How to completely avoid the .afdesign file format

[David.Woosley]

Hi. We work with SVG files, and I'd prefer not to know that the .afdesign file format even exists for a variety of reasons. For example, to save an edited SVG file, here are the steps I've found:

Click on File.
Click on Export.
Click on Export again.
Click on Save.
Click on Yes to overwrite.
Attempt to close the file.
Click on No to avoid saving the afdesign format.

Here are the keystrokes: Alt-F, E, Enter, Enter, Enter, Ctrl-W, N

I'd typically expect: Ctrl-S, Ctrl-W

Since these SVG files may be edited and deployed by other users using a variety of design tools, whatever extra information exists in the .afdesign format is irrelevant. Whenever I receive an SVG to edit, that extra information obviously won't be in the file.

I may be missing something. How do I save an SVG as an SVG by default? Not export, save. Is there a setting somewhere?

Many thanks, David.

 

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, David.Woosley said:

I may be missing something. How do I save an SVG as an SVG by default? Not export, save. Is there a setting somewhere?

You can change the keyboard shortcuts, so that Ctrl+S is Export rather than Save, but you will need to use the Export function.

[David.Woosley]

Yes, that decreases the keystrokes from seven to six. Yet, still, when I attempt to close an edited file and I see Close Document warning about unsaved changes, I must ask myself, "Wait. Do I need to save the file again as an SVG, or am I being prompted to save it as an afdesign?" (I suspect it's always the latter.) The Close Document popup asks whether I want to save myfile.svg, but what it's actually asking is whether I want to save myfile.afdesign. And, no matter which way I answer -- Yes or No -- I still can't know for sure whether the file has been saved as an industry standard SVG. Is that correct?

Thanks, D.

P.S. -- I understand that the current functionality would make sense if: (a) The afdesign format was the industry standard and SVG wasn't; or, (b) The SVG format did not contain enough information to edit the image again, in AD or elsewhere.

[walt.farrell]

35 minutes ago, David.Woosley said:

or, (b) The SVG format did not contain enough information to edit the image again, in AD or elsewhere.

The SVG format you saved may not contain the complete information. For example, it does not contain the edit history, which might be important to you later. And some aspects of the file may be rasterized in the SVG rather than being kept as vectors. If you saved/kept the .afdesign version you'd have all that (and perhaps more).

The SVG output will in the general case only contain a subset of what you might actually have in the full file. (It may, of course, contain all that you want, but that does not mean that it is a complete representation of all the data you had.)

[David.Woosley]

Thanks, but my P.S. was a comment, not the question. When I see the Close Document warning, it seems, in my opinion, that I literally have no idea whether either path I take is relevant to accomplishing what I need to happen, which is safely saving the file as an SVG. The Close Document popup warning is, in effect, worthless if I need to save my work as an SVG and know whether I've done so. Is that correct? I need to know whether I must ignore that warning (Cancel), then backtrack to save the SVG whether I need to or not.

If I need to do all of that, please say so. I'll continue to evaluate other aspects of the software.

Thanks.

 

Edited October 5, 2020 by David.Woosley

[walt.farrell]

I think you have two choices:

1. Close the document immediately after you Export it. Then you know it's safe to ignore the warning. Or.

2. Export it again if you can't remember.

If the History panel recorded Saves and Exports you could know for sure in approach #2. But unfortunately it doesn't, if I remember correctly.

[David.Woosley]

OK, thanks. It's a good-looking product, and I'm pleased to be a new customer.

Suggestion for a future release: Please allow industry-standard file formats to be created, edited and saved with industry-standard functionality without interference from propriety formats. I believe that would be helpful to many, if not most, users.

Regards,

David

 

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, David.Woosley said:

Please allow industry-standard file formats to be created, edited and saved with industry-standard functionality without interference from propriety formats.

That's a good idea. However, the current situation may partly be to protect you.

They do allow that for the image file formats (JPG, PNG, TIFF), where (I think) they support everything in the standards. And they allow it for PSD, with a warning because they don't support all the PSD properties and saving back over the original PSD file can ruin it (e.g., text will be rasterized, some effects will be lost).

It is not allowed for other formats, including EPS and SVG, and that may also be because it is easy to ruin the original file if you save over it. Again, I believe there are aspects of those file formats that are not fully supported by the Affinity applications, so if you were to save over the original those aspects of the file would be lost. So perhaps they make it harder by not directly allowing Save, and not providing a direct way to save over the original file.

[David.Woosley]

All good points. I'll likely have questions in the future. Many thanks.

 

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.