Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.3.5.4)

[MattP]

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.

 

 

Notable changes:

 

- Added support for Pantone colours - including PDF/X import and export.

- New blend mode - “Contrast Invert”. Try typing some black text over a gradient black->white area and choose this blend mode.

- Fix for incorrectly exporting the opposite of what the user requested with the ‘1x’/‘2x’/‘3x’ options in Export Persona.

- Fix for documents with Pixel unit types incorrectly loading into the Mac App Store version (just open your document and save it again in this version to fix).

- Keyboard shortcuts should now work properly for view zooming and are now properly saved for tools.
- Certain adjustments (Levels, Curves, Channel Mixer) can now be applied in any colour space - so you could add a LAB curves adjustment to an RGB document, for example.
- The Move Tool can now be told to move an object, but not children of that object: It’s an option on the context toolbar and will only show up if you have a non-group object selected which has children (a curve which clips a number of other curves, for example).
- Numerous PSD export / import improvements - Some fixes that should help create PSD files that FCPX and Motion can import.  Fixed import vector masking issue with subtractive masks.  PSD export can now export efficient flat image which decreases files sizes for flat RGB images)..

- You can now double click the empty view (with no documents loaded) to load a document.

- Numerous improvements to vector import / export - especially for PDF/X.

- Numerous Help improvements.

- Numerous minor bug fixes.

[A_B_C]

Wow … apart from Pantone support, this one is highly appreciated … 

 

The Move Tool can now be told to move an object, but not children of that object: It’s an option on the context toolbar and will only show up if you have a non-group object selected which has children (a curve which clips a number of other curves, for example).

 

… did I say “appreciated”? No, it’s fantastic …  :D

So_great.mov

[Andy Somerfield]

There will be an even more fantastic Designer beta in a few weeks too ;)

 

A

[ronnyb]

Great to see Pantone spot colors added!  Curious about new Blend mode...

 

There will be an even more fantastic Designer beta in a few weeks too ;)

 

A

[anon1]

So now we can easily adjust images clipped by a shape ...A_B_C your helps are just great! :)) 

 

I´m quite impressed by your work, Affinity! Thank you very much!

[Busenitz]

thanks so much!!!

Still waiting (like a kid before Christmas ;) ) for the contour / offset, and text warping (while retaining it as text)

Thanks for the continuing updates.  As much as I miss a few things from CorelDRAW, I seldom boot up the Windows side of my Mac anymore.  AD is getting closer all of the time!  Thanks!!!!

[Paekke]

Great job guys!

 

Btw, pressing the M key doesn't cycle between rectangle, oval and rounded rectangle anymore. Has this been changed?..

[Andy Somerfield]

Paekke,

 

Looks like a bug - sorry! - we will get it fixed :)

 

Thanks,

 

A

[JGD]

Loving the Pantone support! :D

 

By the way, will there be a way to load floating palettes à la AI, or having at least a “Custom” palette (empty or default, but on the sparse side) in the swatches panel? Also, dragging swatches around would be a very practical and intuitive way to manage your own custom document palette, instead of always having to press the “Add current fill to palette button”. That always forces you to create a new object or change the colour of an existing object in order to add a colour to a palette (I am using the “Greys” palette as a starting point, seeing it is the smallest), which is not very practical nor intuitive.

 

Also, while on the subject of panels, you still haven't corrected the crashing bugs on the Studio found in the last beta. Sometimes, dragging some tabs (can't remember which, sorry) to and from the docked panels will crash the app(s) (Photo is also affected), undocking specifically the Character and Paragraph tabs individually still crashes the app(s) 100% of the time, and having them opened and forcefully floating (by undocking their whole group and removing the remaining tabs) upon exit will also always send the app(s) into the crash loop I mentioned before.

 

I am aware that this is a beta and not at all intended for production work, but panels (especially those two) and panel customization (including having floating panels in smaller computers like the extremely popular 13'' MacBook) are extremely important for a big number of designers. Having them work properly would enable us to acually work with the betas for the time being without risking too much…

 

Can you provide an ETA for a fix (not necessarily on a definite timescale, but the target version)? Maybe on the next beta, I'm hoping? It is a rather egregious and catastrophic bug, after all… Without true workspace/Studio export/import support (calling it Studio instead of workspace would be a wise branding choice), it's a real bummer forgetting to close those two floating panels before exiting and having to reset and customize the whole Studio all over again. :\

[evtonic3]

I can dock and undock Character and Paragraph palette without any problem.

[predick]

Lock Children Layer option makes me happy. :D

[000]

Pantone, Pantone … Hurray!!!

Also: Looking forward to the even more fantastic beta you've teased … might we get artboards and / or pages for early Christmas? ;-)

[Signguy]

option up and option down do not work in the Beta any longer to increase or decrease text spacing.  Just noticed that option left and right no longer work either to adjust spacing.

[JGD]

I can dock and undock Character and Paragraph palette without any problem.

 

Well, I can't do it without triggering a crash on two different Macs. It happened on the previous beta under Yosemite, and on the current one under El Capitan.

