Please NO MORE NEW FEATURES!

[ronnyb]

So many OLD, OVER REPORTED bugs all over the Affinity suite, it's becoming a nuisance working with the apps...

Please address ALL bugs before adding more features. PLEASE!

[PaulEC]

I'm not against adding new features, but I'd certainly agree that fixing longstanding bugs should be prioritised,  before more, new, bugs are introduced along with new features!

[Evaluation complete.]

I can see that I’m also dealing with older bugs and shortcomings, and this provides no credibility or confidence when assessing whether to invest in Affinity for serious use. I am speechless at some of these longstanding issues. This reflects poor customer care and a reliance on the hope of acquiring new customers instead of retaining existing ones.

I wonder how many have evaluated Affinity and, like us, are deeply skeptical about its long-term value and future deliverables. It feels like mosquito bites and heartburn that just won’t go away.

[aji]

The most important thing about vector design software is accuracy. AF-4831, AF-2191, this fatal error has not been fixed

[aji]

 

Affecting the accuracy of vector expansion, docking, and endpoint errors will really make some operations repeated, not only not increasing efficiency, but increasing workload

 

[aji]

Strongly request to fix more fatal vector most basic and most common operation errors

[Evaluation complete.]

To be completely honest, and I owe that to Serif and others like us who evaluate, these issues become glaringly obvious during regular tasks and testing. I’ve gone through many frustrations, irritations, and, slowly but surely, moments of outright anger.

My testing of Publisher keeps hitting walls. Clear deficiencies that simply must be addressed ASAP with proper updates. Gaps that need to be filled. This week’s test of Publisher on an iPad Pro connected to an external display, however, gives the impression that Serif hasn’t truly worked with their own products. With Publisher on an external display (not mirrored), it simply cannot be used seriously. Constant double-updating of text while typing, which is unsettling, icons that can’t be interacted with using a mouse on the external screen, and the field insertion bar is utterly useless. Serif, don’t spend just 2 minutes testing - try 15 or 30 minutes with a moderately ambitious document, and your code will lose control over itself and iPadOS’s text input controls.

In short, unusable. Close, but so far off due to these shortcomings that it’s not functional. Publisher doesn’t look like an attempt to cater to small needs, so why there hasn’t been a serious effort to ensure it works for users with greater demands is beyond me.

What I can say for certain is that Canva - if they intend to target users like us who want to use their products for the serious applications they advertise them as tools for - needs to scale up significantly with more developers, business analysts, and much more to stabilize and expand.

And you cannot expand the products further in their current state without ensuring the foundation is solid. It seems like this is exactly what Serif has stubbornly done: a miscalculation of significant proportions. This is where Canva must step in to restructure the company and its practices significantly if these products are to be taken seriously by demanding customers.

And no, neither I nor my employer will report trivialities as if we were unpaid labor. That’s just a direct indication of a business model that, in every way, has grown beyond Serif’s control. It’s strange to witness a company seemingly hitting a self-made wall two-thirds of the way to its goal.

Ultimately, however, this is not the customers’ problem. Especially not potential customers who need to decide whether to invest - or politely decline.

[ronnyb]

On 11/29/2024 at 3:44 PM, PaulEC said:

I'm not against adding new features, but I'd certainly agree that fixing longstanding bugs should be prioritised,  before more, new, bugs are introduced along with new features!

What good are these nonsense AI features when the basics aren't working and the foundation is riddled with 7 year old bugs?

Who is making these decisions?!

This is so frustrating…

[Circulus]

55 minutes ago, ronnyb said:

Who is making these decisions?!

It's by design.

[Evaluation complete.]

I can only conclude that if we are identifying all these problems today, not a single ounce of hope can be invested in anything being fixed within a reasonable time frame - or at all. Serif and Canva could hardly offer their competitors a bigger gift than this wealth of flaws and uncertainty, almost the certainty that these issues are inherent to their products. It is futile to try to appeal to professional customers or others with professional needs with products so riddled with errors.

“The ship is leaking today; but it will still be leaking tomorrow.”

Years ago, I could not have imagined a future world so lacking in software we can truly utilize and enjoy, but I am speechless having seen many companies effectively take themselves out of the game. Adobe gets much of the blame here for everything bad, but they cannot be held responsible for the mistakes, judgment, and customer handling of their competitors.

