Jowday

I have watched with interest the conversation. It does seem to me to be moving forward - not at all. The official response seems to have failed to grasp the simple logic that if the program is sold as a professional DTP program, it is reasonable for buyers (especially long-standing Serifomanes) to expect it to be capable of performing as a professional DTP program. It is not significantly different from a glorified word processor currently, except for the cross-program functionality which seems to be the be-all and end-all of Affinity - which is of course doubtless the reason for the name.
I have just published my latest 350-page book using Serif PagePlus, which was put out to pasture far earlier than it should have been, and frankly knocks spots off the young pretender. I have been a longterm user of PagePlus, and still find it does things I had not realized were available. It is a truly world-class program. The only issue I had was that the resolution of grouped images when output to PDF were showing as 150DPI, despite being 300+. They were apparently at the required resolution, but in full Adobe Acrobat were showing incorrectly.
Affinity, in whatever form, has a way to go yet. Photoshop is simpler to use than AffPhot, and is there any real need for a designer program to mesh in with Publisher?
I did, in case it is thought to be sour grapes, try to do what I wanted to do in AffPub, but it was just not up to it, despite some good points (none of which surpasses PagePlus.
It is a little like the Emperor's new clothes. A mistake has been made, but admitting it and at least restoring the older programs until it is remedied, seems beyond the mindset of whoever is running Serif.
It is very sad.

I agree 100 %. Without footnotes you simply cannot call it ’professional’ let alone ’next generation’. You just can’t. 

Yes please, I need a "search in layers" feature so bad... or at least the possibility to sort them by name. As an architecture student, 90% of the files that I work on come from AutoCad, which exports A LOT of layers in every document. Having the option to scan through them and select the layers I need, even when they're inside different groups, would be life changing.

"stripped back, pro-end workhorse" 
Stripped back... indeed. Like WordPad for Word Processing. Pro-end? Nah. And I think the market has spoken. This is just city market marketing. It is not related to reality. But they do seem trying to escape the reality that Designer has virtually no vector features other than the most crucial.
Remember when Serif finally more or less fixed "Expand stroke" so it doesn't create a gazillion stray nodes? This is how they sold that fix that customers complained about for years:
Massive expand stroke improvements. Get incredibly accurate results with far fewer nodes than before.

Yep, but this work horse:

I do not experience this unless I double click really fast - that tells me that Affinity (of course) uses the system double click setting that I changed to a setting requiring a fast double click before it is recognized as as one.
Perhaps you can do the same?

You are totally right.
Take a wild guess - did a professional, educated user experience designer stick so stubbornly to this nonsense over the years?

+1!
Every click combination that involves left AND right mouse button at the same time should be changed! (There are a few others, like resizing the brush in AP, moving an object by it's origin in AD, or toggling "intersect with selection marquee"). Requested this a long time ago already.
Worse, when using a Wacom tablet, working the left mouse button (which is a tap with the pen tip) and right MB (can be on the rocker switch) together, becomes a fumble fest.
On top of that, the sequence of which mouse button has to be released first plays a role, too! (The fact that interactive zoom is only invoked by SPACE+CTRL, not vice versa, has been criticized numerous times).
I really don't understand why Affinity sticks so stubbornly to nonsense like that, bright as they are most places. Especially when it would be such a simple fix.
 

When using the Node Tool, the bottom information line lists "Click+RightMouse to smooth node," but it feels needlessly difficult to accomplish. The user must either click+rightclick perfectly simultaneously, or rightclick and hold then left click. Unfortunately, rightclicking first (which would be easier) brings up the rightclick menu, which blocks then blocks the cursor from targeting the intended node. Meanwhile, attempting to click at the same time is finicky; if the user clicks either mousebutton even slightly before the other, it doesn't work. Either of two changes could improve usability here: setting the rightclick menu to appear on button release rather than on click, or allowing the combination leftclick and hold + rightclick to do it.
I hope that made sense. I've been up all night and I'm kind of punchy.

Apple Safari finally supports WebP in the latest beta so Serif may reconsider the current lack of WebP support.
Unfortunately the JPG & PNG  export in the Affinity line is currently not optimized (wasn't in *Plus either) and doesn't export with a preview so "supporting" (blindly saving) WebP is not enough in itself for serious use.
 

I see this on a trusty old (but fast) computer without anything else than a simple Intel chipset. Windows 10 professional.
The green stuff visible the last seconds is from the encoder of ScreenToGIF.

