garrettm30

Feedback and opinions are okay, but that is going a bit too far—in my opinion. Honest criticism doesn't have to be coupled with vitriol to be heard; it is probably better received when delivered without such antagonism.

It was in jest, as a reference to the former macOS naming convention: Cheetah (internal name) Puma (internal name) Jaguar Panther Tiger Leopard Snow Leopard Lion Mountain Lion Then, after a quip in announcing the next version, "What's next, sea lion?", they gave up and started naming the system from various places in California. You may well have already known this, but as you are a Windows guy, it is understandable if my reference wasn't obvious at first.

As a guess, I would say that the icon view was not very expandable for adding new formats. In V2 they added two more for a total of 13. By the way, these posts with a lot of unrelated feedback are not very helpful for discussion. It is recommended you make a separate post for separate subjects.

I wonder if this is going to be a tradition. And if they run out of cats, what's next? National parks in California?

Thanks @walt.farrell. Four different version! Do you know when each was released?

Wow, a dedicated team working on it. That’s great news!

To be fair, a lot of people clamored for the shape builder tool, and on the other hand, several people have even argued of the “pointlessness” of variable fonts. Serif can’t satisfy everyone all at once. For the record, I too am very eager for variable fonts, especially now that they start to become mainstream. I don’t fault Serif for not building that feature just yet, and I am excited about V2 for the other things I did get this go-around. But count me among the people for whom variable fonts would be a headline new feature in a future update. I would pay an upgrade fee for that feature alone.

A few others that are of interest to me: Style picker tool Word count Much improved boolean operations More than one FX of a single type applied to the same object (for example, you can apply multiple shadows to the same object) Cross-app sharing of assets, pallets, etc. Totally revamped new document window (that finally works in my preferred full screen mode)

All we have to go on is Serif’s past history with the Affinity line. That line began with Designer in 2014, and this is Designer’s first paid update, so 8 years in that case. The newest of the three is Publisher in 2019, so about three and a quarter years in that case. Who knows what Serif will do going forward. Now that all three apps are available for all three platforms, I assume that it won’t go as long as 8 years, but I don’t think two or three years will be so unlikely.

I agree, but for a little perspective, it is interesting to see how many similar statements “X is one of the most important/basic features” I have seen in just the last 2 hours, all with many different X features. That is not at all to say that any or maybe all of them are not important, but just to point out that Serif cannot do it all at once. Indeed, I am on your side: column span is a feature I do look forward to eventually being added. I don’t see it as “absolutely essential,” as even the big 2 DTP apps lacked it for many years. Of course, you could also say that by the same logic, a sewing machine is not essential to a tailor, as tailors made many fine clothes for centuries without one. Or probably I should make some example of a car without brakes: it is amazing how many different features have been likened to the brakes of a car on this forum. I digress… I can say that for me personally, going without column span is sometimes extra hassle, or perhaps I decide to go a different direction in design because of its lack than I otherwise might have done. But for perspective, I have also had a few other “essential/imporant/basic” features that have been finally met with this update, and I am content with that forward progress, with the understanding that the progress does not stop here. I don’t think the “it’s one of the most important functions” argument does much, because Serif is probably pretty near immune to them by now, after they have heard them so many times about so many things.

I can confirm what you are seeing. I am on macOS 13.0 Intel.

I haven’t played with it much yet, but it does seem like fonts are going to be a bit of a hassle. Like you, I am pretty sure this is a current limitation of the iPadOS. There may well be some dedicated font managers for iPad. I haven’t looked into it myself, but if I get serious about using Publisher on iPad, then I might need to.

@Pšenda Thanks. I think I may have started typing before the post before mine was added, and I didn't notice the update.

I do like the older cat better as well, but it's not something that I use other than for testing, so I am not particularly concerned. Someone remind me please: I feel like the previous cat that just got replaced was itself a major change not too long ago. How many versions of the cat have there been?

Unless I missed it, this one is not a part of the update. There is a lot of goodness in the update, and I am satisfied with the current release, but of course it leaves room for further room to grow. Some sort of optical kerning solution would still be nice. For me, I am personally more interested in setting kerning pair overrides as part of a text style rather than automatic kerning. Usually, the professional hand tuning of a font's kerning is best, but there are times when a particular pair is not ideal. In InDesign, I can then decide whether the font's kerning or automatic (optical) is better, but usually it is a tradeoff either way. That is why I would prefer to have some way to set kerning overrides. I work in French, and the l’ or c’ is a common complaint I have, and I wish I could just tweak those cases in some way other than local overrides.

There is not any particular upgrade discount, and here is a reason stated for that (Ashley Hewson is being quoted in a post a post by Patrick): I personally feel that the pricing is fair, as infrequent as the paid updates are (this is the first in Affinities' whole existence).

Not in Publisher - there is no Edit: Substitutions menu. Instead, the equivalent function in Publisher is handled via the Auto-correct section in Publisher preferences. The problem is that both of these—whether Affinity's solution or Mac default—only replace text as you're typing, but it doesn't work on existing text, such as pasting from elsewhere. That was the point of my original request some time ago. I still would welcome the ability to run that correction on a text selection, but until such time, I have regex.

