Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.3.5.3)

[A_B_C]

This ruler issue seems to be more serious than I originally thought. I opened the .afdesign file that Miguel provided here (awesome idea, by the way):

 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/13379-cookie-cutting-raster-by-shapes/?p=58970

 

Now, what happened?

• When I opened this document for the first time in Affinity Designer (App Store Version 1.3.5), my rulers looked like (A.). Which is clearly wrong. And the bug seemed to be brought to the App Store Version by the document itself.
• When I opened Miguel’s document in the current Beta (1.3.5.3), my rulers looked like (B.). Fine.
• Now, when I opened the document in the App Store Version again, and used Document Setup … to change the document units from pixels to points, my rulers recovered. After switching back to pixels by the same method everything was still fine. When I saved the document, the healthy state was preserved on reopening (C.).

Does that make sense? At least, I hope it will help you to get to the bottom of this issue …  :)

Cheers, Alex

 

(Sorry for these all too colourful illustrations … seems I just have to wrap my head around the new options of Apple’s Preview. And my system is Yosemite 10.10.5, in spite of Lucida Grande …)

[MEB]

Hi A_B_C,

Apparently this is caused by the units - which are set to <<BPX>>(?!) - when we open the file in the Mac App Store version. Setting them to a standard unit solves the issues as you've done.

I've logged this to be looked at. Thanks.

[A_B_C]

You’re right … BPX? British Pixels? Must be a holdover from the Weights and Measures Act of 1824 …  :D

[JGD]

Hi JGD,

 

Just close the application then click to run it up again and immediately hold down Ctrl - this brings up a dialog that allows you to reset everything. Select all and reset and it should be fixed. I don't know why you've encountered these problems though, so we need to figure it out.... sorry :(

 

Matt

 

Ooooh… so *that's* the hard-reset shortcut. Okay, I'll be sure to try that out and I'll let you know how it went! :)

 

Edit: Yes, it works like a charm. I like this way better than Adobe's “scorched earth” reset… Having fine-grain control over exactly which preferences are reset is a big plus, IMHO.

 

As for the floating Character and Paragraph panel crash loop, it's definitely there, and is always reproducible (both on Designer and Photo). Until the next Beta, I'll be sure to toggle them on a need-to basis, and not to forget about closing them before quitting the Betas… I guess that's the price of staying on the bleeding edge, right? ;)

[Gear maker]

Matt,

 

I was just trying out the "User-definable precision for different unit types (in preferences)".  What areas does this affect, from what I see it's the x, y, w, & h in the transform panel and the w & h in the document setup.  Are there any others?

 

Would it be possible to expand this into the rotate field in the transform panel?

 

Thank you.

[mitchellm]

Over time SVG export has gotten better and better. But I've run into a current example where the SVG export is really poor overall. It negatively impacts many of the words in the document. I am NOT exporting as "text as curves" because I want the SVG to be posted on a website, and thus as small as possible. You can use this link to download the folder containing: original PDF of mind map, AF Designer file (looks fine), and two different SVG exports. In both cases especially capital Cs are handled poorly in export. 

 

​http://mml-2015.s3.amazonaws.com/SVG%20export%20example.zip

[MattP]

Hi mitchellm,

 

I can't seem to get the link to work? :( 

 

Thanks,

Matt

[vonBusing]

I think its a web-savy test. (You have to add the colon yourself after the http to make the link work.)

... or ti's just a typo.  :P

 

 

Hi mitchellm,

 

I can't seem to get the link to work? :(

 

Thanks,

Matt

[MEB]

@MattP,

Copy and paste the link in the browser.

[mitchellm]

Okay, here's the link again:

http://bit.ly/1ViriRe

 

Or:

http://bit.ly/1ViriRe

[Garytagreg]

Hi,

 

I've been experiencing some frustrating issues with the UI slider controls for the last few betas:

 

My System:

• early 2013 MacBook Pro (Retina), 16GB RAM, default display resolution 
• Latest El Capitan GM (OSX 10.11.1)
• No mouse connected, just using the trackpad
  • Note: Trackpad set to tap-to-click as I don't like clicking the whole trackpad down all the time

 

The issue:

• When tapping on a slider UI control it will move the little circle to where I clicked as expected.
• When I tap with 3 fingers on the circle and drag it left or right, one of 2 annoying things happen:

1   The circle moves where I want it to go, but when I release my fingers from the trackpad, the circle moves back to where I just moved it from.

