Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.3.5.4)

[Dave Harris]

Just a curious questions about pdf export: are there any kind of gradients that are exported as vector or are they all converted to bitmaps?

 

Simple linear and radial fills can be exported as vector. Currently by default they are converted to bitmaps, but you can change this by using File > Export > PDF > More > Allow advanced features. If you do this and open the pdf in Illustrator, it will warn and then rasterise them anyway, but they can be imported as vector into other apps that support such.

[Dave Harris]

 

PS. it is poosible to make spot color ? for example, for die cut ?

 

We support spot colours for solid fills and they will be output to PDF by name. Currently if you use them to recolour bitmaps, that just gets rasterised (Affinity's way of recolouring is not compatible with PDF, which we intend to fix). Using them in gradient fills gets rasterised by default as I described above.

 

[clem]

We support spot colours for solid fills and they will be output to PDF by name. Currently if you use them to recolour bitmaps, that just gets rasterised (Affinity's way of recolouring is not compatible with PDF, which we intend to fix). Using them in gradient fills gets rasterised by default as I described above.

 

Ok, i will try tonight at home !

 

So good that you reply fast !

[vonBusing]

Simple linear and radial fills can be exported as vector. Currently by default they are converted to bitmaps, but you can change this by using File > Export > PDF > More > Allow advanced features. If you do this and open the pdf in Illustrator, it will warn and then rasterise them anyway, but they can be imported as vector into other apps that support such.

 

Thanks Dave for the clarification. I was quite certain that radial gradients were previously exported as vector, but with the last beta version, I wasn't sure anymore. I think I have read some thread on the forum that would explain this choice. Nevertheless, it's good that there is an option to toggle it.

[Dave Harris]

 

Ok, i will try tonight at home !

 

Let us know how you get on. This is all new, and needs testing in the real world.

[clem]

So first. i create a new swatch with a new color. but i can't rename it to a custom name ( like a swatch's name).

 i can acces to renamor's windows… set the name… and it's doesn't work.

 

there is a another thing, when i put a pantone color (Yellow 012C)… and i go back to color's panel. it's give me a CMYK values (but in acrobat it's a pantone). it's very confusing ! did you plan to change it ? 

[lenogre]

Agree with Clem. You need to add an another colorimetric mode : Solid color

We got a Pantone but in its attributes, it can be CMYK, Lab, TSL, etc.

[JGD]

Well, I was so focused on the Character panel bug (which Andrew Tang has already pinpointed, yay!) that I totally forgot I've been itching to ask you this, which is totally apropos:

 

I know Dave has already stated this is currently unsupported, but is it even remotely possible that you may add monotone/duotone/etc. spot colour (Pantone) gradients that separate properly into their respective printing plates (instead of being converted to CMYK straight away like Adobe apps often did but, apparently, no longer do as long as you keep them in vector form) in Affinity v.1, along with all the whizbang features that are coming in the next beta?

 

That would be HUGE. And I just checked AI and was… I won't say “pleasantly”, because I want to steer away from it ASAP, but rather bittersweetly surprised to see that it actually does that properly. And since I've been using gradients a lot lately… It would be a bummer if I had to keep using AI just to output print jobs. Judging from the current trends in graphic design, I'm willing to bet I'm not alone in this wish.  ;)

 

Also, I see that one of my requests, custom application and document palettes, was already implemented, which is great! My bad, it seems I spoke too soon…They are, however, still lacking all the other abilities I mentioned (having multiple floating palettes open concurrently, drag'n'drop swatch management, etc.), the swatch size is not customizable in either grid or list view (which would be really handy for people who have larger or secondary screens) and spot colour names are, rather unfortunately, lost when adding their swatches to a custom palette.

[vonBusing]

spot colour (Pantone) gradients that separate properly into their respective printing plates

 

Yes, please!

[vonBusing]

Simple linear and radial fills can be exported as vector. Currently by default they are converted to bitmaps, but you can change this by using File > Export > PDF > More > Allow advanced features. If you do this and open the pdf in Illustrator, it will warn and then rasterise them anyway, but they can be imported as vector into other apps that support such.

 

In this "More" dialogue, one can supposedly create and manage presets (like one with the advanced features enabled), but new presets don't seam to be saved or displayed in the preset menu.

