My current sentiment, re: v2.6

[Viktor CR]

I look forward to using and taking a more thorough look at 2.6 for production, soon.

With hundreds of bug reports flowing in, I'm going to wait for that way beyond 2.6.2, until at least the critical ones are resolved and the number of new reports subsides.

As much as I'm appreciative of the new awesome features and the people having built them — the true Beta phase, that is happening now after releasing, doesn't instill confidence in me for using 2.6 in production just yet. I do not want to be struggling or ending up with my work and precious time having been in vain.

I am deliberately adjusting my expectations to consider the new version released only with a version sometime after the release of probably 2.6.4
and will use the Beta channel for exploration, till then.

Thank you, Affinity team/s for the Beta program, where we can test to our heart's desire even after the official release, without messing up the production instance.

Happy continued Beta testing, everyone! — Now even more seriously.
 

Quote

 

Edited to Add
On Windows, automatic updates (to avoid updating to 2.6 accidentally) can be disabled with entries under these registry keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Serif\Affinity\Photo\2
Entry [DWORD]: No Update Check
Value: 1

And the same for the other apps' keys.

 

 

[jms5758]

I never upgrade MacOS until xx.3 and you speak the truth about waiting until affinity x.y.4. Although x.y.3 would probably be ok... But x.y.0 is just beta software...

[Iltirtar]

A release version should not be beta software. Bugs in a release version are expected, but should be minor. Bugs in Affinity's release versions are major.

The fact that Apple does a poor job in this regard, and has somehow managed to brainwash its customers to think this is normal, doesn't make it acceptable, nor normal.

These fan-boy based companies are stealing the food out of customers' mouth, and customers say "thank you". It is incomprehensible to me why adult people accept being manipulated like children. It is unacceptable altogether.

[Viktor CR]

@Iltirtar It's merely a shifted time-line. 2.6 will be usable effectively about one month later than announced as released.
That's the same as if they had released it end of March … that's simply a longer wait, if one can practice some self-discipline and avoid clicking "update". 😉 If you can avoid having your expectations set by Affinity's public communication and take charge of those yourself, the world looks just fine.

[Iltirtar]

It is not a shifted timeline. It is abuse. Alpha, Beta, and Release are terms with a fixed, standardised meaning. You have paid for a software product, and this software product should conform to the meaning of these terms. Any attempt to redefine the meaning of words is lowering the quality standard, and it should be viewed as an abuse on paying customers.

You are saying that I should not care that they say "green" when they mean "red". Well, I do care, because I have better standards. Of course, if you close your eyes very hard and manage to convince yourself that you are not being abused, even when you are, you may not feel abused. But truth is you still are being abused —and you know this somehow, or this thread would not exist.

[fde101]

2 hours ago, Iltirtar said:

should not care that they say "green" when they mean "red".

As I understand it, in Japan it is common for people to say (the Japanese equivalent of) "blue" when they actually mean "green" - traffic lights turn green just like they do in other countries but in Japan the people would say they turned "blue".  It is a rather curious part of that culture which may not make sense to anyone else.

 

2 hours ago, Iltirtar said:

manage to convince yourself that you are not being abused

Windows is still not macOS, and is thus inferior, but does that mean that people using it are being "abused" by Microsoft?

They are using an inferior product for sure, but that doesn't qualify as abuse.

 

There are numerous reports of issues with this 24H2 release of Windows 11, some people going as far as reformatting their drives to try to get back to an older version because of all the problems it is causing - it is evidently a bad release, yet Microsoft continues to push it to people's computers.  Is that abuse?

 

I don't believe it is remotely accurate to say that the release versions of the Affinity applications are abusive.  Nevertheless, Serif could definitely stand to make some serious improvements to their development and release practices.  The list of known defects with a beta are far too long when they switch to release candidate status, much less put out an actual release.

The goal should be zero known bugs (newly introduced or otherwise) at the time of any release.