2   Unless I'm 100% pixel-perfect on the (tiny) circle, even if it looks like I'm on target, the slider I previously moved will move instead of the one I'm trying to move now. i.e. the previous slider retains focus and the slider's circle click target seems way too small (because of the retina resolution, maybe?

 

Its not just on the RGB sliders but all of them: all adjustments and dialogs, and I'm having the issue on both AD and AP so I assume its an issue with the UI slider control itself. But, its making even the simplest edits and tweaks to colour and adjustments incredibly frustrating. :( Note that if I plug in my wacom tablet and use its pen then I do not have the same issues. I don't have a mouse to test it, but as I haven't seen any reports of the issue from others on the forums here, I assume that it works okay with a mouse...?

 

To illustrate the issue better, I made a screen recording that I hope will give you an idea about what I'm describing (1.5MB in size):

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ssq64lx7u8ekkm1/Slider%20UI%20Issue.zip?dl=0

 

Hope that helps!

[Garytagreg]

Just a quick comment about the Japanese localisation:

 

A common thing to do with languages that don't use roman characters (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai etc.) is to write the language name in that language in the drop-down of available languages in the settings. That way, a completely non-English speaker can go to the settings and click on stuff until he sees something written in his language which makes it easy for him to change the settings to what he can actually read. Try to imagine finding the English language setting if you were running in Japanese/Chinese/Korean and everything was written in that language (which you can actually experience right now by changing AD to Japanese, restarting and going back to the settings where now "English" has changed to "英語"... not too easy)

 

Google does a good job of this as shown in the attachment.

 

At the moment, the list box in the settings menu is all in the currently set language. Doing the above would help make things easier to use. 

[MEB]

Thanks for your report @predick.

Issue logged to be looked at.

[Dave Harris]

Over time SVG export has gotten better and better. But I've run into a current example where the SVG export is really poor overall. It negatively impacts many of the words in the document. I am NOT exporting as "text as curves" because I want the SVG to be posted on a website, and thus as small as possible. You can use this link to download the folder containing: original PDF of mind map, AF Designer file (looks fine), and two different SVG exports. In both cases especially capital Cs are handled poorly in export. 

 

​http://mml-2015.s3.amazonaws.com/SVG%20export%20example.zip

 

It looks like we have a bug with the SVG export of text with leading spaces. We'll get it fixed for the next beta.

 

What is interesting is why there are any leading spaces to go wrong. It's because the text gets split into many small fragments, because there are many changes in tracking. Some of those fragments happen to begin with a space. The tracking changes were added by the PDF import, because the font you have set, Helvectica Neue Regular, has different character widths to the one in the PDF, ArialUnicodeMS-Bold.

 

I suggest you do one of two things. Best would be to reopen the PDF, and in the font substitutions specify that ArialUnicodeMS-Bold gets replaced by Arial Bold. That font seems to have the right widths and avoids getting the extra tracking adjustments. When I do that and export with "SVG (for web)", I get a file size of 13.09 kB (rather than 50 kB or so you were getting), and the result looks fine in Safari and other apps I tried. Alternatively, if you really want to use Helvectica Neue, select all the text and set the tracking to 0 manually using the Character tab. Either way should simplify the text and avoid the problem.

[mitchellm]

@Dave Harris: Wow many thanks! Both suggestions work well and I never would have guessed to do either one. I did try the setting tracking to 0 for all text with Helvetica and the result was much much better: there were only a couple of minor things off. With Arial Bold the result was perfect. Both approaches resulted in an SVG of 13.09 kB. 

 

I look forward to the continued improvement of SVG exporting, but your suggestions have given me great tools for working with some objects I need to prepare for the web right now. Again, many thanks!

 

It looks like we have a bug with the SVG export of text with leading spaces. We'll get it fixed for the next beta.

