Unresolved simple bugs: SVG import

[DarkClown]

Frankly spoken I'm really upset how Affinty handles (or better: does NOT handle) well known simple bugs like "importing svg files with ansii coding". This problem now is known for ages - and it's simple to resolve I assume. For a user it's a nightmare when you work with svg files that come ansii encoded. You have to open EVERY file with a text editor and exchange the coding from ansii to utf-8 to get it work (if people do know this workaround at all). What is so difficult to enhace the importer in a way to handle ascii encoded svg files as well? You continuosly keep coming up with new versions but don't fix essential bugs known for years. Can't you just fix bugs FIRST and than work on new gimmicks? What is the (busines) concept behind ignoring known bugs on that level? Is it just you don't care for customer needs at all? Can't be bothered? 

Upsetting and extremely annoying! And I don't get it.

Rant over,
Timo

[Pšenda]

13 hours ago, DarkClown said:

You continuosly keep coming up with new versions but don't fix essential bugs known for years. Can't you just fix bugs FIRST and than work on new gimmicks? What is the (busines) concept behind ignoring known bugs on that level?

From my point of view, this bug, especially given that it has such an easy workaround, is definitely not essential/critical - which is why I am very happy that Serif is adding other new features that are desirable and beneficial to many/most users.

And the business model? - that's probably clear and easy to understand, because the product is sold (acquired by new customers) by new features, not fixed bugs. This doesn't mean that Serif shouldn't fix bugs at all (especially really critical ones that affect a large portion of users, which ascii encoding SVG probably won't), but I understand that development capacity (especially if it's limited) needs to be balanced between fixes and progress.

[DarkClown]

Sorry (not) to say I fully disagree and can't follow your point of view!

Affinity Designers key vector format is SVG! Not getting an import done properly for such an essential format IS CRUCIAL! I'm very much aware that Affinity users come from totally different areas and have different needs. Not everyone works with vector files or needs to import them - but assuming this does not affect many useres seems a very uninformed and personal interest driven statement. Just search the forum for discussions on this topic. And given that you feel there's an "easy" workaround proofs your complet lack of knowldge for some designer needs (I'll happily send you 200 svg files to manually change the encoding format). And considering it would be a piece of cake to fix it (I assume) - it is quite brazen to state there is no need to correct bugs just because it does not affect you.

And implementing features without fixing their bugs for the sake of new gimmicks, does not seem a reliable business concept. I wonder if you supply your products to your customers with bugs and when they complain tell them that they should be quiet since at least they got "something". Astonishing point of view!

[2ddpainter]

@DarkClown

 

I understand that something like this should be fixed in the program
and I agree completely. But I don't understand why you think you
have to change the SVGs manually?

Since SVGs are ultimately text files, with such a large number
of SVGs I would try to solve this using Autohotkey, Autoit or
something like that.

I think AutoHotkey or Autoit also recognizes when a new file
has been copied into an assigned folder and then processes
it automatically.

Overall, this is actually a superfluous workaround, but if
the developer doesn't move, it's at least an alternative.

[David in Яuislip]

You can open multiple files in Notepad++ then use Replace to Replace All in All Opened Documents so all instances of encoding="ASCII" become encoding="UTF-8" then do it again for encoding="ANSI", much less effort than opening the files one at a time. Still need to do Close All and press y lots of times to save each one n.b. I've used this approach for a couple of dozen files, never 200 so I'm not aware of any limit
This doesn't affect the file encoding of course just changes the value in the xml declaration which I understand to be the problem

I've seen encoding="ASCII" a few times but never encoding="ANSI". If they are all ascii then a decent approach is to use a bat file that uses Inkscape. You'll need Inkscape installed and the path to the .exe file in the Environmental Variables. Then place the attached bat file in the folder of dodgy svg's, run it and they'll be corrected. Inkscape won't work with encoding="ANSI"

It's a piece of cake to fix these files in Яuislip but it shouldn't be necessary to ponce around like this, maybe the above will help anyone in a similar position until Serif fixes the issue

A more robust method is to use a Powershell script which can do the text replacements and set the file encoding to utf-8, I'll leave that as a challenge to anyone interested 

ToUTF8.bat

[DarkClown]

Thx, David. Both of you are right, there are workarounds to externally automate the process.
It does not change my initial point: why not simply fix this over years?

[Evaluation complete.]

It's not as hard to break up with bad tools as you think.

Schau dich um und viel Glück! 🙂

[ronnyb]

Another one is the inability to open portrait HEIF files. Landscape works but not portrait. Reported over a year ago… 

Why add any new features when the features they already added are broken! 
HELLO? MCFLY? ANYBODY HOME?!