DragonWhimsy

+1 for brush names in both Designer and Photo. It's frustrating to follow tutorials, use paid brush packs from the store, and even follow Affinity's own workbook exercises without this feature on the desktop :3

I'm really loving the Affinity Suite, they are fantastic products. But it's become frustrating that my biggest pain point with the desktop software is seemingly something so easy to fix. I'm talking about how you can only see the brush names in the brush panel by hovering your cursor over the brush. For someone who has bought a lot of brushes for the software this is really painful. This has really hampered my ability to find a brush, or even remember what brush I had used previously. It seems like a small thing, but it really isn't. Seeing the names in the panel helps greatly with memory retention and creates a much stronger user experience. Right now I either have to hover over the brush, taking an extra second to let the name pop up (getting me out of my artistic flow and annoying me, and that annoyance meaning I'm unlikely to bother), or I have to not register the name in my consciousness at all, leaving me to hopefully remember later which in a long line of squiggly shapes is the brush I used.
While I realize this isn't the most important feature in the world, it's also really low hanging fruit. And doesn't the ipad versions of the suite already have this (I don't have the ipad versions but I'd swear I saw in a video that they do)?
Is this a result of someone in UI wanting to make the panel look prettier and more streamlined and thinking it doesn't hamper our workflows? Because if so please, please put that strange notion aside. You are most definitely hampering my workflow. 
Please don't tell me we have to wait for 1.9 for this. It's such a small thing but so important. 
 

I would really like to see this too, and surprised over several years, we're still talking about it! Trying to remember what brushes I used is a headache, and trying to follow along with a tutorial is even worse. 😒

+1 for adding brush names to the brushes panel, pretty please

Yeah I want to make sure I don't grab anything that has the same colors, especially if I'm working from a limited color palette. Also sometimes the trees might be different colors anyway and I'm changing the vector brush or stroke size I used for the branches or something like that. It depends on the tree type. 
Even when just changing colors, global colors only work in a specific document. They're not application wide.  But if I'm just dragging trees in I've already made from my assets panel, then global colors aren't useful. 
I don't even think they have to put much development time into it. They don't need to do anything fancy to give the color tags a significant upgrade. Right now they have the primary colors, secondary colors, and grey. Just add in the tertiary colors, brown, and white. At that point you've doubled the available colors and that all by itself would be great. 

I've been enjoying my time in Affinity Photo a great deal. And while I know it's primary use case is photo manipulation it's also clearly marketed toward digital artists as a secondary use case so with that in mind I figured I'd ask for some quality-of-life features geared toward the digital painting experience. Specifically geared toward keeping the artist in the zen creative mindset. The more he or she is using the brushes and the less he or she is fiddling with the interface the better for the overall creative experience.
So here we go!
It would be great if there was an option in the brushes panel to display the brush's name. It would be more than great, it would be immensely helpful. I believe the IPad version of Affinity Designer already has this feature. Please bring it into the AD/AP desktop versions too. I find it difficult to remember what brush I was just using and it's frustrating.  For some reason the selected brush in the brush panel never stays highlighted. Even when it's still selected. It'd be nice if the last brush I used just stayed highlighted. Even after I switch tools.  Along the same lines it would be great if I could click on a layer and see what brushes have been used in that layer. This would be amazing for remembering how to achieve an effect I've previously created.  It would help that "zen" feeling if a feature along the lines of Krita's "Pop up Palette" was implemented. See how it works here:   
 
 
Unlike the Krita version, it would be wonderful to have an option for the Popup Palette to be able to display brush names too. 
It goes without saying that these features would be just as useful in Affinity Designer as in Photo. So having them added there would be great too!
And now here's the part where YOU dear reader chime in with how you don't want to see these quality-of-life features because you fear it will take away resources from features that will help YOUR workflow instead. Because that's what we do here.
Obviously Serif knows what their target market priorities are and will choose the features that are the biggest bang for their buck. These are just things I'd love to see. Your trying to guess what those target market priorities are (and that they just so happen to coincide with your feature requests) is irrelevant but thank you for your concern on the matter future poster!
And yes I know you're going to post anyway. 
 
