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Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.5 - Beta 2)


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Hi Matt,

 

Thanks so much for the great work.  I really love the measuring tool.   Just a suggestion, would it be possible to continue to display the measurement as you move an object?   This will be very handy for UI design work.

 

Aside that, I am not sure if this is s a bug, but if you create a symbol on an object and you delete the object, the symbol still remains.  I am not sure if it's by design or a bug.

 

Finally, it will really be good to collapse the panels into the a smaller size to save some screen realestate. 

 

great work, mate!!

 

Nana

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Hi Nana,

 

It's by design that you can delete all instances of a symbol, but the symbol remains in the Symbols panel :)  You should already be able to collapse a panel by double-clicking its header area, I think? :)

 

Thanks! :)

Matt

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Hi, I'm loving the new snapping features (I waited a long time for them), but I think I found out why "snap to gaps and sizes" didn't seem to be working at first.

 

Actually, it only affects snapping to gaps. It doesn't work when another object (shape, curve, text, or pixel layer), is somewhere between the object being moved and the gaps you want to snap to, or if an object completely surrounds the object you're moving, even if that object is in a different layer, a cousin in the hierarchy.

 

To show you what I mean: https://gfycat.com/MagnificentKnobbyGentoopenguin

 

I had a big rectangle all over my canvas so snapping to gaps wasn't working at all.

 

Another problem, which I show in the video but is probably unrelated, is that when holding shift to constrain an object, it sometimes moves by less than whole pixels even when the "Force pixel alignment" and "Move by whole pixels" options are enabled.

♥️Affinity v2; macOS 14; ⌨️🖱; recreational user since 2014.

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Hi Nana,

 

It's by design that you can delete all instances of a symbol, but the symbol remains in the Symbols panel :)  You should already be able to collapse a panel by double-clicking its header area, I think? :)

 

Thanks! :)

Matt

 

Hi Matt,

 

I may not have explained myself properly.  When you double-click on the header area of the panel, e.g. Assets, the content is hidden but the panel still occupies the same screen real estate as in the attached panel-collapse2.png.  

 

What we need is to collapse to the left to make available more screen real estate as shown in attached panel-collapse.png with the red arrow pointing to the left.  In effect, we want the panel to collapse to the same width as the tools panel with the name(s) of the individual panel(s) visible.. 

 

I think PS (pardon my french) has a similar feature.  Please see attached suggested-panel.png

 

Cheers,

 

Nana

post-13053-0-91585600-1467343247_thumb.png

post-13053-0-48312400-1467343429_thumb.png

post-13053-0-48620900-1467344621_thumb.png

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Hi Matt,

 

I may not have explained myself properly.  When you double-click on the header area of the panel, e.g. Assets, the content is hidden but the panel still occupies the same screen real estate as in the attached panel-collapse2.png.  

 

What we need is to collapse to the left to make available more screen real estate as shown in attached panel-collapse.png with the red arrow pointing to the left.  In effect, we want the panel to collapse to the same width as the tools panel with the name(s) of the individual panel(s) visible.. 

 

I think PS (pardon my french) has a similar feature.  Please see attached suggested-panel.png

 

Cheers,

 

Nana

Ah, sorry - that's because it's docked to the side of the screen. Yes, we should definitely try to add a better 'collapsed' state for docked panels. If the Assets panel was floating (not docked) then it would've collapsed to being just a thin strip which doesn't get in the way as much...

 

Thanks again,

Matt

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Is there any way to override text in symbols without detaching?

In the current beta, we had to introduce this 'bug' to stop a terrible crash in text when you detach it in a symbol - we've now implemented the proper solution so you will be able to detach the text (as you would expect) in the next beta - which may be very early next week :) Sorry for the inconvenience in the meantime...

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Ah, sorry - that's because it's docked to the side of the screen. Yes, we should definitely try to add a better 'collapsed' state for docked panels. If the Assets panel was floating (not docked) then it would've collapsed to being just a thin strip which doesn't get in the way as much...

I was thinking just that. I know it’s terrible to compare your application with Adobe all the time but you probably know what the collapsible panels look like (with just an icon, clicking which brings up the panel). Additionally there are UI mode settings you can save – I have one for laptop (small display) and expanded view (large display) where panels are collapsed or open, respectively, by default. A similar thing would be nice for Affinity. These small strips are harder to catch than a square icon/button.