 

It could conceivably be caused by some third party software or something, so I'll try running the betas on a guest account or under Safe Mode.

[MattP]

Pantone, Pantone … Hurray!!!

Also: Looking forward to the even more fantastic beta you've teased … might we get artboards and / or pages for early Christmas? ;-)

I'm trying my best, Jens (hence why I'm being a bit quiet on the forums) - might take me another few weeks before it hits the beta, but I'm hoping it'll all be ready before Christmas! :)

[Andy Somerfield]

Can we have canvas rotation too, Matt ;) ?

 

A

[Paekke]

Can we have canvas rotation too, Matt ;) ?

 

A

and canvas flip while you are at it  ;)

[arcnor]

None of the bugs I reported are fixed on this beta, so I'll copy here again just in case nobody saw them last time:

 

* Enter the Export persona, select the slice tool, select a layer, press the "Create Slice" button, press the "Export 1x" button. Nothing happens... If now you go to the "Slices" tab and select another slice and go back to the one you just created, the buttons magically work again.

* The "Open Recent" menu gets randomly cleared (for example, open AD, open a PSD document, close and open AD again, and check the menu... it's empty)

* Create an element and apply an inner glow effect to it with a big radius (let's call it RADIUS). When going to the Export persona and press "Create slice" while selecting your layer, the size of the slice will be incorrect (it will be RADIUS pixels too big)

* The "Continuous" checkbox and "Export Selected" buttons on the Slices tab are blurry on non-HiDPI monitors

* I'm seeing a bug with this PSD document: http://ui-cloud.com/free-dark-ui-kit/. Whenyou open the file the first time, you'll see there is a Popup element with "Option 1" typed 4 times, but the first line shows "-. --    -" or something like that. Just do a bit of zoom, and you'll see the "Option 1" magically reappears. Close and open the file again, and you'll see the same problem again.

 

Also, there is no stripe pattern on the progress bar, but I think that's because Affinity doesn't support patterns (yet?)

 

And a new one (also happening on the previous beta):

 

* With a HiDPI monitor, if you open a new document, set it to 100% zoom and press "Pixel view mode", the document will still look crisp (it should look... well, pixelated). Zooming in and out seems to fix this, but...

* ...if you press the "Retina pixel view mode" after "fixing" the previous bug (with zooming in and out) and going to 100% zoom again, you'll see the document pixelated (while it should look not pixelated of course. 100% zoom on a Retina display with "Retina pixel view mode" should obviously look exactly the same)

 

Also, may I suggest you drop the "Retina" wording and use "HiDPI" or similar? "Retina" was an Apple marketing term, and not the technical one AFAIK.

 

Can someone confirm they're seeing all those bugs?

 

Thanks

[Andrew Tang]

Well, I can't do it without triggering a crash on two different Macs. It happened on the previous beta under Yosemite, and on the current one under El Capitan.

 

It could conceivably be caused by some third party software or something, so I'll try running the betas on a guest account or under Safe Mode.

 

We aren't seeing the same issues of here. Can you check the console app the next time you make this happen and let us know what it reports for Designer.

[mogu]

Wow Japanese version !!  ww

 

BUG report

i can't rename at "Rename Fill ..." at "Swatches tab"

with ver. 1.3.5.3     I can do this.

 

[A_B_C]

Just seen, you’ve added customisable shortcuts for Break Curve and Join Curve … wow …  :wub:  

 

Would it be complicated to make them work for the Pen Tool as well? That would be very convenient (you know, we can temporally switch to the Node Tool from there, holding the Cmd key) …  :)

[MattP]

Just seen, you’ve added customisable shortcuts for Break Curve and Join Curve … wow …  :wub:  

 

Would it be complicated to make them work for the Pen Tool as well? That would be very convenient (you know, we can temporally switch to the Node Tool from there, holding the Cmd key) …  :)

No problem, I'm sure we can sort that out - it's a good idea :)

[celliott80]

I've noticed on my 5k iMac that in 1.3.5.4, panning (with swipe left / right on Magic Mouse) and zooming (holding Option and swipe up / down on Magic Mouse) with a Isometric grid turned on is noticeably laggy compared to the Mac App Store version of Designer. 

[retrograde]

Haven't given it the full test drive yet but did some playing and loving it so far. 

[JGD]

We aren't seeing the same issues of here. Can you check the console app the next time you make this happen and let us know what it reports for Designer.

 

Hi Andrew,

 

I still haven't tried your suggestion, but I did try replicating the bug on my MacBook, on a fresh user account; I couldn't, so it definitely must be something common to both my Macs' main user accounts (some startup item/daemon/driver/setting, perhaps?). Also, both the crashes and crash loop are related to the Character and/or Paragraph tabs, so maybe there's a common cause there. Since those deal with font rendering, I am suspecting that FontExplorer X Pro might be the culprit… [Edit: It wasn't, and I can't seem to find it].

 

I will try messing around with my settings a bit on both accounts, to see if I can pinpoint what's causing the issues, and will send you my console logs anyway. [Edit: Nope, I have no idea what's wrong… If you'd be so kind to provide me with a support e-mail, I'll send you my crash logs right away].