 
 

I've been enjoying my time in Affinity Photo a great deal. And while I know it's primary use case is photo manipulation it's also clearly marketed toward digital artists as a secondary use case so with that in mind I figured I'd ask for some quality-of-life features geared toward the digital painting experience. Specifically geared toward keeping the artist in the zen creative mindset. The more he or she is using the brushes and the less he or she is fiddling with the interface the better for the overall creative experience.
So here we go!
It would be great if there was an option in the brushes panel to display the brush's name. It would be more than great, it would be immensely helpful. I believe the IPad version of Affinity Designer already has this feature. Please bring it into the AD/AP desktop versions too. I find it difficult to remember what brush I was just using and it's frustrating.  For some reason the selected brush in the brush panel never stays highlighted. Even when it's still selected. It'd be nice if the last brush I used just stayed highlighted. Even after I switch tools.  Along the same lines it would be great if I could click on a layer and see what brushes have been used in that layer. This would be amazing for remembering how to achieve an effect I've previously created.  It would help that "zen" feeling if a feature along the lines of Krita's "Pop up Palette" was implemented. See how it works here:   
 
 
Unlike the Krita version, it would be wonderful to have an option for the Popup Palette to be able to display brush names too. 
It goes without saying that these features would be just as useful in Affinity Designer as in Photo. So having them added there would be great too!
And now here's the part where YOU dear reader chime in with how you don't want to see these quality-of-life features because you fear it will take away resources from features that will help YOUR workflow instead. Because that's what we do here.
Obviously Serif knows what their target market priorities are and will choose the features that are the biggest bang for their buck. These are just things I'd love to see. Your trying to guess what those target market priorities are (and that they just so happen to coincide with your feature requests) is irrelevant but thank you for your concern on the matter future poster!
And yes I know you're going to post anyway. 
 
 
 

+1. The brushes panel is the weakest panel in the suite right now. It needs an overhaul badly. I can never remember what brush I've used on something, even when I'm still in the middle of using it. I try to get around that by naming each layer after the brush I use in it but that is highly cumbersome and annoying.
And I know I sound like a broken record but I'd also love to be able to see the brush names without hovering the cursor over it. 

It'd be great if there was an option to show the brush names in the brush panel without having to hover the cursor over each brush. Not only would it fix my greatest annoyance with the apps but it should hopefully be really low hanging fruit given the IPad versions already do this.
Please? The lack of this option is driving me insane. *Obi-Wan voice* Help me Serif, you're my only hope. 

It'd be great if there was an option to show the brush names in the brush panel without having to hover the cursor over each brush. Not only would it fix my greatest annoyance with the apps but it should hopefully be really low hanging fruit given the IPad versions already do this.
Please? The lack of this option is driving me insane. *Obi-Wan voice* Help me Serif, you're my only hope. 

Affinity Designer will display the progress bar and seem like it's searching for something, then crash when attempting to link the product with my account. It doesn't even ask for an account e-mail or anything... not sure if it's supposed to do that or if it's trying to pull it from my browser? In any case it's definitely not working on my machine. 
 

There seems to be a misunderstanding by some posters here on what is being asked for. The OP is not asking for a WYSIWYG functionality being added to AD. No one is asking for AD to be turned into Adobe Muse or Frontpage 2000. 
What is being asked for is that each layer be given CSS Properties so that when a designer hands off the design to a developer that the developer can EXACTLY match the design given because the CSS properties are right there for him to see. He's not approximating the design, he has the option of an EXACT translation. It saves the developer time and guesswork. No one is expecting AD to do the actual coding. It's just supplying some CSS Properties to speed up the developer's work.
Most software used for UI design already has this functionality. Sketch. InVision. Illustrator. Photoshop. Only Adobe XD doesn't have it yet. And AD. 
Serif put a lot of effort into making AD ready for UI designers in the 1.5 update, but without CSS export it's mostly for naught. You absolutely have to have this feature to compete. 

Status: Beta
Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Download
Auto-update: Not available
 
Hello,
We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Affinity Designer Beta 1.8.4.3 for macOS.
If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry.
This beta is an incremental update to the 1.8.3 version currently available in the store to all customers (though it installs parallel to the release). We recommend that you use this beta in preference to the store version if you are affected by any of the issues listed below.
Many thanks!
Matt
 
Changes Since 1.8.4.2
- Fix for 'Expand Strokes' failing to consider 'velocity' as a width controller.
- Fix for focus issues when tabbing between text entry fields in the Colour panel with Text objects selected. (hi @dcarvalho84 - lol!)
- Fix for operation of Command+Right-Click on an object to show the tree hierarchy of the selected node.
- Allow certain documents created on Windows to open correctly (if the document contained a saved reference to exporting as Windows GDI formats).
- Miscellaneous text fixes and improvements
 
