loyukfai

I saw an article that's the press release by Ash for the V2 on a Japanese media.
https://www-itmedia-co-jp.translate.goog/news/articles/2211/16/news129.html?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

It's a good news that he says he will expand marketing in Japan.
On the other hand, I have a concern.
Unless you advance the implementation of Japanese typography support in Affinity, you may just waste the marketing budget.
Because all Japanese want in Affinity is Japanese typography support, nothing else.
They think that's the only thing missing in Affinity and they say they don't use Affinity unless it supports Japanese typography.
So it's the show-stopper.
I understand that vertical writing takes time and costs to be implemented, but leaving small problems like this topic unfixed is really not good.
(Off course the vertical writing is essential though.)

If you can't advance the implementation, you should not spend the money on marketing in Japan.

That's my opinion.

FYI, the glyph rotation feature can be used as a temporary solution for the vertical writing if you can not implement the vertical writing in the near future.
This can benefits the Latin typography as well.
 
 

This has been fixed in V2

Understand from the development standpoint, but if Serif is serious about tackling the issue, either you have to hire an expert/consultant on this topic, and/or work more transparently or actively with users like @ashf.
Personally I'm impressed by the work @ashf and the Japanese Affinity userbase has done what's basically free QA for Serif. You don't find it in other places very often. 
Given time, people will lose interest, give up and move on.
Just my 2 cents.

there are the Videos from Affinity, try this one
https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/publisher/desktop/video/337305725/
Try a DuckDuckGo search for "Tutorial on Affinity Publisher Text Styles"

AP is much superior in terms of design flexibility.
Because Viva is a traditional page layout app like Quark/InDesign used to be.
You could archive similar result by using Viva with a vector graphic app such as AD.
But if the typography is the most important and essential to the artwork, AP wouldn't be an option like in Japan.
Means AP has practically no value in the publishing industry.

You can try it with the free version. (yes they have a FREE version.)
Free version does not have pdf export option, but it's enough for personal use.
And the premium version is of course much better than Indesign/Quark in terms of cost.

The line breaking rules for East Asian languages are partially implemented in 1.9.

This remains unfixed.
中日韓亞洲標點符號排版問題

I found this thread attempting to look for info on Chinese typesetting support for the Affinity Designer and Publisher. I would point you to a print publication in 2020 by thetype.com with regards to Chinese typesetting rules/norms (link below). I think it would benefit development hugely in terms of implementing CJK features. Typesetting features for Chinese are a lot less daunting in comparison to those of Japanese but they do overlap immensely with a few key differences.
https://www.typotheque.com/books/collection_of_research_on_chinese_typography

I think people requesting CJK support on this forum underestimated the complexities and amount of efforts that are required to implement properly CJK typesetting features. These are very fundamental and significant functions of the Adobe products where they excel. And it's not like Affinity/Serif can catch up in a short period of time in this regard, especially if this issue is not prioritized. Thus I do not foresee the arrival of those features in the near future, which makes it almost impossible to use for pro work for projects with CJK texts. It's a shame as the apps themselves are really handy to use in comparison to the Adobe products. 

Morning, 
We have decided to implement WebP export for (hopefully) 1.9.
The decision is not solely because it is now supported in Safari - although that doesn't hurt.
In the time I have been working here at Serif (15+ years), there have been hundreds of "JPEG / PNG killer" file formats announced - not a single one has succeeded. If we had supported each one, we would now have a massive amount of export code to maintain which was used by either 1 or 2 people, or more likely nobody. We don't like to remove features which we have added - so we would be stuck with the problem forever.
We generally don't implement new export formats unless a.) They are old but have some unique technical feature which is genuinely useful or b.) They are new and have either a good chance of achieving widespread adoption or have some unique technical feature which we think has merit.
WebP is being implemented because we think it has a high chance of widespread adoption.
Hope this helps,
Andy.

建议大家购买了正版的用户，到商店中进行评价，这样才能引起他们足够的重视！

Improvements have been made to the code in terms of some automation, but we acknowledge that the full solution will take some time and so for now did not put the change in the marketing "fix" list, but yes it's better than 1.8.3

Understand from the development standpoint, but if Serif is serious about tackling the issue, either you have to hire an expert/consultant on this topic, and/or work more transparently or actively with users like @ashf.
Personally I'm impressed by the work @ashf and the Japanese Affinity userbase has done what's basically free QA for Serif. You don't find it in other places very often. 
Given time, people will lose interest, give up and move on.
Just my 2 cents.

Understand from the development standpoint, but if Serif is serious about tackling the issue, either you have to hire an expert/consultant on this topic, and/or work more transparently or actively with users like @ashf.
Personally I'm impressed by the work @ashf and the Japanese Affinity userbase has done what's basically free QA for Serif. You don't find it in other places very often. 
Given time, people will lose interest, give up and move on.
Just my 2 cents.

Most of thing I posted here except directional quote haven't been fixed in 1.8.4.663
Especially unwanted no-break rule above need to be fixed asap.

Fully agree.

I know, like I posted the comment from omachi above, Serif need to hire the professional.
Hopefully one of Japanese text engine developer he mentioned.

But unless I keep posting the information periodically, Serif tend to lose what we posted.

 

Someone created buzz about Affinity among Japanese Twitter users, lucky for you.
But also complains about vertical writing  come up like tidal wave at the same time.
Really hate to see this. just fyi.
https://twitter.com/search?q=affinity 縦書き&src=typed_query&f=live

Kudos to the forum user, it's so comprehensive.
Cheers.

a forum user omachi provided test result here(in Japanese) and it seems that there are many characters that's not targeted.
https://cs5.xyz/blog/2020/05/ap184kin_main.html

But on my side, some characters seems to be targeted despite his result. so I wanted to confirm it.

@GabeWould you be able to disclose all characters that's being targeted on Asian line breaking rules?
So It makes it easier for me to test the rules and give you an opinion.

Kind of off-topic but it seems Adobe is using HarfBuzz?
https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/39814711-harfbuzz
Personal trigger here:
https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/issues/2394#issuecomment-626254448
Cheers.

Thanks a lot @ashf, did some quick check with common punctuations I use and most, if not all, seem to working fine now. Haven't done in-depth layout test but at least the punctuation marks are not appearing at the wrong places...
Kudos to Affinity team and if anything you want me to help testing, please don't hesitate to let me know.
Cheers.