Import from Designer on iPad to Designer 2?

[rtteachr]

How can I move projects over from Affinity Designer on the iPad to Affinity Designer 2 on the iPad? Is there an easy way? Thanks!

[Pookiepal]

Hopping on this, I need to know!

Don’t really want to have to manually import over 300 projects 1 by 1! 😬

[Pookiepal]

I just found this…

 

Unfortunately due to sandboxing on iPadOS, we're unable to transfer installed/custom content, or saved documents from Version 1 to Version 2 - this sandboxing is controlled by Apple and we are unable to workaround these restrictions.
 

    You will need to manually export your content and save your documents, then import your content and open any files you wish to continue working on.
 
 

[Dan C]

Hi @rtteachr & @Pookiepal,

Please find the below FAQ for more information here:

I hope this clears things up

[RedBeard]

😟 They couldn’t have just added a save all to icloud function? I don’t believe this would have had to deal with sandboxing limitations of moving directly from one app to another. Oh well time to start saving manually… ⏳

[rtteachr]

Ugh. This stinks. Would have thought the developers would have come up with something. I guess I’ll keep v1 on my iPad for now so I can access those files when needed and eventually I’ll move over the important stuff. 
 

[Paul Mudditt]

1 hour ago, RedBeard said:

😟 They couldn’t have just added a save all to icloud function? I don’t believe this would have had to deal with sandboxing limitations of moving directly from one app to another. Oh well time to start saving manually… ⏳

Each document needs a unique name otherwise that would simply result in each file overwriting the last

[rtteachr]

I was hoping we could copy files from the old Affinity app folder in the files app into the new one and they would magically appear. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. 

[walt.farrell]

30 minutes ago, rtteachr said:

I was hoping we could copy files from the old Affinity app folder in the files app into the new one and they would magically appear. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. 

The old folders you can see are not the folders where your Home Page (sandbox) files are located. The sandbox is hidden, by iPadOS, and inaccessible to the users.

 

[Pookiepal]

Found a workaround.

Save all the files you want to transfer from D to D2 using the save option on the three line hamburger thing.

Use Stage Manger to have D2 and Files app side by side.

Navigate to where you’ve saved the files for transfer.

Select all the files you want to move into D2.

Drag and Drop.

I’ve tried this with 20 files of about 25mb to 100mb and it worked fine.

[rtteachr]

Nice! A good use for stage manager. Have to give it a try!

[Peter vB]

Just upgraded to all v2 versions and almost got a heart attack seeing the old files are not in v2 🤬 
Will v1 still be updated? 
I have thousands of files in both AP and AD.

@Pookiepal Where did you save the files before you dragged and dropped them into v2?

[fernelius]

With Affinity Photo, I found I could open both versions and just drag from one app to the other (in live files).  I suspect this might work for Designer as well but don’t have any open files there.

[Peter vB]

Jesus Christ, this is undoable.

Why, why, why is this a separate app?
Why not updating the existing app(s)?

This is going to take months, just to save each file to the Files app, give it a unique name, than copy them all to the new Affinity Photo folder and than opening each file separate to get 'em into the new version.

I'm sorry, but this just socks...

 

Main question is now: will we get future updates for the v1 version?
 

Edited November 10, 2022 by Peter vB

[Dan C]

9 hours ago, Peter vB said:

Main question is now: will we get future updates for the v1 version?

As I understand it, there will be no further feature/improvement updates to the V1 apps

[DM1]

23 hours ago, Pookiepal said:

Hopping on this, I need to know!

Don’t really want to have to manually import over 300 projects 1 by 1! 😬

Yikes! Do you actually have 300 unsaved files? That’s a very risky workflow. Saved files are in a different format and can be copied/moved/duplicated easily and stored anywhere. I’d recommend Saving as an early step in any new projects.

[DM1]

11 hours ago, Peter vB said:

Where did you save the files before you dragged and dropped them into v2?

You can save them to the default folder and simply copy the folder contents to version 2’s default folder.

[rtteachr]

14 hours ago, Pookiepal said:

Found a workaround.

Save all the files you want to transfer from D to D2 using the save option on the three line hamburger thing.

Use Stage Manger to have D2 and Files app side by side.

Navigate to where you’ve saved the files for transfer.

Select all the files you want to move into D2.

Drag and Drop.

I’ve tried this with 20 files of about 25mb to 100mb and it worked fine.

You dropped directly into D2? Tried this and files aren’t appearing. 

[Peter vB]

4 hours ago, DM1 said:

Yikes! Do you actually have 300 unsaved files? That’s a very risky workflow. Saved files are in a different format and can be copied/moved/duplicated easily and stored anywhere. I’d recommend Saving as an early step in any new projects.

I just counted 608 unsaved files in AP1.
Same goes for AD1, but there I have 410 unsaved files.
Can you imagine my almost heart attack?
Never knew I needed an other workflow.

