Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.5 - Beta 4)

[Gatada]

Aligning Selection

 

When I select two objects, I often want one of them to say in place - and the other to align to it. Some apps selects the object that doesn't move based on which object the user selects first, other apps will not move the object that is at the top of the layer stack, and some allow me to manually select which object stays put by clicking it with the cursor after all objects that need to be aligned have been selected.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems there has never been a way for me to get this behaviour in Affinity Designer? Even locking the object that I don't want to move doesn't works in this context - even when locked they both move.

 

I don't care which approach you select, as long as it can be done. If you gave me a choice, I would prefer to select the object that shouldn't move first, and than select those that should move/align to it.

 

Undo Issues

 

Seems there are issues with undoing actions. I do an edit, then hit undo - which quite often means I end up with something else.

 

[Ben]

On-page alignment tools will be in a later version.

[Gatada]

Wow.. Suddenly this happened:

1. I clicked my way to the one element within the symbol that I wanted to edit.

2. Then the corner curve handle showed up as a giant.

3. I thought I had done something wrong, so I deselected and selected again - same thing happened.

4. Then I zoomed out and repeated - now it did not happen.

 

[thegoodkind]

Resizing slice on export, please! :)

[Ben]

Resizing slice on export, please! :)

 

What do you mean, exactly?  You can already set the export size of every slice.

[ronnyb]

An old bug has recruit back into the latest beta: When I double tap on the layers panel to rename an object/layer, AD instantly disables the object's edibility in the Layer panel, preventing me from renaming it.

[ronnyb]

BUG: Shadow and Highlight Blend modes in Bevel/Emboss Layer FX are not real-time

[paolo.limoncelli]

BUG: Shadow and Highlight Blend modes in Bevel/Emboss Layer FX are not real-time

 

I noticed this, but I think it is by design.

MAS version isn't real time too for any effect using a blend mode (shadows, glow etc...).

[A_B_C]

They have a different name from the system fonts …

 

Indeed, there are different fonts for different purposes, Bauke. In case you are interested, you can watch a quite illuminating WWDC presentation by Antonio Cavedoni about the San Francisco family and the intended uses for the different fonts here:

 

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2015/804/

 

Hope that helps …  :)

Alex

[Bauke]

 

They have a different name from the system fonts …

 

Indeed, there are different fonts for different purposes, Bauke. In case you are interested, you can watch a quite illuminating WWDC presentation by Antonio Cavedoni about the San Francisco family and the intended uses for the different fonts here:

 

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2015/804/

 

Hope that helps …  :)

Alex

Hi Alex

 

Thanks for the link! I've seen the presentation in the past and just rewatched it. I think it's great to see how Apple is proud of their typography.

 

As I understand it there's an SF and SF Compact which both have a Text and Display version. I think the assets in Affinity use the SF version (since Compact is only for the watch). The newest OSX has SF installed, but not accessible for design purposes. Developers can download the San Francisco fonts from the links Paolo and I provided.

 

However, I downloaded the fonts via Github, but those turned out to have a different name (San Francisco instead of SF). So if I'm not mistaken, the typefaces are the same, but the fontfiles are not. This means the Affinity assets on my install still can't find the right font. Anyway, it's no big deal and I don't want to polute this topic with such a triviality.

 

Best

Bauke

[jMaguire]

Two quick question re 1.5 – Will there be the option to apply outline mode to individual layers. Will there be the ability to choose a point on a object and scale the object from that point. These are two things I really miss from my Illustrator days.

 

Thanks

 

Jim

[A_B_C]

(I could be mistaken, but I believe these fonts have the following publication history, Bauke. When the Apple Watch was introduced, you were able to get the new watchOS fonts, named “San Francisco” then, packed in a design template bundle, even if you were not a developer. Later Apple added the OS X variants, shortened the name to “SF” etc., and decided, for whatever reason, to license these new fonts to developers only. Which has, for instance, the unfortunate consequence, that one cannot even use the fonts for text rendering in Apple Mail on El Capitan, when your system was upgraded from Yosemite. The “SF” fonts are found in /System/Fonts, but are not available for applications.)

 

Put in brackets … no, we don’t want to pollute this thread …  ;)

[A_B_C]

And a little report for consideration … it seems that the guides do not snap immediately to their intended targets when drawn out of the rulers. You will have to release the mouse button and grab a guide again in order to make it snap …  :unsure:

[paolo.limoncelli]

Hi Alex

 

Thanks for the link! I've seen the presentation in the past and just rewatched it. I think it's great to see how Apple is proud of their typography.

 

As I understand it there's an SF and SF Compact which both have a Text and Display version. I think the assets in Affinity use the SF version (since Compact is only for the watch). The newest OSX has SF installed, but not accessible for design purposes. Developers can download the San Francisco fonts from the links Paolo and I provided.

 

However, I downloaded the fonts via Github, but those turned out to have a different name (San Francisco instead of SF). So if I'm not mistaken, the typefaces are the same, but the fontfiles are not. This means the Affinity assets on my install still can't find the right font. Anyway, it's no big deal and I don't want to polute this topic with such a triviality.

 

Best

Bauke

 

Hi Bauke,

 

did you try with a classic apple/iTunes account?

