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Hi, I have no idea when 2.0 will come but here would be my list of things that I'm hoping at least will change. I hope this can be somehow helpful. (Sorry for my english, hope you will understand).

1) Payment/Business model/Updates: I will start with that because it may be the most important for Affinity to bring all other changes. I think Affinity did toooo big jump of $ model. I know you have a big companion - Adobe - but Sketch showed that when program is good it will have dedicated audience and begin the change. Sketch has AMAZING business model. 99$ for lifetime licence and 1-year updates. I'm so happy to pay them that money every year, especially that they give updates so frequently.

This is something that worries me about Affinity. I don't see any updates. When I look at your forums and blog I see that there is not much news / info about new releases. I would hate if Affinity would stop development because the number of new users slows down. I would feel more hopeful if I know that every Affinity User would gladly pay for next year of updates. While I was using that program for a while I noticed some major bugs/problems (stroke expand / no live warp perspective) and few minor ones (the way how affinity photo handles artboards and live filters) and things to improve (live perspective / export persona / mockup support / publisher script, GREP, find and replace presents support etc.). I have NO idea when anything like that will be changed. I’ve seen posts about „expand stroke problem” for a long long time - and nothing has changed, and this is the biggest problem of all that I have encountered… It almost made me quite this program and only because I just love Affinity new fresh vibe, I have staid, but to not be able to „expand strokes” feels shockingly weird.

2) Stroke expand - this one have shocked me. I do understand when Affinity is missing some options from illustrator, but I wasn’t prepared for this. Stroke expand is not precise. When I expand a stroke it is weird looking object. This is crazy, because I have to play around it a lot right now. Creating logos started to be tricky. I’m glad that my sketch can expand strokes correctly. It feel like a bug that has to be patched „next week” but I’ve seen posts about it for a long time.

I could stop here because what is most important for me is a support/updates frequency and this shocking expand stroke problem. But I will write some more, maybe somebody will read it and relate :)

 

3) No live warp perspective filter - so without this filter I can’t do a proper mockup for things thet are not flat. This pretty much stoped me of showing my clients some of my corporate identity mockups. I can live without it, but it limits a lot of my presentations to clients.

4) Artboards in affinity photo - they can be created, but only by designer and then I open it in photo - I’ve stoped doing that because affinity photo doesn’t handles artboards well. Then I use few live perspective filters for mockups I have a refresh of quality problem. Even in export it can blurry my design.

5) Photo vs Designer - if we have a pixel persona in affinity designer, why photo and designer are not combined to one program? I feel like it could be the same program just with more „powerful” personas. It is not a big problem, but I would pay even more for designer if it would combine photo. It feels like they are „tooo close” to be separated- but I may be wrong.

6) Export Persona - For some reason exporting in affinity always confuses me. Maybe I’m do „adobed” but I feel that photoshop/illustartor/indesign does it better. More simple way. Slices: I did instagram grid and because copying artboard doesn’t copy slices in export persona, it forces me to manually do all slices again - very not intuitive and time consuming. „Slices from layers” works like exporting layers but this isn’t good - there should be an option to decide how slices behave. I miss stuff like „quick png export” when I could easily right-click layer/smart object and just export it as a simple png. I think adobe „export assets” is just much more simple, intuitive and it does that job good enough.

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1 hour ago, tytus 01UNIT said:

1) Payment/Business model/Updates: I will start with that because it may be the most important for Affinity to bring all other changes. I think Affinity did toooo big jump of $ model. I know you have a big companion - Adobe - but Sketch showed that when program is good it will have dedicated audience and begin the change. Sketch has AMAZING business model. 99$ for lifetime licence and 1-year updates. I'm so happy to pay them that money every year, especially that they give updates so frequently.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Each of the Affinity apps costs (in the US, when there is no sale ongoing) about $50. That is 1/2 of what you say you pay for Sketch. Your payment for the current version of any of the Affinity apps (currently version 1.7.3) will get you 1.8 when it is ready (sometime in the next few months, probably) free of charge. And it will get you future updates to 1.8 (1.8.1, 1.8.2, etc.) when they happen. And it will get you updates to 1.9 (and minor updates to 1.9), and possibly 1.10, 1.11, etc. You made a $50 payment which covers all future updates to that app until Affinity decides to create version 2.0. Even when Affinity releases 2.0, your 1.<whatever it is by then> app will continue to work.

We do not know when Serif will release 2.0, but from comments by Serif staff I am expecting that we will at least see 1.9 before we see 2.0, and possibly we will see 1.10. Thus, it is likely that a $50 payment now will cover you for several years before you'd need to decide about paying again to upgrade to 2.0.

1 hour ago, tytus 01UNIT said:

This is something that worries me about Affinity. I don't see any updates.

Version 1.8 is in beta now, and has been for a few months. It will probably be in beta for a few months more. When released it will be 1.8.0, and Serif will begin working on 1.8.1. Since I first purchased the apps at (I think) version 1.6.3 I have seen updates to 1.6.4, 1.6.5, 1.7.0, 1.7.1, and 1.7.3.

