Mark Oehlschlager

This is a request for both a vertical and a horizontal cylinder preset for the Vector Warp feature. The use case need is for wrapping vector art around a cylinder (bottle/can) object where the art correctly diminishes and foreshortens as it wraps around the cylindrical object. Presently, one can start with the Fisheye preset and make adjustments, but it would be a timesaver if there were vertical and horizontal cylinder presets as well. Additionally, would it be possible for there to be rotation and perspective parameters to get the mesh to match the orientation of the photographed bottle/can/column?

@JimmyJack So you have to drop the Curves Adjustment as a mask to the Mask Layer (though visually there is not an indentation in the Layers Panel to show this relationship). I can see that it works, but it's crazy and very unintuitive.

In a multi-layer document, with several image layers and their own respective layer masks, how do you then target just one layer mask if not with the help of an isolating Group? It is not possible to make a Curves Adjustment Layer a child of a Mask Layer.

Not in my experience. The grouping of the image layer and its mask layer seem to be a prerequisite. Curves adjustment then gets applied to the Group.

@JimmyJack I guess you have to first group the Image and its mask layer in order to apply the Alpha Curve to the group. There's no way I know of to apply a curve directly to a Mask Layer.

I realize that it is possible to edit Layer Masks directly with a Paint brush, or by applying Filters, but Is it possible to apply a Curves or Levels adjustment to a raster Mask?

@jmwellborn Thanks. The Mac Studio that I would consider would cost $2,000, plus the Studio Display at $1,600, for a total bill of $3,600 + tax. Compare that to my 24" iMac config at $1,900 + tax. As you say, it comes down to money, and I'd like to spend just what I must, not more. Certainly the Mac Studio machines with the M1 Ultra chips would be overkill, right?

It's time for me to replace my Late 2012 iMac with a new M1 machine. But I could use some guidance on the minimum specs if I want to happily run the Affinity Suite and it's updates over the next three to five years. Assume pushing the Affinity Suite apps as hard as possible. Would a 24" M1 iMac (8-core CPU, 8-core GPU) with 16 GB of RAM offer enough of a performance ceiling for 3-5 years, or should I think instead about an entry level spec Mac Studio (10-core CPU, 24-core GPU) with 32 GB of RAM?

Feels like we're due for a big 2.0 release, and a Mesh Warp Live Filter would be most welcome.

@Ginhuardy After selecting the Smudge tool, select a soft round brush from the basics set, adjust its size according to your need, and then set the spacing of the brush to 1% (that is the lowest possible value). That should enable you to generate a smooth blur with the Smudge tool. I have no idea why the default spacing for the basic round brushes is set to 25%.

@Eddie Aguirre Is there a solution for converting Affinity Publisher documents to IDML and/or INDD?

@Old Bruce I understand the utility of setting up and naming text frame layers for each language on the master pages, but what is the utility of setting up multiple image frames for each language?

@notna, unfortunately the cold hard truth of the world is this: Adobe tools are entrenched as the industry standard despite grumblings over their subscription policy. Unless one works alone, one must continue to use the Adobe products. It would take a massive shift in cultural and technological trends to unseat Adobe from their current position. The best that Serif can do is to match Adobe tools, feature for feature, offer more attractive pricing, survive with a niche market of solo users, and wait for some cultural or technological shift that would give them an opening to challenge Adobe for leadership.

@Old Bruce You could be right, and deleting a line segment directly is useful, but I really thought there was a way to directly split a curve at a node or point. My memory could be faulty, but if anyone recalls such a modifier key for the node tool, I'd appreciate being reminded of which key or keys that would be.

I thought that Serif recently introduced a keyboard modifier key for the Node tool that would allow one to split a curve directly at a node point. And yet I can't remember what the modifier key is. Nor can I find any documentation of this. Was this option removed? Am I overlooking a tooltip or other helpful documentation?

It's not simply a matter of an extra feature in Publisher that doesn't exist in other page layout applications. It's that it a) subverts the established UI standards of character and paragraph panels seen in other major page layout applications, repurposing the standard leading attribute to become a leading override attribute without calling attention to it's new function, causing confusion; and b) departs from logic of a typesetter thinking in terms of paragraph attributes – face, weight, point size and leading – and not only sets a trap by redefining the leading field in the character panel to become a leading override field, but introduces workflow inefficiencies by forcing the typesetter to flip back and forth between panels to set the basic attributes of a paragraph. Working quickly to build paragraph styles one is accustomed to setting these properties up in a single panel. Any way, I realize that Affinity have much bigger fish to fry – including a total rethink of the Color Swatch panel, which is a clunky mess. This will likely not change. It seems baked in at this point.

