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In that past I raised the issue of why AD did not have as many features as the old PP8? I was told that transferring PP features to AD is not easy because of the the two different OS - Window s and Mac. However now that there is a Windows version of AD does this have the same features as the old PP8?

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Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

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Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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21 minutes ago, jackamus said:

the old PP8

Did you mean to type ‘DP8’, Jack? It makes more sense to compare two hybrid vector/raster drawing applications (DP and AD) or two page layout applications (PP and APub) than a mixture of the two types. Anyway, the answer to your question is that the core features are shared between the different desktop platforms, so the Windows version doesn’t have any extra features that the Mac version lacks.

As a side note, the last versions of DP and PP were X8 and X9, respectively. DP8 and PP9 (without the ‘X’) are more than a decade older.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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7 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Did you mean to type ‘DP8’, Jack? It makes more sense to compare two hybrid vector/raster drawing applications (DP and AD) or two page layout applications (PP and APub) than a mixture of the two types. Anyway, the answer to your question is that the core features are shared between the different desktop platforms, so the Windows version doesn’t have any extra features that the Mac version lacks.

As a side note, the last versions of DP and PP were X8 and X9, respectively. DP8 and PP9 (without the ‘X’) are more than a decade older.

Yes I was comparing PagePlus8 with AD for Windows. I never got to use PagePlus9.

So why can't the PP8 features be included in the AD Windows version since they are both on the platform? This was the reason I was given for not including them because Windows features were not transferable to Mac.

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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1 minute ago, jackamus said:

So why can't the PP8 features be included in the AD Windows version since they are both on the platform?

We’ve had this discussion before. The ‘Plus’ applications are/were hugely dependent on native Windows features but the Affinity apps are not: you can’t simply ‘bolt on’ chunks of incompatible code.

I still don’t understand why you insist on trying to compare Affinity Designer with PagePlus rather than DrawPlus, or why you refer to version 8 rather than version 18.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Sorry Alfred It's my mistake - put it down to my age!

I meant comparing DrawPlus8 with Affinity Designer Windows version.  So can you now see where I'm coming from now regarding AD for Windows and DrawPlus8?

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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1 hour ago, jackamus said:

I meant comparing DrawPlus8 with Affinity Designer Windows version.  So can you now see where I'm coming from now regarding AD for Windows and DrawPlus8?

This is a comparison (assuming you mean DrawPlus X8) between an app that was in development for over 22 years and one that has been out since November 2016 (almost 4 years).

The Affinity apps share none of the same codebase as the Legacy 'Plus' range - meaning features cannot simply be 'used' or 'imported' from one app to the other, as Alfred has mentioned.

This is not the first thread you've created in this ilk and this has been explained to you previously - 

Please keep the Affinity Questions section of the forums reserved for questions relating to the Affinity apps and not our legacy apps. Many thanks.

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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I believe my previous postings were related to a comparison between DP8 (Windows OS) and AD Mac version. I accepted the reasons for the difference.

However the current thread asks why the Widows version of AD does not contain the features of the Windows DP8?  I feel that this is not an unreasonable question and I would not have asked it if there had been no AD windows version.

I'm believe that I am comparing like with like.

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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3 minutes ago, jackamus said:

I'm believe that I am comparing like with like.

You are still comparing a program that was developed for 22 years (and had that much time to add features) to one that has been developed for only 4 years (with only a bit under 1/5 the time to do the development of features).

-- 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.
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Just now, jackamus said:

However the current thread asks why the Widows version of AD does not contain the features of the Windows DP8?  I feel that this is not an unreasonable question and I would not have asked it if there had been no AD windows version.

It doesn't contain the same features as they aren't the same apps.

They have been developed by different teams, one built upon a 20 year old codebase (Plus range) and the other was written from scratch (Affinity). With less than 1/5th of the same development time as the Plus range software, the Affinity apps don't support the same features and their code cannot be 'mixed and matched', so any of the features from the Plus range products have to be re-written - not only for Windows, but also Mac and occasionally iPad too.

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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Obviously I'm showing my ignorance of how software is developed and this I can only apologise for. 

However in my simple way of thinking, a program (DP) was built over 22 years using the Windows operating system. Again in my simple way I see the Windows OS as a set of building blocks used to create software. 

My question is if you have built a good piece of software using a particular set of building blocks then why can't you use the same set of building locks to add extra features to the already existing set of building blocks called DrawPlus and call it Affinity Designer?

Please explain what it is I'm missing.

 

 

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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5 minutes ago, Dan C said:

It doesn't contain the same features as they aren't the same apps.

They have been developed by different teams, one built upon a 20 year old codebase (Plus range) and the other was written from scratch (Affinity). With less than 1/5th of the same development time as the Plus range software, the Affinity apps don't support the same features and their code cannot be 'mixed and matched', so any of the features from the Plus range products have to be re-written - not only for Windows, but also Mac and occasionally iPad too.

OK. So what you are saying is the fact that AD and DP use the Windows OS has no connection with code that is used to write software. Can that be compared with using the same kind of paper (OS) to write a story on in German (code) and in English (code)?

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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30 minutes ago, Dan C said:

The Affinity apps share none of the same codebase as the Legacy 'Plus' range - meaning features cannot simply be 'used' or 'imported' from one app to the other, as Alfred has mentioned.

My analogy is crude but what this means is it would be something like trying to bolt a set of kitchen cabinets to exactly the same place on one home's kitchen wall in another home's kitchen wall that has an entirely different floor plan, one that has no kitchen walls in the same place to bolt anything to.

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
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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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Just now, jackamus said:

My question is if you have built a good piece of software using a particular set of building blocks then why can't you use the same set of building locks to add extra features to the already existing set of building blocks called DrawPlus and call it Affinity Designer?