1 hour ago, tytus 01UNIT said:

While I was using that program for a while I noticed some major bugs/problems (stroke expand / no live warp perspective) and few minor ones (the way how affinity photo handles artboards and live filters) and things to improve (live perspective / export persona / mockup support / publisher script, GREP, find and replace presents support etc.). I have NO idea when anything like that will be changed.

Expand Stroke is much improved in the 1.8 beta. Publisher provides Find and Replace support including GREP. If you want those functions you will probably need to buy Publisher in addition to Photo or Designer, but only Serif knows for sure. If you do buy Publisher and Photo or Designer you get a very nice combination of functions through Publisher's StudioLink function. Very worth the extra cost, in my opinion.

1 hour ago, tytus 01UNIT said:

2) Stroke expand - this one have shocked me.

Try the 1.8 beta.

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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55 minutes ago, mpowell said:

Cool, been waiting for lots of new features & fixes, especially the ones mentioned in this post.
I have the Windows Store Version, everyday I check for updates, looking forward for version 2.0.

Perhaps you should first wait for version 1.8.   Also, instead of checking with the Windows Store, why not just look on the Forum for News and Information.  As for daily updates, it seems rather unreasonable to expect that the Affinity developers should send out a daily or weekly tweak to Photo, or Designer, or Publisher,  before they have thoroughly checked for the integration between the three apps.  After all, StudioLink is one of their great innovations.   As for me  --  and I suspect many hundreds of thousands of other happy users of these wonderful apps -- when the three Affinity apps are ready for the next update (v. 1.8), I will be very glad to have it.  In the meantime, I can always find a "workaround" that does the job, without having to "rent" my own creations from a behemoth like Adobe, who could care less about anything but how much the company can extort from its captives.

As for the "payment/business model" offered by titus 01UNIT, it might possibly be better for people who prefer that to stick with Adobe.   As for the rest of us, I would be willing to guess that we are delighted with the pricing plan.

Just a thought on a cold winter day.


24" iMAC Apple M1 chip, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16 GB unified memory, 1 TB SSD storage, Ventura 13.6.  Photo, Publisher, Designer 1.10.5, and 2.3.
MacBook Pro 13" 2020, Apple M1 chip, 16GB unified memory, 256GB  SSD storage
,  Ventura 13.6.   Publisher, Photo, Designer 1.10.5, and 2.1.1.  
 iPad Pro 12.9 2020 (4th Gen. IOS 16.6.1); Apple pencil.  
Wired and bluetooth mice and keyboards.9_9

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2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Try the 1.8 beta.

Hi @walt.farrell,

test beta 1.8 has been offered OP before, see

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/73176-expand-stroke-still-sucks/&do=findComment&comment=575558

Neither did he respond, apparently did not try it, and prefers to complain again.

Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301
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2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Each of the Affinity apps costs (in the US, when there is no sale ongoing) about $50. That is 1/2 of what you say you pay for Sketch. Your payment for the current version of any of the Affinity apps (currently version 1.7.3) will get you 1.8 when it is ready (sometime in the next few months, probably) free of charge. And it will get you future updates to 1.8 (1.8.1, 1.8.2, etc.) when they happen. And it will get you updates to 1.9 (and minor updates to 1.9), and possibly 1.10, 1.11, etc. You made a $50 payment which covers all future updates to that app until Affinity decides to create version 2.0. Even when Affinity releases 2.0, your 1.<whatever it is by then> app will continue to work.

We do not know when Serif will release 2.0, but from comments by Serif staff I am expecting that we will at least see 1.9 before we see 2.0, and possibly we will see 1.10. Thus, it is likely that a $50 payment now will cover you for several years before you'd need to decide about paying again to upgrade to 2.0.

Version 1.8 is in beta now, and has been for a few months. It will probably be in beta for a few months more. When released it will be 1.8.0, and Serif will begin working on 1.8.1. Since I first purchased the apps at (I think) version 1.6.3 I have seen updates to 1.6.4, 1.6.5, 1.7.0, 1.7.1, and 1.7.3.

Expand Stroke is much improved in the 1.8 beta. Publisher provides Find and Replace support including GREP. If you want those functions you will probably need to buy Publisher in addition to Photo or Designer, but only Serif knows for sure. If you do buy Publisher and Photo or Designer you get a very nice combination of functions through Publisher's StudioLink function. Very worth the extra cost, in my opinion.

Try the 1.8 beta.

 

Thank you for info about beta. I'm downloading Designer right now. I hope "Expand Stroke" is improved there. So my idea came from my experience over a years with skatch. I really like how sketch is handling updates and subscription. I think it is really good model and I think I would like to have the same "feeling" in affinity too. BUT sketch is just MAC and it is one program. So the team is more focused on one product. Affinity seems to be much more complicated programs and a lot of platforms. But still I really like an idea about lots of (even small) updates like sketch does (they have now version 62 I think). So, I think we shouldn't wait for "expand stroke" as a big update thing. There should be patch dedicated just for that, because it is very core element of vector design. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to flame affinity for it - I'm an a big fan of sketch and now I'm a fan of affinity, because I don't like how fat Adobe became and those programs feel outdated.

