KipV
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Posts posted by KipV
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I just think people need to try the Publisher workflow before getting too judgmental. Like I said before it's hard to judge software you haven't used yet.
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I think the problem here is that a lot of people are having trouble understanding how this workflow works since is it forces them to imagine the way software they haven't used works. This one file format solution can really blow Adobe out of the water. I was reading an InDesign book from about seven years ago that was talking about how Adobe was planning on doing something similar but they never accomplished it. Serif's main goal shouldn't be to merely to catch up to Adobe it should be to surpass them (at least in some areas.)
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I don't think anyone here disagrees. It is simply where the line is.
The line should be drawn at illustration features. The fact that other drawing apps had non-illustration features is not justification for Serif to start loading in every non-illustration feature in the world. Every non-illustration feature slows me down.
"Er, are we talking about why FH did something like Master Pages still? If so, then what and why they added them is just a historical curiosity, but no slippery slope."
We have already watched Adobe fall down this slippery slope. In some way some of the recent apps have become worse because they keep pilling on features that go beyond it's core functionality.
"Correct. But there is every reason to improve on AI and other vector design applications."
In many ways I don't think they are improving.
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From your example it looks like the first column of text is what is linked? It's a little hard to tell since it is blurred out but it looks like column one contains a topic with a bullet list in the middle of the column and the story is then continued after the list. What I don't see is illustration work which makes me question why a illustration tool would even be need in this instance. As far as scaling goes why not just use character and paragraph styles? The text tools from InDesign are far greater then the tools available in Illustrator or FreeHand. For an example here is a layout I did a few years ago from a book.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/354025220684087385/
InDesign let me do drop caps, choose how many lines or words would apply to the drop cap, let me capitalize the first sentence or capitalize multiple lines, apply automatic page numbers. These are all things that I don't think illustration tools can do with text (at least as far as the last time I tried it.) I used FreeHand for putting a booklet together once (it was about 20 pages or so) and it worked but once I learned InDesign I didn't see a reason to return for this type of work. InDesign has been my sole choice even for one page mailers. I could see using a program like Photo for simple layouts though. It would have been easy to do my one page design in Photo so I could edit the photo and do the layout at the same time. Once Serif lets me edit Artboards like I can do with Designer I may consider doing the whole one page design in Photo. Staying all in the same app was a nice experience for simple layout.
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"I cannot imagine a one-page flier needing it either. So?"
This adds features that get in the way of the app's core functions. See most Adobe apps for examples of this. I really have an open mind but I just haven't seen a use case of this workflow being put into practice which makes me think that such workflow doesn't exist.
"There are times when being able to ad hoc the relative sizing of elements where it simply makes sense to do so in a vector design application. It is a visual process, not a linear one. Text and illustration sizing changes are far faster in a design application than in a layout application."
You can resize objects in a layout program too. I don't notice any speed difference. They both have a transform panel if needed etc.
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Point being, once FH included multiple pages, it made sense to make decisions about what then to include in order to that would flesh out or enhance multiple pages. That you, I or the man in the moon didn't make use of them or didn't see the importance of them isn't material.
You're going down a slippery slope. There has to be a marker in sand or else Serif will just turn into Adobe. There is no reason to duplicate Adobe, if people feel that Adobe's solution of adding everything is the right way to go then just use Adobe. If Serif keeps their scope limited they could keep Designer focused on advancing 3D illustration tools in a separate persona for an example which doesn't get away from the app's core function.
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I don't think it would hurt. Illustrator has it.
The reason I am using Affinity is to get away from Adobe's misguidedness. There is no point in making a product that duplicates all of Adobe's mistakes.
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Your point is well taken, but in my line of work, page layout is "professional graphic design." I certainly don't expect to do a 48-page magazine in Designer, but I did hope it'd be suitable for designing a single-page magazine ad. Linked text boxes are crucial there.
If the Designer tagline was "professional illustration software," I'd expect only rudimentary text tools, sure.
