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2 hours ago, spinhead said:

You're most welcome, and it probably isn't implemented because it's not as easy as we might think and/or it's not as important as other things that need implementing.

Project management and digital product creation is at least eleven times as complex as most people realize. In my previous life as a guy who did stuff, I was sometimes asked "Why haven't you done this yet?" and the only answer was "Because I was doing 3 other things you asked me to do." One employer literally said "If you work faster you can get more done in the same amount of time."

I've reached the age where patience comes a little easier, mostly as a way to accept what is rather than fussing about what I wish it was.

I studied computer science and had to work on several projects, so I know how complex it is. The first request for webP here in the forum was six years ago, there was an announcement that it will be part of 1.9 at least two years ago. We're at 1.9.2 and still no sight of the possibility to export to webP, while even the behemoth Wordpress is now making use of it. How much more patience shall people have? What is the problem? The Web is THE thing! There are nearly no designers who can make it without producing for online media or at least advertising their work online. So shouldn't the obviously best format to publish new pictures online have priority? If Serif can not deliver it yet, then they should at least explain it.If they struggle to implement functions that are obviously available in other software since more than two years, then they perhaps should work on a plugin-system that users can implement one based on ImageMagick or so. There are several options to take instead of just to stay silent about the topic. The current status is just completely unsatisfying. 

Edited by NordishBen
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11 hours ago, NordishBen said:

there was an announcement that it will be part of 1.9

Things change. Even if someone says that something is coming it doesn’t mean that it actually will. If you have had to work on several projects then you should understand that sometimes you can’t always implement everything you want to. Some consideration for real-world goings-on needs to be given.

11 hours ago, NordishBen said:

even the behemoth Wordpress is now making use of it

Just because some websites use it doesn’t mean that everything has to support it.

11 hours ago, NordishBen said:

The Web is THE thing!

It might be the most important thing to you but that’s no reason for everyone else to think so. There are plenty of people using the Affinity software whose output doesn’t go anywhere near the web.

11 hours ago, NordishBen said:

There are several options to take instead of just to stay silent about the topic.

If there is no news then silence is probably the best choice. What would you suggest was a better solution? Regular updates saying: “We have no further news on this.”? And how far do you take that?

11 hours ago, NordishBen said:

The current status is just completely unsatisfying.

To you perhaps, but not to me. No WebP support makes absolutely no difference to me. I’m guessing many other other people are of the same opinion.

In general I don’t think you have added anything to the discussion. All you have said is that you want something; join the queue.

If you absolutely need to use WebP images then the Affinity range probably isn’t what you need right now.

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@NordishBen

Don't listen to all that negative input from some user on this form! It's just plain ignorance and negativity.

@GarryP Wonder why you spent your energy on something that's important for others and you don't seem to care about.

Just don't use it when it is implemented!

It's true all common browsers are supporting webp and it's unbelievable that it's still not implemented in the Affinity apps.

https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/im-webp#:~:text=WebP is used by 1.6% of all the websites.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, All Media Lab said:

Wonder why you spent your energy on something that's important for others and you don't seem to care about.

I do care, because code doesn’t spontaneously appear.

Someone has to take time and effort to investigate, design, code, test, refine and maintain it.
And if someone is doing all of that then they can’t put that time and effort into other things, such as fixing bugs which cause people to lose work.

If the developers were just spinning on their office chairs waiting for some work to do then why not have a look at WebP support.
But they’re not (at least I’m fairly sure they’re not), and I’d say there are far more important things for them to be doing than working on supporting yet another new ‘best thing since sliced bread’ image format which hasn’t yet been proven to be something with a long-term lifespan.

WebP support has been requested.
Serif have acknowledged this request: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/85857-affinity-not-for-webdesign-no-webp-still/
That’s all that’s needed; no more discussion needed, no more opinions needed, no more throwing statistics around needed.

Serif know about it and may do something with it in the future, or not.
It’s entirely up to them and if they end up not supporting it then that’s their decision as it’s their software to do with as they please.

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Nonsense!

Everybody is entitled to discus anything when ever they want. I started the topic you are referring to years ago and till now zero result.

Who do you think you are? The forum police? The spokesman of Serif?

Many thing are requested multiple times, it just proves that there are more people thinking that it's a missed opportunity of Affinity.

Webp is not only used in web design, but also in the game development industry and app development. 

Users of Affinity just have to keep on asking about webp!!!!!

Webp is now in all major browsers because the users kept on asking about it!!!!

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Absolutely, anyone can discuss whatever they want (as long as it’s not against the forum rules).
I didn’t say that there should not be any further discussion, I said that none was needed.
Serif are aware of the request and have acknowledged it.
Whatever is discussed after that acknowledgement is fairly pointless as only Serif have the power to do anything about it.
If you want to keep shouting at the sky hoping to hear an echo then feel free to do so but you might want to re-think your expectations at some point. That’s just friendly advice.

