Getting confused between Designer and Publisher

[essdeeay]

What's the real difference between these 2 programs, because they both open and work with files created by each other, and look exactly the same Interface to me! I opened a Publisher file in Designer (it's just a poster - no need to use Publisher really), changed nothing but saved it as a Designer file, and it was 10% smaller (see screenshot).

[loukash]

Technically, there's in fact just one app and one document format. The file extension only defines the default app to open an Affinity document. If you want an *.afdesign document to be always opened by Publisher when you double-click it, simply change its extension to *.afpub

Also, each app – including Affinity Photo – has the same capabilities under the hood, that's why all three can contribute to a single document and all three can display and keep intact features added by its sister apps.

The split into three apps exists quite likely for marketing reasons, as well as for technical and usability reasons, to avoid overly complex and bloated user interface and "featuritis" if all were crammed into just one app. Many users usually need just a subset of all features for specific and focused tasks, hence "Publisher", "Designer", "Photo". Nomen est omen. 

And the "killer feature" is thus the seamless interoperability of all three, either by File > Edit in…, or by StudioLink via Publisher's personas that ultimately link all three apps into just one app, after all.

In my opinion, Designer as a standalone app is possibly the most versatile of all three, because apart from its primary focus on vector graphics, it can also handle simple layout and typography tasks, and it's got the Pixel persona for basic bitmap editing and painting. An ideal tool for starters and hobbyists.  

[Print Monkey]

So since each app already has more than one "persona", they could conceivably combine all these into one app with all the different personas combined in one app?

That does seem like it could get overwhelming, and it makes sense to have different apps rather than one app with feature set licenses (especially if individual apps are smaller that way and can run in less memory than one all-in-one app).

[R C-R]

53 minutes ago, Print Monkey said:

That does seem like it could get overwhelming...

I doubt my older non-Pro iPad could handle that very well!