I haven't come across an example of a single page layout that would require text linking yet. I do a ton of one page mailers and handouts but I can't think of a single time this feature would come into play. The main use of this feature is when you go from column to column or page to page which isn't required hardly ever in one page docs. The onus is on those who say they need this feature to show examples of one page documents where text linking AND page graphics are required in the same file. Someone said that you would need this feature for making a bus schedule but due to the lack of graphics such a design would be better done in a layout tool like InDesign that has features like tables.
I agree with R C-R that adding features like text linking becomes a slippery slope because then people will use that feature to justify every other tool in the world. I think the name is a bit confusing to some people since the word "Designer" is a bit ambiguous where the scope of the software is not. It makes more sense to focus on related tools like 3D illustration (perhaps in a separate persona) rather then tools for advanced layout or multimedia, etc.
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Would FH had developed along the path it took had they also developed a layout application? That's a tough question to answer. It would be easy to say no, it wouldn't have. Features like master pages would have been withheld. But I think that's too easy of an answer.
Like I mentioned above (or in another of these threads), there has to be a feature cut-off instead of feature crossover. I would draw line elsewhere.
It's not so much a matter of whether FreeHand would have gone that route it is if they should have gone that way. Just because a lot of people pressure a company into adding features doesn't mean it is the right thing to do. Every time a feature gets added that isn't part of an app's core function it ends of burying the features that are apart of the core function. What Serif leaves out is every bit as important as what they add in. To me the point of starting over with a new graphics suite is to avoid the mistakes that competing software has made instead of repeat them.
I don't at all agree with the title of this whole discussion. I think that it should be released as soon as possible and I like Dave's pragmatic approach quoted above.
I also happen to think that an early beta release would put an end to a lot of unnecessary speculations and would allow us to just get on with it as we have with the Designer and Photo. :huh:
Serif has been releasing basic layout features in 1.4 and 1.5 so they are progressing on this front. I would just like to see the progress limited to Designer and Photo rather then releasing a whole layout tool at this point. To start with a lot of people only need basic layout functions (bleeds, text wrap) so getting these tools out first is helpful to those people and I don't have to sit there and wait for a year (or however long it takes) for them to come out with a full layout program. If people desperately need a full layout tool today there are already options available for that. Just use those programs.
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I think it is a short-sided view of customers to write what Patrick wrote. I don't think Serif knows at present how their software is being used, nor how it will be used in the future. Which is precisely why threaded text frames came about in those aforementioned software applications.
It is Serif's call and these are priced well. If the common file format can be maintained in the long term, there really isn't much reason to do everything in every application. There is and will be crossover functionality. Where the line is drawn for non-crossover capabilities is subjective.
Sometimes software companies have had bad or mediocre justifications for bringing misplaced features into certain apps. FreeHand had master pages probably because Macromedia didn't have a layout tool and they thought they could somewhat compete with layout tools by providing some of those features like master pages and text linking. Was this the best solution possible? No, the best solution would have been for Macromedia to make their own layout tool but it was probably the best option for them in the position that they were in at that time which was to keep their focus as a multimedia company rather then compete in print as well. Unlike Macromedia Serif has a layout tool in the pipeline so it is hard to justify too many (or any) advanced layout features getting brought over to the other programs.
The single file format is really a great opportunity to minimize bloat. What is so weird about Creative Cloud to me is that Adobe's big initial selling point was that they could get features out faster but in many cases they just seem to be rushing out bloat to me. Providing a suite where the individual apps are nimble but the suite as a whole is powerful is a much better selling point for the company. A large suite of nimble software would make Serif very competitive with Adobe particularly as some of their apps have been getting a little creaky.
- MJSfoto1956, jrutled3 and JGD
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What about bus time tables? Is that what you had in mind?
If I was creating that document I would start and end the work in the layout software due to the lack of graphics. To me it seems like if you are creating graphics for a short document the space that the graphics take up and the brevity of the medium would reduce the need for having much text to link. I just did a book cover that had a lot of text on the back but didn't see a need to make more then one text block not to mention text linking between multiple text blocks. The back contained an excerpt about the book and a description on the author (the author part usually goes on the inside somewhere) and yet all I needed to split the two types of info on the back was a wider "paragraph after" number rather then a second text block. Now that I think about it there was a second text block or the author name and a third text block ISBN, price, etc. but none of that needed to be linked.