Changes Since 1.8.3
- Fix for incorrect rendering of grids in OpenGL past certain zoom levels.
- Fix for poor functioning of 'Force Touch' trackpads in pressure-sensitive tools.
- Speculative fix for occasional lockups in Pencil Tool.
- Added option in preferences to re-enable the old behaviour for deleting objects (we used to previously favour empty selections).
- Added ability to show folders as icons in the layers panel.
- Added option to always show folders as “small” in the layers panel.
- Improved dragging behaviour in the layers panel (make it easier to drag child items around within their container without affecting parenting).
- PDF import performance improvements.
- Document save performance improvements.
- Text performance improvements.
- Assorted small bug fixes.
- Help improvements.
- Localisation improvements.
 
To be notified about all future Mac beta updates, please follow this beta notification thread 
To be notified when this update comes out of beta and is fully released to all Affinity Designer customers, please follow this release notification thread

This sounds really great. It's something in Serif's marketing arsenal I have thought has been missing for quite some time. Nothing sells design software better than seeing other professionals use it. Plus, it's fun and educational and helps to build an online community around your products. I really hope you guys continue this past May. I would love to see this become a regular thing.

I changed my panel layout last night and now I can't recreate the problem. So problem solved I guess? I'll keep an eye out for it and see if it pops up again. It's weird, it's been plaguing me for days but now seems to be gone ever since moving the panels around. 

This sounds really great. It's something in Serif's marketing arsenal I have thought has been missing for quite some time. Nothing sells design software better than seeing other professionals use it. Plus, it's fun and educational and helps to build an online community around your products. I really hope you guys continue this past May. I would love to see this become a regular thing.

This sounds really great. It's something in Serif's marketing arsenal I have thought has been missing for quite some time. Nothing sells design software better than seeing other professionals use it. Plus, it's fun and educational and helps to build an online community around your products. I really hope you guys continue this past May. I would love to see this become a regular thing.

As announced on Affinity Spotlight, throughout May, as a way to stay connected while so many of us are still in lockdown, we’ll be bringing our community inspirational, free video sessions led by top creative talent.

Every day in May at 4pm BST, the official Affinity YouTube channel will be premiering inspirational creative sessions
Tune in every day in May at 4pm BST on the official Affinity YouTube channel as incredible artists, illustrators, designers and photographers who use Affinity invite you into their world to witness their personal creative workflows. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://affin.co/youtubesub 
Each creative will be available on live chat when their pre-recorded session premieres so you can ask any questions, and free content will  be provided for some of the sessions so you can have a go yourself. It’s a great time to learn new tricks, pick up on tips and break that lockdown boredom.Ash will be kicking off this virtual creative festival tomorrow and we’ll be announcing the rest of the line-up on our social channels. 
We will be announcing each daily session on our social channels, so make sure you're following us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to learn about each daily session. 
We will also post weekly lists of event announcements here in this thread.

Watch the announcement trailer here: https://affin.co/LD2020Trailer 
If you want to be notified each week of the list of creatives presenting, follow this similar thread in the Tutorials section of the forums, which is locked so you will only get notified when we add new weekly posts

I'm really loving the Affinity Suite, they are fantastic products. But it's become frustrating that my biggest pain point with the desktop software is seemingly something so easy to fix. I'm talking about how you can only see the brush names in the brush panel by hovering your cursor over the brush. For someone who has bought a lot of brushes for the software this is really painful. This has really hampered my ability to find a brush, or even remember what brush I had used previously. It seems like a small thing, but it really isn't. Seeing the names in the panel helps greatly with memory retention and creates a much stronger user experience. Right now I either have to hover over the brush, taking an extra second to let the name pop up (getting me out of my artistic flow and annoying me, and that annoyance meaning I'm unlikely to bother), or I have to not register the name in my consciousness at all, leaving me to hopefully remember later which in a long line of squiggly shapes is the brush I used.
While I realize this isn't the most important feature in the world, it's also really low hanging fruit. And doesn't the ipad versions of the suite already have this (I don't have the ipad versions but I'd swear I saw in a video that they do)?
Is this a result of someone in UI wanting to make the panel look prettier and more streamlined and thinking it doesn't hamper our workflows? Because if so please, please put that strange notion aside. You are most definitely hampering my workflow. 
Please don't tell me we have to wait for 1.9 for this. It's such a small thing but so important. 
 

