Alfred

Instead of taking me directly to the Etsy page at
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GSeawardArt
your link points to the following Facebook URL:
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.etsy.com%2Fuk%2Fshop%2FGSeawardArt%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3I9BQCQAQmmubKLKW7JRR8hFXyVRx7hBIaPF0R9Usxsl6kK-JrfmJJlPQ&h=AT2WrZ4ufYzRbFUY4svk0TCvoKTGntcefy0D8j_jTXBWdMn7LvIDcZ8MekCdcWol-5calE-rWIvROtEs-8UITodBJ4_MxW9NpTFscNiU2-IavbFfuQN_icr1qY8dht8A_S77FnI&__tn__=-UK*F&c[0]=AT0EKTP5r8XrH7g8nj47yi8DaYHUk47ISSNYmbiVQqBl1MK9GkHA7Ct9C-MNi5F5x4PhcEnVCKeKWFEvSeQVw5yoczR2bv2KX1IZV_KI-p9adrjMfnUiwLrJiAYgm6SNM1f0nnncJoKyC3RGXjS85I581nH_1JFXb6ibF35WmsV5GDIQcJVM6XdgrecqU3fafsc_mopNm5TR

There is a way... but it is involved, and requires the use of Photo as well as Designer.
I have found that Linked objects (in Photo) are often more versatile than Symbols (in Designer) despite apparently doing the same job! In this case: Symbols can't be used to create Compound groups, but Linked objects can.
Method...
1. Use Photo to create a vector shape. This will be our Slicing object. Create a duplicate of the Slicer, and use the Link panel to link the two instances.
2. Save your file, and then Edit in Designer.
3. Create a Compound Shape using your Slicer to Subtract from a Rectangle.
4. Duplicate the Compound Shape, and change the mode of the Slicer to XOR.
Result...
You will have two shapes, that fit perfectly together. Changes to one, will instantly apply to the other. 

You must have been watching a tutorial for the desktop version. The iPad version can’t detect hover events, so there’s no cursor to indicate the text entry mode: you just have to tap on the curve with the Artistic Text Tool active, which should convert the curve to a path with start and end handles (coloured green and orange, respectively).
Affinity Designer 2 Help: Text on a path

Did somebody say “soapbox”?

You must have been watching a tutorial for the desktop version. The iPad version can’t detect hover events, so there’s no cursor to indicate the text entry mode: you just have to tap on the curve with the Artistic Text Tool active, which should convert the curve to a path with start and end handles (coloured green and orange, respectively).
Affinity Designer 2 Help: Text on a path

Yeah, the page being infinite inches wide really messes things up.

My observation: Change the document dpi from 0!!!! to e.g. 300 and use the "Revert defaults" button on the textframe.

@Pšenda, @Alfred thanks, off to do some reading.
Regards
Lionel

I'll just add:

Be aware that the default behaviour for 'Searching' has changed to be context aware - when viewing an existing thread the search will default to 'This Topic' which may cause some confusion or empty results. You can change the area you're searching before you search from the dropdown under the 'More Search Options > Content Type' setting as previous.

This was just a quick one that I decided to do for a futurism section on reddit a little while back. Really could do with a couple of adjustments that I will do sometime. Shock horror the AI crowd piled in proclaiming it was generated which seems to be the way now if it’s more complicated than a stick man. No point in trying to argue your case on there as they always know best.

For reasons that I’ve never understood, even if your artboards are exactly 128x128 pixels each the exported width and/or height will be one pixel more for any artboards that are not aligned to the pixel grid.

And if you want a big shock, try using natural language questions in you.com, like this. But, keep in mind, these things can lie with confidence, sometimes:
 

If you need a new conversation the chances are good you should start a new topic, not continue it in the same topic. You can scroll to the top or bottom of the page, click one level up in the breadcrumb, and then click on Start New Topic.

Thanks for your thoughts, Alfred.
Because I what I said earlier - the forum has massive quantities of posts, and no matter WHAT search terms you enter, most of the time you won't get ANY threads that are exactly what you want. Instead, you get a very long list of "close but no cigar" topics that you think, "These HAVE to apply, or they wouldn't be on my search results," and you have to spend about an hour filtering through them, reading all of them, before finding out they don't really apply to you. This is a huge waste of my time.

On the other hand, computers are very good at processing a large amount of data, very quickly. Depending on the server, all it takes is 1 to 4 seconds to find what is sought, OR tell you "No precise matches." AI software could make these searches infinitely more relevant and targeted, and save us immense amounts of time and frustration.
I hope this answers your question. Bottom line, it's much easier and faster for a computer (the forum's server) than to offload that work onto me. It's also more user-friendly.
Unlike ChatGPT or other AI large language models that process the entire internet, the forum software would only have to process the content of the forum and the Affinity HELP content. I think it's time they implemented this upgrade.

That works but annoyingly, dragging the bottom up doesn't support snapping so you have to eyeball it to get a uniform symmetrical mesh.

Unless I’m missing something about the requirements, you can bend the bottom of the text by using a Quad Warp Group and then dragging the centre of the bottom of the bounding box – see attached video.
2023-06-03 10-16-12.mp4

Not a fan of preset presets, the problem of preset presets presents itself with preset presets not being presented perfectly for ones predilection. 

I agree with @fde101 wholeheartedly. There is an inherent difference between a product and a service. A product is something for which a one-time purchase is appropriate; a service could very easily warrant an ongoing contractual payment. The very phrase SaaS (Software "as" a Service) belies the fact that companies like Adobe recognize this; they are desperately trying to re-invent themselves as a "service" rather than a "product" to increase their cash flow and bump up their stock prices. Granted, they have accomplished both, but they have done so on the backs of those who are trapped in their ecosystems. I, too, have an ideological phobia about subscription software, and feel strongly about not compromising that stance. If it comes at the expense of slower development, that's a hardship I'm willing to endure.

It won't bring me back.  Adobe lost me 100% as a customer when they went subscription-only.  Other companies have since suffered the same fate.  For me this is a matter of principle and I won't compromise it.  "Native" productivity software (anything which does not run "in the cloud" where the company has a *legitimate* ongoing need to pay for bandwidth, servers, etc. to permit usage of the software) equates to no subscriptions allowed.  Period.
 
For some users and use cases.  Some of us would have zero benefit from this.  I might have *rare* benefit from generative AI, certainly not enough of a benefit frequently enough to jump to a higher-priced application unless it has other things to offer as well.  Definitely not enough that I would ever consider a subscription over it.
I do recognize that it will make a bigger difference for other users.
Selection assistance AI, I would probably make much more use of, but not at the cost of a subscription.

Fantastic, thanks for all Users!
Ludwig

There is no need to use Affinity Photo for this. You can apply a Recolour adjustment directly in Affinity Publisher.
Affinity Publisher Help: Recolour adjustment

Alternatively to Alfred's hint: If your APub document is in CMYK colour space you can press the "K Only" button + apply a Fill Colour to the image.

Take a checkered square of 32x32px.

stretch it to 64x32. The left/right side gets anti-aliased (1px semi-transparency)

stretch it to 128x32. The left/right side gets anti-aliased (2px semi-transparency)

now begin to stretch on y-axis to 48px, then 49px. Edge anti-aliasing stops working completely (only alpha channel is active in channels panel)

Those arrows look great! The text looks as though a smaller font size has been used in lieu of proper small capital glyphs in the original font size, resulting in the regular capital letters and the ampersand looking bolder than the ‘small caps’ text, but that’s only a minor quibble.