postmadesign

I love to work with artboards in Designer to create Flyers and other design elements all in one document. Designer also offers Bleed for artboards, which is great when creating PDFs for printing.
One thing is a bit annoying though: Designer will not show the elements within the bleed area. It will indicate the bleed edges, but not show anything outside of the artboard but within the bleed area. This sometimes makes it hard to see how the final output will look like. Perhaps adding an option to the viewing settings to enable this? Thanks!

This is a good move, in fact, I would like to see this in other windows too, specifically the Text Wrap window in Publisher. I use this quite a lot and having to open and close it is quite annoying.

This is a good move, in fact, I would like to see this in other windows too, specifically the Text Wrap window in Publisher. I use this quite a lot and having to open and close it is quite annoying.

This is a good move, in fact, I would like to see this in other windows too, specifically the Text Wrap window in Publisher. I use this quite a lot and having to open and close it is quite annoying.

my problem with autoclose feature is when I use sculpt mode there is no way to autoclose even if I end up near the endpoint of the curve. sculpt mode even opens and breaks autoclosed curves. it didn't work even in 2.4

The new smoothing algorithm is fantastic! It's such a pleasure to use now, and with almost (I'm just being very fussy) no clean up required. The new implementation of the auto-close settings is really intuitive. Well done. I'll report back any issues I find with it, but just wanted to acknowledge what an improvement this is.
Addendum: Okay, now I know this is going to sound whiny, but is there anyway to reduce or turn off the smoothing? It's now very difficult to draw a rough, hand-drawn line. I do LOVE the new smoothing algorithm, but there are times where I want my lines to look a little rougher.

I think being able to set the tolerance of auto-close feature would be helpful so folks can tune it to their liking, or set it to ‘maximum’ where it would always auto-close regardless of the distance.

I really like the freehand vector pencil tool in Designer, but there are some thing that are a bit annoying and could improved imo.
1. Auto close was added in 2.0, but I find that in most cases it is not very useful. I would rather have the ability to close a path when the starting and end point are at a specified distance from eachother, say 10 points. This would allow me to use sculpt mode AND create closed paths, which is not possible right now.
2. Set smoothing factor: I would like the ability to set the accuracy of the stroke I draw, from very raw input with a lot of accuracy to a more smoothed out line.
3. Related to the previous point is the problem I have with zooming and pencil accuracy. The more zoomed out you are, the less accurate/more smoothed out the path becomes. I wish for a general smoothness regardless of zoom level.
4. I would love the integration of a Path eraser, that would be able to cut lines up to an intersection. This is possible using the Shapebuilder tool right now, so the code is there, but having it integrated in the Pencil tool and available with a shortcut would make it much more intitive and fast. This would probably require an option to keep all drawn paths selected.

I really like the freehand vector pencil tool in Designer, but there are some thing that are a bit annoying and could improved imo.
1. Auto close was added in 2.0, but I find that in most cases it is not very useful. I would rather have the ability to close a path when the starting and end point are at a specified distance from eachother, say 10 points. This would allow me to use sculpt mode AND create closed paths, which is not possible right now.
2. Set smoothing factor: I would like the ability to set the accuracy of the stroke I draw, from very raw input with a lot of accuracy to a more smoothed out line.
3. Related to the previous point is the problem I have with zooming and pencil accuracy. The more zoomed out you are, the less accurate/more smoothed out the path becomes. I wish for a general smoothness regardless of zoom level.
4. I would love the integration of a Path eraser, that would be able to cut lines up to an intersection. This is possible using the Shapebuilder tool right now, so the code is there, but having it integrated in the Pencil tool and available with a shortcut would make it much more intitive and fast. This would probably require an option to keep all drawn paths selected.

Hi All,
We have just made a build available of a 2.4.2 beta live - version 2.4.2.2356 - This was created to address issues found after the release of 2.4.0 & 2.4.1  This is now available to you on auto update (except for 2.4.2 betas on iPad which are in review with Apple and should be available in the next 24 hours).
The fix list for this build is here 
There is one significant change to the Help on macOS that is described here
 
 
We are planning to start a larger beta of 2.5.0 that will include new features and improvements, but this new 2.4.2 build is just for these bugfixes.
Ash

