Adrian_M

I do agree that many professional editors and publishers do not use LaTeX. In fact, I'm mostly thinking about my own personal use, of course. But honestly, although I admit it's strictly a thing of preference, I never found any click-GUI-based solution better than good ol' LaTeX. I've tried MathML myself, as well as Mathematica/Maple/Matlab and different flavours of LaTeX and editors. I, for one, love things text-based, for example, for around 2 years, I'm living in the plain-text world almost exclusively (with Markdown and LaTeX). Formula integration, without actually relying on LaTeX is a good idea and I see its benefits. The main problem is that for my use, at least, I'm integrating the drawing into a LaTeX-typeset document, so there are a lot of concerns about the fonts (which I like customizing, away from the "Times" and the classical serif that LaTeX uses). Again, I cannot speak about professional publishers and editors and there may be a reason why InDesign + MathML or other plugins are industry standards. But I started the discussion completely from a personal point of view. At the present time, I would use LaTeXiT over any alternative any day. I use my own preambles and font preferences, mostly relying on built-in libraries and styles and I love it. I was mostly thinking about this kind of integration inside Affinity Designer. But yes, I do agree that I'm a niche user and maybe it would not make a lot of sense for the majority to have such a feature. Nevertheless, I'm happy to see some echo. As for a non-destructive graph plotting tool for Designer...man, that sounds like heaven! :) (although most likely not going to happen, given the main target and philosophy of the app) Thanks for the replies, great to read them!

OK, I'm very aware that maybe most of the designers and users of the awesome Affinity Designer are not into scientific posters, books or documents, but I'm a mathematician and I love the app myself, as much as I understand and use it. :) Hence, I got a small, but important feature request: a plugin/native support which would allow one to use the power of "local" LaTeX typesetting for symbols, fonts and other scientific notations. I am aware I could use the great LaTeXiT + drag & drop, but still, I envision my workflow as follows: When I have a complicated figure to draw, I fire up Affinity Designer and I draw, but for annotations and everything font or math symbol related, I'm not quite covered. I have installed some versions of the native LaTeX fonts (CMU) to use system-wide, but some are missing and still doesn't feel the same. So for symbols, equations etc. I would like to be able to input a LaTeX formula (delimited by the well-known dollar-signs) and Affinity would typeset it locally, using the fonts included in the LaTeX distribution installed on my Mac. What do you think? Honestly, I think that such a feature would be useful for all kinds of technical drawers, although they may use CAD-style apps. But you'll never know when you need a formula on your piece of art, right? :) Moreover, in perspective, I'm sure this would provide immensely useful for the future Publisher app, with inter-operability. Thank you for the support and the awesome apps!

Okay, thanks for the reply. To be honest, that's somehow a let-down for me, as I (try to) draw more technical stuff than artistic. But I do respect your approach and I assume it's tailored around the majority of users' requests plus your considerations. All I can say then is good luck and fruitful development to see AD flourish fast! :)

Sorry for bringing this up again, but afaik, there are no immediate intentions on adding measurement tools in AD, which saddens me. I gave up iDraw for the much more feature-rich Affinity Designer but I really miss the measurement tools. 90% of my drawings are somehow technical, as I said above and I don't know how to overcome the lack of a measurement tool. An obvious workaround would be to draw an arrow with tips at both ends, then those small lines, then the label. Something similar could work for measures of angles. But really, this is much too complicated this way. So please guys, I don't know much about programming, but I can assume there's not a lot of work into implementing such a tool, at least in its basic form (e.g. adding a new "shape" or ends to a line to include two arrowheads plus those lines). Please take into account this feature and hopefully there will be more people here supporting my request. Thanks.

Oh, wow, thanks! To be honest, I'm not entirely familiar with the boolean operations on figures, but I'm trying to learn as much as possible, since I'm sure they're quite useful tools.

I am in need of such a tool, which could allow duplicating an object by rotating it around a selectable point a selectable amount of degrees. But as far as I know, there is no such tool (yet!) in Affinity Designer. As a workaround, you could use the so-called "Power Duplicate Method". This means you should perform the following steps: 1. Create your first triangle; 2. Select it then press (on a Mac) cmd+J (Edit -> Duplicate). This would create a copy of the initial object, placed on top of it; 3. Select the duplicate, drag it and position it manually where you would want it to be; 4. Make sure you have this second object selected (the duplicate) and press cmd+J again (Edit -> Duplicate). This would automatically produce another object as the first one, but placed following the rule you described when constructing the second. See this short video for further clarification: I'm somehow new to Affinity Designer myself, I hope I explained it clear enough. :) Good luck!

Sorry if this is a basic question or has been answered before, but I really couldn't figure it out. How do you fill a space between three or more concurrent curves? Say you have three lines which form a triangle, how can you fill the formed triangle with a colour? See my example: I drew the circle, joined the respective opposite marks and I have obtained those polygons that I filled. My approach was to redraw the formed polygons using the pen tool and then filling them, but there must be some other way. Or if I want to fill the curvilinear triangles that are formed with the circle - how do I do that? Thank you. desen_modular.svg

I couldn't agree more!

Thanks for the post, Chris. I have refunded the iDraw purchases and got AD, as I said. I really like this community and the involvement of the developers and, although you could say that AD is at its very beginning, there's a lot of plans for growth and I like that. I have to say, though, that there are 2 things I miss deeply from iDraw, aside from the iPad version: the possibility to add many instances of the same effect and the measurement tools. I have written about these in some feature request topics, I can't wait to see them implemented. As for Sketch, I could have used an educational 50% discount, but yes, on the "creativity" level, it seems that AD has much surpassed it.

