Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.3.5.2)

[lenogre]

Added user-defined Rotation Centre to the tools : 

In horology design, it's a huge update ! Thanks.

After a little try, I can say : Huuuuuurrrrraaaaaahhhhh !

 

I would like to see "change origin" (actually 0 is left above) and negative values for rotation.

 

I'm a little disappointed with the Tab key. In color palette, we could jump values with Tab. Now, all palettes disappears. Not funny...

 

Always the same bug in AD 1.3.5.1 : we can't select Adjustements layer. Bad news…

[Andrew Tang]

I'm a little disappointed with the Tab key. In color palette, we could jump values with Tab. Now, all palettes disappears. Not funny...

 

This is fixed for the next beta.

[Roscografik]

…, 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!

This really the only thing I'm waiting for !!

[lenogre]

Anybody has a bug with Adjustments Layers ?

[MEB]

Hi lenogre,

How are you selecting it? If the Adjustment layer is attached to an object/layer you must pick it from its thumbnail in the Layers panel.

[Andrew Tang]

Anybody has a bug with Adjustments Layers ?

 

 

Hi lenogre,

How are you selecting it? If the Adjustment layer is attached to an object/layer you must pick it from its thumbnail in the Layers panel.

 

I've just found the bug with adjustment thumbnails in Lion and Mountain Lion (and potentially Maverick). It is now fixed for the next beta! :)

[imacken]

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!

Any news on this, Dave?

[Dave Harris]

I've not been at work today, imacken. The earliest I'll be able to look at it is Tuesday.

[JoJu]

10.10.5

 

"doesn't show up" needs to be corrected - in my case it went like this:

 

I opened Affinity Photo in normal view mode, clicked help.

Then I went to fullscreen mode. Help disappeared. Couldn't restart it, before I went off fullscreen. Help window was still there. Closed it. Fullscreen again. Help click, Help appears on top. A tiny bit weird, but once I know... And I've seen that behavior in other apps, too, so it's probably Mac OS?

[imacken]

I've not been at work today, imacken. The earliest I'll be able to look at it is Tuesday.

Thanks a lot, Dave!

[Dave Harris]

What I've discovered is that it makes no difference if the original document is RGB or CMYK.

It does for me. If the original document is RGB, then the MAS "Print" preset will PDF it as RGB. The Beta "Print" preset will PDF it as CMYK. This explains the difference in colour. Finder just isn't very good at previewing CMYK colours in these PDFs.

 

To confirm this, use the MAS app, change the document colour model to CMYK, and export it with "Print" again. You'll get the same colour results.

 

PDF/X has to be CMYK. I think the only issue here is whether our "Print" preset should force CMYK too. Maybe only PDF/X should do that.

 

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!

PDF/X specifies colour in a slightly different way. It looks like Preview is doing a better job in that case.

 

 

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!

Is this happening in OS X Preview? I've not been able to reproduce it. I don't have the fonts "Kabel Dm BT" or "Hand of Sean Pro", so maybe it depends on them. Do you get the same effect with Arial?

 

 

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.

Perhaps. I don't believe it is corrupt. This may take some time to investigate. Have you tried other presets? PDF/X-4 is standard, and supports RGB images and transparency. "Export" tries to preserve the most information.

 

 

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!

That would be a good thing. The difference is probably in how the MAS version outputs fonts; it is needlessly bloated.

[imacken]

 

 

It does for me. If the original document is RGB, then the MAS "Print" preset will PDF it as RGB. The Beta "Print" reset will PDF it as CMYK. This explains the difference in colour. Finder just isn't very good at previewing CMYK colours in these PDFs.

 

To confirm this, use the MAS app, change the document colour model to CMYK, and export it with "Print" again. You'll get the same colour results.

 

PDF/X has to be CMYK. I think the only issue here is whether our "Print" preset should force CMYK too. Maybe only PDF/X should do that.

 

That wasn't really what I was meaning, but I agree with all you said there. I think I am going to ignore the MAS version for any pdf exporting.  Personally, I think you should make the 'print' option force CMYK.

PDF/X specifies colour in a slightly different way. It looks like Preview is doing a better job in that case.

 

It's not Preview, it is the preview in Finder when pressing spacebar. When opened in Preview, the blacks are identical.

Is this happening in OS X Preview? I've not been able to reproduce it. I don't have the fonts "Kabel Dm BT" or "Hand of Sean Pro", so maybe it depends on them. Do you get the same effect with Arial?

 

It does happen with Arial, but I've discovered that, again, like the point above, that it is an issue with the Finder preview, not Preview the app!  Interestingly, X4 renders show up OK in the Finder preview, but X3, X1 and 'print' do not.

