Hywel Harris

Brilliant, thanks.

I'm sure the answer is out there, I've spent far too long looking in the help files and searching here (no results), but how when entering text to you activate the shortcut to swap to the Move tool (v). ?? I'd like to set my own shortcuts that involve Ctrl or Alt but that isn't allowed it seems. Anything involving just letters is just going to enter those letters into your text.....grrr....

Indeed it is, however as a developer you have to be mindful of what your potential customers are using and the tools that they offer. Corel userbase is as large as it is because historically CorelDraw offered the largest set of import and export filters (amongst other things). Affinity are late to the party which kicked off in the late 80's. By the mid 90's the current major players (adobe and Corel) were already established. For Affinity to prosper in the professional market (and thats where the money is, in professional level tools) thats where they are going to recruit their customers from. Your other drawbacks are easily solveable. Never offer current version import. Indeed establish an import filter for a recent stable version of the competitor product, say CorelDraw 2018. CorelDraw users of later versions can easily save back to that version, and more importantly can batch convert later files to an older version. No-one expects an import filter to bring in features that don't exist in the Affinity software.

Didn't stop Inkscape writing an import filter. And CorelDraw can import AI files, also proprietory. It goes without saying some features will be lost in the process. There are a lot of disgruntled CorelDraw users watching the development of Affinity apps and whilst there is a long way to go for pro users to be able to jump ship, the ability to import CorelDraw files will be viewed as a huge positive in trying to attract those users, myself included.

No, its isn't what I want, I used it merely as an example of the problem.

Sorry, I guess if you're coming from Illustrator that might be simpler. In CorelDraw its way quicker, it's one action. Ctrl-Click left middle handle, rrag right and right click before releasing. Done. CorelDraw is just more efficient . I don't mind that AD isn't quite as good yet, but I'd hope the dev's are taking the best ideas from other applications rather than whats presented in the "industry standard" application.

+1 for the dimension tool. I'm transitioning (well, looking to) from CorelDraw. The fundamental impression one gets for AD is that is it intended for illustration work. There are so many great examples of what it can do in that direction. What is missing is the attention to drawing where print/web is NOT the end result. There are so many aspects of design that are not part of the 'output to a rectangle' format too. So why do we have to have a page defined? CorelDraw is able to work seamlessly without displaying a page, meaning small architectural drawings can be drawn at real world scale. And with an efficient application why not a drawing 100m in size ? The focus on paper size needs to be removed since paper isn't always involved in the end result. Once you grasp the concept of output to other than a rectangular print/web format then dimensions become an essential part of the workflow.

I am aware that there are multiple workrounds but this simple task should be a one click and drag (with a modifier key)Or a modifier to the mirror button icon (to make it use the transform panel centre location)

No sorry needs to be vector

There is no way to keep that at the original size though.

If I am creating a heart shape that remains symmettrical I need to use symbols to create the two halves then flip one of them. How do you do that quickly and simply? I have tried the mirror buttons but that mirrors about its own centre not an edge. CorelDraw is exceptionally good at this using the various key modifiers it can be done just using the mouse and Ctrl Shift etc. Or do I need to draw a rectangle around all the objects (obviouslt centred correctly) then select the mirror object and the rectangle then mirror them?

I did have a play with symbols in Designer and whilst I can get them to work as I wish, sometimes the clones become detached and won't update. Not sure why but the whole thing does feel a bit buggy. I went looking for a links panel to achieve the above but can't find one in Designer.

Symbols and Clones are different animals. Thats why CorelDraw has both and they work differently. I look forward to seeing clones in AD since I cannot transition from CorelDraw until they are available. (That and guideline handling)

I opened a photo selected Filter>Distor>Lens Correction It correctly detected the camera (Canon 7D) and the lens (Canon 15-85) and the focal length (24mm). The correction applied looked fine in preview, clicked Apply. It then proceeded to apply a ridiculously distorted warp to the photo that rendered it nothing like the preview. Major fail I'm sorry to say. 1.8.3.614

I haven't purchased AD yet, I keep trying the trial hoping to find it more capable. As it stands the limitations with v1.7 are too serious for me to contemplate a transition from CorelDraw. TBH I could work more effectively in CorelDrawX5 (ca. 2010) . Object handling has always been one of CorelDraws' strengths (the things you can do with just the mouse and a few modifier keys) AD isn't very efficient in that department. But the lack of decent guideline tools would prevent me getting work done. I'd love to beta test AD, but in order to do that effectively you have to be able to do real work with the application. So I will download the next version trial and test again. At some point it will become viable and then Corel had better watch out, the debacle with the 2019 release has pissed a lot of loyal users off. And their record of legacy bug fixing is diabolical.