 

Hi. I've just come to Affinity after years with Photoshop and I'm having problems finding the tools – they're all so small that I'm thinking I might have to buy a magnifying glass. Is there any way of resizing them please?

Jowday, it looks like a similar technical issue ... but we also should discuss your photopgraphy topics 🙂 (LMAO)

Directly above the document window in Photo are tabs showing the document file name.  These tabs extend the full width of the window and their length is determined by the number of tabs.  In Photoshop these tabs are of fixed length irrewspective of the number of open ducuments.  I find the Photoshop layout much easier to use because the tabs don't move about when you open or close documents.
 
 

Keyboard shortcuts for macros is a must - so yes. In Adobe Photoshop macros are tightly integrated into my workflows and I use macros all the time. All the time. So shortcuts are vital for professional use (time is money and results matter).
I can see the need for shortcuts for brushes as well - I would personally prefer a shortcut that opens a easy-to-select brush dialog with recent brushes and most used brushes listed - and it should be easy to select whatever and search for whatever without even using the mouse.

I don't think Serif will ever focus on advanced vector tools in Designer - I don't see any traces of such intentions and they certainly didn't hire vector gfx specialists recently. Nor did they allocate time to the single one they have who was and is in fact struggling to get booleans and expand stroke to work properly for years. If is was due to lack of qualifications, it is a disaster. If it was due to lack of business priorities that fixing these issues were put on hold for years, it is a disaster that tells you how little vector features means to Serif.
It is quite obvious that the developers involved in VectorStyler are extremely qualified. They certainly also have higher ambitions algorithm-wise / output-wise.

@Aidren
Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums  
No, it means we have ADDED Big Sur support to our existing list of supported operating systems.

So in conclusion... if you need perspective tools or want to discuss alternatives for this, Serif Software, the Affinity Suite or forums.affinity.serif.com is no help. All we have is people wasting time waiting or debating and nothing results from this besides hurt feelings and people using workarounds for years and years.
What did you expect from this thread? Serif is not contributing and Serif is not delivering these features either. Of course the debate will circle around what is possible and in the horizon. We cant debate a fools hope forever here... People need solutions. Not threads only with contributions from loyalists.
If you find it frustrating that customers voice their frustrations and look elsewhere, don't blame THEM. Just hope they won't vote with their feet when you loyalists try to silence them - same goes for potential costumers. The debate here will disappear when the features appear.

Dear Affinity Designer Developers,
I've bought the entire Affinity Suite😁 and tried to switch with my workflow from Adobe, but yet Designer, for me, is still missing some tools. Oh, I'm based in Amsterdam and working freelance as an interior architect/architect/graphic designer...designing exhibitions/ experiences etc.
Missing essential functions;
Tracing images; More gradient tools like Illustrator (with pins); Creating patterns the easy way (like Illustrator) and add them as swatches (even in Photo); Isolation mode; Free transform / distort; More line types (like pattern line types); Import DWG/DXF/SKP; I know other freelance designers are really missing these functions in Affinity and keep them for switching completely, so please integrate these and I'm redeemed.
Thanks muchos in advance!
Pep
 

Awww, here, here...
Well, since this whole forum is all about workarounds, usage of Inskcape, VectorStyler and other software is a workaround to Designers missing features, thus this whole discussion is very on topic, @dominik.
Sorry, but I couldn't help and post this.
Take care!

ID is (depending on settings as mentioned) color agnostic. QXP is fully color agnostic (and only color agnostic). Any/all color conversions happen at output. Which is what APub/AD out to have been made as. But that is now water under the bridge.

But at the end of the day this thread demonstrates very vividly how many workarounds you have to go through in Affinity Designer to reach the finish line.
@Zhang Drorin It is possible in other inexpensive programs like Gravit Designer (purchased by Corel also available as corel.app)
It should be this easy in Designer. But you'll have to stick to the workarounds shown above.

This "rule" is opaque to the user. I didn't define it, and every other piece of software seems to be able to perform the operation as expected.

Thanks.  Hopefully Affinity can get this fixed. Pretty sure nobody's holding his breath at this point, though.

But at the end of the day this thread demonstrates very vividly how many workarounds you have to go through in Affinity Designer to reach the finish line.
@Zhang Drorin It is possible in other inexpensive programs like Gravit Designer (purchased by Corel also available as corel.app)
It should be this easy in Designer. But you'll have to stick to the workarounds shown above.

First of all... Are you aware of this? You have created a 32-bit document. (RGB/32).