[Iltirtar]

1 hour ago, fde101 said:

in Japan it is common

Uhm... So? The analogy doesn't apply. Or you mean that in England, Release version means "full of bugs"? Nowhere is it stated that a release version of Serif software is not ready for production. On the contrary, users are reminded that a new update is ready. Also, if someone where to buy Affinity today ("for professionals", they say), would be directed to download 2.6.0 (the full of bugs thing) with no reference whatsoever to earlier versions. So frankly, this argument seems all nonsense to me.

Also note that 2.6 is not a new version of the software. 3.0 would be a new version. 2.6 is an iteration of version 2, and therefore expected to be better than 2.5. But maybe since Japanese call blue to green, every nonsense has to be accepted as normal...

 

1 hour ago, fde101 said:

does that mean that people using it are being "abused" by Microsoft?

Yes. Microsoft's and Apple's practices are abusive in many ways. You don't realizing doesn't change the fact, it just makes it easier for them to cheat on us. And anyway, Apple and Microsoft being bad doesn't make Serif better, right?

 

1 hour ago, fde101 said:

The list of known defects with a beta are far too long when they switch to release candidate status, much less put out an actual release.

And yet you seem to argument in favor of Serif. I don't get it. But you do you, as they say.

[Iltirtar]

As it seams people is not very much aware of how versioning works in software developent, here is a summary of the thing:

• Major version number (e.g. the 2 in 2.5.7) is incremented when changes are significant, they may break compatibility, or introduce new major features.
• Minor version number (e.g. the 5 in 2.5.7) is incremented when improvements on existing features are implemented, or minor (non-breaking) new features are added.
• Patch version number (e.g. the 7 in 2.5.7) is incremented when minor changes are implemented or bugs are fixed.

Note that beyond being awfully buggy, version 2.6.0 includes new breaking features, since the document format in 2.6.0 is not backwards compatible with 2.5. Therefore, this change belongs to a new major version (i.e. 3.0) and not to 2.6.0. To make matters worse, Serif didn't properly advertise the document format change in their changelogs.

Those are the facts. Everything else is twisting things for no good reason other than to promote bad practices, low quality standards and poor customer support.

[fde101]

19 minutes ago, Iltirtar said:

And yet you seem to argument in favor of Serif.

This is not either/or, and it is not as simple as you try to make it out to be.  The realities of software development are more complex than any of us would like.

I agree that Serif is not handling this very well and that there is a significant amount of room for improvement, but I disagree with your classification of their practices as "abusive".

You are taking it too far.

 

21 minutes ago, Iltirtar said:

Or you mean that in England, Release version means "full of bugs"?

I have no idea what it means in England, but here in the USA it generally means that the version is intended by the company to be used for production purposes.  How buggy the software may be or how serious the bugs are is completely irrelevant to this classification.

 

4 minutes ago, Iltirtar said:

aware of how versioning works in software developent

What you listed is the way that most companies handle versions, but it is hardly set in stone, with many pieces of software varying from this common usage, not just Serif.

Apple for years used the second number to indicate a major release of macOS (10.1, 10.2, 10.5, etc. were major, not minor releases), as did PostgreSQL for quite some time.  Both of them later changed strategies and now increment the first number for a major release.

Serif's methodology is a sort of hybrid of this, with the second number being incremented for the equivalent of a major release (whatever they may choose to call it), and the first when you need to pay for the product again.

 

7 minutes ago, Iltirtar said:

beyond being awfully buggy, version 2.6.0 includes new breaking features, since the document format in 2.6.0 is not backwards compatible with 2.5

This has been true of every second-number-incremented version since I have been using any of the Affinity products.  2.5 documents cannot be opened in 2.4, etc.  Anyone who has been following the products for any amount of time should expect that by now.

[Iltirtar]

33 minutes ago, fde101 said:

in the USA it generally means that the version is intended by the company to be used for production purposes.  How buggy the software may be or how serious the bugs are is completely irrelevant to this classification.

Do you mean that in the USA you use software for production purposes independently of how buggy it is? I hope that airplane manufacturers have a different approach to the matter. Ready for production purposes (release) means that serious bugs are fixed. The contrary should only happen on very rare occasions, not all the time.

