I have AD2 for ipad and windows

[LPN]

I purchased AD2 for my iPad, been having some projects running on the device. I just purchased AD2 on Windows, but i cannot see my projects - are they not automatically linked - since i only use 1 affinity account for both purchases? Is there a way to link the projects across device, or is it not possible at all? Any pointer is helpful! Thanks in advance. 

[NotMyFault]

As far as a know projects are an iPad only concept. You can save the actual documents within projects in a cloud backed folder (iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive etc) to share them across devices. Do not keep documents open in multiple devices to avoid corruption.

Please note that cloud storage lead to issues with file corruption in many cases, so better create backups of important documents frequently to avoid bad surprises.

Cloud storage alone is no replacement for backup. Backup means having copies of your files taken frequently, and store in a different location.

[LPN]

Thanks for this! I was thinking if linking is not possible i need to upload and download across devices to work on them, but i was not aware of the potential file corruptions!! Will keep the backup in mind. Thanks again for your advice. Have a good day! 

[Paul Mudditt]

5 hours ago, LPN said:

Thanks for this! I was thinking if linking is not possible i need to upload and download across devices to work on them, but i was not aware of the potential file corruptions!! Will keep the backup in mind. Thanks again for your advice. Have a good day! 

Corruption is only a problem if you keep your iPad projects on the Affinity home screen. Simply get into the habit of naming saving AND closing your documents on the iPad just as you would on your desktop IF you move between devices frequently.

Because of the way iPadOS multitasking works it is not sufficient to simply save your document in a folder, you must close it before accessing it on another device to ensure the file is completely written to disk. The Close not just the Save completes the written file.

So long as you obey these rules then you will have no problems with iCloud folders or Dropbox folders or Microsoft Onedrive folders. Google drive has been problematic but I believe may work now but is the least trustworthy in my personal opinion.

[NotMyFault]

23 minutes ago, Paul Mudditt said:

Corruption is only a problem if you keep your iPad projects on the Affinity home screen.

I‘m not sure about this sentence. In the past we have seen too many desperate users complaining about corrupted files related to cloud sync, not only on iPad but on Desktop. Situation has probably improved to to recent changes introducing lock files, but I would still be very cautions. Personally I experienced cloud sync delayed by several minutes, when I uploaded a file on one PC, all other PCs and the browser didn’t show the update because the file was huge and it took some time to finish upload. 
 

For critical work, you must use any means of version documentation inside the document (e.g. a text layer hidden from export in export persona) just to be sure.

Affinity urgently need a function to check and ensure document consistency, e.g. by hashes on every data block.

[Alfred]

43 minutes ago, Paul Mudditt said:

Corruption is only a problem if you keep your iPad projects on the Affinity home screen.

 

34 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

I‘m not sure about this sentence.

Me too neither! I don’t think this is a sandboxing issue: I believe it’s caused by the Affinity apps’ habit of ‘efficiently’ loading only part of the file into memory, which can work well but is disastrous if the edited portion isn’t correctly reunited with the rest of the file.

[Paul Mudditt]

54 minutes ago, Alfred said:

 

Me too neither! I don’t think this is a sandboxing issue: I believe it’s caused by the Affinity apps’ habit of ‘efficiently’ loading only part of the file into memory, which can work well but is disastrous if the edited portion isn’t correctly reunited with the rest of the file.

I still think we are saying the same thing, iPadOS multitasking is nothing like desktop multitasking as it has to shut down background activity pretty soon after no longer being the primary task to preserve battery life, hence the need for a sandbox where paused tasks data areas can be restored from when made active again. So the sandbox does not simply contain documents, it also contains the state of the tools/screen and file history etc

I previously called for Serif to get rid of the sandbox but for the above reason the sandbox is actually necessary otherwise tasks and their memory blocks would need to be kept active destroying battery life. It is these paused tasks “data areas” (I don’t call them files as they are more than that) which litter the sandbox every time you switch to another app or put the iPad to sleep.

The opportunities for data loss are substantial while you have a “paused” document in the sandbox. If you are familiar with programming languages such as ‘C’ or Basic or Fortran or Pascal or PL/M which I am most familiar with we know that when you fopen(fp) then fwrite(fp, data), fwrite(fp,data) ….. fwrite(fp,data) to a file on disk, the only way you can successfully access that file again is after issuing an fclose(fp) to close the file and empty any half empty buffers in the file system. I am not saying this is the same for swift/xcode or whatever but to me this is what it “feels” like.

This is simply my experience of Affinity with iCloud, I have never had a corruption switching between iPad, Mac, or Windows IF I close the file in the sandbox after saving. It might not be the full story but it works for me.
 

[Paul Mudditt]

2 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

I‘m not sure about this sentence. In the past we have seen too many desperate users complaining about corrupted files related to cloud sync, not only on iPad but on Desktop. Situation has probably improved to to recent changes introducing lock files, but I would still be very cautions. Personally I experienced cloud sync delayed by several minutes, when I uploaded a file on one PC, all other PCs and the browser didn’t show the update because the file was huge and it took some time to finish upload. 
 

For critical work, you must use any means of version documentation inside the document (e.g. a text layer hidden from export in export persona) just to be sure.

Affinity urgently need a function to check and ensure document consistency, e.g. by hashes on every data block.

There is an illusion that the sandbox contains files/documents, but the reality is it actually contains suspended/paused task data for a file/document.

This is why Serif can’t easily make the sandbox contents browsable.

The only time you have a real file/document on the iPad is when you save and close the file in the file system.

 

[NotMyFault]

I agree with you about the iPadOS sandboxing issues, I only disagree with your recommendation that saving in iCloud or OneDeive would fully mitigate the overarching issue to avoid file corruption, where sandboxes only one contributor- and actually the sandbox issue always deleted a new file or all edits I made (since last return to Photo Home Screen).
But: never left me with a corrupted file. I lost changes or the complete file, but never got a corrupted file due to task switching on iPad.

Whereas I stopped using Publisher and hate it from bottom of my heart as Publisher corrupted every single document one every platform in every version when I tried. until I gave up probably with V1.10.

I use publisher only on iPad when I need switching between Designer and Photo, but not for creating documents with pages.