Staff MattP Posted September 11, 2015 Staff Share Posted September 11, 2015 Purpose: Features / Improvements / Fixes Status: Beta Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer Mac App Store: Not Submitted Download: Here To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it. Please Note: We will do our utmost to fix anything that emerges as quickly as possible, but we just wanted you to understand that for production work we would recommend using the Mac App Store version until this beta has been validated for a few weeks. There are no translations included with this beta version, sorry - we aim to get them back soon... Notable changes: - Fix for compatibility issues with OS X Lion and Mountain Lion - Fix for PNG import issues - Fix for dragging enclosure objects in the Layers panel (this was broken in last time’s beta, sorry) - Many improvements to raster and vector export and options - Added user-defined Rotation Centre to the tools - Numerous PDF import and export improvements - Tweaks to character and paragraph panels - Expanded slightly on the Keyboard Shortcuts functionality smallreflection, vonBusing, 000 and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Harris Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Also notable: the Export persona now supports PSD, but it ignores the slice areas and always exports the whole document. We'll get this working as expected soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronnyb Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 User defined Rotation Center! Nice!!! Chris Heath 1 2021 16” Macbook Pro w/ M1 Max 10c cpu /24c gpu, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Ventura 13.6 2018 11" iPad Pro w/ A12X cpu/gpu, 256 GB, iPadOS 17 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronnyb Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Thanks for adding the Default Black and White in keyboard shortcuts!! MattP and Mr. Doodlezz 2 2021 16” Macbook Pro w/ M1 Max 10c cpu /24c gpu, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Ventura 13.6 2018 11" iPad Pro w/ A12X cpu/gpu, 256 GB, iPadOS 17 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rui_mac Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Where and how can we define the center of rotation? [edit] Nevermind... spot it :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signguy Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Rotation tool is Awesome! Thanks Affinity Team! MattP 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A_B_C Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Thank you so much for the addition of the rotation centre tool. It’s indeed awesome, and the implementation is really smart. And I like the new option to drag guides from the ruler with the Node Tool. :) Well, before I forget the following things, let me just add three observations. I could not figure out how to snap the rotation centre to its parent shape, neither to the bounding box nor to key points of the object geometry. It snaps just to other shapes. It would be great, if we had a switch on the Transform Panel that would allow us to disable the rotation centre setting there. When I reposition the rotation centre for a shape on the canvas, the Transform Panel setting always seems to overrule my custom canvas setting. But it would be great, if we could use the Transform Panel to edit rotation degrees numerically for on-canvas rotation centres as well. I noticed some odd behavior of the Node Tool. Seems I cannot select the Node Tool while a text tool is active or a text frame selected. Please have a look at my video below. Oh dear, it must be frustrating to get ever new user suggestions and observations after a week of hard work, but I hope you don’t mind these comments … awesome work. It’s wonderful to see the applications evolve. Cheers, Alex :) Node_Tool_Oddities.mov ronnyb 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evtonic3 Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Thank you so much for the addition of the rotation centre tool. It’s indeed awesome, and the implementation is really smart. And I like the new option to drag guides from the ruler with the Node Tool. :) Well, before I forget the following things, let me just add three observations. I could not figure out how to snap the rotation centre to its parent shape, neither to the bounding box nor to key points of the object geometry. It snaps just to other shapes. It would be great, if we had a switch on the Transform Panel that would allow us to disable the rotation centre setting there. When I reposition the rotation centre for a shape on the canvas, the Transform Panel setting always seems to overrule my custom canvas setting. But it would be great, if we could use the Transform Panel to edit rotation degrees numerically for on-canvas rotation centres as well. I noticed some odd behavior of the Node Tool. Seems I cannot select the Node Tool while a text tool is active or a text frame selected. Please have a look at my video below. Oh dear, it must be frustrating to get ever new user suggestions and observations after a week of hard work, but I hope you don’t mind these comments … awesome work. It’s wonderful to see the applications evolve. Cheers, Alex :) I am not experiencing this. Yosemite OS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A_B_C Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Hmm … I am on Yosemite as well … am I doing something wrong? :unsure: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted September 11, 2015 Staff Share Posted September 11, 2015 @ A_B_C No, it's a bug. Issue logged to be looked at. Thanks. A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A_B_C Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Thank you … :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imacken Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 Guys, although a lot of the issues with the pdf export have been fixed, I'm having a new problem. The colours in the pdf files from the beta are dull and washed out compared to using the MAS version (or the old engine in the beta options). Don't know if you can tell from the screen grabs below, but it's the same with all 'new' options - print, X1a, X3 and X4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imacken Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 The shots above are from Adobe Reader, but there is another issue, and that is that Finder does not preview pdfs from the new engine well. For example, in the screen grabs in my post above, the blacks look OK in Adobe Reader, but not in Finder previews. See attached 'old' and 'new'.old Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Harris Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 Is your document RGB? The export presets you mention all use CMYK - they are all for print which needs CMYK inks. If you use the Web preset, that forces sRGB, and the Export preset will use the colour space of your document: do those have the same issue? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
