Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.3.5.12 - RC2)

[A_B_C]

Sent you the crash report, Matt …   :)

 

The procedure was this one:

• Create (at least) two art boards and a rectangle on the pasteboard, that is not clipped to any of the art boards.
• Merge the rectangle and one of the art boards.
• Move the “bounding box” that remains as a result of that operation.
• Crash.

That seemed to be the original situation. Sorry for the edits of my post, Matt. I was just trying to figure out, what I did to make Designer crash. Thanks, Alex  :)

[MattP]

Thanks :)  It looks like it's getting confused about where to put the finished object - and it's ending up in a bit of a state, I'm sure I can sort this out, thanks :)

[joost]

AD 1.3.5.12.  

1. Double click foreground color to show color chooser. 

2. Minimize color chooser with yellow dialog menu button

3. From AD dock icon, right click select color chooser to show it again.

 

Color chooser shows briefly and then hides permanently i.e., I have to restart AD to get it back.

[p10n]

When i start the beta, it tells me I need an AppStore version installed, and opens the app store.

But I do have the AppStore version installed, in fact it is running right now.

 

Can this be because I have moved Affinity Designer in a subfolder of my Applications folder?

[Patchwork]

I don't get the feeling the reports I've made about problems I've found have had much attention paid to them (I guess because the way I use the program isn't like the majority of other users?), but has anyone done any double checking as to whether the scale stroke setting problem has been fixed?  I can't check it anymore because it's embarrassing to keep submitting work to a client, only to have them ask me to fix the stroke scale, because it's blown up to some crazy random width when they opened the SVG file in Illustrator...and then have them ask me why I'm not using Illustrator...

 

To be clearer, a thick outline is required on the character designs I submit.  I set it at 45 for all characters, and always have the scale stroke setting checked.  Always.  It doesn't work, though, so I end up having to outline the stroke, instead, unfortunately, which takes more time.  This problem also messes up any shapes I create within the design and put a stroke line around, which can really distort the finished image if somebody opens the file up on any computer that's not my own.

 

I really hope you'll fix this (along with creating a live paint style tool), so I can speak of Affinity Designer proudly to my clients.  The impression they seem to have at this point, sadly, is that it's an inferior program I'm using because I'm just being cheap.  :(  I don't want to have to be forced to go back to Illustrator.  I don't believe at all in Adobe's rental system garbage, and don't want to support it.  I need a program that can do what I need it to do, though, so unfortunately, I could end up stuck if tools that would help people in the creation of their linear illustrations aren't fine tuned enough to be reliable.

 

I do realize that something about the stroke scaling might have to do with my older MacBook Pro...though I'm not sure to what extent.  I should be getting a new Mac next month, will hopefully be able to transfer my app purchase of Affinity Designer over to it, and we'll see if that feature works any better for me then.  

 

I'm really grateful to all of you developers for creating a fantastic alternative to Adobe Illustrator!  I think it's wonderful, and will continue to support it as best I can.  This post isn't meant to smear at all (I hope nobody's getting that impression)!  I just hope you'll soon decide to prioritize a few things that character designers, for instance, might find valuable for our linear art that requires outlining, adjusting stroke width, and easily filling in areas bounded by ink lines (rather than going through all the extra time it takes to draw shapes behind the ink lines after completing the line work).  Some folks really rely heavily on that live paint feature on a daily basis in our jobs!  It just saves so much time!  I hope you'll please consider putting it higher on the priority list!

 

I'm downloading the latest update now, and am looking forward to checking it out.  :)

[A_B_C]

Hey p10n,

 

I believe you found the answer yourself …  ;)

 

Compare: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/2477-beta-will-not-work-after-app-store-update/?p=12071

… and: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/13626-cant-start-affinity-photo-beta-and-have-no-access-to-the-sample-file/?p=60313

 

Cheers, Alex  :)

[Dave Harris]

When i start the beta, it tells me I need an AppStore version installed, and opens the app store.

But I do have the AppStore version installed, in fact it is running right now.

 

Can this be because I have moved Affinity Designer in a subfolder of my Applications folder?

 

Most likely, yes. The beta looks for the Mac App Store version in the usual place.

[james007]

hi

for the work we beta guys do

and there are not 1000's of our beta accounts

can't we get the final version for free or keep the latest beta?

instead of a block of the version we were working on

thanks

[anon1]

You need the MacAppStore version to run the beta anyway. And the beta will be a free update for the MAS Version....(for 2 years after the release you´ll get free updates)

[Brian D]

I don't get the feeling the reports I've made about problems I've found have had much attention paid to them (I guess because the way I use the program isn't like the majority of other users?), but has anyone done any double checking as to whether the scale stroke setting problem has been fixed?...

 

The problem is with Illustrator, not Affinity. See my attached screenshot.

