Ash

Apps: Photo and Designer
Platforms: All
In Export Persona Filename is now available as a token variable for building either folder paths or exported filenames of your slices. This is available with two options:
Document Name = the name of the document without the file extension
Document Filename = the name of the document including the file extension
For example if you had a document called "Social Ads.afdesign" which contained artboards named "Version 1", "Version 2", etc.  you could now specify your path to be Document name like below:

And this will automatically create a folder called "Social Ads" with your slices being exported within it:
Social Ads/Version 1.png
Social Ads/Version 2.png
etc.
You can also use these tokens as part of your exported file names, e.g. if you set up as below...

 
That would result in your exported files being named:
Social Ads (Version 1).png
Social Ads (Version 2).png
etc.

Additional note

Worth a reminder when testing these feature you can copy and paste export set ups from one slice to another slice using the copy / paste buttons towards the top of the panel. You can also create your own export set up presets from the burger menu in the slices panel.

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.
 

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: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
While transforming any object with the move tool (whether resizing, rotating, skewing or moving) you can now hold space to temporarily toggle Lock Children on or off (to achieve the opposite behaviour of what you currently have set in the context toolbar).

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
While transforming any object with the move tool (whether resizing, rotating, skewing or moving) you can now hold space to temporarily toggle Lock Children on or off (to achieve the opposite behaviour of what you currently have set in the context toolbar).

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
Within alignment options you will see three new options to make all items in your current selection adopt the same width, height or rotation. By default this will transform all objects to match the first item selected, or alternatively if a key object has been nominated (alt-click) it will use that as the source.
Additionally you can choose to maintain the aspect ratio of the objects being resized.
On desktop this is available via the alignment dropdown:

And on iPad via the alignment options panel which you can get to via the transform panel:

 

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
While transforming any object with the move tool (whether resizing, rotating, skewing or moving) you can now hold space to temporarily toggle Lock Children on or off (to achieve the opposite behaviour of what you currently have set in the context toolbar).

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad
When in move tool double clicking a vector object takes you into node tool. It has been suggested that a double click on an object while in node tool should do the reverse and take you back into move tool (you could previously double click on the canvas / not over an object to return to move tool but this both loses your selection as well as not being possible if you are zoomed in). This has now been implemented in 2.4.

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad
Previously when you cycled your selection box this was only a temporary operation. You can now make this permanent...
From the select menu there are two options:
- Cycle selection box (this was the existing option)
- Set selection box (the new option)

Also note the shortcut for these - [Full Stop] to cycle and [CMD + Full Stop] to set on macOS and iPad or [Ctrl + Full Stop] to set on Windows.
The new feature is that after cycling to the selection box you want you can now permanently set that for your current selection by using the Set Selection Box command.
In the example below, I have two shapes which are rotated by the same amount. Therefore when they are selected by default the selection box is oriented to match the shape's rotation. Now if I want to permanently make those shapes have a selection box which is oriented to my page I can cycle to regular bounds and then Set Selection Box, which will now make that persist every time I select those items in future.

 
A couple of other notes on this feature:
As well as cycling to the base box and regular bounds of an object, if you have a grid set which has a different rotation to your page (or, are working on an isometric plane for example) you will additionally get the option to cycle and set the selection box to be aligned with the the current planar bounds of the selection. If you have a multiple selection which includes objects rotated by different amounts, if you wish to set your selection box for all objects in your selection to match the orientation of one of them you can set the one you want to match to be your key object. Then when you cycle your selection box the "base box" option will match that object's rotation.  
 

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: All
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad
Previously when you cycled your selection box this was only a temporary operation. You can now make this permanent...
From the select menu there are two options:
- Cycle selection box (this was the existing option)
- Set selection box (the new option)

Also note the shortcut for these - [Full Stop] to cycle and [CMD + Full Stop] to set on macOS and iPad or [Ctrl + Full Stop] to set on Windows.
The new feature is that after cycling to the selection box you want you can now permanently set that for your current selection by using the Set Selection Box command.
In the example below, I have two shapes which are rotated by the same amount. Therefore when they are selected by default the selection box is oriented to match the shape's rotation. Now if I want to permanently make those shapes have a selection box which is oriented to my page I can cycle to regular bounds and then Set Selection Box, which will now make that persist every time I select those items in future.

