postmadesign

thank you MEB, that is encouraging and I am very much looking forward to it. Your question why one would limit the amount of options is legitimate. It seems to me that some developers prefer to have a clean and functional app, and allowing the users the freedom to customize might mess things up...

ok, thanks. I guess I was not clear about my biggest issue, which is the lack of customising options in AD. This hasn't got as much to do with the amount of features, which I completely agree are still in V.1 I am not complaining It just seems to me that the interface is not very flexible for the user at the moment. Custom shortcuts would be a first step. At least it seems to me that this is a conscious choice on the development side to limit these options, but correct me if I am wrong. If however it is a philosophy of Affinity programs, it might limit the usability of the software....

Hi, I am glad Affinity is still going strong. I like the idea of having some kind of competition for Adobe, and there are some great ideas in there. I would love for some features to have more options, or work in a more refined way, for instance the pencil tool in AD, which is quite rudimentary compared to AI. I know this is version 1, and there is still gonna be loads of development, but this keeps me from using Affinity on a regular basis. One thing I still sorely miss is the ability to customize the program to my needs. This includes tools, workspaces, shortcuts and all. PS and AI allow for quite a good level of customisation, but my hero in this is certainly Manga Studio 5, which allows the user to customize almost everything about its program. This allowed me to tailor the program to my specific needs and really speeds up my workflow. Modifier keys play a big role in this as well. Now when I use the node tool, there is no way to change a corner, or delete or add a point, without going to the menu. IThis is just one example of many which makes the workflow in AD too fussy and slow for my needs. I hope there will be change in the regard, as it is even more important to me than big new tools like autotrace or whatnot.

Ah, we are back in business! thanks!

I just downloaded the new beta and tried out an isometric grid. I then used the polygon tool to draw on it, and it consistently crashes. Now I have tried to start up again, and it crashed again. There seems to be no way of making it work.... :-( I am using OSX Lion, previous betas and the MAS version worked OK before

That sounds good. It would be very nice if the pencil tool would be improved!

Hi, I would like to put two ideas up to discussion. I like working with AD, but also work with Manga Studio 5 a lot, and it has some nifty features that would be welcome in AD. First thing I like a lot is the vector eraser option. In MS5 you can draw on pixel and on vector layers. On the vector layer I can use the eraser to erase until intersection. This is cool as I don't have to be too fussy with overlapping lines. It works very well, and would be great in AD! I can also erase one line easily without affecting the other lines around it. 2nd thing that is quite great is the simplify brush. As a default the paths made with freehand drawing in MS5 have too many points, but using this brush cleans up pretty nicely, with a good range of options. Something like this would be a great addition to the pencil tool Come to think of it: what would be very welcome is more settings for the pencil tool, I think it is too basic now without any way of setting smoothness. Is this coming?

I agree with most of your suggestions. I think a vector erasor would very useful!

Great! Thanks for all your hard work!

Hello Dave, Thanks for your reply. It is good to see you are working on improvements, I am very much looking forward to them, as well as Publisher! About the kerning Problem: it seems to be a problem with the alternates (contextual, all, swash etc.): when I deactivate them the kerning is fine, but when I switch them on, kerning is gone... It seems not specifically font related as it is the same for all that have these features.

That is very good to know! Thanks Ronnie!

@Achim63 I see what you mean. I also think that perhaps a suite which would include the three programs as one might be a good idea in the future. For now I think it would be best to concentrate on the core strengths and objectives of the individual apps, and worry about the rest later. If the individual apps are good, I don't mind switching, for now. Actually, thinking about it some more, I think the persona is really the core of the what makes Affinity unique. Following up on this it could be the basis for one suite to integrate all personas in one. And regarding my thoughts on Typography: I think the most logicl thing to do is to make it its own persona: this way you get the uncluttered UI I like, but with all the options needed. I think Type was not really a big concern until now and is a bit underdeveloped, making a typography persona might solve this problem. I also see that AP is primarily intended for Photo editing, but this is what PS is as well, but still people do a lot more things with it, especially pixel based illustration. So it would make sense to me add a Paint/Illustration Persona to AP. This could of course also be added later :-) What Personas would be required for me to make the suite complete? I guess something like this: -Vector Illustration -Pixel Illustration -Photoediting (may be split up into different elements as it is in AP) -Typography -Layout -Interactive (for ebooks, pdfs etc, not websites) -export/import plus perhaps some kind of organisation persona that takes cares of things like links, embedding, packaging for print, colecting files, detailed info about document etc.

