8BitCerberus

For Android and iPad, sure. Not much choice in the matter. As a general rule for my desktops and laptops, however? No.

Have not been able to sign in all week either, also on the Windows versions. I haven't tried admin mode, but honestly that would be a terrible solution if that's the case. Hopefully the devs get this sorted soon, because there should be no reason any of these programs need elevated privileges. Especially not to contact Serif's registration servers.

The... uhh... artboard/page. Seems someone with allegedly 3 decades of experience and knows Quark and InDesign inside and out would, you know... know this. The blue line is the margin indicator, same way it's done in InDesign. Yeah it's a bit annoying but it's not showing by default, you have to go to View > Show Bleed. Not "Show Guides" they're two separate options. Add a mask to the image. This one plagued me for awhile. And it certainly works very different from Adobe. But it's just a different way of thinking about it, make sure your leading is set in BOTH the character and paragraph panel. Couldn't find the Pantone color palette in ... the color palette picker? Ok.I realize it's different from InDesign but come on, it's not that difficult. I don't remember if the Swatches panel is active by default, it's been a minute since I set my workspace up, but once it's active, I find it far easier/more intuitive to change palettes in Designer than in InDesign (it's been about 20 years since I've used Quark so I have no idea how it's done currently). Does this person, of allegedly 30 years of design experience... not change their default workspace in InDesign/Quark to better match their workflow and personal preferences? That's straight up bizarre to me, if they don't, I've never met anyone that does this professionally that doesn't in my 20+ years in the field.

Adobe always does their own thing to break standard/open formats and make them only work with their programs. They do the same with svg and even tiff. It’s been a source of great frustration for me the past couple decades as a graphic designer and web designer working with them and trying to integrate standards compliant software/technology.

I know the original post was from 2017 when this option wasn’t available, but if you want to avoid cloud services and using iTunes, now it’s possible with the Files app to connect to a local network share or NAS, and you can copy files that way. Affinity’s file browser currently doesn’t see them yet, hopefully in an update we’ll get the full Files app functionality, so you can’t directly save to a network share (nor open files from a network share). But as a workaround for the time being, you can save them to any location on you iPad, then switch over to the Files app and copy it to the network share you have mounted. Edit: Another option that again wasn’t available in 2017, is to use a USB stick or HDD/SSD. And again, the Affinity file browser doesn’t see these when mounted, so you’ll have to use the same workaround above, just copying to the mounted drive instead of a network share.

It’s doing that because you used the gradient overlay, instead of using the gradient tool to fill the color as a gradient. I’m not sure why, specifically, they would be treated differently, but I just tested with both and when I use the gradient tool it works as you are expecting, but using the gradient overlay fx it works as you are currently experiencing.

You’re comparing one month of Adobe CC to a one-time purchase that has been good for the last ~5 years for Affinity. Using USD, In 5 years you’d spend $3000 for Adobe CC vs. $50, $100 or $150 for Affinity (depending on if you want one, two or all three Affinity programs). Even in the very worst possible scenario, if Serif were putting out full version upgrades every year (1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0, etc.), you’d be looking at $50 - $150 / year vs. $240 or $600 / year for Adobe CC ($240 if you only need one Adobe program, or $600 if you need more than one). No matter how you look at it the Affinity programs are not anywhere close to what you’d be paying for Photoshop and Illustrator. Now, they’re also not as full-featured, and there are some different workflows you will have to adapt to (such as text on path being in Designer but not Photo), and there are some outright missing features that will need workarounds, and some of those features will eventually come, either in a point update (free) or a full version update (paid.) In general, the Affinity programs will be more than enough for 99% of people. There will always be that 1% who absolutely need every single niche feature of the Adobe programs, and unfortunately for them there is no alternative.

Indeed! I was really looking forward to integrating the iPad apps into my daily workflow, but until these things are resolved it’s looking like I’m only going to be able to use them in a much more limited capacity. I guess one somewhat positive thing from this is it gives me time to start embedding images in my most recent documents, instead of linking them like I have been. I’m not thrilled with the increase in file size that’s going to come of this, but I’d really hate having to re-link images every time I change from iPad to computer and vice versa. I did a few years going back and forth between a PC desktop and Mac laptop with the Adobe suite, and that first week or so constantly re-linking was a nightmare. Now that I’ve been all PC desktop and laptop the last several years I’ve gone back to linking images. Oof!