Perhaps. I don't believe it is corrupt. This may take some time to investigate. Have you tried other presets? PDF/X-4 is standard, and supports RGB images and transparency. "Export" tries to preserve the most information.

 

 

This I feel is a more serious issue.  I don't believe it is necessarily corrupt, but Illustrator complains, and now Corel Draw won't open the files either.  As obviously you are well aware, if Affinity apps are going to compete in the world outside private individuals, the output pdf files will have to be 100% compatible with Illustrator, Photoshop, Corel Draw, etc, as that is the way we designers deal with clients who, in the majority at the moment, are not using Affinity.

I have had to jump through various hoops in the past few days getting 2 files to my printers, which has wasted a lot of their and my time.  I'm not complaining at all, but just saying there is a fundamental need to make these pdf files compatible with the rest of the world!

That would be a good thing. The difference is probably in how the MAS version outputs fonts; it is needlessly bloated.

 

It is a good thing as long as it works!

Thanks again, Dave for you detailed responses. 

[jackamus]

User defined Rotation Center! Nice!!!

This has been a tremendous addition for me and will make life much easier.

 Once the centre has been moved it is not obvious to which handle without trying it. I'm only thinking of being able to go back later to look at it. Perhaps it could be a different colour?

[peter]

I love the new Character and Paragraph tabs: especially the Place holder text. All it needs now, is the spellchecker, pasteboard and It'll be one step closer to APu. :D

 

Well done team!

[lenogre]

How to close this gap (in red circle) ?

[lenogre]

I've found !

[MattP]

How to close this gap (in red circle) ?

The brush algorithm doesn't currently know about closed/open paths - it should remove head and tail sections when applied to a closed path and it doesn't currently do this. If you made your texture again without the head and tail section (just make a new image which doesn't have the left and right padding) then it will fit neatly and look right.

 

Thanks,

Matt

[StevieB]

Great that the Lion issue has been fixed… I can now use it!

 

I think this might be a bug, which I only found out by accident, using the tab key instead of the return (still getting used to different way of working from Illustrator).

 

If you open any Affinity Designer document and then press tab, which removes all the pallets, then press tab again to get them back then the top tabs are missing and can't be selected. (It also happens without any document loaded)

 

If you click on the Pixel Persona then the pallet tabs return and clicking on the Draw Persona to go back will reinstate the tabs but with the tabs on the right selected, i.e. Brushes, Paragraph and Navigator instead of Colours, Layers and Transform.

 

See the attached screenshots:

 

 

[kelmanbob]

On a related but slightly different note to StevieB, I have found that in trying to use the tab stops with the type tool active in the beta, it hides/reveals the palettes rather than adding tabs as in 1.3.5.

 

Mavericks.

[JGD]

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 :)

 

I noticed that too but hadn't yet gotten around to mentioning it here, thanks for addressing it. :)

 

By the way, if you add guidelines, the custom rotation centre will apparently snap to them, but will actually be off by a few pixels once you let go of the mouse (i.e. it will snap to where mouse pointer actually is when you let go of it).

 

By the way, since we're talking about snapping, do you reckon it could be possible, as I suggested many months ago, to snap an object to itself (meaning, to a ghost of itself on its original position or vice-versa – as in Adobe programs, only with reduced opacity fill and maybe opaque outlines in both cases instead of those horrible, aliased outlines they still use – with a toggle on preferences) when dragging or duplicate-dragging by option-clicking?

 

Having drag operations be a WYSIWYG thing may be great for artistic stuff, but that would be an absolute timesaver when doing geometric stuff, such as patterns or typography, without having to be constrained to specific grids. Actually, I'd venture to say that even for composition purposes, being able to do before/after comparisons mid-drag instead of having to constantly Undo/Redo is actually very useful.

 

Also, since you mentioned snapping the centre to the object itself, for the centre to be easily resettable, the best way would be to always have a default centre point for all objects/selections visible, which still seems to be missing and would be very useful for snapping purposes as well; the fact that there's already a custom centre point should make that also easily implementable, I'm guessing.

 

While I'm at it, can you comment on the feasibility of an algorithm to calculate and display an actual centroid instead of the strictly orthogonal and, therefore, sometimes useless bounding box centre (again, displaying one or the other could be selectable, preferably on a more prominent place on the UI like the contextual toolbar)?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centroid

 

This would *really* give Affinity a leg up over the competition, especially as a possible default centre point for rotation operations or snapping of both individual objects and groups, IMHO. Just imagine how much cooler and easier working with polygons and isometric grids would be with such a feature…

 

I know this isn't the proper thread for feature requests and I'll probably make them again in the appropriate channel, but I just couldn't resist mentioning them as they seemed so apropos.