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Recently had a colleague asking about my thoughts on switching to Affinity Designer from Ai. I've been using Designer since 1.2 and overall really love the program, but this question reminded me of some of the common issues that come up for me daily. So my response was that is was a great program that can replace Ai… but there are some issues so I can't fully recommend you do it. The main issues that stop me from fully recommending the app are: 1. Expand stroke can create truly horrible results, especially if you have variation in the stroke pressure. From excessive points (no simplify path operations either) to weird curves. And the smooth rounded ends of variable pressure strokes become pointed. 2. There is no Free transform tool. Something I sorely miss from Ai to make quick perspective changes on grouped objects. 3. For some reason I find it very unpredictable where the resulting shape of path operations will go. I don't know how much time I waste having to put errant resulting intersected shape back into the group from which it's parents came. 4. And lastly, working in the web, it find it a little inconvenient no to be able to enter colour values (ie. hex, rgb) on the Colour palette. I know there is also the Colour Chooser palette with the number fields, but it is so gigantic and doesn't fit in with the other palettes. If they would just combine those into one, with the option of toggling the colour fields. That'd be so nice.

Hi, first of all I am impressed by the great Software at that Price - thanks! I tried to rotate some path points and hoped that the brilliant concept of Adobe Illustrator was implemented in your Software where you can rotate and mirror just by using modifying keys like strg, alt and shift. Also it was very easy to Position the Center of Rotation/mirroring using the alt-key. Ok your Approach is different, but it would be great if you could have a look at it. However your Approach seems to be Buggy: I can rotate the path Point by using the slider in the tranformation Panel nor entering the Rotation angle, because it always falls back to 0° whenever I carry on with other objects. Also I cannot define the Center of rotation. I Appreciate any Feedback on this. Best regards, P.S. I am using Affinity Designer 1.6.4.104

Hello there! I know that it is a bit annoying to ask for features existing on other apps but there is one small behaviour on Adobe Illustrator that really saves a lot of time when you get used to it (and you get used it very quickly). In Adobe Illustrator once you add corner radius to a path and apply some boolean operations you could still control the corner radius (they keep editable). In Affinity, when you add a corner radius to a path (using the corner tool) and apply some boolean operations the corner radius becomes expanded and its imposible to control de radius after that. This is especially important when designing icons and alike because you're always trying to keep a coherent look but some shapes need more roundness than others so you may try different radius and decide to change it later on when you may already apply path operations. Hope this could be also done in Affinity Designer, I really think it is time saver behaviour, well, I honestly think that any smart behaviour like this are time savers in general.