 

What is interesting is why there are any leading spaces to go wrong. It's because the text gets split into many small fragments, because there are many changes in tracking. Some of those fragments happen to begin with a space. The tracking changes were added by the PDF import, because the font you have set, Helvectica Neue Regular, has different character widths to the one in the PDF, ArialUnicodeMS-Bold.

 

I suggest you do one of two things. Best would be to reopen the PDF, and in the font substitutions specify that ArialUnicodeMS-Bold gets replaced by Arial Bold. That font seems to have the right widths and avoids getting the extra tracking adjustments. When I do that and export with "SVG (for web)", I get a file size of 13.09 kB (rather than 50 kB or so you were getting), and the result looks fine in Safari and other apps I tried. Alternatively, if you really want to use Helvectica Neue, select all the text and set the tracking to 0 manually using the Character tab. Either way should simplify the text and avoid the problem.

[Butrflied]

I'm seeing a  bug with the Page Presets when creating a new document. 

 

Selected 'Photo'

 

Tried to select 8x10 but got 10x12, sizes above and below seemed to work correctly. 

[A_B_C]

Yes, this entry (10R) seems to be mislabeled … must be 12 × 10 inches … wow, keen eyesight …  :)

Choose (8R) for 8' x 10' photos …

[smallreflection]

I'm still getting a nagging bug when attempting to export a layer group in isolation (with or without background), at least when using a vector mask. If I select the layer group and export, I often get large areas that are white/transparent. If I select the vector mask and attempt to export, it exports a blank white box.

[Andrew Tang]

Slices exporting results are inverted. (1.3.5.3)

I have to select 2x and 3x check boxes in order to export only 1x files.

 

This is now fixed for the next beta. Yay, this should never have happened.

 

 

Hi A_B_C,

Apparently this is caused by the units - which are set to <<BPX>>(?!) - when we open the file in the Mac App Store version. Setting them to a standard unit solves the issues as you've done.

I've logged this to be looked at. Thanks.

 

British pixels are now gone in favour of just normal pixels for the next beta.

 

 

Just a quick comment about the Japanese localisation:

 

A common thing to do with languages that don't use roman characters (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai etc.) is to write the language name in that language in the drop-down of available languages in the settings. That way, a completely non-English speaker can go to the settings and click on stuff until he sees something written in his language which makes it easy for him to change the settings to what he can actually read. Try to imagine finding the English language setting if you were running in Japanese/Chinese/Korean and everything was written in that language (which you can actually experience right now by changing AD to Japanese, restarting and going back to the settings where now "English" has changed to "英語"... not too easy)

 

Google does a good job of this as shown in the attachment.

 

At the moment, the list box in the settings menu is all in the currently set language. Doing the above would help make things easier to use. 

 

This is actually a really good idea so I've implemented it into the next beta. :)

[MattP]

British pixels are now gone in favour of just normal pixels for the next beta.

 

Just to clarify Andy's post - we aren't actually insane enough to think that "British Pixels" is a unit type. <<BPX>> was actually an internal unit type that isn't meant to be exposed in the UI and was erroneously used in the last beta.

 

Incidentally, has anybody found the secret unit type that we did add? It's cat-related - as you may expect... :)

[A_B_C]

LOL, Matt … never thought you would introduce a new measurement unit …  :D

 

(And this other, cat-related, one is very mysterious … oh dear, another morning will pass in search for easter eggs … LOL)

[00Ghz]

I miss the times when betas would come out each week :)

[anon1]

I think the next MAS update isn't far away anyway cause of all the photo extension requests and the haze removal requests and the PSD fixes and the other great things and AD AP tend to get updates at the same time right?

 

But this is a fairly big update with the keyboard shortcuts so ...

 

Anyway - more betas don't mean faster progression ;)

[00Ghz]

 

 

Anyway - more betas don't mean faster progression  ;)

 

Well yes. Lots of things so far... :)

 

But still nothing major aimed at UI designers.  :huh:

[anon1]

Yes sorry, I think mainly rotating canvas and linked objects would be nice but I'm more on the photo side of users so I'm not representative here :D