V2 is a downgrade

[loukash]

21 minutes ago, Bryan Rieger said:

I can't for the life of me find them on the iPad

Click Tap on the Group icon in the Layers panel and select Create Compound at the bottom of the menu below Twist.

P.S. As it's a "context menu", the command only appears if two or more "compoundable" objects are selected.

Edited November 15, 2022 by loukash

[MEB]

13 minutes ago, Bryan Rieger said:

I can definitely see that, but it would be nice to see the same mental models adopted for all effect groups. As it stands compounds still feel very separate.

Also, I can't for the life of me find them on the iPad, and RTFM is no help at all as the following excerpt (from FTM) makes no sense in v2:

Creating Compounds

…
3. On the Move Tool's context toolbar, tap Geometry.
4. Tap Add, Subtract, Intersect or Xor.
The compound will be created as a Compound layer entry on the Layers panel, containing the original objects.

There is no Geometry menu/button to tap. And tapping the Add, Subtract, Intersect, Xor, and Divide menu items performs that action on the selected geometry, but does not create a compound shape. And while it as possible to Separate Curves after, I was only left with the geometry produced after the operation. There is simply no layer group to toggle to manipulate the shapes or modes any further.

Am I missing something, or do the docs not align with reality?

Hi @Bryan Rieger,
Seems the help file is outdated, sorry. I believe I've already reported this but will double-check. Another way to create a compound:  enable alt in the Command Controller, tap the Geometry button in the context toolbar and select the operation you want.

[MoonaticDestiny]

9 hours ago, shushustorm said:

- Button lower left has to be disabled each time when opening a file

THIS! I hate it. Its so annoying. You turn it off. You leave the app or exit your file. You open the app and reopen your file and the command controller is enabled even though you disabled it. Its honestly annoying to disable it each time. 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi @Bryan Rieger,
Seems the help file is outdated, sorry. To perform a compound operation enable alt in the Command Controller, tap the Geometry button in the context toolbar and select the operation you want.

Thanks @MEB. I have to admit, I am really hating that command controller/modifiers menu (it's called toggle modifiers when you press the help key in the lower right)—everything is obscured within the interface. Some consistency in naming things would help, but having some indication of what the modifier actually does to the existing items in the context toolbar would be really helpful. As it stands everything looks exactly the same, and I wouldn't expect that the tools would behave differently.

[MEB]

Thanks for the feedback @shushustorm, @MoonaticDestiny, everyone.
Regarding the non-sticky Toggle Midifier setting, will pass this along to dev.

 

[MoonaticDestiny]

2 hours ago, Bryan Rieger said:

but having some indication of what the modifier actually does to the existing items in the context toolbar would be really helpful.

you can enable that status bar in the preferences. it tells you what the command controller will do. serif also provides a pdf gesture that tells you what the command controller can do. 

https://resources.serif.com/spotlight/learning/shortcuts/Affinity-Designer-2-Shortcuts-iPad.pdf

[MEB]

6 minutes ago, Bryan Rieger said:

Thanks @MEB. I have to admit, I am really hating that command controller/modifiers menu (it's called toggle modifiers when you press the help key in the lower right)—everything is obscured. Some consistency in naming things would help, but having some indication of what the modifier actually does to the existing items in the context toolbar would be really helpful. As it stands everything looks exactly the same, and I wouldn't expect that the tools would behave differently.

The name of the widget itself is Command Controller, the tooltip "toggle modifiers" refers to what it does but i agree it would be more consistent if it said Toggle Command Controller or something along these lines. Thanks
Now from that screenshot, tap the Geometry button in the context toolbar on top and select Add (or another boolean operation) and it will create the compound.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, MEB said:

Regarding the non-sticky Toggle Midifier setting, will pass this along to dev.

+1 for a non-sticky toggle modifier setting. I didn't realize it was still active after creating a compound and I ended up creating so many duplicates.

[MEB]

@Bryan Rieger,
I would take a look at the PDF that MoonaticDestiny linked above (in particular the second page, the grey box on the left about the command controller). It explains how to enable the modifiers temporarily or permanently.

[MoonaticDestiny]

6 hours ago, MoonaticDestiny said:

What they should have done is kept the group button to group and undo as its own separate button and then create a new button that has a "warp" icon that when clicked on shows a pop up menu with all the warp groups.

So theres actually a new warp group button on the desktop version of AD v2 in the layer studio but for some strange reason, and i dont know why its this hard, serif cant just take whats on the desktop version and simply transfer it over to the ipad version. They didnt create the same new warp group button on the desktop version for the ipad version of AD v2. Instead, they decided to put the warp group pop up menu into the group button and now the group button is the group/ungroup, warp group button. What a tongue twister. They are 2 different things. They shouldnt be grouped together. There should a group button and a warp group button. Like, "hey, if we made a separate warp group button in the desktop version then that same button needs to be in the ipad version." Nope. 