Thank you, Hokusai. I also love the roadmap the guys revealed and this forum (and this very topic) is a good indicator for their awesome activity and improvement initiatives. Although I'm not a pro (I'm not even good at design), I can already see many more features in AD and an overall smoother experience than in iDraw. The only thing I feared is that the developers could focus more on artists, but the topic you mentioned proves that they really want to make it *the* design app for everybody. I have done a bit more searches on this forum and the results reinforce this. Alrighty then, I have purchased AD and all I can say, apart from thanks for the replies is good luck and keep up the good work, Serif! Let the updates roll! :)

Hi Allan, Thanks for the reply. Actually, I have already installed the AD trial, I'm on the 6th day I think. And yes, I do love it, but I'm still not sure about its potential for UI stuff. I have browsed this forum and it seems to me that most of the creations that it was used for are rather artistic than functional. I have a long way ahead discovering it in its entirety, but I have to say that I've tested iDraw and it does seem more intuitive to me. Although not that powerful, that's why I'm still thinking about switching to AD. And yes, I do love this forum and the fact that the developers are very involved with a great roadmap in front. I'll try to test and find as much as I can in the remaining trial days and I hope that someone with some experience with all of these (or at least AD vs iDraw) could share some insights.

First of all, please excuse if my question is not suitable for this forum, but it's been more than a week of thought process, experiments and still I cannot choose. The context is: I am no artist, I can't draw. I'm actually a Mathematician and a Physicist and I would like to make some educational materials for my students. I don't know code, but I'm starting to learn HTML stuff and also getting familiar with vector graphics. My workflow should be: - Design buttons and interface stuff; - Design educational illustrations (pulleys, inclines, springs - Physics related objects), not artistic, but somehow "attractive", "realistic" if you will; - Take all these and use them as resources in some HTML editor and animator (I already love Tumult's Hype 3). Now I'm stuck at choosing between AD, iDraw and Sketch 3. My impressions are: - AD is a great tool, very active development, but somehow channelled towards artists; - Sketch 3 is made for UI makers, it would be very easy to make buttons, sliders and interface stuff in it; - iDraw looks like a mixture of the both, but at a quite basic level. Best bet would probably be AD + Sketch 3, but they are quite expensive, even with the edu discount for Sketch 3. So, if it were to choose only one of the three, which one would you choose and how would your workflow look like? Do you have even other alternatives? Thank you.

Yes, it would be useful for AP, but I found myself needing this tool in AD when I added small effects like Drop Shadow or some kind of glow or whatnot. It would be more useful to have that tool or better a mini focus window on the sidebar so I don't have to zoom in and out whenever I have to check small details.

Oh I see now. Well, this shortcut enables the magnifying glass, the zoom tool. What I (we?) want is a loupe tool, as Aperture has, for example. Something like this: Such a tool would enable a local focus and enlargement, while keeping the entire canvas not zoomed. Just as in the case one uses the colour picker - a "portable" local zoom and focus that follows your pointer. This, as I understand, is impossible in this version of AD.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. Space + Cmd opens Spotlight search.

Oh, right, sorry. I did a search before creating the topic, but somehow I missed that topic. Another idea for implementation, aside from a "portable" Loupe tool, as Aperture's, there could be some kind of a mini-focus window on the sidebar, over or under the colour palette or there, somewhere on the right sidebar. :) This way it could be always on if one wants and it would show the surroundings of your pointer, whatever tool you use. This would be awe-zoom! :) Cheers, Adrian

I was working today at some small and detailed designs, such as clocks and thought about a useful tool that I'd love to see in AD: a Loupe. For me, at least, it would be extremely helpful when you want to check, say, the drop shadows or the inner glow of a small element of your design or some small detail at a corner, a bezel or even..."an aluminium chamfered edge!" :lol: I am by no means a pro, I just discovered AD and graphic design a week ago, maybe pros do it differently and don't need such a tool. But for me, a Loupe, which could serve as a local zoom tool (of a user specified amount), would be great. Thanks.

Thank you very much, MEB and Chris! This is useful. Regards, Adrian

Right, thank you. I read your roadmap earlier, but somehow missed that point. Well, (im)patiently waiting then. :)

Hello everyone! I want to start by saying that I am by no means a designer, I just started learning about vector graphics and design last week, so sorry if my question is basic. I started using iDraw then I switched to Affinity Designer. My question is: can I use more than one effect of the same type? For example, for the same shape, have two or three drop shadows? I don't see any "+" signs to add a new effect or to duplicate an existing one. Also, can I select and copy the settings for an effect to apply them to another shape? Thank you.

Yep, as I said, I could then use AD for any kind of educational illustrations: mechanical, electric etc. Also, an option for adding custom labels in which one could use HTML or some kind of code such that we are not limited to basic text, but instead use greek characters and various mathematical symbols. Thanks for the Fritzing, I'll give it a try!

Hello, creative people! I'm a science professor (Physics and Math, mostly) and I'm working at some electronic educational materials for my students. When I found about vector graphics and AD, it was a game changer for me. I'm not by any means an artistic person, I don't draw, paint or whatever, but I use AD for science illustrations (inclines, pulleys, circuits, geometric shapes). I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but my feature request is a small detail that I find useful for science illustrations. I would like it to have a special tool for displaying measurements and some other labels. For example, if I draw an incline, to be able to show its measurements or if I have a problem with, say, a football field or a rectangle, to quickly add its measurements. And not only the (measurement) label, but also the specific arrows, like on the sidelines of the picture in the attachment. Also, should I (or any of you) have any more ideas for useful features for scientific illustrations, I'll surely come back. Thank you for your time and the great products! EDIT: I'm sorry, for some reason, the attachment doesn't display as it should. It's this picture: http://www.volleyball-rules.net/images/volleyball_court_dimensions.jpg