 

I exported an SVG with a stroke, then opened the SVG in Affinity, Illustrator CC, Graphic, and Sketch 3... only Illustrator has a problem. Adobe need to work on their SVG support.

[Smeikx]

I observed strange behaviour concerning selection …

 

If I drag anywhere on the canvas (with the Move Tool), a shape gets selected even though it’s bounding box is far away from the area I dragged in.

 

See attached files.

 

Bug.mov

Bug.afdesign

[Mmj90]

Like the addition of the Character and Paragraph palettes that are dockable instead of the floating window. Generally I've noticed a big improvement over the previous version of Affinity in the new beta. Some initial thoughts on this version:

 

• Is there a way to open multiple Colour Windows? I use the HSB sliders often, but also like having the Color Wheel available. Potentially could we just "check off" the various Tools we'd like to see in the Colour Window? Like I'd check off Color Wheel and HSB, leaving RSB, Boxes and Tint unselected.
• A way to undock the Tools Palette (arrow, pen, etc.) or at least dock stuff on the outside of it. Mine is currently always 'stuck' on the far left. I would prefer to put the Layer panel to the far left and have the Tools Palette docked closer to my Art Board. Right now it's very inconvenient to constantly pass over other palettes to change tools.
• Search in the Preferences doesn't indicate nothing is found. Just slightly darker screen. 
• If two palettes are stacked and not 'anchored' to the actual interface. So floating above the art board etc. -  you are unable to dock another palette in between them. The only "snap" puts the new palette in a row with the other. 
• Can't dock anything underneath the Tools palette, which if you have two rows wastes a ton of screen real estate. I have a 2K monitor and if the Tools are in a 2 column setup - I have almost 80 percent of the screen unused. 
• Top right icon in Brushes window doesn't do anything or have a tooltip?
• Option to save Workspace or Window layout? Other than just switching between Pixel Persona etc. For different stages or an illustration I like to have different layouts.

[Andrew Tang]

• Is there a way to open multiple Colour Windows? I use the HSB sliders often, but also like having the Color Wheel available. Potentially could we just "check off" the various Tools we'd like to see in the Colour Window? Like I'd check off Color Wheel and HSB, leaving RSB, Boxes and Tint unselected.
• Option to save Workspace or Window layout? Other than just switching between Pixel Persona etc. For different stages or an illustration I like to have different layouts.

 

There isn't currently anyway to do these yet. You can request them as feature improvement for the future since we aren't accepting any new features at this stage right now. :) I especially like the idea of toggling useful colour models.

 

 

• A way to undock the Tools Palette (arrow, pen, etc.) or at least dock stuff on the outside of it. Mine is currently always 'stuck' on the far left. I would prefer to put the Layer panel to the far left and have the Tools Palette docked closer to my Art Board. Right now it's very inconvenient to constantly pass over other palettes to change tools.

 

Try menu items View -> Undock Tools...

 

 

• Search in the Preferences doesn't indicate nothing is found. Just slightly darker screen. 

 

This just acts like OSX System -> Preferences for now.

[p10n]

When i start the beta, it tells me I need an AppStore version installed, and opens the app store.

But I do have the AppStore version installed, in fact it is running right now.

 

Can this be because I have moved Affinity Designer in a subfolder of my Applications folder?

 

Ok that indeed seems to be the cause (thanks A_B_C !).

So my suggestion would be to have beta versions also look for the paid version in the folder where the beta currently resides...

[Dave Harris]

I don't get the feeling the reports I've made about problems I've found have had much attention paid to them (I guess because the way I use the program isn't like the majority of other users?), but has anyone done any double checking as to whether the scale stroke setting problem has been fixed?  I can't check it anymore because it's embarrassing to keep submitting work to a client, only to have them ask me to fix the stroke scale, because it's blown up to some crazy random width when they opened the SVG file in Illustrator...and then have them ask me why I'm not using Illustrator...

 

To be clearer, a thick outline is required on the character designs I submit.  I set it at 45 for all characters, and always have the scale stroke setting checked.  Always.  It doesn't work, though, so I end up having to outline the stroke, instead, unfortunately, which takes more time.  This problem also messes up any shapes I create within the design and put a stroke line around, which can really distort the finished image if somebody opens the file up on any computer that's not my own.

 

Illustrator appears to be getting confused by the SVG viewBox and the units somehow. I tried a quick test and got "stroke-width:20.83px" in the SVG, but Illustrator turned the width into 20.83pt. It also got the document size wrong. If I use Export > SVG > More and uncheck Set viewBox, then Illustrator gets both the document size and the stroke width right. I suggest you try unchecking that option and see if you get better results.

 

The stroke Scale with object setting only affects how strokes are affected when you resize within Affinity. It doesn't affect export. As Bripmd says, I believe our SVG export is correct because other apps interpret it correctly.