First impressions

[xanathon]

I want to share some quick first impressions and errors

I really like the Interface, but:

I switched the language from german to english, but even after a restart Affinity Designer this is ignored and I get an awesome mix of english and german labels. Something is wrong here.

 

I can decrease the zoom using [CTRL]+[-], but I cannot increase it with [CTRL]+[+]

I you choose a tool on the toolbar to the left the tool is highlighted (or rather: darkened :) ), but the difference is too small even with my monitor providing 99% of Adobes colour space you nearly cannot see the highlighted icon. It woud be nice if the difference could be somewhat more prominent.

More remarks as I stumble upon things, but first impression: Great!

[Jon P]

Hi Xanathon,

 

Glad to hear your first impressions are good!

 

The software isn't fully localized at the moment, it is something we are looking at bringing in over the next few weeks. So sorry for any inconvenience caused in the meantime.

 

The highlighting doesn't seem too bad for me, but I could see how on some other monitor profiles that it might be a bit harder to see, i'll see if we get some other reports of this.

[xanathon]

I usually switch the language of my design software to english, so it would suffice for me if just the english option would work. :)

I found the ability to change the gamma of the UI in the preferences. I made the border a lttle brighter so the contrast can be seen a little better. But only a little. It would probably be nice to add another option for the highlight color or brightness here.

And another one:

It seems I cannot paste a bitmap image from Photoshop (sorry for using the bad "P-word ... ;) ). If I rightclick an image in chrome and select "copy image" I can paste it fine. But if I do a "select all" and "copy" or "copy merged" in PS I cannot paste in Designer.

[Jon P]

If you hold CTRL while running the program up it will reset it all to English.

 

I'll look into the other issue

[Jon P]

When you say you cannot Paste, is it disabled, or does it just not function?

 

If you go to Paste Special > Device Independant Bitmap does that work?

[PerroBG]

Can we have a opinion to change color of interface from black to some gray? It is stressing and tensely to work with black/90% gray IU. Please! 

[Alfred]

The software isn't fully localized at the moment, it is something we are looking at bringing in over the next few weeks.

 

Does this lack of localization include distinctions between UK and US English, Jon? If I go to 'File Document Setup...' I see 'Nearest Neighbour' rather than 'Nearest Neighbor' as the default resampling method on the Dimensions tab, and 'Colour' rather than 'Color' as the label on the next tab, but the document units are shown as 'Millimeters' instead of 'Millimetres'. I couldn't help noticing that the installer only offered a single 'choice' of English!

 

There are quite a few other niggles, but that's only to be expected at this early stage. Overall, my first impressions are generally very good.

[Jon P]

@PerroBG - You can change the gamma levels of the UI in Edit > Preferences > UI, but there is a bug here which might cause issues when you use the slider.

 

Yes Alfred, the software is currently in a mix of US and GB English, glad your initial impressions are good though, and good to see you here :)

[Alfred]

Can we have a opinion to change color of interface from black to some gray? It is stressing and tensely to work with black/90% gray IU. Please! 

 

There's a long-standing (and very long!) thread on the subject. It can be found here.

 

Common Feature Requests Index

[Alfred]

Yes Alfred, the software is currently in a mix of US and GB English, glad your initial impressions are good though, and good to see you here :)

 

Thanks, Jon. It'll take me a while to either customize(!) the keyboard shortcuts or get used to things like the fact that Ctrl+Y toggles wireframe view instead of performing the expected 'Redo', but I'll get there.

[Melson]

I really like the Interface, but:

 

I you choose a tool on the toolbar to the left the tool is highlighted (or rather: darkened :) ), but the difference is too small even with my monitor providing 99% of Adobes colour space you nearly cannot see the highlighted icon. It woud be nice if the difference could be somewhat more prominent.

 

 

 

I agree with the above comment, it is too difficult to see any highlighting or greying-out when selecting. 

I like the interface in general, as well.  Response on my system (Skylake proc, graphics vid card, lots of RAM) is lightning fast. Wowzer! 

[PerroBG]

There's a long-standing (and very long!) thread on the subject. It can be found here.

 

Common Feature Requests Index

Thanks! It's good to know I am not alone :) 

[lxx]

My first impressions have been pretty positive. As someone who mostly draws using the smart curve pen tool thing in Illustrator, the smart nodes feel very similar as do most other controls. I was really surprised to see so many install / bug issues in threads as I had zero problems.

 

I really like having the tooltip help at the bottom of the screen. One question: it says "drag + \" for several commands...

 

a. This key is in the middle of nowhere - can I change it? I didn't see anything for it in preferences, but I also don't really know what I'm looking for when it comes to modifiers. My hand is pretty much always in the left alt / space area.

 

b. I haven't been able to make any of the "drag + \" commands actually do anything noticeable. 

 

Edit: The only other thing bugging me right now is that handles don't seem to obey snapping. The snapping for nodes is great, but lacking it for handles is painful.

[ray555]

Affinity designer setup

* windows Aero in not enabled .This may cause rendering problems and slow performance. please select an Aero desktop theme for best performance

Win 7 on 64 bit

 change my desktop - you have to be joking...

 

it's somehow connected to that toy Aero ?

[xanathon]

When you say you cannot Paste, is it disabled, or does it just not function?

 

If you go to Paste Special > Device Independant Bitmap does that work?

 

It did nothing. But "paste as device independent bitmap" works.

 

But, when closing the application: 

 

[ray555]

looks a nice set up , sadly the jet black hurts my eyes.

Do people really like it so dark .or is it just following a fashion of a few years ago?

 

The pen tool looks snappy but  doesn't seem to have a ''rubber band'' preview which is disappointing

.

I cannot see a dedicated undo/  redo arrow buttons, which is a shame, i know mac users are obsessed with keyboard shortcuts , but I'm not.

 

I got the screen At 125 %,and I'm  not sure i'm seeing all the tools on the left, the bottom one is View tool, I'll have a look to see if i can double up the tools in the column when my eyes reset later.

 

thanks for the beta will give a proper tryout later 

[MEB]

 

Edit: The only other thing bugging me right now is that handles don't seem to obey snapping. The snapping for nodes is great, but lacking it for handles is painful.

 

Hi lxx,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Currently snapping only works with nodes, not with control handles.

[patWPG]

Visually striking, and fairly intuitive ( at least for the basics).

However, I can't seem to find a downloadable user guide, and until there is one I am too busy to persevere with trial and error fiddling, or with 'Watch with Mother' video tutorials.

With a user guide in front of me, I can break the back of the learning curve in a few hours - dipping in and out as needed. I use DrawPlus at work for about five/six hours a day. One of the selling points, for me, of DP was the easy learning curve. Until Affinity replicates that, I value my life away from work too much to learn a new package.

 

I am sure that this will be a fantastic package, and I will transfer when Serif have every thing up to speed.

[lxx]

Hi lxx,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Currently snapping only works with nodes, not with control handles.

 Thanks, and yeah I figured that but it'd be nice to have.

 

Still yet to encounter any bugs. As it stands from the first day of testing, I would buy it even without any further updates (assuming similar to mac pricing.) There's a lot I'm impressed with, but also a few things that Illustrator just does more nicely (swatch + chord management are big ones here, no real drag functionality etc. in swatch menu makes me sad.)

 

Expand Stroke seems to create a considerably messier path than necessary (17 billion nodes for a simple curve) - not really a problem, just an observation. Will keep testing.