MikeO

I can agree with you here on personal experience. Through a long and winding road I had come to own the IP of an RPG that I had illustrated and art directed for a decade at that point. We had a strong and rabid, but small, fan base, and we had a bit of an outsider take on tabletop RPGs. But after an additional 15 years of trying to make it work and not really getting anywhere, my partner and I were burned out. If someone had offered to buy us out then, I would have sold it all in a second. Even on a project I had worked on on and off for half of my life. But no one did, so in this case I'm jealous of Serif. We ended up licensing it to a group of fans who have done amazing things with the RPG; but not things I would have ever done, but it doesn't matter. I couldn't have serviced the fans any longer because the fire was gone. So whatever Serif's reasons are, I get it and don't hold anything against them.

I'd buy it now. It could be years before it might change and it would be years you can't get back struggling with poor software or else paying the Adobe tax. $114 for apps of this quality is a steal. Especially Publisher, which I am beginning to like more than InDesign, as Adobe has let InDesign whither.

My two cents is that Canva just decided to go all in on competing with Adobe Express; and instead of creating their own creative tools, they bought some. Tools like Express and Canvas are a really big deal in my space, higher ed. Nearly every institution either has one of these two (or a competitor) or is planning to implement one (we certainly are at this Tier 1 research university). I'm hopeful that Canva has more money to throw at feature requests we've been asking for for a long time because of their need to compete directly with Adobe. Time will tell of course. I'm still with all of you skeptics on whether their pricing model will be retained; I hope if they do add a subscription it'll be part of the Canva subscription many are already paying. And the apps will still be available for purchase individually for non-canvas users. That's my hope at least.

That works of course, but I can't send the native file to our print vendor so I need to export it as vector art. Designer rasterizes it during the export when an adjustment layer is present. I need them to remain vector objects, both for file size and also if I need to make any object adjustments later to accommodate any wall and fixture irregularities. In any event the proof came out well, so I didn't need to do this. I'll try some of these scripting ideas now that I'm not under deadline. Thanks everyone!

@MEBThis may help, but I just noticed that this bug does not occur in the document size numerical boxes that are part of the Export dialog box. v2.0.4

Yep. I was hoping not to have to go back and forth. BUT, it's an option since I have both apps.

I'm using a Mac, and yeah I used the "Select by fill color" but there are very few objects that are the same color. Thanks for the suggestions though the idea of scripting makes my brain hurt. I think what I'm going to do is wait till the vendor outputs a test piece and we see what it looks like under the lighting conditions in the space. At that point I can let the vendor deal with their converted version of the file. Which may be a PNG.

Here's most of what I'm working with. Changing all of these objects to global colors would take hours and still wouldn't accomplish what I'd want since I have to select each color individually to change them, when all I want to do is select the group and lighten or darken all of it. An Adjustment layer gets the look I want but exporting the file with active adjustment layers will rasterize any objects associated with the adjustment. This is a 3m high mural so rasterizing it at 300dpi would lead to an immense file.

I'm working on a portrait in Designer 2.0.3. The portrait is made up of several dozen objects, all of which have a unique fill color. I grouped everything and then decided that the whole portrait looked too dark since it would be printed so I used an adjustment layer to lighten it. I exported the file as an EPS since that's what the print vendor requires. The problem is that the adjustment layer is merged with the objects its affecting by rasterizing the whole thing. I need it to remain as vector art since it's going to be printed as a large mural. Is there a way to adjust a grouped object of different colors in one go, as opposed to adjusting each object in the group individually which would be tedious and very difficult to retain the same contrast between objects? Thanks.

Thanks! I'll have to see if Venture breaks CC or my font app Typeface3, but if it doesn't then I'll update.

Wow, I just came here to report this as well. This happens in both Designer and Photo. FWIW, I have 2.0.3 of both, MacOS Monterrey 12.4, and I usually use the number pad on my extended keyboard to enter the numbers (if that makes a difference).

Our file servers are Windows boxes off campus (I work at a university). They simply disconnect from any desktop that is using them when they run a backup. I'm running v2 of Affinity on a Mac with OS 12.5.1. I have the same issue with any Creative Cloud files I leave open, but they remain loaded in memory and can reconnect with themselves if I reconnect to the file server before I mess with them. I was mostly surprised that Designer didn't give me an option to save a local copy before it shut down. Like I said, it's not a big deal because I should close everything when I go home, but I often don't. Today though I noticed that even though I wasn't connected to the file server any longer I was still able to work on and modify an open document. Only when I went to save it did the error message pop up notifying me that Designer couldn't find the file and would shut down.

This isn't necessarily a bug per se, but I wanted to make everyone aware of it in case it is. At work, I commonly work on documents off of a remote file server. Everything works correctly, unless I forget to close the file before I leave for the day. Sometime at night the file server is backed up and I lose the connection to it. In the morning, when I go to Affinity Designer, the open file pops up a warning that the open file cannot be found and it will now close down. Sadly there is only an "OK" button in that dialog box, and not a "Save As" to give me a chance to save it locally in case it didn't save. Designer will then quit and when I reopen (after connecting to the file server) I can usually open the recovery file that is offered by Designer and I'm good. All I need to do is remember to not leave anything open when I leave work, but is this how it's supposed to work?

I was just having the same issue and found this thread. So the issue isn't about the number of elements in the document slowing things down, but simply how much of it is visible when you try to open it. I'm working on a table runner design of an embroidery pattern that is 90" x 16". The file is only 6MB but it has loads of small objects. The strategy would be to group things so they are easier to make visible or hide? Hmm. I'll have to try that. It's too late in the drawing for this but the whole thing is made of instances of 8 different colored identical shapes. Maybe next time I'll use symbols.

Well it seems to stay on the main monitor after I close and reopen it. But I'll have to see for how long since it inevitably opens under the palettes eventually. I was curious if it mattered where my mouse pointer was when I hit Command+O but it still opened on the main monitor if my pointer was on the second monitor. I DID get it to appear under the palettes on the second monitor if I have an active cursor in a palette; I was typing in a dimension in the Transform palette and left the cursor there, then hit Command+O. I was able to repeat that behavior. Maybe that's the bug?