That would also be a great quality of life feature I'd love to see. 

I'm really loving the Affinity Suite, they are fantastic products. But it's become frustrating that my biggest pain point with the desktop software is seemingly something so easy to fix. I'm talking about how you can only see the brush names in the brush panel by hovering your cursor over the brush. For someone who has bought a lot of brushes for the software this is really painful. This has really hampered my ability to find a brush, or even remember what brush I had used previously. It seems like a small thing, but it really isn't. Seeing the names in the panel helps greatly with memory retention and creates a much stronger user experience. Right now I either have to hover over the brush, taking an extra second to let the name pop up (getting me out of my artistic flow and annoying me, and that annoyance meaning I'm unlikely to bother), or I have to not register the name in my consciousness at all, leaving me to hopefully remember later which in a long line of squiggly shapes is the brush I used.
While I realize this isn't the most important feature in the world, it's also really low hanging fruit. And doesn't the ipad versions of the suite already have this (I don't have the ipad versions but I'd swear I saw in a video that they do)?
Is this a result of someone in UI wanting to make the panel look prettier and more streamlined and thinking it doesn't hamper our workflows? Because if so please, please put that strange notion aside. You are most definitely hampering my workflow. 
Please don't tell me we have to wait for 1.9 for this. It's such a small thing but so important. 
 

I have a similar problem using colors from Presets (Pantone, etc). I need the selected color to remain somehow marked/highlighted so that I can easily select a lighter/darker shade. Unfortunately, the selected/used color is not highlighted in any way, so it is just a confusing array of colored squares in which I easily get lost.

I'm really loving the Affinity Suite, they are fantastic products. But it's become frustrating that my biggest pain point with the desktop software is seemingly something so easy to fix. I'm talking about how you can only see the brush names in the brush panel by hovering your cursor over the brush. For someone who has bought a lot of brushes for the software this is really painful. This has really hampered my ability to find a brush, or even remember what brush I had used previously. It seems like a small thing, but it really isn't. Seeing the names in the panel helps greatly with memory retention and creates a much stronger user experience. Right now I either have to hover over the brush, taking an extra second to let the name pop up (getting me out of my artistic flow and annoying me, and that annoyance meaning I'm unlikely to bother), or I have to not register the name in my consciousness at all, leaving me to hopefully remember later which in a long line of squiggly shapes is the brush I used.
While I realize this isn't the most important feature in the world, it's also really low hanging fruit. And doesn't the ipad versions of the suite already have this (I don't have the ipad versions but I'd swear I saw in a video that they do)?
Is this a result of someone in UI wanting to make the panel look prettier and more streamlined and thinking it doesn't hamper our workflows? Because if so please, please put that strange notion aside. You are most definitely hampering my workflow. 
Please don't tell me we have to wait for 1.9 for this. It's such a small thing but so important. 
 

I'm really loving the Affinity Suite, they are fantastic products. But it's become frustrating that my biggest pain point with the desktop software is seemingly something so easy to fix. I'm talking about how you can only see the brush names in the brush panel by hovering your cursor over the brush. For someone who has bought a lot of brushes for the software this is really painful. This has really hampered my ability to find a brush, or even remember what brush I had used previously. It seems like a small thing, but it really isn't. Seeing the names in the panel helps greatly with memory retention and creates a much stronger user experience. Right now I either have to hover over the brush, taking an extra second to let the name pop up (getting me out of my artistic flow and annoying me, and that annoyance meaning I'm unlikely to bother), or I have to not register the name in my consciousness at all, leaving me to hopefully remember later which in a long line of squiggly shapes is the brush I used.
While I realize this isn't the most important feature in the world, it's also really low hanging fruit. And doesn't the ipad versions of the suite already have this (I don't have the ipad versions but I'd swear I saw in a video that they do)?
Is this a result of someone in UI wanting to make the panel look prettier and more streamlined and thinking it doesn't hamper our workflows? Because if so please, please put that strange notion aside. You are most definitely hampering my workflow. 
Please don't tell me we have to wait for 1.9 for this. It's such a small thing but so important. 
 

I would be shocked if Serif didn't announce their Lightroom alternative at the next "Affinity Live" event. It's the only app listed in their initial vision of the suite that hasn't been released (as outlined in the forward to the Affinity Designer Workbook). It's definitely coming next and before the 2.0 versions of Photo and Designer.