Affinity Designer Public Beta - 1.5.0.15 (Windows)

[andre luiz]

It likely will create a PDF on your system. Just walk away, make a cup of coffee or tea, sit out on the porch for a while. You get the picture.

 

It will take an inordinate amount of time. But it will create the PDF. Most of it will get flattened into bitmaps.

 

capture-000172.png

Você é do Brasil?

[Bri-Toon]

 

 

How much will it cost the single license?

 

 

 

I don't know how to insert foreign money symbols on my keyboard, so here's a screenshot of the end of the promotional video on their website.

[MikeW]

Você é do Brasil?

 

Hello Andre,

 

No, I am not.

 

Mike

[RomanPaulov]

Hi everybody.

I found some weird thing about ADesigner this morning, but I'm a new here and don't know is it a bug or a feature. For me it looks like a bug :)

My task was to create an illustration for my blog from a screenshot. I wanted to take a screenshot and slightly modify it.

 

My laptop has a 3K (2880*1620px) screen, win7 on board, and text size set to 150% in windows.

 

What I did:

1. Clicked PrintScreen button.

2. Opened ADesigner and then clicked File\New From Clipboard

3. Switched to Pixel Persona

4. Clicked on Zoom tool and in the left upper changed zoom to 100%.

 

I expected to see my bitmap pixet-to-pixel at 100% on my screen but instead the image was kinda... „scaled up“.

 

I've made a screenshot to illustrate what I'm talking about.

On the screenshot you can see ADesigner window with a screenshot of my desktop in it. As you can see zoom set to 100%.

Start menu items look much bigger in ADesigner window than in real. If I take a screenshot of a window with some text, text will be blurry in ADesigner window (because of this scale-up-feature).

 

Correct me if I'm wrong. ADesigner scales up UI according to windows' font size settings on HD+ screens (which is understandable and cool). But... ADesigner also scales up a viewport with an image in it, and that's kinda strange behavior IMHO. Don't gimme wrong... :) but... what's is the value of it and how to work with bitmaps in this case if I can't see not-scales-up bitmaps on my screen?

 

Or.. maybe I missed some setting or a switch? Does anyone use HD+ screens? Do you have this issue?

Thank you)

[sincetimebegan]

I find Affinity perfect!
I use this on my mac in my spare time and downloaded the Windows Beta on the work computer, still capable of needs, perfect software all round.

Thanks guys!

[RomanPaulov]

Bug in help system.

 

ADesigner: 1.5.0.15 (after upgrade from 1.5.0.12)

Win 7

 

To reproduce:

1. Click Help menu and then Help...

2. Start typing anything in the Search box

 

Result:

ADesigner crushes.

[Dave Harris]

BTW, I meant to include this in my post above and forgot. If you export as a PDFX-4, the vectors remain vectors, the export is fast and doesn't create an ~14 meg PDF.

 

I didn't try other PDF types and so didn't try the Rasterize Nothing setting. However, I do run into this frequently. AD will create bitmaps all too easily even when there shouldn't be any in the PDF, and so I have had to try multiple settings in exporting PDFs. Silly.

 

Mike

I had a look at this file. The issue seems to be the large area gradient fills. If you use "for export", we rasterise gradients because we find a lot of other apps don't import them properly. For example, Illustrator will issue a warning and then rasterise the gradient itself, and Corel Draw doesn't cope at all. Rasterising at least makes the PDF look right and avoids the warnings. If you export with one of the printing presets, such as PDF/X-4, then we expect the printer can handle the gradients so then we output them as vector.

 

It is silly that we need to do this, but we can't help what PDF features other apps support. You can get finer control over it by using File > Export > PDF > More > Allow advanced features.

[Bri-Toon]

Bug in help system.

 

ADesigner: 1.5.0.15 (after upgrade from 1.5.0.12)

Win 7

 

To reproduce:

1. Click Help menu and then Help...

2. Start typing anything in the Search box

 

Result:

ADesigner crushes.

 

I got that same error message, though for, I couldn't even launch the program. I'm so glad to see I'm not the only one who got that dialogue. Mark Ingram said he'll take a look at what caused the crash report.

[MikeW]

I had a look at this file. The issue seems to be the large area gradient fills. If you use "for export", we rasterise gradients because we find a lot of other apps don't import them properly. For example, Illustrator will issue a warning and then rasterise the gradient itself, and Corel Draw doesn't cope at all. Rasterising at least makes the PDF look right and avoids the warnings. If you export with one of the printing presets, such as PDF/X-4, then we expect the printer can handle the gradients so then we output them as vector.

 

It is silly that we need to do this, but we can't help what PDF features other apps support. You can get finer control over it by using File > Export > PDF > More > Allow advanced features.

 

Yes, we know CD cannot open AD PDFs unless they are resaved from Acrobat regardless of any feature in an AD PDF--a simple PDF with only a rectangle will not open in CD (nor even a blank page. There's something amiss in the AD PDFs). It opens nearly every other PDF generated from anything just fine otherwise.

 

As for AI, I find that if it supports the gradient types in a PDF, it brings them in just fine.

 

I do not believe that it is the responsibility of a particular software to, in this instance, rasterize gradients in the off chance that they may not be supported in whatever may open them. It is the responsibility of a particular software to write the PDFs in such a manner that complies with the fullest standard for the PDF type being exported.