This would be like trying to use macaroni in conjunction with a Lego set - you might be able to force some pasta into a hole in the Lego, but most likely you would end up breaking the Lego, the macaroni, or both.

Put simply the coding used for DrawPlus (and any other Plus range software) isn't compatible with the same coding used with Affinity. The last 20 years have changed the way coding is handled and written (speaking from an outsider enthusiast perspective, I'm not a developer nor never have been) and this means that our developers would spend the same, if not more time trying to adapt old code from the Plus range to use in Affinity than it may take to simply write the feature from scratch.

The decision not to reuse the Plus range code was also made as it allows our devs to streamline old process and add support for new features that were not available at the time of writing the Plus range, such as Metal Compute on Mac OS.

3 minutes ago, jackamus said:

Can that be compared with using the same kind of paper (OS) to write a story on in German (code) and in English (code)?

Absolutely, that's one way of looking at this - adding parts of a story in German to an English story will only confuse the 'readers'  :)

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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11 minutes ago, R C-R said:

My analogy is crude but what this means is it would be something like trying to bolt a set of kitchen cabinets to exactly the same place on one home's kitchen wall in another home's kitchen wall that has an entirely different floor plan, one that has no kitchen walls in the same place to bolt anything to.

OK I do understand what you are saying and it makes sense. So can you then explain, in this scenario, what would be the equivalent to the OS?

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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11 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Absolutely, that's one way of looking at this - adding parts of a story in German to an English story will only confuse the 'readers'  :)

Now I feel I'm getting somewhere. So the OS, whatever kind it is, has nothing to do with the code used or writing it, it is merely a medium/foundation/platform on which to write.

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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1 minute ago, jackamus said:

So the OS, whatever kind it is, has nothing to do with the code used or writing it, it is merely a medium/foundation/platform on which to write.

Of course it's a bit more nuanced than this, but essentially yes!

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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1 minute ago, jackamus said:

So can you then explain, in this scenario, what would be the equivalent to the OS?

In my analogy the 'operating systems' of the two homes are the same -- in they both provide storage, food preparation, pluming, & other kitchen 'subsystems' that 'operate' in basically the same way.

It is the difference in their floor plans -- that their kitchen walls are located in entirely different places -- that makes it impossible to bolt cabinets to the same place in both of their kitchens. In the analogy the floor plans are equivalent the codes of the homes; the walls equivalent to the various places features can be bolted to them.

IOW, if there is no "there" there, nothing can be bolted to it.

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
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I accept your analogy as making sense and I would like to thank everyone for enlightening me on the difference between OS and code writing.

In concluding this thread I would just like to say  I find it odd that Serif spent 22 years developing DP using the Windows OS and then reinventing it later and calling it AD Windows. Why not just take the original DP and change its name to AD?

I suspect that this would be a bad move as the 'new' Windows AD would be better that the Mac AD.

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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5 minutes ago, jackamus said:

Why not just take the original DP and change its name to AD?

Because:

  1. DP did not have the features that Serif wanted for Affinity (common file format across all the applications, Personas, etc.).
  2. And because the DP code was probably rather like a can of spaghetti after 22 years of updates. Old code can become extremely hard to work with over time.
  3. And because they wanted application and file compatibility between Mac, Windows, and iPad.

-- 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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I can understand wanting to build in this compatibility but at the expense of something that had been working so well?

Would this also be true of other graphic software that has been around for a longer time?

 

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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21 minutes ago, jackamus said:

I can understand wanting to build in this compatibility but at the expense of something that had been working so well?

Would this also be true of other graphic software that has been around for a longer time?

 

It's true of most software, in my experience as a software developer for about 40 years.

And Serif did nothing "at the expense of something that had been working well". DP still works, so keep using it if you want to. Serif merely chose to develop a different program, instead of further enhancing an old one that no longer met their needs. If it still meets your needs, that's wonderful.

-- 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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Hi Walt I follow what say and I would love to continue to use DP8 but, as I said earlier, I got fed-up with Microsoft and went for a Mac. I didn't know it at the time but It was a double edged sword!

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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Use hobbyist software and take hobbyist risks.

  • "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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10 minutes ago, Jowday said:

Use hobbyist software and take hobbyist risks.

While I agree in that sentiment in general, to me Jack's "issue" isn't due to hobby software. There's plenty of Mac software, both professional and "hobby" software that exists only for a Mac, that if he had switched to a Windows computer from a Mac, he would have been in the same boat.

So to me, it is a lack of researching as to the ramifications of such a switch would have concerning his software. The same applies to even upgrading an OS that one depends on software that does not run on a newer OS version. Both problems exist and people, even professionals, make those mistakes every day.

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1 hour ago, MikeW said:

While I agree in that sentiment in general, to me Jack's "issue" isn't due to hobby software. There's plenty of Mac software, both professional and "hobby" software that exists only for a Mac, that if he had switched to a Windows computer from a Mac, he would have been in the same boat.

So to me, it is a lack of researching as to the ramifications of such a switch would have concerning his software. The same applies to even upgrading an OS that one depends on software that does not run on a newer OS version. Both problems exist and people, even professionals, make those mistakes every day.

True. But Serif abandoning own software entirely for new software without significant feature overlap for 5+ years... and no migration tools. Death. Having been part of many migration projects I can easily claim that this scenario wouldn't result in any medium or larger company picking Serifs Affinity line being a customer already or not. We picked new products based on an evaluation of several parameters. Never hype. At present after 5 or 6 years we still have no clue about what will be added to Affinity of the missing features - and what will not. 10 years of uncertainty. No way.

Serif could afford the move because they have so few corporate customers. Creating the Affinity line from scratch was technically a brilliant move - but customers looking for continuity were left behind. That works with hobbyist customers. Ain't gonna fly elsewhere.

  • "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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