Recently LiquidText upgraded their application, where users had the choice: 
keep using the old version or upgrade to the new payed version where the old version was just updated.
No need for moving files, nothing changed, all the files were there when you opened the new version.
Are the developers of LiquidText smarter than the ones who created the most wonderful Photo and Designer app for the iPad?
It seems that way....

It's too late for this upgrade, but Serif, please find a way to keep or sync the files to new versions.

 

 

Quote

 

 

[PixelPoldi]

oh my... Why is there no simple "export all" button to prepare all the files for the transfer to AD2 and AP2? This is not good. Because V1 wont get any updates it's a matter of time that there will be issues with AD1 and AP1 after updating iOS (remember the Save Bug in AD1?). So keeping AD1 for the old files is not a good solution.
Also I have no backup of the free fonts I imported to AD1. So I have to search, download and import every single font.  Thanks for that too.

Dear Affinity-Team:
I love your software and your pricing. But you really screwed that up.

[Mork handley]

Have to agree with other users: if making users download and pay for a new app (fine in principle: work should be paid for), the inability to get their old work into the new version is very serious omission which is bound to anger people.  Also, like others, I always assumed that files I created in the apps are saved and stored safely.  The idea that I have to manually go to each and every one of my hundreds of files and select “save” seems like another serious design issue.  Manually having to select ‘save’ was a workflow we happily lost in the early 00s!

[seloran]

PSA: Whatever you do, please don’t make the same mistake I just did: deleting the V1 app from my iPad before making sure to backup the design file data in the Affinity Designer folder in the “On My iPad” location in the Files app.

I downloaded the V2 app and saw another folder with the same name and icon in that location. I didn’t know things in the “On My iPad” location count as app data if they have an icon on the folder… (I blame Apple for not making the distinction clear)

Anyways, make sure to save a copy of your files elsewhere if you have only been saving your work on your iPad, or you may very well risk losing all of your work if you delete your V1 app.

Edit: Luckily, after my initial shock, I checked back in on the V2 app which I had used to open some of my latest work done in V1 before deleting V1, and the Live Docs tab still has the data of those works I happened to have opened. I’m still frustrated that I lost most of my old files, but at least the most important files (the ones I’m actively working on) are safe. I definitely saved a copy of those files to a location outside of the “app data” folder this time after the discovery and should probably back it up too.

Edited November 10, 2022 by seloran

[Peter vB]

Well, after 10 hours of constant click click swipe swipe I have all my old v1 files in AP2.
Started 5:30pm and was ready around 3:30am.
After a 7 hour sleep I can still feel it in my right hand

Question:

My standard saving location is in de AP(2) folder on my iPad.
If I would choose to save them to iCloud instead, would those iCloud files still disappear when I ever delete my AP2 application?
with other words: do I need to save an extra copy outside of the Affinity Photo folders?
What is best practice?

[seloran]

2 hours ago, Peter vB said:

Well, after 10 hours of constant click click swipe swipe I have all my old v1 files in AP2.
Started 5:30pm and was ready around 3:30am.
After a 7 hour sleep I can still feel it in my right hand

Question:

My standard saving location is in de AP(2) folder on my iPad.
If I would choose to save them to iCloud instead, would those iCloud files still disappear when I ever delete my AP2 application?
with other words: do I need to save an extra copy outside of the Affinity Photo folders?
What is best practice?

Personally, I would not save my files in the Affinity folders but somewhere else instead to avoid losing all of my file data when deleting the apps. I read in the iPad delete prompt that data in iCloud are not deleted when you delete the apps, but I personally would like to not have my local files be deleted either just to be safe and in case I can't download my files from iCloud via the internet at the time.

[fernelius]

 

On 11/10/2022 at 1:00 PM, seloran said:

PSA: Whatever you do, please don’t make the same mistake I just did: deleting the V1 app from my iPad before making sure to backup the design file data in the Affinity Designer folder in the “On My iPad” location in the Files app.

I downloaded the V2 app and saw another folder with the same name and icon in that location. I didn’t know things in the “On My iPad” location count as app data if they have an icon on the folder… (I blame Apple for not making the distinction clear)

Anyways, make sure to save a copy of your files elsewhere if you have only been saving your work on your iPad, or you may very well risk losing all of your work if you delete your V1 app.

Edit: Luckily, after my initial shock, I checked back in on the V2 app which I had used to open some of my latest work done in V1 before deleting V1, and the Live Docs tab still has the data of those works I happened to have opened. I’m still frustrated that I lost most of my old files, but at least the most important files (the ones I’m actively working on) are safe. I definitely saved a copy of those files to a location outside of the “app data” folder this time after the discovery and should probably back it up too.

Very likely you can go back and re-install V1 even though it’s not available for purchase.  Try going into App Store, tap on your profile in the top right (for me it’s the picture assigned to the account), and click on Purchased.  You can search for Affinity, and the old version of the app should show.  Click on that and install.  Hopefully, that will make your old iCloud files visible in the old version.