BLKay

Yes, I've already done the Font Book thing. Plus tried others. Nothing comes close to the old Now Utilities. Nothing. Funny how things go so so backwards. Phones are hard to use compared to the past. TV the same. Just pure crap I tell ya. If you are too young to have went through the pre-smart phone era, you just don't know. Example: phone rings... pick it up... call finished.. hang it up. Now? phone rings.. find .. ? um.. then red circle with a pic of a phone on it... push that.. hangs up. I've done it.. my 72 year old brother always hangs up by accident. .. it's a picture of a phone... instead it should say HANG UP. TV is worse... way worse. Old drawing software was EASY. now? no drawing software is easy. The new designers have COMPLETELY lost touch of what make things intuitive. Ya ya... old boomer here. But if you're later than a boomer you haven't seen simplicity and logic in design.

If at all possible, please add the ability to customize the font menu. If you look back in time the best was called Now Utilities. Another not as good was MyFontMenu - I think it was called. What Now Utilities allowed you to do is - reorder - colourize - and remove fonts on the list. Also the font menu was on the menu above which could of course just be displayed on the task bar or? One important aspect of the old Mac font menu was it always started at the top. So you really got used to how far to move the mouse down to get to the fonts you liked. This part is not as important as the removal / colourize / re-ordering feature. This would far out do Adobe - and I have asked for this feature for decades now. Funny how so many things just get worse in this day of so many "improvements". Another feature that might be nice is to allow to rename the fonts... so you can even number them. Redoing a font menu in this way - I feel - would blow away all other graphic art software. Edit: Just to be clear, what I mean by colourize the font menu - is to colour code the serif in blue? the san-serif red, the script green etc. And of course re-order them how you like. Such a time saver. Of course the fonts would also be showing the font in its style and perhaps in the text that is selected as it is in current software.

"Bulldozes" meaning it will run right over any effort of avoidance. It will be built in. Watch the keynote. I know Apple will absolutely not be the only one that bulldozes. There were many older software from the 80's and 90's that were so intuitive (because it was the beginning) that I really wish I had some software that was that intuitive. But it's gone no matter how much I wish I could use that old software on my new computer. I feel this will be what happens to everyone here with AI whether you like it or not. Am I guessing?

Has anyone watched the lasted Apple keynote? It bulldozes everything that's been said here. AI (Apple Intelligence) they call it. Will have AI built into each phone, iPad, and Mac and unless it's a really tough one will access the Chat GPT. So if it's inside your computer, is that stealing from Artists? Just asking for opinion. I know it's in some rare case stealing from Artist's job/income. But if you haven't watched it you need to. It's going to be built into everything we do and like many other things like Logging Trucks with loaders vs horses and men.... bank and store tellers vs ATM and Self Check out. And truly even the first Mac that allowed much quicker typesetting and layout instead of paste ups. Some will say... bahhh never. Like the guy that bought my 1985 Mac for his wife and said he will NEVER use a mouse. That was about 35 years ago before windows. I saw him the other day and so wanted to ask him if he used a mouse yet? So get ready. It's a bulldozer and it's full of fuel. I'm sure google and others have even better things in store. Note: Apple keynote AI is on about the last 1/2 hour of the event. AI will be built into the OS and you may not need AI within Affinity apps. Yet the keynote mentions putting a simple code into an app for developers and voila ... AI in your app. I would think if Affinity avoids this, they will truly fall off the cliff. I think we are all guessing on how this might work or effect us. I didn't have a bank card for the longest time and avoided it. I like talking to a human and knowing what was going on... confirmed. Now I never go into the bank. I think the nay sayers may end up using some parts of AI. Apple has made it easy to scan emails for what's important. AI. Why wouldn't you use that if it's there instead of going through 100's of emails searching by site or even by search - if it's not working. I am not even sure you can turn it off? Would you feel it's being shoved down your throat? I guess it will be.

To some, using a computer is using AI. As time passes we forget that.

fde101 - Thank you for this. I didn't know that AI perhaps uses other peoples work. That is a very bad thing indeed. I hope it gets sorted out in the near future and I'm sure it will. In the mean time your post explains it VERY well. Great job. If Affinity does incorporate AI and I'm sure it will because Canva does, perhaps it is just as easy to have it as a separate app, a bit like Firefly online is for Adobe even though it's now in their other apps.