[loukash]

9 hours ago, MoonaticDestiny said:

serif cant just take whats on the desktop version and simply transfer it over to the ipad version

Yeah, I'm eagerly waiting for that rumored 16" iPad Pro, too…  
In other words, Warp Group is unlikely something that every ADe user will need to fiddle with every 5 minutes. The iPad screen estate is limited, so a choice likely had to be made.

[ultrainfra]

I think at best V2 should have been a free update to V1. The introduced features are mostly things that should have been there to begin with. 

I'm disappointed that input ICC profiles are STILL unsupported in the raw developer. It's a basic feature of pretty much every third party raw development program I know of, and if a raw developer doesn't support ICC it will usually support DCP (DNG Color profiles, ie, as used in Lightroom, Luminar). I also really would have liked to see an easy method of straightening a photo by using a measure tool. GIMP has such a feature. You can use the measure tool to form a line segment on an edge, and have it adjust the image so that it becomes even. 

I too have found it to easily crash. Have not noticed a pattern yet as to what triggers it. Sometimes it's something as simple as zooming in or out. Sometimes it's calling a plugin. Sometimes it's moving a slider on one of the filters. 

So, so far it's basically the same as Affinity Photo V1 with a couple new features that should have been part of a free update given how relatively minor they are, a less appealing set of buttons (though this is just my aesthetic opinion), and lacking things that should be there. Not sure if to get a refund or just keep the new version in case it is improved. However considering exporting LUTs with HSV adjustments (by checking the HSV box on the HSL filter) was never fixed, my hopes aren't incredibly high. I say all this in the spirit of providing feedback to improve the product. Obviously if I bought V2 there are more things that I like than dislike and always like to support eating into Adobe's profits.

 

[Ana-Irina]

I've decided to stop using V2 until further updates. V2 is overall slower and clunkier. It doesn't have the same smoothness that I am used to and it reminds me of Indesign and Illustrator. When I quit Illustrator a few years back, one of the main reasons was my hand pain. Affinity brought a clear relief - better selection, better snapping, smarter interface that requires less hand travel and less clicks. Also, the interface had better contrast and my eyes didn't have to move as much. For someone with poor eyesight (even with glasses, my eyes get tired easily), Affinity was truly of great help. I could work for longer hours and with less eye strain.

These are UI design aspects that are very important. I am not sure how much the Serif design team is aware of how good V1 was from the perspective of direct human interaction with the tool, because they seem to have foregone most of the principles which made it so great. I am not a picky user, I routinely switch between fundamentally different programs and I adapt easily. So, to add to the initial post, some of my issues are as following:

• Export... and New... are a significant downgrade from V1. Less intuitive, more clicks.
• Spread Setup... button was great, it didn't need to go. Now I need to right click on the spread, then click. 
• The Document Setup... in Publisher 2 added a bunch of new radio buttons and selections...which means more clicks, more time.
• The new Lock icon is very difficult to see and interpret. I usually get it wrong, so more clicks for me. I never get it wrong in V1.
• The little icons in front of the layer name have no use and they crowd the interface, making the panel harder on the eyes.
• The new stroke options icons (inside, outside etc.) are harder on the eyes.
• Typing in Publisher 2 has a slight lag, which both annoying, and tiring for the eyes.

Maybe I am wrong, and the new changes are actually great. Someone on this forum said that the new design follows some new trend in UI design. To me, that's irrelevant. Good design is not judged be its novelty. New is not always better. 

[MoonaticDestiny]

10 hours ago, loukash said:

In other words, Warp Group is unlikely something that every ADe user will need to fiddle with every 5 minutes. The iPad screen estate is limited, so a choice likely had to be made.

Well its a bad choice regardless of screen estate. Creating 2 buttons for users, one to group and one to warp group, is better for them. 

[debraspicher]

On 11/15/2022 at 12:56 PM, Fred5738 said:

'No software will work forever', but some can work for a very long time;
I still have PaintShop Pro 7, from 2001, which I still use from time to time,
on Windows 10.  🙂

PaintShop Pro, btw, is another example, next to FreeHand, of an excellent
application which was destroyed after a buy-out...

 

I don't remember which version we had, but I had it installed on Windows 3.11. For all I know, that 486 still has it installed in storage. (For all I know, that PC is also quite dead)

[Oasin]

On 11/15/2022 at 8:58 PM, shushustorm said:

Frequent crashes

Yes and the shape builder (which is conceptually a great tool) seems to be buggy. Crashed repeatedly when making shapes. No crash reporting after restart.

And they don't seem to care about any feature request, even the essential ones. Why is V2 still lacking some fundamental gears (say, the pressure tool)?

