been added to the 2.4 beta of Affinity Designer which is available to try now...

Hi All, DWG and DXF export has now been added to the 2.4 beta of Affinity Designer which is available to try now. More info here:

Hi All, DXF and DWG export has just been added to the latest beta of Affinity Designer (2.4) which is available to try now. More detail here:

Hi Guys, We have just added DWG and DXF export to the latest beta version (2.4) of Affinity Designer. More detail here:

Hi All, I'm pleased to let you know we have now added DXF and DWG export to Affinity Designer - available now in the 2.4 beta...

Hi All, We have now added a new function to permanently set the bounding box to whatever you have cycled it to in the 2.4 beta which is available to try now...

Hi All, Pleased to say we have now added the ability to permanently reset the bounding box of any objects in the 2.4 beta which is available now...

Hi All, We have now added the ability to permanently set the bounding box of any object in the latest 2.4 beta which is available to try now...

Hi @ronnyb We've now added this ability in the latest 2.4 beta which is available now...

Hi - pleased to say we have now added Layer States to both Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher in the 2.4 beta which is available to try now. More details here:

Hi All, We have now added the States panel to both Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher in the 2.4 beta which is available now. We do intend to expand on this functionality to integrate with export, though that will be in a future update. More info is available here:

Hi All, As it's relevant to this thread thought I'd mention that we have now added Layer States to be available in the 2.4 beta of both Affinity Publisher and Affinity Designer (so in Publisher you do not need to switch to the Photo persona to do it, the States panel is available directly in the Publisher persona). More info here:

Hi All, Below is the list of all new feature and improvements which are included in the 2.4 beta (bug fix list is available here). To learn more about these features please click on the link to go to each feature's dedicated post. To give feedback or report bugs against any of these features please reply to that same post (also check out bug reporting and feedback tips). Layer States added to Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher DWG and DXF Export added to Affinity Designer Set Selection Box Double click / tap to switch from node to move tool Filename available as variable in Export Persona Ability to lock insertion target Space modifier for Lock Children Space Horizontal / Vertical now considers key object Size / Rotate objects to same 32-bit HDR PNG support added (PNG Third Edition) Additional RAW format support Getting the 2.4 beta If you have not enrolled into the beta program yet and would like to take part, you can do so here. This will immediately give you access to the latest 2.4 beta builds to try for yourself. If you are already enrolled in the beta program you have two options: 1. If you still have the 2.3 beta installed, you can now run up those beta versions and you will be prompted to update them to the 2.3 beta. 2. If you have uninstalled the 2.3 beta, you will need to go back to Your Account -> Downloads and product keys and find your previous order for the Affinity Beta Software Program, and you can download the 2.4 beta from there. Thanks, Ash

Apps: All Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad All Affinity apps now support import and export of 32bit HDR PNG files, as described in the PNG specification (3rd edition). Both PQ and HLG are supported alongside full / narrow range and a full set of primaries. Files exported can be used directly in video editing applications or shared on the web (Chrome now supports HDR PNG files). In addition, legacy PNG and TIFF files exported from Photoshop with CICP data embedded in an ICC profile are also able to be imported.