 
A couple of other notes on this feature:
As well as cycling to the base box and regular bounds of an object, if you have a grid set which has a different rotation to your page (or, are working on an isometric plane for example) you will additionally get the option to cycle and set the selection box to be aligned with the the current planar bounds of the selection. If you have a multiple selection which includes objects rotated by different amounts, if you wish to set your selection box for all objects in your selection to match the orientation of one of them you can set the one you want to match to be your key object. Then when you cycle your selection box the "base box" option will match that object's rotation.  
 

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

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.
 

I didn't know you could double click on a shape and switch to the node tool.  So i guess I'm happy to learn that and also that double clicking will switch back. (it's Christmas every day!)
I also didn't realize that double clicking a curve in the node tool would add a node. I always just used a single click.  I agree that there's no reason to have a single click and double click do the same action.  Double click to delete a node makes sense to me.
Thanks

Seems to work OK, but with regard to Ash's description, the button that probably should be labeled Add New Query in the tool tip is actually labeled "Add New Smart State"
The follow up windows for name and so on reference Query, as in Ash's description.
MacOS, fwiw

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad
When in move tool double clicking a vector object takes you into node tool. It has been suggested that a double click on an object while in node tool should do the reverse and take you back into move tool (you could previously double click on the canvas / not over an object to return to move tool but this both loses your selection as well as not being possible if you are zoomed in). This has now been implemented in 2.4.

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
Within alignment options you will see three new options to make all items in your current selection adopt the same width, height or rotation. By default this will transform all objects to match the first item selected, or alternatively if a key object has been nominated (alt-click) it will use that as the source.
Additionally you can choose to maintain the aspect ratio of the objects being resized.
On desktop this is available via the alignment dropdown:

And on iPad via the alignment options panel which you can get to via the transform panel:

 

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
While transforming any object with the move tool (whether resizing, rotating, skewing or moving) you can now hold space to temporarily toggle Lock Children on or off (to achieve the opposite behaviour of what you currently have set in the context toolbar).

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:
 

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
Within alignment options you will see three new options to make all items in your current selection adopt the same width, height or rotation. By default this will transform all objects to match the first item selected, or alternatively if a key object has been nominated (alt-click) it will use that as the source.
Additionally you can choose to maintain the aspect ratio of the objects being resized.
On desktop this is available via the alignment dropdown:

And on iPad via the alignment options panel which you can get to via the transform panel:

 

May as well just hit V to get back to move tool at that point though? The root of the suggestions we have tried to take on board was about a keyless way to get back to move tool when possible, also particularly considering iPad with this too.

Yeah it's a slightly insurmountable issue in that hitting the path itself has to add a node rather than contribute towards a double click to return to move tool, and in some instances with open curves there may not be a suitable hit area to achieve the revert to move tool while keeping the object selected with double click. We took a view as it's something that we've seen a number of requests for that despite this imperfection it was worth implementing, as in many workflows (obviously particularly when mostly dealing with filled objects) it does work very well / feels really efficient.
 

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
While transforming any object with the move tool (whether resizing, rotating, skewing or moving) you can now hold space to temporarily toggle Lock Children on or off (to achieve the opposite behaviour of what you currently have set in the context toolbar).

Yes agreed - I noted briefly on the post but we do intend to add the ability to save presets in a future update (but that will be after 2.4 release). Also to set up more complex rules based on multiple queries (e.g. in the example I gave in the OP you could set up a smart state which says "Turn all layers which fulfils EN query on AND turn all layers which fulfil DE query off AND turn all layers which fulfil JA query off". i.e. so in a single click you could get to your English version.

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.