LondonSquirrel

And date variables with calculations. For example $datetoday - $dateofbirth to calculate age in years.

Are you proposing to tell a few hundred million people to change the way they write? Arabic and derivative alphabets cannot be compared with hieroglyphics. Letters are not pictograms. For information, the Persian derivative language Tajiki is written in Cyrillic while previously it was written in Perso-Arabic, and then Latin. This change was not particularly welcome at the time. Meanwhile 'hieroglyphics' are in use today in the form of road signs.

I've had my fill of Publisher today. Simple, straightforward EPS graphics import to a picture frame, or dragging and dropping them in, causes Publisher to crash. I've reopened this app about 10 times today. I've just had enough. My patience has run out. Is there a known problem with EPS import? EPS is listed as a supported format for placement. I disagree based on what I have seen today. I am almost boiling over with frustration. The crash reports which I have not sent to Apple are all the same: Event: hang Duration: 25.76s Duration Sampled: 4.40s (process was unresponsive for 21 seconds before sampling) Steps: 44 (100ms sampling interval) AP has just crashed again. I am wasting so much of my life on this app today.

OK, Dan. Thanks very much. For a single image in a document it doesn't make much sense. But now I know, it's not a problem.

There's a good reason for that. Affinity developing for Linux would be a distraction.

Why do you find 'pro' software stuffed with open source code? Adobe does too: 'At Adobe, we rely on so many open source software projects to build our own products, it would be hard to count them all.' (https://www.adobe.io/open.html).

Hi, If I open a particular image and 'create palette from document', the app generates 68 separate colours. If I choose instead to 'create palette from image' I am offered a dialog box where I can select the number of colours to be generated (up to 256). Is there any reason for this difference? Is there a way to open an image first, then create a palette with more colours? Or do I have to create a palette from an image to get a wider range of colours? I only found this by accident. Until now I created palettes from document. I never assumed there would be a difference for the same image. Thanks. J.

Agreed. And in comparing Affinity apps with Adobe's, the price difference must be taken into account somewhere along the line. I wonder what the price/tool ratio is for AD and AI. I would like there to be a knife tool. There really should be one.

I agree with much of the sentiment here but with some caveats and some disagreements. It is true that we have tools today which cost a lot less than they would have several years ago. The free version of DaVinci Resolve is purposely limited in both functionality and performance, most notably the free version does not have GPU acceleration. Nonetheless, the free version is still very good indeed. So in any comparison with Avid, FCP, etc, the Studio version (paid for, or free with most of the Blackmagic cameras) should be used. That is fair. There is no way that an iPhone is a professional camera. It just is not. It does not and cannot have the same quality output as an Alexa. Or a Blackmagic. Or even my 'prosumer' GH4. The sensor does not even begin to compare, the dynamic range, ... That does not mean that some people do use iPhones professionally, but if you look closely the output just does not even begin to compare with a professional camera. But I agree that the iPhone camera is astounding compared to what we had at that price a few years ago. Fine. We do indeed have features which cost much more a few years ago. However, with the knife tool, that functionality has been around for at least 20 years. But we don't have it (yet) in Designer.

I guess we are just going to disagree. It is clear to me (and others) that Affinity is good at some things, but lacks some tools which are considered necessary or basic. Let us go back six years to when the missing knife tool was first noticed to be missing. This knife tool is considered by many to be a basic tool in vector graphics. If it was apparent then that there would be no knife tool (or whatever was going to replace it) for six years and maybe more, what would people think? You may not like the analogy of a knife. To me it is as basic as a ruler. I think I've made my point here. I'll state it again in summary: Affinity's apps cannot yet be considered 'pro' apps as they lack certain tools which are customary in other 'pro' apps.

Arguably Photoshop was professional software in those days. I don't recall Adobe reinventing or reimagining Photoshop as a 'pro' app, then removing a whole bunch of features which used to exist in its 'old' apps.

To start doing it? Designer has been around for 6 years, and a tool which is completely standard in other apps is missing. I am all in favour of improvement and doing things in new ways. But when is this new-fangled knife replacement coming? in the meantime, I need a knife.

How does one get to see these Betas?

This is really my point. Knife tools have been around forever. It is a missing basic for me (and others). It is so basic that no 'pro' tool should be without it.

That is correct. They are using Final Cut Pro X today... But when it was introduced a lot of old Final Cut Studio users dumped it and went to Adobe. Apple knows this. After several iterations Final Cut Pro X became a better app. Unless it simply cannot be done. I cannot make an oil painting using a pencil. I can use a pencil to make a pencil drawing, i.e. work within its limitations. And that is what I can do with Designer or any other app. But this is a forum about Designer, so it is appropriate to list Designer limitations here.