There is: look at the Text Patterns section in preflight.

Thank you for your comments. I would like to suggest this minor tip in regard to what you said here: Pasting into TextEdit is one extra step than needed. You need only copy from Publisher (or from wherever) and then use the “Copy corrected text” command (or its shortcut) from Antidote’s menu bar menu. I guess it depends on which platform you are, but this is what I am referring to (from Druide’s manual): It’s still a big difference from the integration we are asking for, but maybe one fewer step will help until better things come along. And for those that seem to think we are asking for Serif to cater to a niche group, please understand we are not really asking for Serif to provide Antidote integration but rather a general API for third-party integration, so Druide can do their part, as they have already indicated they are willing to do. This way, many different niche and not-so-niche needs can be met while Serif moves on to other things.

Quite right, and thank you for pointing it out. I always enjoy your comments on language, even those you label as “pedantry” (or perhaps especially those).

Hi all, Not that any defense of Antidote is really necessary in the context of an Affinity forum, but I have found Antidote so very helpful over the years that I feel it worth a little time to put in my “two cents” on its behalf. First, it may be helpful to know that French is Antidote’s forte, and in fact it supported French only until English was added more recently. It seems that most of us (if not all) who are asking for integration are using it for French. Despite Druide’s very hard work, it may be that their English side has not yet come to the same level of maturity, though from what I have seen there is tremendous value in even the English side. Knowing that this software starts with French can also explain the nature of the text on the website, as it almost certainly started in French (and translations, for those who do not know, can often read like translations, depending on the skill of the translator and how freely he is permitted to amend the text for the benefit target language). For example, the sentence Old Bruce pointed out makes more sense to me in its French original: “Après l’orthographe et la grammaire, corrigez la typographie et le style, dont les répétitions et les verbes ternes.” The problem is with the use of the word “correct” in English, and that brings me to the point of what Antidote is and what it is not. The Antidote corrector* is a tool and a resource, but it is not an editor. It helps identify numerous errors of the sort that computer programs can be good at: think not only spell-check but things such as conjugations and agreement, both of which are more complex in French than in English and so mistakes are easy to make and overlook in proofreading. These kinds of mistakes are not corrected by spell-check alone but are something that computer software can be good at. What people in this thread have drawn attention to are matters of style, and there, it is harder to make software do a good job. Antidote does offer tools of style, such as identifying repetitions, excessive passive voice, etc., but it can’t really tell you whether a sentence reads correctly. That is where human editors come in. *(The corrector is only part of Antidote. Not to forget that the value of the resource side of Antidote is massive and replaces multiple expensive printed volumes on several grammatical, lexical, and stylistic matters, but the integration with Affinity mostly has to do with the corrector.) Let’s return to the problem sentence identified by Old Bruce: As a computer program, Antidote could understand that as a perfectly grammatical sentence. But as humans, we find it awkward because of the ambiguity of the word “correct,” which is spelled identically as either an adjective or as a verb (here as a 2nd person imperative). If it is an adjective, it has this meaning: After spelling and grammar, typography and style that are correct, including repetitions and dull verbs. If that is the meaning, then there is no verb in the sentence. As our mind goes along, it encounters a hiccup of understanding where it may well be inclined to first parse “correct” as an adjective and then stumble with an incomplete sentence and have to back up and try again by understanding “correct” as a verb: After spelling and grammar, make corrections to typography and style, including repetitions and dull verbs. Indeed, the French original makes clear that “correct” is to be understood as a verb, for in this case there is no ambiguity between “typographie et style corrects” and “corrigez la typographie et le style.” So in this case, a less literal translation would aid in removing the ambiguity for the sake of readability, and Antidote can serve as a helpful resource, but only to a skilled editor who knows how and when to use it as such. But now, if I may return the discussion to how Affinity relates to Antidote: it is admitted that those who use both Antidote and Affinity (especially Publisher) are comparatively few, and so it makes sense that we could not, in my view, reasonably expect Serif to go to great lengths to specifically accommodate Antidote. But that is not really what we need. Instead, we need and are asking for some general framework by which third-party integrations may be made possible. That could be with a plugin system, or it could even be with scripting (which, as you know, has been one of the longtime hot requests), so long as it is built in such a way that it can call external scripts and receive their results. This thread about Antidote really only represents one specific use case for a general framework where countless niche requirements among the many various use cases could be met.

Wow, we've taken quite a turn, but at least it is something we haven't covered before in this 43-page thread!

This happens to me often, even after I am already aware of it.

I should add that before my time (in this forum), Alfred observed a similar mistake in an early Designer beta:

I am viewing Publisher 1.10.5 with language set to “English (United States).” Two misspellings related to the word misspelled itself (oh, the irony!): In the Edit->Spelling submenu, the item “Ignore Misspelt Word” is spelled in its British form rather than as is suitable for the set locale. In US English it should be “Ignore Misspelled Word.” When the spelling of a word is ignored, the History Studio logs it as “Ignore mis-spelt word.” This variety, with the hyphen, is not correct in any variety of English, as best as I am aware, but in any case it is not in the US English locale.