I would say V1 is far from maturity, but I don't see a sign of polishing except the fancy icons in V2. Isn't V1 to V2 supposed to be a huge feature update plus many bugs and flaws fixed, after all these years?

Me, another sad buyer of the universal license, not considering a refund.

[watermelonslide]

I also bump into walls pretty quickly across the apps. Haven't tried them out a lot, because honestly it feels like nothing works (yet!). Even creating a new file is difficult, with fewer templates available (where is A2?) And limited dpi options. Once the document is open, there is usually some sort of artefact showing, shapes that shouldn't be there. I can't figure out how to rotate the document with finger gestures like in affinity 1, and when I place a document, it doesn't immediately let me scale it. Even if these things have solutions, they should not be this hard to figure out. Quite disappointing, as I was hoping for a smoother workflow since the ipad app has had some serious issues for me (not always really saving when clicking save from within a document, pixel layers destroyed with undo button quite regularly, pixel brushes destroying pixel layers without being able to undo because that also destroys pixel layers)

[MEB]

Hi @Ana-Irina, everyone,
I'm sorry you are having issues with some of the changes we made to the app. Regarding the interface contrast, if you go to the app Preferences, User Interface section you will find a couple new options to fine tune the contrast: sliders for Text Contrast and UI Brightness. If you adjust these two you can mimic exactly the app's overall contrast in the old V1.

The New and Export dialogs had their layout changed but they don't differ that much from V1. The New dialog may look more heavy visually - mostly due to the way the doc presets are presented now (in a list of text presets rather than list of thumbnails as in V1) - but you can still select a preset and click Create to create a new document (two clicks as in V1). You can also favorite them to make them accessible from a single place.
The export dialog looks a bit more complex because we now display both the File Settings and Advanced settings simultaneously (if you expand both sections), whereas in V1 you had to click the More button to open an additional dialog with the rest of the options (the ones that are now in the Advanced section).

You can remove the little icons in front of the layers if you want: click the Layers panel menu icon on the top right and untick Show Object Type.

Hope this helps a bit. We are aware some things are still not right or broken and may need some fine tuning/fixing. The upcoming patches should sort out the most critical ones but the development has not stagnated just because we released V2. It actually just got started.
Thank you for your feedback.

[MEB]

Hi @Oasin,
Regarding the Shape Builder Tool, can you please create a new thread to report these issues in the Bug Reporting area of the forum in the respective platform section?
Even without the crash reports, if you can replicate the issues, please provide a basic file and describe the steps needed to make it crash, or record a small clip if you can. We should be able to track down  and fix the issue with that info. Thank you.

[MEB]

Hi @watermelonslide,
I'm sorry for the trouble you're going through. Some of the issues you are describing (with saving, undo etc) are being addressed as we speak. Regarding the brushes destroying pixel layers I believe this is logged with us but need to check out. Feel free to create a new thread in the bugs section whenever you experience problems like these so we can ensure they are looked at. We follow the Bug Reporting section constantly.
Regarding rotating the document on the iPad apps, go to Preferences, Tools section and enable Allow Canvas Rotation in All Tools.
Thank you for your feedback.

[MoonaticDestiny]

On 11/16/2022 at 5:39 AM, Ana-Irina said:

• The little icons in front of the layer name have no use and they crowd the interface, making the panel harder on the eyes.
•  

I agree but you can turn them off in the layer hamburger menu. Turn off object type. 

[walt.farrell]

On 11/16/2022 at 8:39 AM, Ana-Irina said:

The little icons in front of the layer name have no use and they crowd the interface, making the panel harder on the eyes.

They tell you visually the kind of layer you're dealing with, when the layer has a name. In V1 you also had a tag after the layer name, like (Rectangle), (Pixel) etc. but V2 no longer has those. As noted above, you can turn them off in the panel options (hamburger menu) if you want. Once you've turned them off, the space they occupied is still there, and you can hover over it with your mouse to get a tool tip identifying the kind of layer.

[MEB]

34 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

They tell you visually the kind of layer you're dealing with, when the layer has a name. In V1 you also had a tag after the layer name, like (Rectangle), (Pixel) etc. but V2 no longer has those.

This is not true. In V2 the layers also get labelled with the layer/object type when created. It only disappears if you rename the layer.

[walt.farrell]

9 minutes ago, MEB said:

This is not true. In V2 the layers also get labelled with the layer/object type when created. It only disappears if you rename the layer.

Sorry that I was unclear. I intended my "when the layer has a name" to cover that. I haven't considered "Rectangle", "Pixel" etc. to be names.

[MEB]

5 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I haven't considered "Rectangle", "Pixel" etc. to be names.

They aren't. They are layer types and are rendered in medium grey (in V1 they were inside parenthesis after the layers name if there was one). In V2 they are removed when the layer is renamed and the layer's name becomes rendered in white.