Why are people so afraid of AI? AI is just like anything moving forward. Let's use history as an example of how if you do not comply with new tech.... and if you don't, you're competition will kick your butt. It's life... 1. ATM's 2. Computers ! Just keep on typesetting with little pieces of metal and draw everything by hand 3. Self serve Tellers at big box stores. 4. Prime example. Hey, if that huge John Deere loader wasn't loading that dump truck you could hire 100 men with shovels. Yes, and you could hire 2000 men with tablespoons. If this doesn't change your mind then you will be buried by your competition. I do however get what you're saying, but the truth is brutal. I get that what you're talking about is artistic. And much of what AI graphics do is a bit scary GOOD and amazing. Embrace it as much as you can. Most of what I've seen needs an 'eye' of an artist to repair some of what comes up. Adobe has embraced this and if Affinity does not, well... same thing as above. As for an app that sits beside Affinity apps. Okay, but why? I'm not asking why to be snobby, I'm asking why incase I'm missing something. note I have not read all the comments in this post so you may have answered this question. I don't think I'd be in the publishing industry if it wasn't for computers. (even though I've come to HATE THEM) Good machines needing updating every 5 to 8 years. CRAZY But as for AI it has made what I do better and easier. Even adding things that I just had no time (or money) to improve me product. If I was to ignore AI, my competition might sneak up and whack me with an AI hammer. ? I don't use Canva and just nah. But I have heard their AI is good. So you can bet it will be added to Affinity and one day I will hopefully quit Adobe who is making it VERY hard not to switch with AI and other features. You can stick to your wagon wheels while the rest of us go to rubber tires and steel rims.

So having to type in a percent % in what is usually a size number. Great tip is right. But, not very intuitive. "Read the book". haha.. Reminds me of this retired military guy in a mechanics class I took in the 70's. When someone had a dumb.. or not so dumb question.. he'd say in his accent. "Reeead the book". So we all used that when we were answering questions anyone had. "reeead the boooook". So true here.

So there is no scaling box with numbers you can type in to make an object(s) go down a certain percentage? I knew about the scaling with the nodes, which is in all apps I'd think. In Ready,Set,Go I think you'd double click an item and all the numbers and settings would be in a box. Which was a simple way of doing it. Yes nodes are better but at times you just want numbers in a box. As for the 'dragging' a text box back from the pasteboard to the print area, this was done with the arrow tool and just one click. I agree you'd have to see it. It is 100% a glitch that may only be in my file because it is from an ,idml file conversion perhaps. It is really bothering me that it's just not good enough for me. As you say there are some better things in Publisher than InDesign but for me there are just too many things that are better in InDesign so far. I do wonder what laws or reasons keep Affinity to much more closely matching InDesigns UI. Even if they made Publisher more customizable so you can just make it yourself. Adobe did much of this copycat with Quark and won the battle. In my opinion good advice for Affinity. .. bearing in mind lawyers and crap. There are so many things that no lawyer can touch I'm sure. Docking the tool pallet to the right side... resource panel docking and character pallet on top row like InDesign. I get that it's my opinion and preference but if they want to take over the world like Adobe then this transition has to be much easier. I do love the way Publisher can open a PDF. Why InDesign cannot do this is baffling. Using Illustrator to do so loses so much and is not my workflow. I've used my purchased Publisher v1 to open a few PDFs with great success. In some ways it was better than the idml route. I forget why but it is a great feature. I have my fingers crossed that Affinity can somehow copy InDesign like Adobe did with Quark, to make the big shift to affordable and simple software. I guess I should be trying out Photos or Designer v2 as I use Sketchbook to do my cartoons and illustrator to trace. The thing I love about Sketchbook is the ability to have more than one pen/pencil/brush and different size erasers on the tool pallet at the same time. So changing back and forth is very easy. I am worried that Sketchbook may be discontinued one day and I'll be stuck like I was without SuperPaint and Typetwister. Which again was axed by Adobe. bums Just ticks me off I am giving them all this moola now. Way too much moola for once a week work. But, hey, it's my living so there ya go. Also ticks me off that Apple raised their pricing for Apple +. Record profits and tough times with so much inflation and these big companies know they got us. So I am routing big time for Affinity !!!!!

As for the resource manager. I found it again. It cannot be docked and it cannot even be made small enough to stay open. The scissor tool. Oh yes.. thanks... that makes good sense. Designer. It also has the text warping tools correct? I like that. I've been suggesting that in InDesign for .. well.. before InDesign. There was an Aldus software called TypeTwister. Which truly was a kids software. So tight and small yet so powerful. It only made it to version 1.01 I think. Then Adobe bought Aldus and killed that. It was such a tiny program I'm sure it could have easily fit into InDesign. The best part is it had presets and save your own. Ugly as heck but amazingly powerful and simple. TypeStyler was another amazing program that went away, then came back but now only works with Mojave and older. Truly powerful. Which reminds me of a new software that blows me away. In my opinion it's the best software designed since those great days of simplicity. It's a web designer called Sparkle. Not a great name but wow, it could nearly be a DTP software. No reading a manual (or much) on this one. I haven't looked at it for a while but it's truly simple and powerful if you're into that. Would work well with Affinity Software users I'm sure. ok.. enough from me. Thanks for the help fde101

clip to canvas made all the items in the pasteboard disappear. Perhaps I was not clear, sorry. If I select the arrow and go select an item on the pasteboard (off the print area) I cannot move the object because it selects the text. There must be another setting I'm missing. NOTE: this is a file I idml and imported into Publisher. Perhaps it's just a glitch. Perhaps best if I started over, which of course means yet another strike for Affinity since I have probably ..... over 10,000 files or more in InDesign. I guess hoping this would work is a dream. I did switch from Ready,Set,Go to InDesign by PDF ing all my RSG files and pasting them into InDesign. Then when someone had an ad change I'd remake the file in InDesign. This allowed me time to get it done through time instead of every ad in one week. So it's not impossible. I have to say that's obviously Publisher is far better than Ready,Set,Go. Or at least much more powerful obviously. MacPublisher from 1984 was very powerful. Must have been made by print people for sure. Yet version 1,2 and 3 crashed on our 512k Mac and was useless. Same as Pagemaker. Ready,Set,Go was the first to work perfectly and did a few things that InDesign still doesn't do. Long gone now. I managed to avoid Quark all together. The $800 price tag was just too much back then and I didn't like it or Pagemaker. I am really routing for Affinity. It seems they have some great ideas and I hope they are reading some of these simple problems. Whether it is just me and my opinion and I'm way off? I'm not sure.

