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Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.3.5.8)


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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. Please note that if you use features which are only present in the Beta version then save your document, it will no longer open in the Mac App Store version.
 

 
Notable changes:

- PDF import/export improvements, particularly in the area of bleed and trimboxes

- Pantone/Global colour improvements. Application and Document palettes are now searchable
- Artboards now have their own guides and snapping grids: These currently still need work.
- Disabled page resizing options when using artboards
- Fix for the ‘document’ artboard size making ever-larger artboards when used from the Artboard Tool’s context toolbar

- Added double-click to edit palette colours
- Visual indication that documents are loading (in the application title bar)
- Fix for non-retina drawing of UI in Layers panel - the disclosure triangle was drawn incorrectly
- Added ‘Hide Selection’ option to context toolbar of some tools - use it to hide the tool drawing while dragging
- Context toolbars changed to use icon instead of text ‘reset bounding box’ so that it occupies less space
- Improved performance when complicated grids are visible - more to come though…
- Improved printers marks
- Changing paragraph indent now also changes the first line indent too
- Fix for view appearing blurry at times when translated by a sub-pixel amount
- Canvas rotation with the trackpad can now be disabled from Preferences
- Increase font size for Japanese version
- Paragraph panel fixes

- Switching documents via Command+Tilda is now a customisable shortcut

 

Edit: This build currently only works on Yosemite and El Capitan.

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Very nice! :) One thing though—I know visible bleed will come later, but currently if I set margin and bleed on a document and then change it to an artboard, the margin is no longer visible, and bleed lines don't show as well. Is that something that will be added in per-artboard later on?

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Very nice! :) One thing though—I know visible bleed will come later, but currently if I set margin and bleed on a document and then change it to an artboard, the margin is no longer visible, and bleed lines don't show as well. Is that something that will be added in per-artboard later on?

 

Yes... kind of... Margins are also 'per-artboard' now but I haven't yet worked out what a margin means on a non-rectangular artboard! In the future, when you make your first artboard, all the guides, margins and snapping grid options from your document will be moved onto the first artboard, but right now they are just removed, sorry... :(

 

I'm just still working my way through a few things with artboards (and there's a constant discussion in the office about what should happen in different scenarios) - so it's very 'work-in-progress' but we'll get there quickly now :)

 

Thanks!

Matt

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Thanks for this update, Matt … that was fast … great to see how things are evolving …  :)

 

A small thing I noticed: When you tick the new “Hide selection” option (which is great, by the way) next to “Show Selection Centre” and move the rotation centre, the object handles immediately disappear and snapping is disabled (also for other objects, as well as guides / spread / etc.). I don’t know, if that makes sense. I would rather suggest, that the object handles should disappear only on rotating or moving the object, not already on moving the rotation centre … for you usually would like to snap the centre somewhere …  :)

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No more ability to use old export engine.   :(  I am unable to export and use Sign Cut software without having this capability.  Can you please put the old export engine back in as an option?

 

The problem is that no text gets imported into SignCut even when "embed fonts: text as curves" is selected with current PDF export advanced options.

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Just a quick one, I'm not sure hide selection is an appropriate for the context bar.. feels like an application wide state, behaviourally more like showing guides/rulers, I'd expect to see this in a dropdown. Also you should be a little more descriptive in it's tooltip, something like "Hide selection while moving object" otherwise people might assume this just persistently hides objects' bounding boxes.

 

Regarding disabling the document settings when multiple arboards are on the canvas, it might be better for clarity to add some context in-line as to why the dimension options are unavailable.

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The PDF X-1a preset is still throwing errors when I use it. A pain as I’d to be use it soon (yeah, I know, Beta Software).

 

Could you attach an .afdesign that gives the error? I had thought the problem you raised on 15th October was fixed in previous betas.

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"Canvas rotation with the trackpad can now be disabled from Preferences"  :D  :D  :D  :D 

 

And forgot to mention previously, love Artboards  :D  :D  :D  :D 

 

 

Allan

About me: Trainer at Apple, Freelance Video Editor, Motion Graphics Artist, Website Designer, Photographer. Yes I like creating things!!!

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Twitter: @StrawberryMnky  @imAllanThompson

Web: mystrawberrymonkey.com  Portfolio: behance.net/allanthompson

YouTube: Affinity Designer & Photo Tutorials

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One thing I just noticed, I saved out a bunch of guides on a large file, saved, closed, reopened, and all of the guides were gone. So far I've tested this a few more times and it seems to be removing all guides on every save/close/reopen. :/

 

Edit: I went back to beta 1.3.5.7 and strangely it was doing the same thing on that file. I had a large document size (4000px x 4000px), but when I converted the document to an artboard, the guides were retained properly on save.

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Excellent!  I'll be busy trying it out this morning!

 

The only major problem I've been having with it so far is that it doesn't seem to like to remember when I outline strokes.  Like it won't obey the command sometimes, and I'll send my file out to my supervisor in SVG form, and have it sent back because the outline has bloated up on his machine.  Come to think of it, I guess that also means that the Scale Stroke to match the object doesn't work very well, either.  I have it set, but again...I've had to start outlining strokes so they don't bloat up on other people's commputers....Would it be possible to fix that soon?

 

Other than that, is there a shortcut to collapse a series of grouped layers, rather than having to scroll to the top of the layers column to collapse it?  It would really save time.  The images I'm working on end up made up of hundreds of pieces that need specific grouping, so it would really be helpful to be able to collapse groupings in a single keystroke.  :)

 

Oh, and now that reminds me!  The object/layer lock doesn't work!  Even if I lock a layer down, the object on the layer gets picked up if I copy or try to move them all at once in a group!  It gets really frustrating when I'm struggling to select a tiny shape amongst several others that are layered tightly together, and can't get it.  My usual way around that is to lock down all the shapes around the one I want to select so I can finally pick it up, but often, the surrounding pieces won't stay locked, and I end up picking it up with the rest!

 

Thanks for all of your hard work!  I'm really enjoying working with the beta!

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....and now I've just tried to open it and it said the app is damaged and needs to be thrown in the trash...I've already made it replace the previous beta, but don't have time to go back and download the first beta again, so I'll have to use the regular version for today until I have time.   :(  That's too bad.  I'm on a 2009 MacBookPro, using El Capitan.  

post-2632-0-19940000-1447799211_thumb.png

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....and now I've just tried to open it and it said the app is damaged and needs to be thrown in the trash...I've already made it replace the previous beta, but don't have time to go back and download the first beta again, so I'll have to use the regular version for today until I have time.   :(  That's too bad.  I'm on a 2009 MacBookPro, using El Capitan.  

Reset the application (hold Ctrl while starting) and see if that fixes it.

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