jamesholden

I was 3 minutes into testing the current trial version of Affinity Designer when I ran into the question of "Where is select by stroke and fill colours"?
I just needed to create basic colour variants of a logo. The way it was drawn makes Affinity software unusable for this tiny, routine task. I'm sorry to say this is so basic to any designer's needs it knocks you completely out of consideration for purchase at this point, or for recommendation.
I started this tiny test full of your glowing reviews, recent awards and reasonable pricing, expecting I'd likely end up buying the full suite on both Mac and iOS this summer. After reading this thread, that's not going to happen in this generation of your tools. Count me as one more voice saying that until you fix this you're not even in the game.

Been playing with the appearance panel and multiple strokes.  lovely addition to the program!  a couple of  things that could make it even better
1. the ability to select a stroke and reverse the stroke without affecting the other strokes 
2. The ability to add effects to single strokes.
And the stroke panel that comes up when you click the stroke width in the appearance panel does not work the same as the regular stroke panel.  the appearance tab stroke panel will let you set the width only options for alignment are all greyed out.  if you try to set the alignment from the regular panel with a stroke selected in the appearance panel the stroke gets clipped by the object fill.
 

Hi Mischugo, Murex-13,
Only the bleed preview on canvas is missing - which can be recreated with a stroked rectangle. To add bleed to the exported file, first set it up going to File ▸ Document Setup..., Bleed tab and enter the value you want, then, on export (PDF), click the More button and tick Include Bleed. You will find other printers marks there as well. 
Bleed preview will be added in a future update.
@Murex-13,
Welcome to Affinity Forums

Ummmm, I'm puzzled.
I too was disappointed about the lack of bleed, having come back to learn Designer after some time away. Reading here after this I think that the solution is actually there, but is simply not visible...
I set up an A4 page, and then turned off "Clip-to-Canvas" using the /-key so that I could see objects off the page.
I then added 5mm bleed guides using the 'Guides' panel that are outside the page (-5mm, 215mm etc), and they are not visible, but a placed object snaps to them just as to any visible guide, and the vertical/horizontal (Red/Green) snap-guide indicators appear to aid alignment as well, so bleed images are a cinch too.
The only missing thing is a visible bleed guide, but any suitably coloured page+bleed rectangle gives easy reference to work with and the functionality is all there.
I understand that negative margins aren't possible, but negative guides are, although they aren't visible.
I've attached a sample file.
Bleeding.afdesign

On that subject I will suggest, once again, that instead of having your roadmap here in the forums, with the upcoming features du jour, you use a Trac-like system and break them all down (both the ones you're currently working on and the upcoming ones in the mid- and long-term) across the releases where it's predictable they may appear. Even if you have to readjust that timeline down the road (as you did with Publisher, in fact; it wasn't a completely nice wait, but at least we were somewhat kept on the loop).
I take it that for business reasons you'd wish to keep novel features completely secret, but at least put the most requested and predictable, industry-standard ones in there. And put that official, extended roadmap front and centre in your website, so that prospective buyers cannot miss it. Sure, you may lose some sales because of that transparency, but you'll recoup them eventually, with the added goodwill that comes from that degree of honesty. Explaining those dependencies here on the forums after the fact and just saying “trust us” just doesn't cut it, especially when the wait extends into the rather unreasonable multi-year range. Users may wait years for an entirely new app (see above) but, unless they understand why they are waiting for a feature (and an essential one at that), they may understandably become a bit pissed off.
This system, for all your commendable transparency, is still too opaque, I'm afraid. The masses are uneasy, if not downright unhappy. I know I've been uneasy for four years (not over this feature in particular, but I hadn't noticed it wasn't there, either… and I've since added it to the list of essential features which prevent me from using Designer as my main vector app, obviously). You indeed have a lot of very happy customers, but quite a few disgruntled ones, too, it seems. It's better not to have some people as customers at the wrong time and make them wait or, worse even, spend their money unnecessarily. They'll respect you much more for that in the long run.

It would be fancy if you could give negative values for margin... but no, 0 is smallest.

Thanks, I saw that but its date is from 2014 so I thought it must be really very out of date. This is a really bad effort at a roadmap... to the point where I don't actually believe it. There must be something more sophisticated somewhere.

PS I am not familiar with Serif's style of roadmaps, but hopefully this is what you meant
 
 

I simply could not agree more.

First time trying out AD in version 1.7. Also looking for this feature (select by same fill/stroke color).
Please, developers, @MEB, make this feature in your top list, before 1.8!
It's part of AD's usability and "purchasability"
Otherwise, I still have to rely on AI

I too second this request.
With the ‘select same ...’ feature I would have fased out Illustrator by now. It is a vital feature in my daily work.
I often get files (pdf) exported from GIS applications, containing dozens, sometimes hundreds, of lines that need to be worked on.
Imagine selecting them one by one.

