alexanderklar

That's absolutely cool. No doubt about it. And I think that it's obvious, that even germans and french would want to align their quotation marks by default. But I think it should also be possible to do your own general adjustments, not only for one document, but even for all documents, if you want.  And you should be able to choose then which way you would like for your actual document. That would be extremely cool.

Here are updated pallets based on colour tables I have received from HKS. 
I don't seem to be able to edit the original post anymore, so please use these files.
 
HKS K.afpalette
HKS N.afpalette

Since support for IDML is coming, but not .indd, I looked into the possibility to export all my old .indd files to IDML. This is generally useful for future-proofing anyway, since I won't be able to run my old version of InDesign (CS5) forever.
I'm happy to report that this script was really good, it did everything I was hoping for. There was some trial and error and some issues (I have to delete batch_convert.txt for every run) to get there but eventually I got it to search folders and subfolders for any .indd file and export it as IDML, and it worked. 

@Gabe Logan
Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums
It's not possible yet. There are plans to be able to open IDML files in the future
<mod edit> IDML not INDD file clarification was made in an edit on 6th July 2019 </mod edit>

Hi all. I'm Dave Harris and I'm another of the Affinity developers. I have been mostly responsible for text, printing and some of the vector import and export formats.

Hi, I'm Tony Brightman. I head the SerifLabs team that have been developing the new Affinity range of applications. We have been deep in research for 4 years but it's now time to show the world.

 

TonyB

Hello all, I'm Andy Tang and I'm also a Affinity developers. I will also try to help out when I can and I look forward to seeing your feedback and work created using our product. :)

Hi, I'm Matt Priestley and I'm one of the Affinity developers. I'll try to help out on any topic, but particularly anything relating to tools, views and document drawing as they're the bits I'm mostly responsible for writing.
 
Feel free to join me and introduce yourself, too! :)

As it is now, a layer belongs to a page. In a publishing application, this is not especially useful. Layers should belong to the whole document. I.e:
If a publication is done in 20 languages, a way to solve this is ta have common images and unique texts. Texts are placed in layers for each language. Enabling/disabling of the current language is easily done by switch a layer on/off. As Publisher is now, this is almost impossible. You would have to have all these layers on every page, and when export PDF, you would have to go over 100 of pages and switch the layers on/off.
I'm surprised you missed this one. Publisher is a very good first edition. I've been using DTP for 30 years and many different systems and apps. Publisher finally lets me get rid of InDesign.But... you have to make some changes to make it really replace InDesign. I'm quite sure you will.

Your description is basically what we plan to do so just be a bit patient and give us feedback when we have a working version.
Other long document features will come over time. 

But in the meantime, as "global layers" as others are requesting will probably take awhile, you can use Layers (capital L) on a Master Page to get what you want.
On a Master Page, use the menu Layer > New Layer. Then in the Layers panel you can rename that Layer to something meaningful, such as the language name you want to use.
Apply that Master Page to the pages you want it to appear on. To create content in the Layer, on each page,
Select the Layer in the Layers panel, then right-click, and choose Edit Detached. Add that page's content to the Layer. New items that you add to the page will automatically be placed in that Layer as long as you leave it selected. When done click Finished, and move to the next page. When you've finished work for that language, go back to the Master Page, and in the Layers panel hide the first language Layer. That will hide it on all the document pages. Then create another Layer for your next language. Repeat.