 

33 minutes ago, fde101 said:

What you listed is the way that most companies handle versions

Yes, the ones that do things professionally and care about quality standards. Again, listing examples of how Apple, Microsoft or Serif deviate from that, doesn't make the thing better. It just tells us that their lists of priorities do not have «quality» among the fist places.

 

33 minutes ago, fde101 said:

This has been true of every second-number-incremented version since I have been using any of the Affinity products.  2.5 documents cannot be opened in 2.4, etc.  Anyone who has been following the products for any amount of time should expect that by now.

Yes. They are indeed reoffending. But the fact that a bad practice is repeated to the point of being expected doesn't make it better. Otherwise, since thefts happen every day, and are therefore expected, I suppose you would not complain if somebody steals your watch...

[Pšenda]

38 minutes ago, Iltirtar said:

As it seams people is not very much aware of how versioning works in software developent

I think you are the real proof of this - versioning and its scheme work as the creator designs it. Even though there are many instructions on how it "could" be done (for two, three and four element versioning), there is no globally valid standard that is mandatory for all developers. From your description it is clear that you are not familiar with the versioning scheme of Affinity applications, and yet you write extensive epics about it here.

[Iltirtar]

4 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

you are not familiar with the versioning scheme of Affinity applications

On the contrary, I am very familiar with it: every version introduces some feature that is broken and should not have passed the beta stage. Some of these broken features may be fixed (nobody knows exactly when). Others, not necessarily, because, who cares? The feature is already shinning in the feature list, and I guess that's enough

Affinity's web page title is "Creative Software For Professionals". Allow me to lough with sadness. But hey, if it works fine for you, suit yourself. I just find it funny that no other professional software I use has the issues Affinity has.

[fde101]

36 minutes ago, Iltirtar said:

Do you mean that in the USA you use software for production purposes independently of how buggy it is?

Sadly, yes.  The fact that Microsoft is still in business is evidence enough of that.

 

37 minutes ago, Iltirtar said:

I hope that airplane manufacturers have a different approach to the matter.

They do, thankfully.

 

37 minutes ago, Iltirtar said:

Ready for production purposes (release) means that serious bugs are fixed.

I wish.

 

37 minutes ago, Iltirtar said:

It just tells us that their lists of priorities do not have «quality» among the fist places.

The way that versioning is handled is not related to the quality practices of those involved.  The version could just as easily be the revision number of a release snapshot from a version control system, and if the practices regarding development and testing are solid, the quality could still be very high.  A company could use the same versioning scheme you propose, and release software of poor quality.

 

40 minutes ago, Iltirtar said:

a bad practice is repeated to the point of being expected

Not bad, just different.  There is a substantial difference between bad and different.  Different can be good sometimes, as well as other times, just being... different.

[Iltirtar]

7 minutes ago, fde101 said:

Different can be good sometimes

I agree. Sometimes it makes sense to deviate from the generally accepted way of doing things. But tell me how the Affinity style of being "different" is good.

 

7 minutes ago, fde101 said:

the quality could still be very high.

Yes, but it is not in this case, and that's the point. If you are a genius, do what you want. But when you are struggling to deliver minumum quality, playing things by the book is usually wiser. At least there is a frame of order. I actually don't care what version scheme they use. I care about quality. And what bothers me is that they do things differently only to make things worse.

[fde101]

30 minutes ago, Iltirtar said:

tell me how the Affinity style of being "different" is good

In terms of version numbers?  It is neither good nor bad.  Just different.

[Iltirtar]

1 hour ago, fde101 said:

In terms of version numbers?  It is neither good nor bad.  Just different.

So you think that making changes that break backward compatibility in the apparent form of a minor update, without stating it in the changelogs, and in the context of premature releases that are full of major bugs, is not worse, but just different... 

Ok, I guess we won't ever agree. And we don't have to. Serif doesn't care, anyway, so...