[Bryan Rieger]

I don’t have much to add beyond what’s already been said (many times), but my biggest disappointment is the radio silence we’ve had from Serif (and Canva) management since the acquisition.

2.5 was an utterly botched release so that Ash could get up on stage and take part in High School Musical - Canva Edition.

I’m glad Serif are taking their time with 2.6, but that still doesn’t change the fact that in the meantime, trust in Serif and Canva for many folks continues to erode rapidly.

I don’t participate here much anymore (the website takes far too long to load after the recent forum update), and I’m tired of hearing that issues are logged with developers- often for years on end, without resolution.

[ronnyb]

1 hour ago, Bryan Rieger said:

don’t participate here much anymore (the website takes far too long to load after the recent forum update), and I’m tired of hearing that issues are logged with developers- often for years on end, without resolution.

Yes I noticed that the “new” forum speed is slower than a  sloth running thru peanut butter…

Yes the years old bugs, reported by dozens, ignored release after release, is quite disheartening. I’ve been contributing in good faith hoping the bugs get fixed, and many do, but it seems the pace / number of NEW bugs reported keeps growing while the fixes for previous bugs don’t keep up, while Serif introduces new features that bring a slew of new bugs… 

[Evaluation complete.]

2 hours ago, Bryan Rieger said:

2.5 was an utterly botched release so that Ash could get up on stage and take part in High School Musical - Canva Edition.

Thank you, I was wondering what you meant, and I figured it out. Now it all makes sense, including the Canva takeover. I got to see the real target audience, and a de facto humiliation of this Ash. It's been a long time since I've seen something so cringe-worthy, so I suppose I don't need to say that it will quite effectively keep serious people away while attracting those with a skateboard.

https://www.academia.edu/44968515/The_infantilization_of_Western_culture

I need to provide an update on my work task tomorrow. I recommend that I no longer evaluate further in the direction of Affinity. We are obligated, every few years, to assess the market for alternatives to ensure we don’t have software overkill for small and medium-sized tasks, but this is not an alternative - at least not in my assessment.

There were elements that piqued my curiosity with the feature-rich iPad versions, to the extent that I even spent personal time on this task. However, the platform is behind on technology, usability, bug fixes, features, and the company approach and attitude toward customers. Adding the Canvas presentation to the mix, I certainly cannot recommend these products to serious customers. 

Thank you for now. At least I got paid for most of my brief time with Affinity. I suggested a few missing features; I hope they arrive and benefit others. We need them today and also needed them last year, so...

I bid you farewell 

[bbrother]

Yesterday I had to export a single, right-hand page from a spread in APub and ran into AF-1662, which translates to "Export → Current page does not export the right-hand page". I was at loss of words when i found that this was reported back in 2019 and to this day, which is about 5 years later, it has not been fixed. 

The worst thing is that this is not an isolated case, there are many more bugs that no one has done anything about for ages.

I'm sick of this, so I join your request @ronnyb

[PaulEC]

16 hours ago, ronnyb said:

What good are these nonsense AI features

I don't think I actually said anything about AI. But, FWIW, I don't have a problem with AI assistive features (as long as they are optional), but I do have serious problems with generative AI that uses other peoples work. Having said that, I would repeat that I would really like to see longstanding bugs, including less serious. but nevertheless annoying ones, fixed as a priority, before the addition of any major new features. There has to be a balance, some people have been waiting a long time for features that were promised years ago, but at the same time, IMHO, the ever increasing list of bugs needs to be addressed ASAP.

[ronnyb]

20 hours ago, bbrother said:

I was at loss of words when i found that this was reported back in 2019 and to this day, which is about 5 years later, it has not been fixed. 

Exactly! This is sooooo ridiculous….

15 hours ago, PaulEC said:

There has to be a balance, some people have been waiting a long time for features that were promised years ago, but at the same time, IMHO, the ever increasing list of bugs needs to be addressed ASAP.

At this point, the balance is highly skewed towards adding new half-baked features at the cost of fixing the underlying, buggy foundation. The Affinity house of cards is trembling with years-old bugs...

