Alfred

A Transform each would be excellent. Similar to AI function, giving options in scale, rotation, skew, etc.

I'd like to see this too. I hope we don't have to wait twenty years for it, like we did for DrawPlus!

Dots per inch or pixels per inch is irrelevant for the web. Computer screens only know about pixel dimensions, not inches.

Hey all,
 
MBd already found one of them, but here are three new videos for you:
 
Colour grading with shapes Enhancing Camera Phone photography Infrared Emulation  
Enjoy!

Today AD, tomorrow Panini sticker albums! :D  :D  :D

you can save a "sort of symbol" by saving the document,
then use document > place to place that "sort of symbol"
 
you can duplicate the placed document (the "sort of symbol") and scale, rotate, skew it or even use the live perspective distort filter in AP (not available in AD)
 
you can then open the embedded document and make changes, every instance will update
 
i´ve used this in AP to create a non destructive technicolor simulation https://vimeo.com/155520871 by referencing the base image in three groups and applying channel mixer adjustment layers to each group
 
you can delete the document you saved in first place because the placed document is placed (inside the main document), not linked externally
 
hope that helps 

Clayton, those are some interesting ideas. I don't think disabling Save is viable, because in order to fully test the program you need to use it as you would normally, and that includes working on big projects over many days, stopping them and coming back to them etc, which needs Save. Changing the file extension might be feasible, though.
 
One point I don't think Matt mentioned is that files saved by 1.5 beta will not load into 1.4.x. This means that if you did use the beta, saved over your original file, then hit a serious bug, you wouldn't be able to just go back to the production app and continue. You'd be stuffed until we could release a fix.
 
It's those two things - the amount of effort our testers put into test projects, and the possibility of that effort being lost - that makes us wary of releasing 1.5 beta prematurely. I do think we've got ourselves into a bad place with the current schedule. I find it frustrating that work I did to fix bugs back in February still hasn't seen the light of day. Previously we've been able to have a new beta just a few weeks after the Mac App Store was updated, and as a result it had relatively few changes and was relatively trust-worthy, and then we could continue keeping it up to date frequently so it never got too bad. This time, however, It is taking us ages to get 1.4.x final, and in that period 1.5 has progressed so much that we can't be sure it is better than 1.4.2. I am hoping that this is temporary, and that once the 1.5 beta is released we can revert to a more frequent cadence.

Thanks for the update, Matt. I really appreciate the point about people using the betas for production work and how that makes it tricky to test any architectural changes with customers. Who'd have thought there could be such a thing as releasing betas that are too high quality? :)
 
I wonder if perhaps there's a way to approach these architectural tests that would avoid the pitfalls you described. Maybe a different kind of release ("alpha", "technology preview") where it's clear that core functionality is subject to change? These could have anything from a red banner in the title bar saying "Not for production work - file format may change" to outright disabling save (or only saving as ".afbeta" files). I'm reminded of how Mozilla used to release nightly versions of their email client not under the Thunderbird name but as "Shredder" to remove any doubt of what might happen if something went wrong!
 
In any case, I don't really mind the slow pace of 1.5 news. I work in software too, and I know big changes take time.

Honestly, I believe Matt’s points are very reasonable. Would it really make sense to create a document in a beta version that relies on “state-of-the-art” feature implementations which are not supported by subsequent versions, due to fundamental code changes? In other words, can you imagine a possible use case for a document you would never be able to open again, once the beta you used to create this document has expired? I fear I cannot …  :unsure:
 
On the other hand, I would also believe that it might make sense to push smaller fixes and improvements faster to the users, if possible. But it is, admittedly, very hard to assess from a user’s perspective, what should be considered a “small” fix or improvement, since such a seemingly small change might have numerous consequences in the code base.
 
Anyway, thanks for your hard work …  :)
Alex

... he said archly! :D

Alfred,
 
I assumed your question was rhetorical—my comment was meant as a bit of a joke (and the voice in my head as I typed it had that sort of hopeful "if only" tone). In any case, I hope my comments gave you an idea of what I did.
Best,
Darin

Affinity Publisher. ;)

Just uploaded a little video showing how to use the Inpainting Fill function to add image to a canvas.
 
https://youtu.be/hY22H7_Epl4

Hi everyone,
 
The reality is what I've described elsewhere: People use our beta versions for production work because they have traditionally been stable and supported. This is great, but also causes us a potential headache: If I make a major architectural change (like Symbols, which is just one of the new features that you know are coming) and then I release it as a beta and people use it for important work then I have to support that architecture even if I change my mind and want to do everything differently. This leads to us having a huge lump of code hanging around forever to support a thing that was only available in one beta version. This is very bad. So I basically can't release large features to beta until they're ready - and by that I don't mean 'utterly perfect', I just mean that they're definitely the right way to do things. Sometimes you only find out limitations or drawbacks by trying things... Right now our Art Director and MD are playing with 1.5, planning their videos and giving me feedback so I can assess whether the required functionality is there and whether there's anything fundamentally wrong - that basically means there's not so long to wait now until 1.5 is ready for a beta release (unless they tell me something horrific in the next few days - which I don't think they will!)
 
