TonyO

@R C-RYes, this is literally exactly what i meant. Exact phrasing aside.

Yeesh, this would be even more annoying with the current functionality. If designer 2 minimizes to the dock icon, there isn't even a thumbnail to click on to restore it. So the ONLY way to restore the app would be to right click on the dock icon, and select the window from the right click menu, that's incredibly inefficient. This idea reinforces my original point even more, haha. To this point, this isn't normal MacOS behavior to ever restore all open windows on dock icon click. MacOS selects one open window (likely the first opened, or the most recently minimized) and restores that window. No app ever restores all windows on dock icon click, i agree that would be really irritating.

Thanks for the confirmation of my insanity @Ash, haha sorry to spam the thread! You guys are much appreciated!

I don't think that's related. Normal MacOS behavior for multiple open documents on a single app is to restore one of the open sessions as seen on the top of the app-icon right-click list. In true Mac OS fashion, the window that the OS selects to restore appears to be a bit random, but in the case of Affinity 2 apps, the call to restore an arbitrary open window to the screen on app-icon click is being ignored by the OS. See the difference between chrome and affinity. Both have multiple open sessios (a floating window in the case of Affinity). Mac OS grabs one instance of Chrome and restores it, which it picks is a Mac OS secret, but SOMETHING is triggered. In the case of Affinity, no matter how many windows are open, the call to restore to the screen is ignored. This function is engrained in the OS, it's likely just a line of code missed somewhere. Perhaps all users experience this? Screen Recording 2023-05-15 at 1.45.11 PM.mp4

Also this... Designer 1 - shows floating pallet AND restores app windows on app-icon click. Designer 2 shows the floating pallet but won't restore the app window, there is no use for this function in normal workflow. Between the three different videos I've shown of Designer 2 acting differently compared to multiple normal mac apps and Designer 1, surely you're seeing what's wrong with the behavior of Designer 2 at this point? Screen Recording 2023-05-15 at 1.30.20 PM.mp4

Yes clicking the app icon does show Affinity Designer 2 in the top left of the screen, but no this is not normal for V1 and V2 - as V1 behaves properly. See video on previous post.

Actually @R C-R, ignore what i said above about intended behavior. I didn't even think to compare Designer 1 vs. Designer 2... it's definitely bug introduced in Designer 2... I was wondering why this hasn't bothered me before, since i've been using this app for the better part of a decade, haha. Screen Recording 2023-05-15 at 1.15.22 PM.mp4

If this is not a bug, it really feels like one. No other app on Mac OS behaves like this when the app is minimized. I made a quick comparison montage of other related and non-related apps showing how a minimized screen should act on Mac OS when the app icon is clicked. The affinity thumbnail is the third past the folder in this case, and it wont budge when the app icon is clicked - all other apps shown behave the intended way, restoring on app icon click. This is unique to Affinity apps and appears to be the same in all 3. If this is intended, the behavior is unexpected and should be modified to feel compliant with the rest of the OS. Thoughts? Screen Recording 2023-05-15 at 12.55.01 PM.mp4

Can this be a last minute bug fix? haha, thanks!!!

That app looks cool! I'm going to try it out! Thanks for the recommend!

This has popped up on the forums before, but it's looking like 2.1 is close to release and the bug of clicking the dock icon and the application not restoring onto the screen is still persisting. I usually wouldn't open a duplicate thread, but this is personally one of the most workflow-interrupting bugs i've experienced in a long time, even if anyone else on earth would consider it extremely minor, haha! I'm ADHD (fully diagnosed, prescribed drugs at age 40, not just saying that because i forget stuff like people on TV) and if you know anything about it, you'll know that unexpected results of input actions can cause a 10 car derailment in workflow for people like me. I'll be deep into a multi app process, and I click the Affinity Icon and the app doesn't re-appear on screen, it can sometimes throw me into a loop of endlesss random distractions, seemingly forgetting what i was intending to do in the first place, until i realize i was trying to open the app after multiple minutes of of aimlessly checking emails, playing on facebook, googling, playing Wordle and other distractions. Being a designer is hard enough without forgetting you are one for minutes on end, haha!! Not trying to invite anyone to a pitty party, just want to throw out an alternative perspective on how a bug can affect some users, haha! Thanks a bunch guys, keeping doing what you do! Trim.mov

Right now if you hit CMD+A you select all objects on all art boards. Cmd+Any Modifier+A doesn't seem to do anything. It would be convenient if you guys could add CMD+SHIFT+A to select all objects within the artboard you're currently working in, ignoring everything outside of it. Thoughts?