THE EMERGENCY HORNS ARE RINGING, THE BOAT IS SINKING; AFFINITY! QUIT REARRANGING THE DECK CHAIRS ON THE TITANIC!! FIX ALL THE DAMN BUGS ALREADY, BEFORE THIS (POTENTIALLY AWESOME) SUITE ENDS UP FORGOTTEN IN THE ABYSS !!

[krbo]

I couldn't believe I'm still fighting a two years standing bug just to see now/here others have seven year old problems.

 

[PaulEC]

As I understand it, the big problem is that the developers prioritise which bugs to fix, but as new bugs come along some of the older ones, that are considered less important, keep getting pushed further and further back in the queue. Whilst the most serious bugs obviously need to be fixed as soon as possible, I can't help feeling that there should be some system that ensures that the less serious ones still get fixed in a reasonable length of time. (It's always been the same, ever since the "Plus" days, – Serif's bug fixing always reminds me of an old George Formby song: "As the Hours and the Days and the Weeks and the Months and the Years Go By" 😆)

 

[Intuos5]

Guess I'm the only one who wants more bugs and no new features 😅

[Conrad Hoffman]

IMHO, part of the problem is there are three different programs with the same foundation. I'm a photographer and am mainly interested in Affinity Photo 2. There is at least one bug that has driven me crazy for literally years and every new release fails to fix it. It's of little concern to me what's being fixed with Publisher and Designer. The lists of bug fixes typically don't cover much with Photo2 or they're things that have never affected me in normal photo editing. I think the development team is spread way too thin over three products.

FWIW, I've attempted to use Publisher and Designer on occasion. I found Designer completely non-intuitive and Publisher to  be either buggy or ill thought out. The last thing I did was a special form in Publisher and there were issues that prevented me from even getting usable finished printed copy out of it. I think Photo 2 is actually competitive with other big name photo editors and with some bug fixes would be right up there. I'm not so sure Publisher, and especially Designer, are ready for prime time, nor can I see a commercial venture standardizing on them yet.

[PetervL]

1 hour ago, Conrad Hoffman said:

I think Photo 2 is actually competitive with other big name photo editors and with some bug fixes would be right up there.

I can't agree more! ✅

[loukash]

15 hours ago, Conrad Hoffman said:

part of the problem is there are three different programs with the same foundation

No, it's actually one program with three different scopes of prioritized features. And this is the foundation of the StudioLink feature.

15 hours ago, Conrad Hoffman said:

I'm a photographer and am mainly interested in Affinity Photo 2. […]

FWIW, I've attempted to use Publisher and Designer on occasion. I found Designer completely non-intuitive and Publisher to  be either buggy or ill thought out.

Probably because Publisher and Designer are made for, wait for it… graphic designers, not photographers?

Like vice versa: I'm a designer, not a photographer. Even though I use Photo a lot for specific tasks, I don't use, let alone understand every advanced feature that there is. And that's OK. 

15 hours ago, Conrad Hoffman said:

I think Photo 2 is actually competitive with other big name photo editors and with some bug fixes would be right up there. I'm not so sure Publisher, and especially Designer, are ready for prime time

Like in Photo, there are some really silly years old bugs in Designer and Publisher that need to be fixed, finally. 
Other than that, I ditched the Adobe CS apps five years ago (I never subscribed to CC), after using them professionally since 2003, and I have never looked back.

Your mileage may vary… 

On 11/29/2024 at 7:43 PM, ronnyb said:

Please address ALL bugs before adding more features. PLEASE!

Hear hear!

^ How time flies…  

[wim]

Dit is waar we op wachten.

We zijn blij om een bugvrije update voor Windows en Mac aan te kondigen.

[Alfred]

15 hours ago, Conrad Hoffman said:

part of the problem is there are three different programs with the same foundation

 

5 minutes ago, loukash said:

No, it's actually one program with three different scopes of prioritized features.

I suppose it depends on how you define the term ‘program’. The desktop Affinity apps all share the same foundation as a piece of platform-agnostic core code, but each app is standalone and has a different set of features exposed to the user via a platform-specific UI layer.

[Circulus]

1 minute ago, Alfred said:

a platform-specific UI Layer.