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30 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Whatever is discussed after that acknowledgement is fairly pointless as only Serif have the power to do anything about it.
If you want to keep shouting at the sky hoping to hear an echo then feel free to do so but you might want to re-think your expectations at some point. That’s just friendly advice.

Why do you think all major browsers support webp?

Because the users kept on shouting/asking about it and at the end it was implemented.

32 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Serif are aware of the request and have acknowledged it.

Without any result, so it's wise  to keep remembering them that this feature is missing in Affinity!

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5 hours ago, All Media Lab said:

Why do you think all major browsers support webp?

Because the users kept on shouting/asking about it and at the end it was implemented.

Actually, I think it was because Google, not users, used its considerable clout to promote it.

As for continuing to 'shout' about it here, it is not as if Serif is likely to forget that a lot of users want to see it supported; besides which they have made it clear time & time again that the number of requests for any particular feature is only one of several factors they consider when deciding what they should devote their limited resources to developing.

For now, they seem to be concentrating on performance improvements, something a lot more users seem to be concerned about than the lack of built-in WebP support.

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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On 6/11/2021 at 8:23 PM, R C-R said:

For now, they seem to be concentrating on performance improvements, something a lot more users seem to be concerned about than the lack of built-in WebP support.

They are two different things that can both be accomplished without hurting each other! The webp source code is available for free from the Googles dev page and easy to implement in Photo.

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11 minutes ago, All Media Lab said:

easy to implement in Photo

How do you know? Do you have privileged access to the Photo source code?? :/

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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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With a finite (and small) number of developers, working on WebP will take work away from other things.
Application development isn’t as simple as copy/paste and leave it at that, especially so if the code is in a language which Serif don’t use.
No matter how developed and documented the Google code is it will need investigating, integrating, and testing on multiple OSes in combination with the existing code to make sure it doesn’t break what already exists.
Even using the compiled library from Google may incur lots of work from the developers – will it work on iOS for example?
So working on WebP will hurt the development of other things – if it takes time to do then that’s time taken from other things.
It’s just not as simple as you seem to think.

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Why does everything has to be made complicated without any reason. It's not complicated at all in a couple of day's you can have it implemented. Seen it happen in other apps and don't forget that you can already display webp in Affiniy Photo. 

All instructions are found on the Google devs pages:

Just two examples, want to see more?

How do I use libwebp with C#?

WebP can be built as a DLL which exports the libwebp API. These functions can then be imported in C#.

  1. Build libwebp.dll. This will set WEBP_EXTERN properly to export the API functions.

     
    libwebp> nmake /f Makefile.vc CFG=release-dynamic
    
  2. Add libwebp.dll to your project and import the desired functions. Note if you use the simple API you should call WebPFree() to free any buffers returned.

     
    [DllImport("libwebp.dll", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
    static extern int WebPEncodeBGRA(IntPtr rgba, int width, int height, int stride,
                                     float quality_factor, out IntPtr output);
    [DllImport("libwebp.dll", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
    static extern int WebPFree(IntPtr p);
    
    void Encode() {
      Bitmap source = new Bitmap("input.png");
      BitmapData data = source.LockBits(
          new Rectangle(0, 0, source.Width, source.Height),
          ImageLockMode.ReadOnly,
          PixelFormat.Format32bppArgb);
      IntPtr webp_data;
      const int size = WebPEncodeBGRA(data.Scan0,
                                      source.Width, source.Height, data.Stride,
                                      80, out webp_data);
      // ...
      WebPFree(webp_data);
    }

 

How do I use the libwebp Java bindings in my Android project?

WebP includes support for JNI bindings to the simple encoder and decoder interfaces in the swig/ directory.

Building the library in Eclipse:

  1. Make sure you have the ADT plugin installed along the with NDK tools and your NDK path is set correctly (Preferences > Android > NDK).
  2. Create a new project: File > New > Project > Android Application Project.
  3. Clone or unpack libwebp to a folder named jni in the new project.
  4. Add swig/libwebp_java_wrap.c to the LOCAL_SRC_FILES list.
  5. Right-click on the new project and select Android Tools > Add Native Support ... to include the library in your build.
  6. Open the project properties and go to C/C++ Build > Behaviour. Add ENABLE_SHARED=1 to the Build (Incremental build) section to build libwebp as a shared library.

    Note Setting NDK_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=4.8 will in general improve 32-bit build performance.

  7. Add swig/libwebp.jar to the libs/ project folder.

  8. Build your project. This will create libs/<target-arch>/libwebp.so.

  9. Use System.loadLibrary("webp") to load the library at runtime.

Note that the library can be built manually with ndk-build and the included Android.mk. Some of the steps described above can be reused in that case.

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31 minutes ago, GarryP said:

With a finite (and small) number of developers, working on WebP will take work away from other things.
Application development isn’t as simple as copy/paste and leave it at that, especially so if the code is in a language which Serif don’t use.
No matter how developed and documented the Google code is it will need investigating, integrating, and testing on multiple OSes in combination with the existing code to make sure it doesn’t break what already exists.
Even using the compiled library from Google may incur lots of work from the developers – will it work on iOS for example?
So working on WebP will hurt the development of other things – if it takes time to do then that’s time taken from other things.
It’s just not as simple as you seem to think.