I really like the freehand vector pencil tool in Designer, but there are some thing that are a bit annoying and could improved imo.
1. Auto close was added in 2.0, but I find that in most cases it is not very useful. I would rather have the ability to close a path when the starting and end point are at a specified distance from eachother, say 10 points. This would allow me to use sculpt mode AND create closed paths, which is not possible right now.
2. Set smoothing factor: I would like the ability to set the accuracy of the stroke I draw, from very raw input with a lot of accuracy to a more smoothed out line.
3. Related to the previous point is the problem I have with zooming and pencil accuracy. The more zoomed out you are, the less accurate/more smoothed out the path becomes. I wish for a general smoothness regardless of zoom level.
4. I would love the integration of a Path eraser, that would be able to cut lines up to an intersection. This is possible using the Shapebuilder tool right now, so the code is there, but having it integrated in the Pencil tool and available with a shortcut would make it much more intitive and fast. This would probably require an option to keep all drawn paths selected.

I really like the freehand vector pencil tool in Designer, but there are some thing that are a bit annoying and could improved imo.
1. Auto close was added in 2.0, but I find that in most cases it is not very useful. I would rather have the ability to close a path when the starting and end point are at a specified distance from eachother, say 10 points. This would allow me to use sculpt mode AND create closed paths, which is not possible right now.
2. Set smoothing factor: I would like the ability to set the accuracy of the stroke I draw, from very raw input with a lot of accuracy to a more smoothed out line.
3. Related to the previous point is the problem I have with zooming and pencil accuracy. The more zoomed out you are, the less accurate/more smoothed out the path becomes. I wish for a general smoothness regardless of zoom level.
4. I would love the integration of a Path eraser, that would be able to cut lines up to an intersection. This is possible using the Shapebuilder tool right now, so the code is there, but having it integrated in the Pencil tool and available with a shortcut would make it much more intitive and fast. This would probably require an option to keep all drawn paths selected.

I really like the freehand vector pencil tool in Designer, but there are some thing that are a bit annoying and could improved imo.
1. Auto close was added in 2.0, but I find that in most cases it is not very useful. I would rather have the ability to close a path when the starting and end point are at a specified distance from eachother, say 10 points. This would allow me to use sculpt mode AND create closed paths, which is not possible right now.
2. Set smoothing factor: I would like the ability to set the accuracy of the stroke I draw, from very raw input with a lot of accuracy to a more smoothed out line.
3. Related to the previous point is the problem I have with zooming and pencil accuracy. The more zoomed out you are, the less accurate/more smoothed out the path becomes. I wish for a general smoothness regardless of zoom level.
4. I would love the integration of a Path eraser, that would be able to cut lines up to an intersection. This is possible using the Shapebuilder tool right now, so the code is there, but having it integrated in the Pencil tool and available with a shortcut would make it much more intitive and fast. This would probably require an option to keep all drawn paths selected.

Apps: Designer and Publisher (+ some changes to the existing feature in Photo)
Platforms: Windows and macOS
We have now added the States panel to Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher which previously only existed in Affinity Photo. Layer states allows you to either:
Capture the current visibility states of your layers across your document Create queries based on various criteria to use to make a selection or toggle visibility of layers This feature is particularly useful to manage different variations of your work. As an example, one of the social ad campaigns for our recent Black Friday promotion was created in Affinity Designer across multiple artboards. Each artboard had 4 variants for English, Japanese, German and French language.

 
Previously if you wanted to toggle between the English and French version for example you would need to toggle the visibility of the appropriate layers on each artboard separately - not particularly workable when you have many artboards / spreads. The new states panel gives you a new way to work with designs like this. 

In this case I could set up a query with criteria which captures all my Japanese layers. From the states panel click "New Query" at the bottom, I called the query "JA" and set up my criteria to be "All Art Text and Frame Text layers that have a layer name which ends in JA" as below:


Because on each artboard we had used the consistent naming convention that all Japanese text has a layer name ending in JA, all English text has a layer name ending in EN, etc. it made it easy to then set up 4 queries for each of the languages. We could alternatively have used a convention like all French variants are tagged yellow, English tagged Red, etc. 
So now to switch from English to Japanese across all artboards I can just turn off everything that fulfils my EN query, and turn on everything which fulfils my JP query using the visibility on/off buttons next to the queries in the states panel - so in two clicks end up with the below:

 
While this example is only including text, of course I may have had different imagery for each locale and could have included those in the same queries to still have one button to toggle text and images of each language on and off. Also, as it's set up a query like this, should I add additional Japanese specific layers to any of the artboards and name them ending in "...JA" my JA query will automatically pick them up.
In Publisher the same principles apply giving the ability to globally toggle different layers on and off across all spreads in your document which match the criteria you have specified. While building complex expressions is easy, you may also find you wish to have a query for something simple like "Layer Type is Images" giving you an instant way to turn all images on and off across your whole document.
Additional Notes
As well as toggling visibility of queries there is an additional button to make a selection of all layers which fulfil the criteria specified in the query. This is also a new function not previously available in Affinity Photo. For those who used the States panel in Affinity Photo you will notice we have changed the name of what were previously called "Smart States" to "Queries". This reason for this is in the future we anticipate adding a new feature to this which would be better described as a Smart State (this will be something you can build from multiple queries). This will be something which we add in a future update. There is other new functionality we plan to bring to this in the future - namely ability to create presets and some level of integration with export options - but again that will be something for a future update.
 

😄 I was often frustrated when it came to drawing more organic forms, and was torn between using the pencil and brush tool. While using the pencil tool it was very distracting to see the selection after each line, but the pencil tool has the superior set of functions! Also, it could get frustrating to try and jump between all three line drawing tools, as the stroke width and pressure information is not shared between the three seamlessely. The ability to toggle "keep selected" is an answered prayer. Thank you. This is an exciting addition!

Could it be an option to have keep all draw lines selected? For instance when using the Sculpt feature to modify or add to the curves this might be useful. Not a big thing though.

Create a curve, a line. etc.
Add a point on that curve with the Node Tool. Right mouse-click on the added node and select Break Curve.
You are done.

Would be nice if it was a slider rather than a fixed size, imo.

This is relatively minor feature request, but I would like to have another option for the size of the color swatches. At the moment the Large option is too large for my taste, but the medium option is too small. Perhaps create a size between these, and rename the Large option into extra large?

This is relatively minor feature request, but I would like to have another option for the size of the color swatches. At the moment the Large option is too large for my taste, but the medium option is too small. Perhaps create a size between these, and rename the Large option into extra large?

Could it be an option to have keep all draw lines selected? For instance when using the Sculpt feature to modify or add to the curves this might be useful. Not a big thing though.

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad
 
We have now added a spiral tool which is available from the shape tools flyout. This is something we have had many requests for, but also varying requests as to the type of result wanted. For that reason we have tried to make this as flexible as possible, both offering different types of spiral and variables to adjust.
When you create a spiral you will see from the context toolbar the different options available. Here are some examples of what you can create with the tool:
Spiral Type: Linear

Spiral Type: Decaying

Spiral Type: Semi-Circular
This type replicates the way many people have been creating a spiral in Affinity - effectively by joining decreasing semi circular arcs together.  With this type we also offer a counter Semi-circular option which returns the spiral back on itself:

Spiral Type: Fibonacci

Spiral Type: Plotted

 
 

I really like the freehand vector pencil tool in Designer, but there are some thing that are a bit annoying and could improved imo.
1. Auto close was added in 2.0, but I find that in most cases it is not very useful. I would rather have the ability to close a path when the starting and end point are at a specified distance from eachother, say 10 points. This would allow me to use sculpt mode AND create closed paths, which is not possible right now.
2. Set smoothing factor: I would like the ability to set the accuracy of the stroke I draw, from very raw input with a lot of accuracy to a more smoothed out line.
3. Related to the previous point is the problem I have with zooming and pencil accuracy. The more zoomed out you are, the less accurate/more smoothed out the path becomes. I wish for a general smoothness regardless of zoom level.
4. I would love the integration of a Path eraser, that would be able to cut lines up to an intersection. This is possible using the Shapebuilder tool right now, so the code is there, but having it integrated in the Pencil tool and available with a shortcut would make it much more intitive and fast. This would probably require an option to keep all drawn paths selected.

I can not really take these complaints seriously. Some people just want everything for free, and throw a tantrum when they don't. Affinity is amazing value, regardless of any discount.

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
Holding onto any tool shortcut will now just put you in that tool temporarily until you release the shortcut key - at which point you will return to your previous tool. So for example when you are using the pen tool you could hold V to change to move tool to move your curve, and then on release be immediately back in pen tool. Another useful example would be when in Brush Tool, you could hold E to put you in Eraser and release to toggle back to Brush.