I have a publisher and I'm talking about saving presents of "Find and Replace". Because in Poland, in all text there is a rule that alone letter can't be on the end of sentence. So I had a script in InDesign, and in Publisher I find out on some forum how to do it, but still I have to copy/paste it from my notebook - I wish I could save it in the program. But it is not crucial :)

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6 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Hi @walt.farrell,

test beta 1.8 has been offered OP before, see

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/73176-expand-stroke-still-sucks/&do=findComment&comment=575558

Neither did he respond, apparently did not try it, and prefers to complain again.

@Pšenda please, be more forgiving :) I haven't seen that response. I've been reading about "Expand Stroke" for some time already and I didn't see a possibility to go for Beta. - and by the way it "proves" my point about smaller patches like sketch is doing. If 1.8 has this tool repaired I think there should be a ASAP update even if it would be 1.7.4 with just this one bug :) This is crucial tool for designing. BUT Pšenda my long post wasn't only about that one thing. Plus, this is a very new experience for me, to shuffle through forums that much. So just be more forgiving, please :)

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31 minutes ago, tytus 01UNIT said:

If 1.8 has this tool repaired I think there should be a ASAP update even if it would be 1.7.4 with just this one bug :) 

Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Often, changing the user-facing behavior of just one feature requires extensive 'under the hood' changes to the code, which in turn can (& frequently does) introduce new bugs that have to be identified & eliminated. That is why we have a separate section of the forum for customer betas with guidelines for reporting bugs found in the betas.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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  • 9 months later...

Ok, for real. I'm stubborn affinity user... but are there ANY info about 2.0? I've seen 1.9 BETA that is not recommended to use for work... But I have a feeling that 1.9 will be underwhelming. I'm still waiting for major update because 1.8 didn't change much. Expand stroke still sucks ... no simplify paths ... no trace - God bless https://www.autotracer.org/ ... No real Warp/Distort options... No warp live perspective so no real mockup support... and the list goes on...) Sorry to say that but I've stoped recommending Affinity to PROs. I've been with affinity for a long time already and it feels like you are trying to realise 2.0... or I have NO idea what is a developing team doing. There are NO real updates, zero. Sorry, I am an affinity follower with heart, same as SKETCH, but I will say it again, learn from them, they know how active development should be. Maybe that is why SKETCH focused only on MAC, maybe you have too many projects and not enough programming power. I would love to pay twice as much for affinity and get more movement with a real roadmap - go kickstarter or something with 2.0, we need you affinity!

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2 hours ago, tytus 01UNIT said:

but are there ANY info about 2.0? 

...

But I have a feeling that 1.9 will be underwhelming. I'm still waiting for major update

There is no info about 2.0, either about what it might contain or when it might arrive. We might see, for example, 1.10, 1.11, 1.12, etc. before we ever see 2.0. Or 2.0 might be the next thing after 1.9.

As for major updates, that probably depends on what is most important to you, but those of us testing the 1.9 beta have seen some interesting updates.

All 3 applications:

  • Presets for the studio panel layout and a Preset manager
  • Package files
  • Hardware acceleration (GPU support) on Windows
  • Application registration and the ability to automatically download purchased content from the Affinity Store to all the applications and copies of the applications
  • Blend mode improvements (Divide blend mode, blend modes for layers that are just alpha channels)

Photo and Designer:

  • Ability to have Linked files
  • Resource Manager
  • Linked Text Frames and ability to hide/show overflow text
  • Ability to rotate the view around the mouse
  • Ability to convert a pixel layer to an (Image) layer

Photo:

  • Support for Text on a Path
  • Astrophotography Stack
  • Pattern Layers
  • Export Timelapse
  • Live Liquify Layers

Designer:

  • Added Flood Select Tool to Pixel Persona
  • Automatically align artboards on pixel boundaries
  • Select Same and Select Object
  • Contour Tool

Publisher:

  • Data Merge
  • Improvements to IDML import
  • PDF Passthrough support

I omitted some smaller things, and may have missed some. And there are bug fixes, too, of course.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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15 hours ago, tytus 01UNIT said:

Ok, for real. I'm stubborn affinity user... but are there ANY info about 2.0? I've seen 1.9 BETA that is not recommended to use for work... But I have a feeling that 1.9 will be underwhelming. I'm still waiting for major update because 1.8 didn't change much. Expand stroke still sucks ... no simplify paths ... no trace - God bless https://www.autotracer.org/ ... No real Warp/Distort options... No warp live perspective so no real mockup support... and the list goes on...) Sorry to say that but I've stoped recommending Affinity to PROs. I've been with affinity for a long time already and it feels like you are trying to realise 2.0... or I have NO idea what is a developing team doing. There are NO real updates, zero. Sorry, I am an affinity follower with heart, same as SKETCH, but I will say it again, learn from them, they know how active development should be. Maybe that is why SKETCH focused only on MAC, maybe you have too many projects and not enough programming power. I would love to pay twice as much for affinity and get more movement with a real roadmap - go kickstarter or something with 2.0, we need you affinity!

Wait for a miracle - or use an actual solution now. That is your real options.

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
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