As to why the 1.4.2 betas have been slow to appear - basically everyone is spending the bulk of their time getting 1.5 ready. This is good and bad. If they weren't doing this then there would be a big gap between 1.4.2 and 1.5, whereas the gap should now be short, but it does delay the release of 1.4.2 - but 1.4.1 (MAS) is pretty stable and the 1.4.2 beta that we have resolves most problems already if a user encounters one, so the only thing people are really missing out on is a 1.5 beta... which as I said, is approaching faster because there's been more developer input to it than to 1.4.2.
 
We have tried to add a number of big things in 1.5 and if this makes people unhappy about the update frequency (because big features cannot be released in a state where we're not 100% confident the architecture is correct) then we'll have to give only one big feature each time (which may not appear in the beta until a few weeks before the end) and a number of smaller ones. We're obviously listening and learning what you're all after throughout this process - so we can hopefully deliver more of what you're after next time. But I have to say, when you see 1.5, I don't think you'll be complaining about the new features... ;) 
 
Thanks again,
Matt

Hello there!
Just wanted to share my last work with Affinity Designer. This is part of a series of about 15 characters for a web comic called "We are the Freaks". We're still in the very initial phase of the project. Hope you dig :) as always, all kind of critique would be more than welcome.
 

Nice work, Milos! Sorry, but at present there's no way to adjust the split view angle - although I was thinking about letting the user adjust it freely? It should all work, we just need some UI element to let you rotate it around...

Yesterday I started to design new typeface in Affinity Designer. I really love split view to get quick overview of shapes and to control outlines. ;)

Thanks, Miguel. The Perspective Tool and the Blend Tool are two DrawPlus features that I would particularly have liked to see in CraftArtist. I hope that both of these will soon find their way into Affinity Designer.

This has been discussed extensively in these forums. The two product ranges do not share a common "native" file format, nor do they have the same feature set or code base.
 
So basically, what that means is you will need to export plus formatted files using the plus app to some more standardized format (like PDF, SVG, etc.) to work on them in Affinity. This is essentially the same thing that has to be done when leaving the Adobe world for the Affinity one or whatever -- in other words, the only way to "future-proof" your stuff is to maintain a copy in one of the non-proprietary graphics file formats.
 
This remains an imperfect solution, since almost invariably the proprietary formats include features that do not export well or at all to the non-proprietary ones. And like you said, eventually the app that created the original document will become so outdated that it won't run on any OS that will run on the latest computer hardware, so either you keep some old computer around just to be able to export old documents (& pray that it keeps working) or diligently export everything ASAP while you still can.
 
Personally, I have been dealing with this for about 30 years, & I'm a Mac only user. All my stuff originally was in MacDraw or Claris/Appleworks formats. I upgraded first to Deneba Canvas, & then to Aldus Freehand, so I had to spend considerable time trying (not always successfully) to export & fix the issues that caused.

I've just posted to the 'Affinity to FontLab' thread to report that I get the same weird shape if I import Andrea's EPS file into High-Logic FontCreator.

Great Kevin, it is exactly the effect I meant to reproduce.
This is the perfect assist for the tip of the week!
 

 
Pigmento Sponge is something between a chalk and a sponge, with a slow build-up effect for overlapping tones.
You can use it tapping with your nib or stroke as you did.
 
Nozzle is nothing special here, but there are custom ramps for HSL and you can notice a luminosity variation with pressure too.
The painterly effect is a bit digital, but very pleasant.
I use it as a concept tool, to roughly add volume to shapes.
 
There is a small surprise too...
If you double click it and go to Texture, you'll find a canvas texture embedded that is None by default.
Turn it to Nozzle and you have a further variation of this preset on a cloth canvas!  ;)

Take a look at this thread. If you want to apply different adjustments to two different parts of a layer, make a copy of the layer and then clip the second adjustment layer to the layer below so that other layers are unaffected by the new adjustment.
 
You should be able to invert a selection with ⌘I, but you need to go to the Layers tab and make sure that you've chosen the pixel layer rather than the adjustment layer.

Would like to see the enter button on the keyboard be the equivalent to Apply whenever its applicable.

LOL. I assumed that the inclusion of the word "sweat" was a deliberate choice to indicate the amount of hard work you put into the project! Most definitely a sweet result, anyway. :)

Not entirely, Alfred.  ;)