I keep looking at Affinity Designer, as I'm keen to drop Adobe from my pipeline, but the lack of plugin support means this isn't possible and so, even though I have affinity Photo I don't use it, as it's easier just to stick with adobe until I have replacements for  PS, Illustrator and Lightroom that work seamlessly together and have the plugins I need. 
I'm sure others are also holding back from jumping ship for the same reason - plugins need to be supported or Illustrator will continue to be required by pros...

You can export multiple artboards using the Export Persona. Not only can you export multiple artboards, but you can do so in multiple file formats, with a different format for each artboard, if desired. You also have detailed control over the export format.
 
Simply show the Toolbar via View > Show Toolbar or press ⌥⌘T and then click on the Export Persona button.
 
 
 
Another interesting feature is Continuous Export, which is best explained by this video:

 
I think Affinity Designer has the best export feature set available. I am not affiliated with Affinity in any way, but I'm happy to answer any questions.

It's great that Designer now supports artboards. But when working with multiple artboards it is tedious to have to export them individually to files bitmap based file formats.
 
Please add the ability to export all artboards automatically. File names should be derived from artboard names. Artboards could also have index numbers and one should be able to export ranges of artboards.

well my office is in the basement, plus I can unplug my drive and reach over and put it in the safe at days end.

Well I can only admire your diligence, taking your external backup drive down to the basement and locking it in your 550lb safe every time you go to bed or leave the house/office
With my luck the one time I forgot I would be burgled and the burglar would then set fire to my house!!!
Since I don't have a basement or room for a 550lb safe (seriously, who does?) I guess I will just have to stick to cloud backups
 

Well the safe empty weights 550lbs. and is in the basement. good luck taking it.

I do have a fire safe. I think that you need to reevaluate what you call people before you know how smart they really are.

You need an off-site backup somewhere, one burglary or fire and your life/work/business gets reset to zero.
Don't be that idiot that did not backup his stuff properly. 

I dropped my Adobe because it's really a lease. That would be like Apple and Microsoft made you pay monthly premium to use your computer or you auto maker charging you a fee too use the car after you payed for it. I still use my old Light room before they started charging. I just wish everyone would drop photo shop. I under stand if they would come out with new technology and sold a new version. I don't use any cloud service. Reason 1 is I don't trust anyone with my photos. I backup my photos on my own backup drive. Drive is payed for plus it's cheaper than paying out the money every month. I just feel when you buy something it's yours. I bought my Nikon D850 and Nikon isn't charging me a monthly fee.

Hello,
  Sorry it is me again.  I looked at your file.  I don't know if you will be happy with my resolution.  Please bear in mind, this is only my opinion. And that I am no expert, just a self taught tinkerer.
  Okay.  That being said.  Here are the limits I set upon myself in dealing with this.
First.   The paper size is absolute.  You have an A4 paper selected.  The dimensions are 21cm by 29.7 cm.
Second.  The size requirement for the letters being 25cm were absolute.
 
So, the only way to do this is to put each letter on a separate paper.  
This is what I did. And here is the YouTube link for the video I made for it.  Forgive the no edits, and no sound.
https://youtu.be/s44_WdmxLDc
 
So the first thing I did was look at the paper size by hitting the document setup button.
I changed the measurements to centimeters, since that's our base measurement.
I changed the orientation of the document to portrait so I had more room in the Vertical to work with.
I then selected my Artboard tool, and made the document into an Artboard.
I hit the Insert Artboard button 2 more times to create 2 more A4 sheets on my document.
I went to view and turned on the grid.  I went to View and opened the Grid and Axis Manager Up.
I deselected the Automatic Grid.  Kept the Mode to Standard, and checked the Uniform box.  I am happy with a 1cm square grid size, so I don't change anything.
I need to make sure my Snap to Grid is on.
Now I am going to do each letter separately.  You may be able to select them all and do it in one shot. But for today we will just do each letter separately. 
I select the first letter.  Go to the transform tab, make sure the chain in linked between the H and W.  And I set 25cm into the Height box.
I position my letter.
I go to my next letter and do the same. This time dragging it to the second Artboard.  Then repeat for the Third letter.
And there you go.  All you letters are 25cm in height and placed on an A4 sized paper.  But in this case I had to put each letter on a separate sheet of paper.
I don't think I forgot anything.
 
Hopefully you can find some use in these techniques.  Good luck.  Thank you very much for your very gracious words for my other video.  Success.

I sincerely hope that this feature is coming soon. in my line of work, and as I see it in this post that there are many more, this feature is an essential part of keeping files clean. Two years ago I used a test version of AD and really was hoping that the select attributes feature will come soon, which still is not the case. My way of supporting to a hopefully soon implementation of the feature was buying AD.  You guys do a great job. Please don't forget about the needs of your users!

I use this feature a lot on Ai, I hope Affinity will add it soon so I can rely more and more on AD.

Yep, I'm in a similar position, working in an architectural office. I already heavily advertised the Affinity suite to my boss, but missing features like this prevent it from gaining foothold in that business.
 

I really need envelope distortion or something like that – perspective transformations is also necessary for me. I love you guys and please carry on doing this good job! Thank you!