oh please tell me where scale is? I must have found it in version 1. I can find it in the tools in InDesign and even if I right click an item it's on the list. I can search in help in InDesign and it shows me where. So at least 3 places to find it. A simple simple tool like this should be easily found. Not in Publisher. Yes, I know it's there... but I can't find it with 5 minutes looking. Yes I know I could google it or watch some videos. Reminds me of the first Macintosh commercials though. IBM learn this.. a pile of manuals. MacIntosh... a thin book falls to the table. Which, none of us needed because Macintosh was that simple. No manual needed, intuitive is the key. And ya I know InDesign is not that intuitive either, but seems to be much more than APublisher. That said, I find Illustrator very frustrating for simple tasks that should be easy. It's always been a big pain since I first looked at Illustrator 88. I used SuperPaint which was very powerful yet...... amazingly... it was a Childs program. Adobe bought it and killed it so we had to use photoshop which was.... not bad and very good now. Still not that intuitive of course. I know powerful software is difficult to make simple. There's Photoshop Elements for that. I was shocked to find about a decade ago or more that Photoshop Elements had an 'auto level' or 'auto square' setting when you scanned things in, yet the full version of Photoshop did not... at 7 times the price. Things like that make no sense. It seems to me that software engineers don't talk much to the actual people that use the software. Nor try it out on .... KIDS? haha. .. or me... lol .. the non instruction book reader that I am. Yes, I do read the instructions when I put my BBQ together !!! PS- I'd also like to add the tool pallet is not dockable to the right side which is where I put it in InDesign. Personal preference. I did find how to undock in Publisher and made it into one column. So, yes, I can find things. lol

Some feedback for next edition. Just a quick list that probably scratches the surface because I just can't go any further. 1. Scaling is not called scaling - small thing - This is from version one and I didn't spend long looking again in Version 2. Nevermind.. small thing but.. call it scaling ? no? 2 BIG THING - NO links panel. From version 1 I found it was called resource manager and is a window you have to open… not a panel. But having trouble finding that in version 2. Just make a links panel. A real pain. Double clicking on a placed ad opens it inside the document but that takes up space in the document if it's embedded. There must be a way to just link it and I can't figure that one out quickly either. 3 I can’t find a scissor tool to cut a border or line. Must be there somewhere? 4. Selecting a text box outside the print area… it’s turning into a type tool. Holy CRAP 5. Some items outside the print area don’t even show up. 6. Right click on an indesign placed file and you have choices to edit in.. add a hyperlink etc. A much easier way to figure things out. 7. InDesign tools don't waste space in the tools pallets and upper areas like Publisher does. I wish I had more time to look deeper and look at some videos but this is just not going to work for me. I give up. I really wanted this to be a great software that was simpler than InDesign and it's not even close. I know there is a learning curve to anything you pick up. Also took a quick look at the iPad version. Cool but it's just another learning curve different from Publisher desktop. At least try to make the tools in the similar locations. Again.. I haven't spent the time to compare so perhaps I'm not being fair to iPad version. I’m sure there are some things that are better than InDesign, like many of the shapes and even the speech bubble tool … but that's just a bit of toying around and the only thing I can think of that's better. Something I'll use twice a year if that. I have speech bubbles all made up in InDesign anyway. I am so sorry that I cannot work in Publisher. I have been a DTP since 1985 and I just can't get anywhere. So.. it is far easier to stick to InDesign and pay the bucks. OUCH !!!!!!

MISSING for me. Designer - Trace tool is key. 99% of my Illustrator work and a big reason why I'm still in Adobe land is Tracing my bitmapped art drawn in Sketchbook on iPad. Photos - High res when you make a photo higher res. In other words smoothing like Photoshop. Smart select is about 50% useful in Photoshop. Sky selector I've used once for a cover of a magazine and it was good. Publisher - What can I say. It still reminds me of SwiftPublisher or some other $9 app. YES it's way way better than those. But it's just not as refined as InDesign. I'd like to move some pallets around and make it more like my InDesign placements. I use the character pallet a lot with horizontal scale for text so things fit easily and this feature in InDesign is up top, Publisher is on a side pallet. Not bad.. I feel like I'm whining and could get used to it. I've just started looking at it and forget what other things I didn't like in Publisher 1 that made me stick to Adobe.

I second the motion. I have my tools to the right where most of my other tools are so not to have to move the mouse across the screen. Please allow docking the tool pallet like InDesign. √