[Garytagreg]

Hi,

 

This beta (and the AP beta) has the same issue I reported for the previous one (1.3.5.3). The details are all the same so I'm just going to quote it again here. It's really annoying, though and makes AD and AP super difficult to use with even the most basic tasks.

 

The only thing that has changed since is that I'm now using the latest El Capitan beta (15B30a)

 

 

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!

 

[MattP]

Hi Gary,

 

That's really odd... We're obviously not seeing that here, so can you just help us out with something: What do you mean by tapping with 3 fingers and dragging left or right? Do you not just click-drag with one finger on the slider to drag it left/right? When I try to use 3 fingers I slide between my full-screen applications and I believe this is the default setup for new installs? I'm also on the same developer beta of El Capitan as you and I just can't replicate this... :(

 

Thanks in advance,

Matt

[MEB]

Another improvement not listed in the first topic: Affinity now keeps the last ten used fonts on top of the font list.

[ronnyb]

Matt, I use the three finger tap-and-drag as well on my MBP's trackpad. It is SUPER easy and allows one to select+drag AND be able to pick up the three fingers, move them on the trackpad (when you run out of room), and continue with the same select+drag gesture as if you never released. It's like clicking or tapping on the trackpad, but instead, a simple 3 finger drag begins the operation...

 

I think they hid this gesture in El Capitan, I can't find it in the Trackpad's System preferences, but I could swear it was there in previous OS. It's a 3 finger gesture, but I forget what it's called... I have ALL the gestures turned on for my trackpad, if that is of any help.

 

Hi Gary,

 

That's really odd... We're obviously not seeing that here, so can you just help us out with something: What do you mean by tapping with 3 fingers and dragging left or right? Do you not just click-drag with one finger on the slider to drag it left/right? When I try to use 3 fingers I slide between my full-screen applications and I believe this is the default setup for new installs? I'm also on the same developer beta of El Capitan as you and I just can't replicate this... :(

 

Thanks in advance,

Matt

[vonBusing]

Thanks Garytagreg and ronnyb for the 3-finger gesture tips. For me, still on Maverick, It works like a charm, even on those sliders in AD and AP. 

 

Garytagreg: the behavior shown in your video is like a nightmare. What is this circle around your pointer: is it from the screen recording app?

[A_B_C]

I can only confirm that three-finger-drag and -slide both work perfectly on Yosemite (hmm, there is plenty of room for imprecise actions, and it still works). On my system it’s the option below … what Gary mentioned, must be an issue that was introduced with El Capitan …  :unsure:

 

P.S. Yes, vonBusing, these little rings around the cursor are due to the Quicktime Player option “Show mouse clicks in screen recordings” …

[ronnyb]

It's working fine on my version of El Capitan in AD/AP... but the Gesture Preference is missing in El Cap; perhaps its now default behavior...?

 

I can only confirm that three-finger-drag and -slide both work perfectly on Yosemite (the movie was recorded with three-finger-drag active; note that there is plenty of room for imprecise actions, and it still works). On my system it’s the option below … what Gary mentioned, must be an issue that was introduced with El Capitan …  :unsure:

 

P.S. Yes, vonBusing, these little rings around the cursor are due to the Quicktime Player option “Show mouse clicks in screen recordings” …

[synaptyx]

Is it just me, or is it really slow to export JPG, PNG, etc, now? Also crashes when I try to export PDF/EPS/SVG or at least takes significantly long that it seems to have crashed.

[Dave Harris]

Just downloaded the new beta. It crashes when importing a PDF file. The current version opens it normally. I cannot attach the PDF file because of copyright, but I send it to support team if necessary.

 

Thanks for the file. This crash will be fixed in the next beta.

[psaldari]

It's working fine on my version of El Capitan in AD/AP... but the Gesture Preference is missing in El Cap; perhaps its now default behavior...?

You can enable the three fingers gesture in the Accessibility pane (I don't know why Apple have moved this gesture here...)