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I hope we don't. At the price the software sells for, the few people who need that in Designer may have to buy Publisher... but it's not my call.
I don't think price should determine whether features make it into Designer. I think the right question should be does it make sense for a short document? I am not sure if I have used text box linking in work like mailers and such. I would think the main use for that feature would be linking body text across columns or pages. If something is complex enough to require pages or columns I would probably rather work in an interface were that clears out most of the non-layout features so the interface doesn't get too cluttered. One of the problems with many Adobe apps is they have too much clutter by trying to do too many different things in a given app. To me the point of the single file format across apps is precisely to allow you to easily pass a file between the apps so that you don't end up with feature bloat (this is also an advantage of the persona feature.) Otherwise you will have to come up with a solution like Adobe's custom workspaces that wasn't the greatest solution. The best way to do this is to leave it out of the app in the first place.
Does anyone have an example of a simple layout (mailer, poster, etc) that uses lots of columns? I don't work this way but maybe someone else does. There could be some workflow that I haven't considered.
EDIT: I misunderstood what Patrick said in his post. I thought he was saying for the price it should have a bunch of layout tools. I know understand what he was really saying was the software is priced so affordably it isn't too much to ask for Designer users to shell out another $40-$50 to buy text linking and other advanced layout features. I agree with this.
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Dan, for the way my workflow is going right now nobody on my team is using a complex layout tool to make the book I just helped put together. The book I just finished yesterday was made only using (as far as I know) Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, Lightroom, and Word. InDesign or XPress didn't play any role. I would be a lot more interested to see a 1.6 or 1.7 that just entirely focused on getting the basic layout tools available so that I could do things like applying bleeds more elegantly then having to draw a box to represent the bleed so that I know where to drag the bleed to. Probably 95% of the work I do with InDesign doesn't even take advantage of the long document tools it just for doing things like making a mailer or book cover or poster.
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I got it to work partially today. If you select the text block when using the shortcut precise increase and decrease works, regular increase and decrease does not. Same thing happens when you highlight the text, precise work the other does not. Of course I can select it form the menu but the point is to simplify the process by using shortcuts.
@TheRogue
That is good to hear that someone else is using Affinity for book covers. Perhaps I will make a post about my experience and we can compare our workflows. I wouldn't call my experience perfect but there were certainly advantages over using the Adobe solution. Mostly the tools share a common file so I didn't have to spend so much time working in the Finder. The Mac's share feature is handy when passing versions off to a client look at. I don't have to post items to the desktop as much as before emailing them a copy. Just select share > email and it passes you from one app to the other. Serif is a lot better at taking advantage of OS features then Adobe is (at least as far as CS6 is concerned. I haven't tried the latest versions yet but I doubt they have changed much on that front.)
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Great technique A_B_C! Now Serif just needs to make that feature more obvious so people know that it's there.
I posted in another thread that Serif should do an entire release that focuses on adding basic layout features. It has some good tools already but if they did even one version that focused in this one area they could get pretty close to the ideal setup. For some users the need to rush out Publisher would diminish because some people spend a lot of their time just doing basic layouts and don't require those complex tools. I have InDesign on hand if I need the complex layout features. The focus for a Serif InDesign competitor should mainly be to offer features that Adobe doesn't provide.
- donnaoverall, LilleG and A_B_C
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Is anyone getting the paragraph leading shortcuts to work? (text > paragraph leading > increase/decrease) The feature isn't working for me.
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I agree (obviously) with Kip. There's a right way and a work-around way. That's it currently. It needs to be corrected for the Windows launch and the MAS update hitting soon.
There is still so much work to do with basic layouts that Serif could do an entire version that just focuses on layout; bleeds being just one of the needed improvements in that update.