Correct. I assumed your hypothetical of introducing a larger point size to selected words within a paragraph for emphasis. And in that hypothetical, the leading for the paragraph is set to accommodate that design choice. To apply a local leading override for a selected 14 point word within an 11/13 paragraph would mean forcing that one line in the paragraph to separate the upper half of the paragraph from the lower half. (The application adds leading above.) I'm not sure why one would want to intentionally separate two halves of a logical block of text (a paragraph) for the sake of emphasizing a word or phrase with a larger point size.

However many paragraph styles you need for your document and whether or not you set "paragraph next-style" as a property for each of your paragraph styles is entirely up to you the designer and the needs of your document. Not true. As a typesetter, if your design calls for using 14 point italic for emphasis within a text that is otherwise set in 11 point roman, you set your paragraph leading to accommodate the 14 point words being emphasized within the paragraph. So you might decide to set your paragraphs at 11/16. Your character style for emphasized words or phrases would then change the local character properties to 14 point italic. The trouble with Affinity's inclusion of a "Leading Override" attribute in the Character Panel is that it is both an unnecessary break with UI convention, and is a cause for confusion. To extend the absurdity of the situation, why not advocate for including a "Font Family Override" attribute in the Paragraph Panel? One sets type styles in logical blocks (paragraphs) separated by hard breaks (titles, subtitles, deck paragraphs, body first paragraphs, body paragraphs, list item first paragraphs, list item paragraphs, block quote paragraphs, caption paragraphs, etc.). Leading and any space before or after is a paragraph attribute. Any unusual point-size change to words or phrases for emphasis within a paragraph would be accounted for in the leading one's paragraph style.

@thomaso If you need space before or after a paragraph, there is a paragraph attribute for that. If you are setting a paragraph and want to set a word or phrase within at a larger point size (for whatever reason that a contrasting face, a bold, italic, or color change doesn't offer you enough contrast), you would account for the extra leading required by incorporating that into your paragraph styles. If you have a very unusual case for applying a different leading value to a word or phrase within a paragraph, you can record the leading change as a character style that you can then apply directly to that word or phrase. The very presence of a "Leading Override" attribute field in the Character panel is misleading and just adds confusion.

@NNN Significantly, no one can describe or illustrate a reason for the "leading override" attribute to exist. It just invites confusion. It ought to be withdrawn.

@Chris B I'm bumping this bug report because it remains a problem in Affinity Photo 1.10.1. Thanks.

@Old Bruce You make a good point. That may be a good pitch to some. But in this case, if the question is whether or not to invest time and money into competing but equivalent tools, my guess is that most busy people would probably elect to keep things simple and go with one version of each type of application, and then choose the dominant tools of the industry.

@tallrob Because any IDML export (from InDesign to APub, or from APub to InDesign) is not likely to be interpreted 100% correctly by the target application, and because certain proprietary features of both applications will get dropped in translation, the primary utility of an export to IDML feature in APub is simply to make it possible to deliver an APub document to an InDesign user with 95-98% of the design and layout in tact, saving a ton of time that would otherwise be spent recreating the document from scratch. Because the translation can never hope to be 100% accurate in any but the simplest of documents, the IDML export feature that many people here, including myself, are requesting should probably be thought of as a one-time, one-way export function. For obvious reasons, continuous round-tripping a document between InDesign and APub would introduce translation errors with each exchange and require time to repair the translation errors. That could get tedious and discouraging, adding unwanted friction to a collaborative workflow. Having said that, I still think there's a strong case to be made for Serif building or licensing an IDML export feature for APub. It means that APub users (and prospective APub users) can feel more confident in committing to using APub and the rest of the Affinity Suite for publishing and design, knowing that if they must hand off an APub file to an InDesign user, there is a compatible exchange file format in IDML that will keep at least 95-98% of the document design in tact, if not 100%, and thus being able to share one's work while minimizing any necessary format corrections in InDesign as a result of the translation. The alternative scenario, not having an IDML export feature in APub, means one must either commit to the cost and the time spent learning two applications (not something most people would choose), or committing to the cost of just one application – and for most, that means reluctantly abandoning APub for InDesign because it has the advantage of being more mature tool and an industry standard.

@Mithferion I get by by a similar method from Apple Numbers, but the types of graphs and the formatting options are pretty basic. The Datylon tool above looks quite good by comparison. One could use a number of workarounds and alternative tools I suppose, but equally, here's an opportunity for Serif to either develop a superior set of tools for designing data graphs and visualizations, or to partner with third parties like Datylon to make plug-ins possible.

For those who work with organizations and are often required to design attractive data graphs, it would be great to have a data graph design feature within Affinity Designer. Building the feature into Designer would be ideal, but I've discovered an interesting solution from Datylon that integrates with Adobe Illustrator. Could Serif partner with Datylon to bring their plug-in functionality to Affinity Designer? See this YouTube tutorial for reference: And here is the URL for Datylon: www.datylon.com Thanks for your consideration.