Likely because the devs assume that if you're working in an artboard based workspace you'll probably want to use Designer, and obscuring that feature is likely intentional, who knows, haha.

OH! look at that, learn something new every day! My mistake, haha. I guess to that end though, once I'm in designer persona and using artboards and infinite pasteboard... what is the point of using Publisher? I guess if you want some of the photo editing capabilities, but once pages are removed from the equation, there's not much use for publisher features are there? The standalone designer app feels quicker and more responsive.

No, he totally understands what you are asking for, and that is the correct answer. Publisher does NOT support all features of the independent apps in each of the personas, the file setup is not the same, and it does not fit the needs of all users. Publisher doesn't support infinite canvas or artboards, slicing exports, and many other features of the standalone apps. Publisher is a multipage publication app, equivalent to InDesign, it is not designed for UI, illustration, photo editing or general multi-format design. Each individual app has features that the others don't. Publisher files are setup in page format for a reason, if you don't need pages or mail merge or other multi page/publication based needs then you may be better off using the others apps.

Not quite. Unless there's some feature that I'm missing, there doesn't seem to be any way to add artboards to Publisher, and the canvas isnt infinite vertically, it cuts off just above and below the currently active page. Can you show a screenshot of Publisher using artboards and an infinite canvas and how you created the file? Even opening an Designer file in publisher won't allow those 2 features.

And file extensions are controlled by the OS anyway. Just open a "Get info screen" on any Afdesign file, set it to Afpub as default and click "apply to all" and it changes what app that extension opens in. Not really something the developers need to implement.

I'm the opposite, I've literally used everything from Corel Draw and Fireworks, to Inkscape, and finally Affinity Designer to avoid using AI as much as possible. My illustration work depends completely on fast and easy to use bezier tools and the out of the box Illustrator tools are the absolute worst I've ever touched, haha. I've heard alot of good things about Astute, I may have to give it a shot.

This may be a good solution for a single one-off design or the such, but when you illustrate multiple items at once and need the expandability of an infinite pasteboard outside your canvas for extra elements, brainstorming or reference images - as well as the use of multiple artboards, the benefits of a publication based design app becomes fleeting. Everybody has different needs, Publisher can't handle a workflow that looks like this.

Off topic a bit, but what are all those plugins in AI? Do they make bezier drawing any less of a slog - AI is the worst when it comes to node editing tools, haha.

This only works in Publisher, Designer and Photo don't use studio link. Most users won't use pub for anything other than multipage publication design, since that's it's primary function. Even with personas though, having any more than 3 or 4 stacked studio panels can get cumbersome.

Right. This suggestion is for a quick and easy way to interact with panels you rarely use but still want immediate access to. I use Affinity for illustration mostly, so i would have the color, transform, stroke and layers panels docked to the right as full sized panels. Then on the smaller panel i would keep text tools and or quick effects since I use those intermittently. It's an idea for an additional option for docking, not one you would have to use.

On iPad, a panel will pop out when you click the icon, you interact with it, and when you're done you start working in the canvas again and the panel disappears. If you want it to stay persistent, like photoshop panel popouts, you can click a pin icon. If you haven't worked with Affinity on iPad, you are definitely missing out! RPReplay_Final1682508370.MP4

I can't be the first one to think of or suggest this (i only did one quick forum search), but it would be more than awesome to be able to have a secondary studio panel for lesser used panels that operates like the ipad version, where click the icon to show the panel, and it auto collapses once you click off of using it. Even using the ipad side bar offset from the main studio panels. Something like the screenshot.

I feel like the main problem with packaged art files for the past few decades (in apps like indesign, illustrator and others) is that packaging ends up being a collection of files that requires additional management outside of the app that made it. This kind of defeats the purpose IMO. I've always been in the camp that a package should be every asset saved inside one encapsulating file with no external links to manage. If you're editing a package and importing new assets, they should be automatically added into the package file, you should never have to manage a package outside of the app that made it. Microsoft actually does a fantastic job with this in modern Office apps. If you take a DOCX file and open it in an app like 7zip or another archive manager, you'll find that a modern word doc is actually a full folder structure inside of a zip archive containing the base file, all images, embedded fonts and all other relatable assets, but you only have to worry about managing one single file on your computer. It's works like a charm.