postmadesign Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 Thanks for the Lion Fix! Some observations: -The character and paragraph palettes are really nice, but there is a bug in font selection: Only if I select a font from the context bar on top does it actually change the font, changing it from the character palette does not work. - I think the typography panel is a bit of an afterthought, I would rather have it integrated in the characters palette, or have it as a palette in the same order as character & paragraph. - non-destructive Boolean operations on paths with smart nodes do not work, i.e. give weird results - boolean operations on open paths or lines give really weird results: I guess these operations are not supposed to work on these paths, but instead of giving no results, it creates some weird sh** :-) - Expanding strokes gives way too many points and is not really usable in this form at the moment - I am still hoping to have more control over the amount of smoothness and accuracy in the pencil & brush tools in the designer persona, also a way to rework/redraw the paths by drawing over them or connecting with them as it is present in illustrator would really be good! Thanks for all the hard work! A_B_C, deeds and Roscografik 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imacken Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 Is your document RGB? The export presets you mention all use CMYK - they are all for print which needs CMYK inks. If you use the Web preset, that forces sRGB, and the Export preset will use the colour space of your document: do those have the same issue? Hi Dave. Sorry it's taken so long to reply. This seems to be quite a complicated topic. What I've discovered is that it makes no difference if the original document is RGB or CMYK. When exported to pdf, the 'print', 'x1' and 'x3' options all produce the the same regardless of whether the original is RGB or CMYK, and that is what I would expect as the colours are being converted. I have attached an image that hopefully shows some grabs of different outputs. I know it maybe difficult to see, but the black background is exactly the same in the original Designer CMYK document, in the Designer 'x1' pdf export and one from Photoshop 'x1' pdf export. However, it is very different in the Designer 'print' pdf export. The black is washed out and basically grey! The second issue is rendering of fonts in Designer pdf exports. On the same image, you can see that Photoshop pretty accurately replicates the original Designer document, but the other two 'bloat' the text quite a lot, which can be a problem. The interesting thing is that the Photoshop exports were done from a Designer exported pdf! So, not sure where that leaves us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Harris Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 Could you attach a sample document so I can look into it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imacken Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 Sure, Dave. See attached. I am having all sorts of other issues with the pdf export in AD. I have just sent a pdf exported from 'print' option in AD, and the client says it just comes up as corrupted when he tries to load it into Corel Draw. I am wondering if this is related to the Illustrator error message which has been discussed before. (Image attached of that as well). In addition, when I export the same file from the MAS version of AD using the 'print' option, the file saved is 15Mb, when I export it from the beta version of AD using the 'for print' option it is 1.6Mb! Cocktail menu 2.afdesign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoJu Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 Sorry, a couple of things: "Help" doesn't show up Trying the rotation feature - nothing, could not get it to work :( will try again i a later version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted September 13, 2015 Staff Share Posted September 13, 2015 Hi Joju, To use a user-defined Rotation Centre, you must have an object selected, enable Show Rotation Centre button in the context toolbar (on Move, Node and Shape tools) and then set its position on canvas. Then if you rotate the object it will respect the new rotation centre. Regarding the Help, what OS are you running? Chris Heath 1 A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
00Ghz Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 Hi Joju, To use a user-defined Rotation Centre, you must have an object selected, enable Show Rotation Centre button in the context toolbar (on Move, Node and Shape tools) and then set its position on canvas. Then if you rotate the object it will respect the new rotation centre. Regarding the Help, what OS are you running? And how do I make the rotation cursor snap to the anchor points or corners of an object? Doesn’t look very precise right now. UI Designer, CG Artist Macbook Pro 15" 2014 2.5 Ghz, 750M https://www.behance.net/VladMafteiuScai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MattP Posted September 13, 2015 Author Staff Share Posted September 13, 2015 The snapping currently only snaps to other objects. Just need to wire it up to snap to itself - won't take a few minutes so don't panic :) A_B_C and JGD 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted September 13, 2015 Staff Share Posted September 13, 2015 Some observations: -The character and paragraph palettes are really nice, but there is a bug in font selection: Only if I select a font from the context bar on top does it actually change the font, changing it from the character palette does not work. ... - non-destructive Boolean operations on paths with smart nodes do not work, i.e. give weird results - boolean operations on open paths or lines give really weird results: I guess these operations are not supposed to work on these paths, but instead of giving no results, it creates some weird sh** :-) - Expanding strokes gives way too many points and is not really usable in this form at the moment ... Hi postmadesign, Thanks for your feedback. The first issue (font selection) seems to be a specific Lion issue. I'm not able to check this (no Lion machine available) but i will raise it with the dev team. Smart Nodes Issue logged to be looked at. Currently it's not "possible" to perform boolean operations between open and closed paths. This will be addressed later in a future update. We are also aware of the Expand Strokes issues. This will also be improved later. A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthias Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 It would be of help if the user definable rotation point had x/y coordinate input fields. The two boxes would appear right next to the icon when the feature is on. ronnyb 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
00Ghz Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 The snapping currently only snaps to other objects. Just need to wire it up to snap to itself - won't take a few minutes so don't panic :) You work even today? Impressive :D . Those artboards should be here in no time then ;) vonBusing and ronnyb 2 UI Designer, CG Artist Macbook Pro 15" 2014 2.5 Ghz, 750M https://www.behance.net/VladMafteiuScai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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