[Garytagreg]

Hi,

 

Thanks for all the comments. As noted by psaldari, the 3 finger drag gesture option has been moved to the Accessibility pane now (Accessibility->Mouse & Trackpad->Trackpad Options->Enable Dragging (three finger drag in the drop down list). I, too, am puzzled at the move as its the most natural control method by far of me: combined with tap to click lets you 3-finger drag folders, windows and sliders around without ever having to "click". Indeed, the only time I "click" the touchpad is when I select my user on the logon screen as it uses the default touchpad options there. As lazy as it sounds, the effort spent pushing my finger down and then releasing it seems crude and unnecessary ;)

 

Anyhow, I think maybe the move to accessibility may be a clue to why I've only recently seen this problem. I created a new user and enabled the 3-finger dragging and tried the beta. It seemed to work for a few tries as the sliders were working as expected but then I once again had the same issue I described with the video with the sliders. Maybe the move to an "accessibility" option has created a requirement for apps to handle dragging slightly differently?  e.g. lifting my finger up after a drag might send a different notification to the app, or something in that vein?

 

Attached are my touchpad and accessibility settings for your reference. If you mirror them, hopefully you'll be able to recreate the issue :) (Please note the four finger swipes for swiping between full-screen apps, mission control and expose that usually are 3-finger ones but that I changed, too, due to my drag setting)

 

PS: yes, vonBusing, it is indeed a nightmare, especially as it used to work so well. I hope the devs will be able to sort it out. And, yes, I use quicktime to record my screen captures with the "show clicks" option which is what puts the circles up.

 

edit: sorry, the attached screenshots were massive - I've shrunk them a bit now.

[MattP]

We've been looking at this - and so far we'd concluded that the behaviour with 3-finger dragging must be deliberate and is an accessibility feature - which is basically the same conclusion you're drawing. We think it's designed so that the user can lift their fingers and start dragging again within a certain time and it will continue the drag - as though they'd never lifted their fingers... The OS doesn't actually tell us the drag has ended until about half a second after you stop interacting. This is actually the cause of the other bug you mentioned where you can lift your fingers from the touch pad and it snaps back to where it was and we can fix this one, but the 3-finger drag thing, I think is deliberate...

[ronnyb]

Matt, FYI, I also use the 3 finger drag, but I don't get any errors like @Garytagreg does... 

 

We've been looking at this - and so far we'd concluded that the behaviour with 3-finger dragging must be deliberate and is an accessibility feature - which is basically the same conclusion you're drawing. We think it's designed so that the user can lift their fingers and start dragging again within a certain time and it will continue the drag - as though they'd never lifted their fingers... The OS doesn't actually tell us the drag has ended until about half a second after you stop interacting. This is actually the cause of the other bug you mentioned where you can lift your fingers from the touch pad and it snaps back to where it was and we can fix this one, but the 3-finger drag thing, I think is deliberate...

[Garytagreg]

Matt,

 

It may be that they have changed something recently because it was working just fine before. I'm not convinced about the continuing a drag theory, though. I tried continuing a drag immediately after raising my fingers while dragging a finder window around but everything was very snappy (definitely not a half second delay) and reacted as expected. To me, the "accessibility" part might be for people that lack the finger strength to push down and drag?

 

That said, up till now it was a normal trackpad option and not classified as an accessibility one. Also, I don't get this behaviour in any other sliders in other apps or OSX itself. e.g. the Apple colour chooser handles everything just fine. Of course, though,  I realise these are native controls so they might be "special"... However, I use LightRoom as my DAM and I have no issues with the non-native sliders there.

[Garytagreg]

Our discussions here got me thinking and I got a suspicion that has "solved" my problem (at least where AD and AP are concerned).

 

I run another app, BetterTouchTool which hooks into the accessibility features (you need to give it permission to access accessibility) and lets you create your own gestures, keyboard shortcuts etc. (e.g. I have a 5-finger click set up to toggle fullscreen - very useful). I don't have anything set in it to a three-button touch but I think something its doing is interfering with the correct operation of the dragging notifications being sent to AD and AP.

 

I closed BetterTouchTool and the sliders started working as expected. Ran it again and the problems immediately returned.

 

So, problem solved and I'll take it up with the BetterTouchTool folks. :) Hopefully they can fix the issue because its a really useful app (and, apart from this issue, comes highly recommended by me). At least you don't need to worry about it any more :)