Why are there three Affinity apps?

[walt.farrell]

14 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

I would really love a shortcut key for this as well... for example if I'm in Photo and press  I dunno... F9 and it switches to designer and in designer F9 to switch to Photo. It'd save me going to "File>Edit in" every time

Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts will let you specify a shortcut key for that.

[MattyWS]

Oh thanks! I don't know why I didn't even think to look.

[markw]

46 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts will let you specify a shortcut key for that.

Interesting, it won't on my Mac? No entry for Edit In... under Designer > File. You can do this on your Windows?

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, markw said:

Interesting, it won't on my Mac? No entry for Edit In... under Designer > File. You can do this on your Windows?

Yes, the Affinity apps on Windows provide that. (Though I was probably in the beta when I looked.)

[MattyWS]

Can confirm, I just did it on windows, now have a shortcut key set up to switch between photo and designer.

[MEB]

Hi markw,
Regarding the Edit in commands, they are missing on macOS. I'm logging this to be looked at. Thanks for spotting it.

You can however set a shortcut to switch between Personas in Publisher: go to Preferences, Keyboards Shortcuts, set the first dropdown to Publisher and the second to Affinity Publisher. Look at the second and third entries on the list below. Not the same but may help in some circunstances.

[markw]

12 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi markw,
In publisher (macOS), Preferences, Keyboards Shortcuts, set the first dropdown to Publisher and the second to Affinity Publisher. Look at the second and third entries on the list below.

Nope, still not there MEB. The screenshot is from Publisher beta but it's the same "no show" for 'Edit In...' in all three Affinty apps for me.

[MEB]

Hi mark,
I was editing my reply for clarity when you posted, Please check my previous reply again. The Edit in commands are indeed missing on macOS. I've logged this to be looked at.

[thomaso]

26 minutes ago, MEB said:

In publisher (macOS), go to Preferences, Keyboards Shortcuts, set the first dropdown to Publisher and the second to Affinity Publisher. Look at the second and third entries on the list below.

Me too can't see a shortcut entry for "Edit in ...", neither in shortcuts for the menu "A Publisher" nor for "File" (where it actually appears in the menu between "Save History ..." and "Reveal in Finder").

  

[MEB]

Hi thomaso,
These instructions are for setting shortcuts for the "internal" Designer and Photo Personas within Publisher. See my reply above for more details (which i edited for clarity). The Edit in commands are indeed missing and now logged.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, lineweight said:

It seems that the "Studiolink" concept already proves that what I am suggesting can work.

Maybe, maybe not. Using the Designer & Photo personas of Publisher via StudioLink requires that the full, stand alone versions of those two apps also are installed on the computer, and that each of them have been run at least once. In some unspecified way that 'links' them to Publisher, but they are still personas of Publisher, running in its (usually sandboxed) application space, separate & distinct from any of the personas of Designer or Photo, which may or may not be running in their own (also usually sandboxed) application spaces.

So other than the obvious fact that not all of Photo's Photo Persona features are available in Publisher's Photo Persona, we really don't know exactly what is being linked, or if this somehow requires something built separately into each stand alone app to create or maintain the link.

[Sofa Gas Rue]

18 hours ago, - S - said:

Most of my work is in Affinity Photo.  One example is that it's not possible to stroke a path with a brush like you can in Adobe Photoshop, which means I would need to use the Pencil tool or Vector Brush tool and for that I would need to use Affinity Designer.  The problem is that I then need to maintain another completely separate application, just to use two tools.

This generally sounds more like a feature request would work better than to actually merge the applications. AFAIK the early versions of Photoshop did not ship with ‘brush stroking’ and later when it was introduced they did not need to merge illustrator to achieve this ( I’m just speculating ) 

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If I modify swatches in Affinity Designer, the changes don't reflect in Affinity Photo and vice versa. The brushes I create in Affinity Photo, don't appear in the Affinity Designer.  The new document presets/templates that I already have setup in Affinity Photo, don't appear in Affinity Designer.  The Assets I use in Affinity Photo don't appear in Affinity Designer.  Etc. Etc. — you get the point.  It's not the cost that's the issue, it's that the experience is too jarring. 

Would an interchangeable preset system, such as Photoshops brush files ( .ABR ) work for you? This could have the added benefit of a much larger eco-system of presets such as what you see on DeviantArt etc.

 

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By having one base/core Affinity application with different personas, it wouldn't be necessary to set things up multiple times for each application and then try and keep them all in sync.  

In this ‘one affinity application with different personas’ scenario how do you imaging it not turning into bloatware should Affinity decide to add video editing and web development software on to their offering?