ON1 should be releasing their mobile app this year, and it would be worth checking out when they do. I think it’s slated for Q1. I’ve been checking on it every few days and no joy yet. If it’s anything like their desktop version, which has finally replaced Lightroom 6 for me (I refuse to subscribe to CC and it pisses me off that they moved LR to CC even after saying they weren’t going to) it will be a great photo manager/organizer and alternative to LR, even if not a full DAM (something like Bridge is a DAM, LR is not a DAM) They’re also going to have a sync between desktop and mobile, that is currently working in beta and works well between my laptop and desktop. I don’t know if it’s going to be a paid service though when it’s fully released, I would hope they allow LAN/WiFi syncing for free and only charge for a paid service if you sync through their cloud or have some cloud storage like CC... I wouldn’t pay for that service, personally, like I won’t pay for CC, but if they keep LAN/WiFi free I’m happy to continue with that.

Having both the iPad and Desktop versions, sometimes it would be nice to have consistency between them, but so far I haven’t had much trouble finding my way around the iPad versions. However this just blew my mind: How do you not? Do you start from scratch for everything, with each new piece? Do you not have recurring clients that have things like logos and common graphics like social media icons or UI elements you need to use over and over in other designs and mockups? Do you just keep cluttered files of common symbols to copy and paste from? As a working designer, the symbols and assets are a godsend. I’ve been using them since they were first introduced into Illustrator so many years ago, and they’ve become a sort of bare minimum requirement for my consideration of alternate programs. I used to keep those cluttered files of symbols and logos, UI elements, social media icons, etc. It’s so much better having them built in and available right from the program, even if just to save the hassle of having to navigate through my file system to open them.

Another option is to use an app like iFont, it’s a bit of a clunky workaround to just being able to install fonts at a system level like you would on a computer, but it does work. Also the Creative Cloud app, even if you don’t have a CC subscription (I don’t) has a pretty decent selection of free fonts available that you can install. Both of these make the fonts available system wide, not limited to just the one app. If you use more than one Affinity app, or even more than one creative app in your workflow, it’d be more convenient to have the fonts system wide. Edit: Hmm, just double checked and apparently the Adobe fonts aren’t showing up in Affinity, but the iFont installed ones are. Yet another iPadOS update that apparently didn’t make it into Affinity’s iPadOS compatibility update

Another option is to use an app like iFont, it’s a bit of a clunky workaround to just being able to install fonts at a system level like you would on a computer, but it does work. Also the Creative Cloud app, even if you don’t have a CC subscription (I don’t) has a pretty decent selection of free fonts available that you can install. Edit: Hmm, just double checked and apparently the Adobe fonts aren’t showing up in Affinity, but the iFont installed ones are. Yet another iPadOS update that apparently didn’t make it into Affinity’s iPadOS compatibility update

That is unfortunate, and yes, hopefully they fix it in the next release. That seems like a rather significant oversight in their iPadOS compatibility update Thanks for the clarification.

I have been using the Affinity suite on PC for a few years now, but I just got an iPad Pro and wanted to jump in to on-the-go editing, however when I try to open any one of my files using “Open From Cloud”, or even “Import From Cloud”, the Files interface (seems to be built into the Affinity apps, and not accessing the native Files app) sees all my cloud storage services and download folders, but it does not see my connected network share that I have already attached in the native Files app, and it also doesn’t see any HDDs or USB sticks I connect, either. This is happening in both Photo and Designer. If it’s a bug, I’d like to know where to properly report it. If it’s a limitation of the API that prevents them from being able to fully access the native Files app features... well, damn. Why, Apple? However, if it’s intentionally limited... why, Serif? Ultimately I’d like to use a HDD to pass work back and forth since I won’t always be on the same network, but I was hoping to also be able to use network shares periodically as well. The native Files app can browse the network share and HDDs/USBs, and I can copy Affinity documents from them to let’s say OneDrive, for example, and I can then open it in Affinity from OneDrive, but that’s impractical for daily work. My current, less than ideal, option is to relocate my entire work folder into OneDrive since I have 1TB space from Office365, but I do not relish the thought of uploading several hundred gigabytes of data. Edit: I’m attaching a couple screenshots to illustrate the issue. The dark mode one is the native Files app, and the one not using dark mode (which my iPad is set to), is from Affinity Designer (and it’s the same with Photo).

Just noticed this on 1.7.1.404, fortunately I caught it before sending work off to print. Hoping this gets fixed soon, too. The sooner the better.