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, Iltirtar said:

So you think that making changes that break backward compatibility in the apparent form of a minor update, without stating it in the changelogs

Leaving aside your ignorance of the Affinity application versioning scheme (so I won't comment on the use of the "minor" update label, because this update was actually major), and leaving aside the fact that the backward incompatibility was reported by Serif when the new version 2.6 was released, the consequence of your idea/request would be either not implementing the new Multi-Page Spreads feature that caused this backward incompatibility, or releasing a paid upgrade to version 3. Hmm - I don't know if that would please existing users 🙂

[Meliora spero]

9 hours ago, Viktor CR said:

@Iltirtar It's merely a shifted time-line. 2.6 will be usable effectively about one month later than announced as released.

It is simply the most invalid and newspeak politician-like rhetorical nonsense on the internet right now. Toe-curling. You’d have more success as a stand-up comedian describing the struggles of hard-pressed customers. I honestly can’t remember the last time I encountered or heard such absurd nonsense, but I should point out that any sender of such ridiculously self-contradictory and gibberish loses all credibility instantly.

Your praise was already regime-loyal and sickeningly rosy, and I wondered why you didn’t suggest that Serif use the beta phase precisely to get the product in order before releasing it to customers with production data and something at stake. But I didn’t foresee where this would end up. I can imagine how the discussion from here spirals downward into an inferno of wasted time.

Serif has once again released a highly unfinished product, and now - weeks later - only a partial fix is being prepared in beta, which serious customers obviously don’t use. You don’t even know when, or if, they will salvage this fiasco. And yet, you still write this nonsense.

Customers are left standing alone on the platform while Serif once again demonstrates why the professional segment is out of reach. Simply because the Affinity brand has already been ruined by all the bugs, poor decisions, missing features, and lack of professionalism - amply documented in this forum. The world knows. Many of you don’t get it. And these fanboy kneeling ceremonies and hymns of praise to Serif make it painfully obvious to any serious professional outside the ranks of hobby loyalists what kind of product this is and who actually uses it.

[Meliora spero]

Here you go, one fresh example of implications for the customers. Try selling your theories to them.

This is what the brand has become over the years. Don't you think it will find its way into the industry? Just not in the Club Affinity Forum.

 

[Viktor CR]

@Meliora spero Imagine, 2.6 had been announced for Q4 2025. You'd still be able to use 2.5 just like I am now.
I need 2.6 just as much, as I need 2.7.

Imagine, we were talking about 2.7 right now. You are of course not spending even a single thought about 2.7, and thus not complaining.

Your complaint is about your expectations having been raised and disappointed … so what? — a pure communication issue. Our feelings about expectations are our own business and managing our emotions is also our own task. Are you not able to reign in your emotions and keep a level head? I hope you do.
Communication — that is where the error is. Beta should be called opt-in Alpha and Release should be called public Beta … a nomenclature and communication issue.

Are we entitled to a 2.7 or 2.8? Are we entitled to a 2.6? Are we entitled to a 2.6 right now already?
Who needs that entitlement?

As a professional, what I need is a sober look at reality and the realization,

• that the actual situation / quality doesn't match the names
• that raised expectations do not meet my own standard

… and that is why I adjust my expectations and leave Serif to their business.
Whenever it is well done, I'll take a bite. Until then, I will take charge and manage my expectations by myself, and instead of getting annoyed, use the tools given to vet the software's readiness (Beta + Forum signals).

Or are you seriously going to suggest we have any say in what Serif does and how they do software development? We don't. And that's it. What are you going to do about that? Poison the air with complaining and protests, that will obviously lead nowhere? LOL. Laughable. Do you also complain when the weather suddenly changes, instead of adjusting to the situation like a grown-up? That's what someone does, who has no power but needs to assert himself with a loud mouth. Not a welcome or honorable behaviour.

Let's be a bit more realistic than that and simply take things as they are.
It's not your company.
Don't want the product? — Go somewhere else.
Love the product? — use 2.5 and install 2.6 when it's actually good to go. Until then, simply forget about it or help testing, using the Beta channel. Anything else is just wishful thinking and wasted air. If you want to change something, visit Serif at their location in person. You'll see your attitude change quickly as you face reality.

[Viktor CR]

42 minutes ago, Meliora spero said:

one fresh example of implications for the customers.

