Designer: Overwrite SVG with "Save" Dialogue

[D.VE]

Could you please make this option available for SVGs as well?

thx

Dave

 

[Pšenda]

55 minutes ago, D.VE said:

Could you please make this option available for SVGs as well?

I think that the behavior of the application should be consistent for all formats - i.e. either create a native *.af format for all of them when Save (as well as when SaveAs), or when enabled in Preferences, enable saving in any original format (ie not only in PSD or some raster formats - PNG, JPEG, TIFF).
The current implementation, where the original PNG/JPEG/TIFF file is overwritten without the knowledge and consent of the user (without warning or without user settings in the Preferences), is unnecessarily confusing and risky for many users.

[D.VE]

10 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

That seems to be what some people ask for. If you do File/Save, what exactly do you expect? 

That it is consistent f or all formats... 

[fde101]

That option for PSD is to allow round-tripping with RAW/DAM applications, many of which can work with PSD but not with afphoto files.  If you use Capture One, for example, you can have Capture One export a PSD with any enhancements / adjustments you made within Capture One and sent it to Affinity Photo for further editing, then when you save in Affinity Photo, it is updated in the catalog of Capture One, and you can re-open it from within the catalog, keeping your photos organized within the context of the project you are managing within Capture One.

Other RAW processors / DAM applications can do that same thing, either with PSD or with TIFF, so it makes sense to support this for those two formats.

However, none of them would be doing this with SVG or other formats, so it is less clear why that should be necessary.

There are downsides to saving in those formats as opposed to the native Affinity formats - not everything is preserved 100%, and it is slower when saving, so things may be lost each time you save if you are using an option like this.

[D.VE]

25 minutes ago, fde101 said:

That option for PSD is to allow round-tripping with RAW/DAM applications

I don't see the difference.
For me it is the same workflow, but with SVG.
SVG is THE exchange format for vector images, there are not THAT many apps that support Affinity format...

I often just want to make some minor changes that take half a second. In this case I don't want to go over a sophisticated export dialogue but just press CMD-S and close the document. 

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

That seems to be what some people ask for. If you do File/Save, what exactly do you expect? 

I would expect consistent behavior for "all" formats that the application can save/export.

If you look in the Help for the Save command, the first sentence "emphatically" states (note how it is highlighted by the font size) that it is being saved in the native *.af format.

Only by reading in detail will you learn more if you notice the note that during Save it can also be saved in some image formats

(this is still incomplete and confusing information, because the list of formats is not complete - TIFF is missing, and it is not all image/raster formats that the application supports - for example GIF, TGA, ...).

Therefore, I would expect and prefer the following behavior:
a) the application consistently respects its policy (criticized by dozens of requests) that it saves (Save + SaveAs) only in the native *.af format, and exports to other formats. The advantages of the native format are obvious (see the fde101 post), and therefore it is the default and preferred storage method.
b) If it is enabled/set in Preferences by the user that the user wants/agrees to Save in the original file format (in this case, all formats that Affinity can write/today only Export) and overwriting it, then Save would do what today he makes for "some" image file types, i.e. he overwrote the original file with new data in the same format - not in native *.af.

Therefore, the application would behave consistently as expected for the user in all circumstances - either it would only save in the native format, or after enabling it in the Preferences, it would allow saving in the original format as well. Today it's just a confusing mish-mash, something is saved only in native format, something is saved in the original format (against the rule stated in Help), and something can be saved in the original format, but it must be allowed in Preferences.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Pšenda

[Pšenda]

4 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Consistency is not always good if it limits usability.

The consistency mentioned here does not limit usability in any way - on the contrary, it significantly expands it for other formats as well.