Apps: Designer and Publisher (+ some changes to the existing feature in Photo) Platforms: Windows and macOS We have now added the States panel to Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher which previously only existed in Affinity Photo. Layer states allows you to either: Capture the current visibility states of your layers across your document Create queries based on various criteria to use to make a selection or toggle visibility of layers This feature is particularly useful to manage different variations of your work. As an example, one of the social ad campaigns for our recent Black Friday promotion was created in Affinity Designer across multiple artboards. Each artboard had 4 variants for English, Japanese, German and French language. Previously if you wanted to toggle between the English and French version for example you would need to toggle the visibility of the appropriate layers on each artboard separately - not particularly workable when you have many artboards / spreads. The new states panel gives you a new way to work with designs like this. In this case I could set up a query with criteria which captures all my Japanese layers. From the states panel click "New Query" at the bottom, I called the query "JA" and set up my criteria to be "All Art Text and Frame Text layers that have a layer name which ends in JA" as below: Because on each artboard we had used the consistent naming convention that all Japanese text has a layer name ending in JA, all English text has a layer name ending in EN, etc. it made it easy to then set up 4 queries for each of the languages. We could alternatively have used a convention like all French variants are tagged yellow, English tagged Red, etc. So now to switch from English to Japanese across all artboards I can just turn off everything that fulfils my EN query, and turn on everything which fulfils my JP query using the visibility on/off buttons next to the queries in the states panel - so in two clicks end up with the below: While this example is only including text, of course I may have had different imagery for each locale and could have included those in the same queries to still have one button to toggle text and images of each language on and off. Also, as it's set up a query like this, should I add additional Japanese specific layers to any of the artboards and name them ending in "...JA" my JA query will automatically pick them up. In Publisher the same principles apply giving the ability to globally toggle different layers on and off across all spreads in your document which match the criteria you have specified. While building complex expressions is easy, you may also find you wish to have a query for something simple like "Layer Type is Images" giving you an instant way to turn all images on and off across your whole document. Additional Notes As well as toggling visibility of queries there is an additional button to make a selection of all layers which fulfil the criteria specified in the query. This is also a new function not previously available in Affinity Photo. For those who used the States panel in Affinity Photo you will notice we have changed the name of what were previously called "Smart States" to "Queries". This reason for this is in the future we anticipate adding a new feature to this which would be better described as a Smart State (this will be something you can build from multiple queries). This will be something which we add in a future update. There is other new functionality we plan to bring to this in the future - namely ability to create presets and some level of integration with export options - but again that will be something for a future update.

Apps: Designer Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad Affinity Designer now supports both DWG and DXF export, available from both File->Export and the Export Persona. It's important to note that both these file formats are primarily concerned with vector outline data, with limited support for many of the features Affinity offers. However, it's been a heavily requested feature particularly as it means outlines created in Affinity can be easily exported and consumed in various CAD applications as well as utilities for things such as vinyl cutters, plotters and CNC tools. Because of this, as well as some of the other fundamental differences in the file formats such as layer structure, while both import and export of DWG is now available we do not consider this a format which is suitable to round trip in Affinity. Or put another way we would not recommend collaborating with an AutoCAD user on the same DWG file. Within export we do offer various options on how to deal with some of the unsupported features / differences in the file format: Layers All entities in DWG/DXF belong in a layer. There is always a default “Layer 0” in a valid DWG/DXF file. Affinity also has layers. This setting determines how Affinity layers are mapped to DWG layers, and therefore which DWG layer an exported item belong in Gradient Strokes Determines what to do with strokes with a gradient fill applied, which DWG does not support. Gradient Fills Determines what to do with fills with a gradient fill applied Bitmap Strokes Determines what to do with strokes with a bitmap fill applied, which DWG does not support: Bitmap Fills Determines what to do with fills with a bitmap fill applied, which DWG does not support: Pressure Strokes Determines what to do with strokes with a pressure profile applied, which DWG does not support: Overweight Strokes Determines what to do with strokes with a line weight > 2.11mm, which DWG does not support: Dashes Strokes Determines what to do with strokes with a dash pattern applied. DWG does support dash patterns; however DWG dashes do not scale automatically with line weight, as they do in Affinity. Scale dash patterns If any line weight adjustment is made to an exported curve (e.g. it is clamped to the 2.11mm maximum), you may expect the dashes to stay the same length, or you may prefer them to scale automatically as they do in Affinity. The former is similar to AutoCAD’s behaviour - when you change an entity’s line weight, it does not recompute the dashes, which is effectively the opposite of Affinity’s behaviour. If “Scale dash patterns” is on, Affinity’s behaviour is used, so dashes will be scaled down if the line weight had to be scaled down. Apply drawing scale When enabled, the drawing scale is honoured. If you export an rectangle that is 1 inch wide and your drawing scale is 1:10, the rectangle will be exported 10 inches wides. Note that Affinity documents support multiple drawing scales within the same document, which cannot be honoured in a DWG/DXF file, so only the first/common drawing scale is applied.