I'm using my personal one here and I'm pretty sure it is not a developer account.

 

:)

 

Btw what A_B_C says could make sense...

[yasster]

Hello to the team!

Affinity 1.5 version looks great!

 

I found that Controller options for use with tablets and pen don't work. 

[Frank Jonen]

Constraints

What do you think of an approach like this to make it clearer what the lock modes actually achieve?

[MattP]

Constraints

 

What do you think of an approach like this to make it clearer what the lock modes actually achieve?

Hi Frank :)

 

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestion :) It's obviously always appreciated when people try to offer some new thinking on a problem :) The only issue I have with the suggestion is simply that locking aspect ratio with 'min' or 'max' aspect fitting deliberately breaks the clamping to horizontal or vertical in order to achieve its aspect locking as you make an object change size. I don't know if that sentence even made sense, but what I'm trying to say is that the 2 different kinds of aspect ratio lock will try to honour the height or width changes - whichever will make their goal achievable - and that may or may not break the constraint on inset from any side, so the display shouldn't look like they're locked in position...

 

Thanks,

Matt

[paolo.limoncelli]

I think that in this case the very solution could be the "old dear label"...  :)

[Wiredframe]

Constraints

 

What do you think of an approach like this to make it clearer what the lock modes actually achieve?

 

It would be nice to actually input values in this panel. Like Padding top-left 20px, margin 20px, and you're done :D

[R C-R]

The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it.

Maybe this has been mentioned before & I missed it, but I keep having an issue where if a file has been opened in Designer 1.4.2 or in 1.5 beta 4 & then closed, the other version refuses to open it with a 'file in use' error. I can work around this by quitting the app that last opened the file (but sometimes I have to quit both of them), so it seems to be a problem in how one (or both?) apps notifies the file system that the file has been closed, if that makes any sense.

 

So far, I have most often seen this when the file is an SVG one, so I think it does not have anything to do with the incompatibility of the older & newer Affinity file formats. Likewise, it does not seem to matter if I save the file in the first app to open it as a native Affinity file before I close it, or if I export it to the same format as the original, overwriting the original or saving it to a different location or with a different name so that both versions exist on my drive.

 

This is very similar to a 'file in use' error I occasionally get with Preview.app, so maybe it is Apple's bug to squash or it is the result of some problem unique to my system?

[MattP]

Maybe this has been mentioned before & I missed it, but I keep having an issue where if a file has been opened in Designer 1.4.2 or in 1.5 beta 4 & then closed, the other version refuses to open it with a 'file in use' error. I can work around this by quitting the app that last opened the file (but sometimes I have to quit both of them), so it seems to be a problem in how one (or both?) apps notifies the file system that the file has been closed, if that makes any sense.

 

So far, I have most often seen this when the file is an SVG one, so I think it does not have anything to do with the incompatibility of the older & newer Affinity file formats. Likewise, it does not seem to matter if I save the file in the first app to open it as a native Affinity file before I close it, or if I export it to the same format as the original, overwriting the original or saving it to a different location or with a different name so that both versions exist on my drive.

 

This is very similar to a 'file in use' error I occasionally get with Preview.app, so maybe it is Apple's bug to squash or it is the result of some problem unique to my system?

I've also seen this problem on my machine - but I'm having a hard time tracking down what's going on... It's definitely not just you, so don't worry about that! :)

[Frank Jonen]

Hi Frank :)

 

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestion :) It's obviously always appreciated when people try to offer some new thinking on a problem :) The only issue I have with the suggestion is simply that locking aspect ratio with 'min' or 'max' aspect fitting deliberately breaks the clamping to horizontal or vertical in order to achieve its aspect locking as you make an object change size. I don't know if that sentence even made sense, but what I'm trying to say is that the 2 different kinds of aspect ratio lock will try to honour the height or width changes - whichever will make their goal achievable - and that may or may not break the constraint on inset from any side, so the display shouldn't look like they're locked in position...

 

Thanks,

Matt

 

What I was thinking was a clearer solution to the round buttons you have right now inside the square. They're pretty hard to read, so I tried to extrapolate what they might be showing. At least what I saw in them. It's just a different way to display the buttons that are already there. I don't really know what the current settings do, but when I lock some parts they stop affecting the nested content. Which is what I want. Well, anchoring it to the centre would be great, but I haven't achieved that yet with the constraints tool.

[MattP]

Hi Frank,

 

To anchor to the centre, just align your object to the centre and then turn off the width and height stretching, so your object cannot change size, but its position will remain in the centre as the container changes. Hope that makes sense? :)

 

Thanks,

Matt

[Malcolm]

Question about Symbols - which are great btw. 

 

Is there or will there be a way to update or replace a symbol in the panel. Perhaps a in the right click menu, 'replace symbol with selected'. 

 

Currently if I want to replace the contents of a symbol completely, I get a instance of it then paste in other contents and remove the old contents. I was wondering if this could be an action in the panel as described above - if not still works via the hands on route.

 

Cheers.

[MattP]

Hi Malcolm,

 

I do intend adding more features like this - hopefully prior to release, but we'll have to see how quickly I can get to them :)

 

Thanks,

Matt