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I am starting to see a few posts asking Serif why Publisher hasn't been released yet. After just completing my first BASIC layout project with Designer and Photo it makes sense to me for at least some of the reasons why Publisher hasn't been released. The two currently available apps are still missing some very basic layout tools so Serif needs to get the basics put in those two apps before moving on to the more complex layout software. I wrote a lengthy piece about this in another thread but it was buried one hundred posts down. I just wanted people to be aware of these points so I am starting a new thread so that they can get more exposure.
Original post:
After doing my first layout project on Affinity I can understand why Serif isn't rushing Publisher out (even though I enjoyed using it for layouts.) There are still a number of basic layout features that need to be added to Designer and Photo to even work well as a basic one page layout software. Why rush out complex layout software before you even have the basics working right? This is the list I have come up with that Affinity should complete before moving to a layout program.
- Visible bleeds in the program, not just after exporting the file. There was too much work trying to set up bleeds at a half an inch when I could see an object after it was dragged out into the bleed area. I basically had to draw a half inch box and then drag the object to the size of the box and then delete the box after I no longer needed it.
- Adding and editing artboards needs to be done in Photo. If Photo let me edit artboards I could have done my entire book cover layout in Photo (I think) and not had to jump back to Designer each time I needed to make a slight revision. For an example the publisher I was working with said that my book spine needed to be .58" rather then what I previously had it set to which was .5". Such a small adjustment should not require me to go to another app.
- I consider text wrap to be a basic tool so this needs to be done without having to rely on a workaround. There is also a feature from InDesign where the text follows along the side an object that I find to be very useful but I can't remember what it is called off the top of my head.
- I should be able to select a shape that I want to import an object into. I know there is masking from the layers panel but with InDesign I have gotten used to selecting a shape, selecting place and then having an object get imported in. This object could then show up in the layers panel as a masked item.
-The first version of Publisher should include some of the features that InDesign users have been clamoring for over the past several years and never get. The goal is not to just make a clone of InDesign but provide functionality it can't do or can't do well.
I think Affinity got off to a good start as a basic layout tool but I really believe that all of these basics need to be done before Publisher comes out. Ideally Publisher should be a solid app right from the first version since so much polishing would have been done to layout tools in Designer and Photo already. This way the focus for Publisher can be placed entirely on things like long document features and ebooks rather then adding layout tools that have been available for decades now (those features should already be in Photo and Designer by release.) Another advantage of placing the focus on Designer and Photo is that people will get comfortable using those programs as solid basic editing apps so when Publisher comes out the transition to the more powerful long document tools will feel more natural since it will be so similar to the programs they already use.
PS. I noticed as I was typing this that there is a shortcut for adjusting leading. That is a useful idea. Is anyone else getting this to work? It doesn't work for me. That seems like a much better idea then having to type numbers into a leading box.
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Petar, if you did that the bleed marks wouldn't show up right on export. Serif just needs to add bleeds to the editable documents.
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I don't think I had much need to use that feature when I was in FreeHand.
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It seems like there was some program where you could view a layer but not print it (and maybe not export it either.) Was it FreeHand that did that? Not sure if InDesign can do that.
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Artboards seem ok to me, I just feel that they need to advance a lot more. Simply moving the pre-existing artboard feature from Designer over to Photo (without even adding any features) would be a massive improvement to me. Artboards are still a pretty new feature for Affinity so I expect we will see some important improvements to them in upcoming versions.
Is there a way to make your red bleed rectangles not show up when exporting? Some programs give you that option. Another feature I would like is the ability to export just a portion of an artboard. With the project I am currently working on I have a front and back cover on a single artboard but sometimes I just need to export just the front or just the back. I think this was possible with FreeHand.
linking text boxes
in Pre-V2 Archive of Affinity on Desktop Questions (macOS and Windows)
Posted
It is also the reason that I lot of people are here using talking about and using Affinity; it's because we don't like the Adobe way is doing things and we want another company to make something better. If we were happy with Adobe why would we even be here? We would just keep using the Adobe apps it seems. To listen to some people talk it sounds like they are really happy with the way Adobe works which just begs the question why don't they just use Adobe?