Sorry, but in times there's all major browsers support WebP and Wordpress is gonna support it natively on WP 5.8 I can't imagine many more important features than adding WebP export. The WebP export will be a major step in my design workflow and the need to use a 3rd party tool is a real show stopper ;-(

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57 minutes ago, All Media Lab said:

All instructions are found on the Google devs pages:

But that says nothing about:

  1. The code changes needed to add webp to the File > Export dialog.
  2. The code changes needed to add it to the Export Persona.
  3. The code changes needed to add it to the File > Export preview processing.
  4. The added testing, to make sure that the changes didn't break something else.

And, by the way, as we get more and more formats added to File > Export, the dialog grows wider, and at some point will need to be redesigned, which is even more work.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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26 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

But that says nothing about:

  1. The code changes needed to add webp to the File > Export dialog.
  2. The code changes needed to add it to the Export Persona.
  3. The code changes needed to add it to the File > Export preview processing.
  4. The added testing, to make sure that the changes didn't break something else.

It's just a very negative point of view on application development, don't see anything special in your list. You could say that about most implementations. But you could also say it would be nice if it's implemented and I'm sure the Affinity devs are capable of doing so! 

 

26 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

And, by the way, as we get more and more formats added to File > Export, the dialog grows wider, and at some point will need to be redesigned, which is even more work.

Scroll or tabs or a row beneath  is a solution and again I don't see any problem.

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2 minutes ago, All Media Lab said:

It's just a very negative point of view on application development, don't see anything special in your list. You could say that about most implementations. But you could also say it would be nice if it's implemented and I'm sure the Affinity devs are capable of doing so! 

Absolutely agree, I'm a product manager and developer too and if you have developed a clean and modular code all this should not be a problem. From a customer perspective you should be eager to find out how to meet these requirements as soon as you can rather than find excuses. I'm totally aware of the critical path of a roadmap and backlog, but in an agile world all this is not a big challenge.

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7 minutes ago, All Media Lab said:

It's just a very negative point of view on application development, don't see anything special in your list. You could say that about most implementations. But you could also say it would be nice if it's implemented and I'm sure the Affinity devs are capable of doing so!

Nobody said it isn’t desirable, and nobody said the Affinity devs are incapable of implementing it, but you stated that it’s “easy to implement in Photo” without providing any evidence to back up that assertion.

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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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14 minutes ago, All Media Lab said:

It's just a very negative point of view on application development, don't see anything special in your list. You could say that about most implementations. But you could also say it would be nice if it's implemented and I'm sure the Affinity devs are capable of doing so! 

As far I remember there was a comment months ago from a Serif Moderator, mentioning that WebP might be one of various image file formats with a currently unknown and possibly limited life time which makes the Serif marketing and/or development hesitate to force their implementation work.

To me in macOS it appears strange that WebP isn't supported by the system and its image viewing apps. That might reduce the importance of this format.

Also I wonder whether other formats maybe or will be successors for WebP, as for instance HEIF/HEIC, or FLIF or BGP.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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3 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Nobody said it isn’t desirable, and nobody said the Affinity devs are incapable of implementing it, but you stated that it’s “easy to implement in Photo” without providing any evidence to back up that assertion.

This is the project I'm working on right now! Is it complicated? Yes! But easy to work with? Yes! Because I'm a educated developer with more then 10 years experience!

That's what I mean with easy to implement!

 

Screenshot 2021-06-16 at 17.23.43.png

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On 6/11/2021 at 1:37 PM, GarryP said:

Serif have acknowledged this request: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/85857-affinity-not-for-webdesign-no-webp-still/
That’s all that’s needed; no more discussion needed, no more opinions needed, no more throwing statistics around needed.

Serif know about it and may do something with it in the future, or not.

Hey Garry, do you really mean what you write? Maybe you or Serif should have a look on how customer support in the 21th century could be provided. I totally agree that Serif only has to decide about their roadmap etc.. But an acknowledgement two years ago and nothing happened since then... not giving a glimpse of a feature forecast to a broad and loyal customer base, sorry, even Adobe communicates better with their customers ;-(

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5 minutes ago, thomaso said:

As far I remember there was a comment months ago from a Serif Moderator, mentioning that WebP might be one of various image file formats with a currently unknown and possibly limited life time which makes the Serif marketing and/or development hesitate to force their implementation work.

To me in macOS it appears strange that WebP isn't supported by the system and its image viewing apps. That might reduce the importance of this format.

Also I wonder whether other formats maybe or will be successors for WebP, as for instance HEIF/HEIC, or FLIF or BGP.

Hey Tomaso, good hint, thanks. That's all I want: A few clear (and contextual) words about the status. This is helpful.

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