That's why my advice is: Think for yourself. Adjust your expectations. Don't just follow whatever is released. Step up the IT competency game. 2.6.0 should never have been installed, as I've suggested in my post. That's not specific to Affinity but necessary with all software. Only after about three weeks of relative silence in the Bug section, a version is good to go — with all software. Be your own master. That applies to all areas of life, be it the medical advice we got in 2020, software versions or any issue. Educate yourself and then think for yourself, critically.

[Iltirtar]

2 hours ago, Pšenda said:

the consequence of your idea/request would be either not implementing the new Multi-Page Spreads feature that caused this backward incompatibility

I don't know what you are talking about. I am a Designer user, and don't care for Multi-Page Spreads. And for the record, nowhere in Designer features was stated that document format had changed and was not backward compatible. If I am wrong, prove it.

[Iltirtar]

2 hours ago, Pšenda said:

releasing a paid upgrade to version 3. Hmm - I don't know if that would please existing users 🙂

You are not getting the point, I see. They had a third option, which is to release a 2.6.0 version that was actually usable, and not an unstable pile of garbage. Then backwards incompatibility would not be such an issue.

Regarding pleasing users... I don't know what users can be pleased with this. I am not a professional designer, and 2.6.0 was 100% unusable to me. I can't imagine how professional designers would be able to use this thing. And to those who are happy with Affinity... well, enjoy. But someone at Affinity have the decency to remove the "professional" word from the website's title.

[Meliora spero]

The good news is that few professionals are affected - because they are not Affinity customers. And the permanently entrenched loyalists in this forum fail to understand that their fervent defense of the problems does nothing but reinforce the impression of a project meant for hobbyists and young creatives.

The truly bad news is that a wounded brand is rarely salvageable.

[sfriedberg]

Some of us have seen the evolution (including ingestion of 3rd party technology) of other companies' graphics suites, such as CorelDRAW and PhotoPaint (current relabeled Corel Graphics Suite).  I first used CorelDRAW 3.  Not 13, not X3, not 23.  Three.  In comparison to the current CGS it was a kludgy, ugly, inconvenient, limited and annoying piece of software.  The CorelDRAW 5 release was a tremendous step forward.  Over the years, it has evolved to the point where I don't even bother looking at new releases more than every 4 or 5 years, because it's stable, reasonably comprehensive and I don't care for UI tweaks just to accomodate the latest trend (flat buttons, dark mode, disappearing scrollbars, no thank you).

A user of CorelDRAW 3 would be justified in bitching about missing features, counter-intuitive UI design, awkward controls, and bugs.  But if they predicted that CD would never be usable, and no professional would ever consider it in the future, they would be quite incorrect.  Despite Corel's persistent corporate mismanagement, they manage to maintain some perfectly usable software.  They brought in technology from Xara, which added a lot of functionality (and, I believe, considerable numeric stability).  There are aspects of CorelDRAW I consider superior to the industry reference (and 800lb gorilla) Illustrator.  They also completely abandoned Corel (formerly Ventura, formerly GEM) Publisher, which is what drew me to the Affinity suite in the first place.  Some good decisions, some bad decisions.

Everybody has their own list of "must have" features.  Release 1 of the Affinity Suite didn't have some of the things on my list.  That did not make it useless, because not every job requires every tool.  But it did mean I had to fall back on other SW to do some of my work.  Release 2 has filled in some of those missing pieces, but some of them are still quite rocky and I'd hope for continued improvement.  There are still things missing, but I can do more of my work in the Affinity suite, and I expect this progress to continue.

Meliora spero, it's not for you to decide that Affinity is dead.  That's a decision for the marketplace.  And it's not going to be decided by Affinity release 2 any more than the life or death of CGS was decided by CorelDRAW release 3.  Furthermore, you are not accomplishing anything by repetitious venting about how you think Affinity is dead.  You've made your opinion crystal clear. While my "must have" list is undoubtedly different from your, the Affinity suite is missing some essential features.  Unless your principle is "misery loves company" and your object is to make everyone else miserable, consider your point well made and drop it.