I second that, typography is essential!!!

Yeah I know this, and this is fine for a program like AD, which is a drawing app first and foremost. I also think it works quite well, but does not yet support all features yet, or not clearly enough. What I find more concerning is that Kerning does not or not always work, even when know for sure the font has it. I would also wish for some more advanced options like glyph selection... What is not so clear in the current Typography panel, is that I don't know if the features like superscript or small caps are generated by the program (fake) or are real OT features inside the font. I am not to crazy about the idea having to go through 3 panels to change my type settings, I would rather have a more advanced contextual menu with more features directly accessible, or customizable so I can have all the options I need all the time. It does not make much sense to me to put font selection and size in a separate menu to spacing. These two are always linked. I know this is the way Adobe apps handle this, but with more consistency, and with more contextual options. The typography panel is quite alike the panel in Apple applications... I wish Affinity will improve this area and have a more coherent approach that is all his own. I have read many designers complaints about the incoherent way Adobe apps handle this, and I think it is an area in which Affinity could really make a big positive difference.

@MEB That's good to hear, I also noticed this and was a bit worried

I would say that I also don't really like the way the eyedropper works. I would prefer to have have it as a seperate tool with shortcut, so I can quickly select it. I also really like the way in which photoshop lets me use the color picker by using alt/option while using other tools. Another option I would like to have to reduce the amount of steps I need, is that the color I picked automatically becomes the foreground color. Now I have to go in, take the eyedropper tool to the color, release, go to the color window again to select this color. Ideally I would use a shortcut to select the tool, click a color so it becomes the foreground color. This saves me 2 to 3 steps so saves a lot of time. Additionally I would like the option to add the color to the swatches, preferably by simple drag & drop.

@Quarian I completely agree to your points. The one point where I think it could be interesting is the shared file format. I also would like to add that Typography options (styles are essential) and especially accessibility of Open Type features will be one of the most important things to me. Adobe dropped the ball in this respect by making a panel that is not very user friendly and that hides many aspects of the font in the interface, so if Affinity Publisher can come in with a good interface and rich features, it will get my vote!! To sort of respond to the price issue: I think Affinity Products at the moment are dead cheap compared to Adobe. I would say Adobe is about 10 times more expensive (at least if I compare it to the fact I paid around 1500€ for PS, AI & ID at the time, and if the other Affinity products are prized in the same way as AD). Of course the one is market leader and the other an upstart, but still the difference is huge, and if developments continue as they do at this time it will make the Affinity Suite very attractive.

I am working with Lion still :-) I will try to upload a file tomorrow

I agree with your statement: I guess it is difficult because Adobe ruled the roost for so long now that comparisons will always be made, for better or worse. Look at all those people still angry about having to use illustrator instead of freehand. In DTP Quark was the big player when I started, so when Indesign became bigger, it was compared to this, and users still sometimes prefer certain Quark features over ID. But now it has established itself and is the benchmark for other applications. Affinity Products are very good, but they are also very much in development, and it is good for developers to have a clear objective for what they want to archieve with the software. The difference to Adobe programs like Illustrator and Photoshop is that the have been with us for ages, so there is a lot of stuff put into it, some good, some not. I think the benefit of a new start should be to have a clear objective for the software, even if this seems limited in some respects. I hope Affinity keeps this firmly in view.

In my experience, banners this size are usually not made at 300 dpi, but 150 dpi at the most, or even 100 dpi. This is because these banners are not made to be looked at from very close, and the look fine in most cases. This would reduce the filesize. I also think that a program like AD is not the best for this job if you use large photographs in the layout. This is still primarily a vector drawing tool. I am looking forward to what Publisher can do with this. A better PDF rasterizer are still very much in demand though, as this is the standard in printing. I can still import a jpg from AD and create a PDF in Acrobat, but I am not sure if this will do much about the filesize. Best option for now is probably to use Indesign (if you have it), which has the best export options (IMO)

I have tried it with several documents, in both AD and AP and nothing changes...

That is great, thank you!

Hi, I would like to add to the list an expansion on the selection tools which would enable me to select objects with the same properties (like fill or stroke color) more quickly. This is very convenient in illustrator, and is a quick way to alter more complex illustrations because it enables me to change the properties of these objects in one go. Now I have to go and select these elements manually with shift pressed. You are doing a great job, thanks for a great tool!

Actually I tried to do this using the most recent Beta versions of both and it is still greyed out... Why is this and what can I do about it. In essence I think this option looks great, would be great if I could try it myself though!

Yeah, I am wondering about this as well