 

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Different people have different workflows and ideas, so obviously people will push back against this idea – it's to be expected; however for me personally, one application with different personas would work better for how I use it, as I would be in the Photo personas 90% of the time anyway. 

Totally agree, and please note my questions are just out of genuine curiosity for how other people work

[R C-R]

17 hours ago, - S - said:

If I modify swatches in Affinity Designer, the changes don't reflect in Affinity Photo and vice versa. The brushes I create in Affinity Photo, don't appear in the Affinity Designer.  The new document presets/templates that I already have setup in Affinity Photo, don't appear in Affinity Designer.  The Assets I use in Affinity Photo don't appear in Affinity Designer.  Etc. Etc. — you get the point.  It's not the cost that's the issue, it's that the experience is too jarring.

Templates can be organized into folders & then via the Add Folder button become available in all or some of the apps. I have created a 'master' template folder with 3 subfolders, one for each app. This works well for me but other, more elaborate schemes might work better for others.

The Mac OS but not Windows supports system palettes, which automatically appear in any app that supports them, including but not limited to the Affinity ones. Document palettes are stored in the document itself so it is really just application palettes that would need to be synced across two or more of the apps.

For app palettes, assets, & all the rest I think it would be useful to have the option to store items in files that all the apps could access, in addition to the per app files that are used for this now, sort of like a cross between my 'master' template folders & the Mac system palettes.

[lineweight]

On 4/17/2020 at 8:13 AM, Sofa Gas Rue said:

In this ‘one affinity application with different personas’ scenario how do you imaging it not turning into bloatware should Affinity decide to add video editing and web development software on to their offering?

 

I don't see why it would lead to bloatware. The reason to suggest merging the programmes is not to change or limit any of their functionality at all - it's based on an observation that they seem, already, essentially to be variants of the same programme. They are already set up so they can all use the same filetype, so that it's seamless to switch between them, and so that once you are familiar with the interface of one of them, you are fairly familiar with all. They already have widely overlapping functionality. It just seems a natural next step to remove any remaining barriers between them. It seems to me to follow the current concept to a logical end.

[Ron P.]

@lineweight, I think the simple answer to your question of "Why are there three apps? , Because Serif wanted three apps. How would you argue against that? 🙂

[Patrick Connor]

7 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

Why are there three apps? , Because Serif wanted three apps. 

"That's it, that's the tweet" as they say

[Sofa Gas Rue]

9 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

@lineweight, I think the simple answer to your question of "Why are there three apps? , Because Serif wanted three apps. How would you argue against that? 🙂

Hey don't make me wear down my keyboard for nothing

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, lineweight said:

I don't see why it would lead to bloatware.

Among other things, note that not only do Publisher's Designer & Photo personas enable only a single persona equivalent to the primary persona of those apps, Publisher's Photo Persona lacks quite a few of the features of the Photo Persona of Photo, so it is not even equivalent to the full version of that persona.

[Patrick Connor]

People buy kettles

People buy blenders

People buy microwaves

We could have launched a microwave-kettle-blender but until you own one you cannot imagine wanting one (see the tablet market 12 years ago)

Also it's a hard sell to convince anyone to replace the kettle they love, when only the blender broke, and they're used to their microwave with more functionality than our one.

Short answer, it would not sell

[MikeW]

5 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

People buy kettles. People buy blenders. People buy microwaves.

... it's a hard sell to convince anyone to replace of the kettle they love when only the blender broke, and they're used to their microwave. ...

Yep. All-in-one isn't good for anyone.

5 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

... I'm not following this thread so don't bother arguing with me.

Me either...

[Wosven]

Haha, he did it. Iwanted to compare to all-in-one kitchen robots of the 90’ we never use since we spend more time reading the manual and doing the dishes than using simplers ones.

And how Mozilla and other all in ones applications broke in "smaller" apps that get biger and biger today since each one need more code for different specific purposes. Some disappear too…

[lineweight]

It would be a funny old style of cooking, where you put stuff in the kettle, heated it up a bit, put it in the blender, blended it a bit, put it back in the kettle, heated it a bit, then stuck it in the microwave. Then back in the blender for a bit. Then the kettle for the final touches.

 

 

[Patrick Connor]

Perhaps not a perfect analogy

[thomaso]

>> "...perfect analogy"

Why is there no ...

"Affinity Designer for Kids"

Buy 2 get 1 free!
With an extra portion of pinks + blues and a preset of beautiful stamps to paste. 🤓😜

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

Perhaps not a perfect analogy

What about the Powell "Homer" car, a.k.a. the Homermobile?