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Hi Nana and Stephan … and Matt,  :)

 

what Nana and Stephan said gets even more important as there are more and more panels introduced with new iterations of Affinity Designer. When I am not working on my large screen, but using the internal screen of my MacBook Pro, there are already difficult decisions to make how to group all the panels I need for my workflow. Please introduce dockable icon rows with panel flyouts, just as Stephan mentioned.

 

In general, I hope there will be a some attention for the user interface in one of the next versions. I still believe there are some basic decisions that should be reconsidered.

  • As often mentioned, there should be a light, not only a dark mode.
  • The typography panels are crowded with small symbols, text, and input fields. I must confess I still have to take a second look when trying to input information.
  • The same goes for the new styles panel. The UI font is very small, and while the settings are ordered better than in my legacy version of Ind*sign, I still prefer the larger font. It is just more accessible, particularly on a large screen (see below).
  • Furthermore, input fields should generally be changeable with the arrow keys.
  • Finally, but that is certainly less important and more of a cosmetic nature, I would suggest to have an eye on consistency. There are some new toggles, where the shiny aqua gloss seems to reappear (preliminary?), and there are sliders that have different heights, for instance (see below).

I hope you don’t mind, but these are just some more ideas …  :)

Alex

post-1198-0-55113400-1467357072_thumb.png

post-1198-0-26675200-1467357079_thumb.png

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Hi, I'm loving the new snapping features (I waited a long time for them), but I think I found out why "snap to gaps and sizes" didn't seem to be working at first.

 

Actually, it only affects snapping to gaps. It doesn't work when another object (shape, curve, text, or pixel layer), is somewhere between the object being moved and the gaps you want to snap to, or if an object completely surrounds the object you're moving, even if that object is in a different layer, a cousin in the hierarchy.

 

To show you what I mean: https://gfycat.com/MagnificentKnobbyGentoopenguin

 

I had a big rectangle all over my canvas so snapping to gaps wasn't working at all.

 

Another problem, which I show in the video but is probably unrelated, is that when holding shift to constrain an object, it sometimes moves by less than whole pixels even when the "Force pixel alignment" and "Move by whole pixels" options are enabled.

 

This is a good example where using the Candidate list is better.  You can specify which objects are used in the snap, and eliminate the ones you are not interested in.  The other option is to construct your document in a more hierarchical way and use "Immediate layers".  This will isolate snapping to only layers that are siblings or the immediate parent layer.

 

I will add some control over the candidate list - there will be a way to force the list to be empty, and roll back or lock the list.  Coming soon.

 

As for snapping to pixels - pixel alignment works together with snapping to other objects.  If you make a snap to another object that is not aligned to a pixel, then the resulting snap will not be pixel aligned.  To work in just snapped pixels, you'll want to turn off other snapping that might result in non-pixel snaps.  That includes grids and guides if they are not on-pixel.

SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer
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Great Beta :)

 

Some small issues I found:
 

Measurements will also show when holding Alt/Option and nudging with the arrow keys

 
- Option <arrow> is mapped to Text > Spacing > Tighten / Loosen. It looks like you don't need to hold Alt/Option at all? Nudging without any modifiers already shows measurements.

 

- Snap to gaps doesn't work when Candidates is All Layers

- Snap to gaps doesn't work when Candidates is Immediate Layers and layers are not grouped

 

- Zoom tool dragging is vertically inverted: Choose Zoom tool > drag starting from lower-left corner > document zooms to upper-left corner instead.

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- Option <arrow> is mapped to Text > Spacing > Tighten / Loosen. It looks like you don't need to hold Alt/Option at all? Nudging without any modifiers already shows measurements.

 

- Snap to gaps doesn't work when Candidates is All Layers

- Snap to gaps doesn't work when Candidates is Immediate Layers and layers are not grouped

 

Unfortunately, Option+arrows is used for text adjustment.  We discussed this issue, and decided that we need to not interfere with the text shortcuts.

 

Next Beta will include distance indicators when using keyboard nudging.  So, this will part alleviate the issue with not being able to nudge while holding Alt.  I will consider ways that we could lock in the measurements target so that you can measure while moving the selection layers.  Will see.

 

As for snapping - it does work.  But, if you have overlapping objects, they will interfere with the gaps checking. The gaps checking only works if there is empty space between objects.  If another object overlaps, this is not classed as empty space.  There is a logic tweak I can add there perhaps.  As I said - careful structuring of your document, and use of "Immediate layers" will help make snapping to gaps work better.

SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer
  • Software engineer  -  Photographer  -  Guitarist  -  Philosopher
  • iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395
  • MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300
  • iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB
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Unfortunately, Option+arrows is used for text adjustment.  We discussed this issue, and decided that we need to not interfere with the text shortcuts.

 

Next Beta will include distance indicators when using keyboard nudging.  So, this will part alleviate the issue with not being able to nudge while holding Alt.  I will consider ways that we could lock in the measurements target so that you can measure while moving the selection layers.  Will see.

 

As for snapping - it does work.  But, if you have overlapping objects, they will interfere with the gaps checking. The gaps checking only works if there is empty space between objects.  If another object overlaps, this is not classed as empty space.  There is a logic tweak I can add there perhaps.  As I said - careful structuring of your document, and use of "Immediate layers" will help make snapping to gaps work better.

 

I understand, but it looks like nudge+measurements is working already in this Beta? If I select an object and nudge with arrow keys (not holding down Option), it already shows distance to nearby objects (which is awesome). Or is this not what you mean?

 

 

Snapping: right, I was testing on an Artboard, which is of course considered as an overlapping object as well (I expected that to be empty space). It works fine without the Artboard :)

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ok - that might have made the last build.

SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer
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  • iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395
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I'll look at fixing the gaps test logic.  Artboards have complicated the logic, and that needs more testing.  Gap snapping was added before artboards were working.

SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer
  • Software engineer  -  Photographer  -  Guitarist  -  Philosopher
  • iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395
  • MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300
  • iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB
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Under v1.4.2, if I use the Vector Crop tool (say on a simple shape with nothing else, for testing purposes) and then try to save/export as .svg or .eps, I'm told there's "nothing to rasterise". But in the 1.5 beta version 2, if I use that same tool I get "some areas will be rasterised."

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MattP,

 

I posted this in the first 1.5 Beta but no one responded. If I have an object selected and I want to use the eyedropper tool to copy the properties of another object, the object that I have selected appears to be deselected. It isn't but it appears like it isn't selected. Is there a way to change this or is that how it is supposed to work? As well, as I always ask, I'm still holding out hope for a "Hide/Show All" menu option with a shortcut key and more importantly a way to turn off scrubby zooming and get the old (much better in my opinion) zooming behaviour back! Is there any way that you can work a preference for zooming into the next beta? Thanks for all the hard work.

Hokusai

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MattP,

 

I posted this in the first 1.5 Beta but no one responded. If I have an object selected and I want to use the eyedropper tool to copy the properties of another object, the object that I have selected appears to be deselected. It isn't but it appears like it isn't selected. Is there a way to change this or is that how it is supposed to work? As well, as I always ask, I'm still holding out hope for a "Hide/Show All" menu option with a shortcut key and more importantly a way to turn off scrubby zooming and get the old (much better in my opinion) zooming behaviour back! Is there any way that you can work a preference for zooming into the next beta? Thanks for all the hard work.

Hokusai

I am starting to find the zooming setup as Hokusai mentions above to be not ideal as well.  :) +1 on the hide/show all or some sort of isolate ability. Blender uses the slash / key on the numpad, works a treat!  Thanks guys. Hope the windows woes works out soon.  :)

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MattP,

 

I posted this in the first 1.5 Beta but no one responded. If I have an object selected and I want to use the eyedropper tool to copy the properties of another object, the object that I have selected appears to be deselected. It isn't but it appears like it isn't selected. Is there a way to change this or is that how it is supposed to work? As well, as I always ask, I'm still holding out hope for a "Hide/Show All" menu option with a shortcut key and more importantly a way to turn off scrubby zooming and get the old (much better in my opinion) zooming behaviour back! Is there any way that you can work a preference for zooming into the next beta? Thanks for all the hard work.

Hokusai

Hi Hokusai,

 

I think it's just a bug that the Colour Picker Tool doesn't show you the currently selected object - I'll get it sorted out when I get back off holiday after next week :)  I'm not trying to ignore the hide/show all thing, or the scrubby zoom thing - I think the latter may be an easier victory than the former at this point, but both will ultimately get done. :)

 

Thanks again,

Matt

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MattP,

 

Thanks for the response. I wasn't sure if the Colour Picker Tool's behaviour was by design or not? Thanks for clearing that up. Thanks as well for addressing my requests about a zooming preference and a hide/show all feature. I can't tell you how happy I would be if they made their way into a future version of Designer! 

 

You guys are doing a great job, keep up the great work,

Hokusai

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