 

As for AD rasterizing gradients. Try this. Create two simple shapes, like rectangles. On the first one, do a gradient from one end to the other. Do not add additional stops. On the second one, add a single additional stop (or two). Now walk through each PDF/X profile as shipped by Serif. You'll find that the shape with an additional stop or two has been converted into an image. This is not right. No other software I use does so.

 

Mike

[CerberousX2]

Okay so i have just tried to download it but it did not work. it takes me to this page that has the URL, s3.amazonnaws.com and it just keeps on downloading.

[Mark Ingram]

Okay so i have just tried to download it but it did not work. it takes me to this page that has the URL, s3.amazonnaws.com and it just keeps on downloading.

 

So you clicked the link in the first post in this thread and downloaded the 1.5.0.15 version? From this URL, https://s3.amazonaws.com/affinity-beta/download/affinity-designer-public-beta.exe? Then did you click it to open it after the download finished? What do you mean "it did not work"?

[Dave Harris]

Yes, we know CD cannot open AD PDFs unless they are resaved from Acrobat regardless of any feature in an AD PDF--a simple PDF with only a rectangle will not open in CD (nor even a blank page. There's something amiss in the AD PDFs). It opens nearly every other PDF generated from anything just fine otherwise.

 

As for AI, I find that if it supports the gradient types in a PDF, it brings them in just fine.

 

I do not believe that it is the responsibility of a particular software to, in this instance, rasterize gradients in the off chance that they may not be supported in whatever may open them. It is the responsibility of a particular software to write the PDFs in such a manner that complies with the fullest standard for the PDF type being exported.

 

As for AD rasterizing gradients. Try this. Create two simple shapes, like rectangles. On the first one, do a gradient from one end to the other. Do not add additional stops. On the second one, add a single additional stop (or two). Now walk through each PDF/X profile as shipped by Serif. You'll find that the shape with an additional stop or two has been converted into an image. This is not right. No other software I use does so.

 

Mike

 

Our PDFs are opened and rendered correctly by Acrobat, and Acrobat Pro pre-flights them as conforming to PDF/X-1a (or whatever), so they are standard PDFs. If Corel Draw doesn't open them there must be an issue with Corel Draw not accepting the PDF standard. Illustrator also opens them and renders them correctly. It chooses to rasterise them, but it couldn't rasterise them if it didn't understand what they should look like, so the gradients must be conforming. We generate correct PDFs; our ability to deal with the vagaries of third party software is limited.

 

The issue with gradients with more than two colours is our problem. It's due to a limitation of PDFLib, which is the library we use to generate PDFs. We'll have a look at fixing it in due course.

[MikeW]

Our PDFs are opened and rendered correctly by Acrobat, and Acrobat Pro pre-flights them as conforming to PDF/X-1a (or whatever), so they are standard PDFs. If Corel Draw doesn't open them there must be an issue with Corel Draw not accepting the PDF standard...

 

Yes, it could be something amiss with CD. It wouldn't be the first time--though I wouldn't characterize it as "not accepting the PDF Standard." Not unless you wanted to apply that argument to AD—or PP X9.

 

Remember the battle with opening InDesign PDFs in PP? I don't think it was ever fully resolved in PP. InDesign also produces PDFs that open and preflight in Acrobat just fine. Yet, PDFLib still had issues with them. When going through testing of PP's PDF importing, I noted that the exact same contents in an AI-produced PDF could import just fine into PP. There is something about ID's PDFs internally that PP didn't like versus AI.

 

PP X9 also uses the same PDFLib library that AD uses. And yet I have no real issues importing PP-generated PDFs into CD as long as the PDF revision or standard is not above what level CD exports (so no PDF/X-4, for instance).

 

I think there is something different between how AD and PP X9 implements the same PDFLib library. Dunno.

 

It's a simple observation. But it does have certain work-flow ramifications for me. There is not currently a single vector design application that does everything I want/need. I often port designs from one application to another (or event two different applications) in order to utilize features or feature implementation that works best.

 

While I realize that PDFs are not meant as an exchange format, this is the work-flow Serif recommends to get work done in other applications into AD when there is no filter designed to do so. And until such time as Serif fleshes out AD more, I will certainly need to do so with work begun in AD.

[Heath9409]

Affinity Designer keeps crashing every time I try to use the Help. As soon as I type just one letter inside the search box, Designer crashes.

 

 

And now, every time I try to restart Designer (even though I've shut it down normally and it hasn't crashed) I get the following error message:

 

"Affinity Designer has been restarted after a serious error. The error report will now be sent."

 

followed by a long reference number

 

See attached screen shot

 

 

[biscuit]

Buggy behaviour:

 

I've applied a colour overlay to a even-width line (no fill) and saved it as a layer style (no other fx applied). When applying this style to a line with pressure-based line-width-variance the width variance disappears. When applying a colour overlay to the same line from scratch (fx menu) it works just fine.

[VanHeber]

Hi,

Some remaining issues?

1- The color picker tool doesn't pick the correct color. Causes the picked color to be more dark.

2- Right click menu doesn't open by a Wacom Pen tablet on canvas (but works in layers panel, for sample).

 

Keep the great work!

Regards

[Alfred]

Affinity Designer keeps crashing every time I try to use the Help. As soon as I type just one letter inside the search box, Designer crashes.

 

This crash has been reported several times against the current build of the program.

[AdamW]

 

Our PDFs are opened and rendered correctly by Acrobat, and Acrobat Pro pre-flights them as conforming to PDF/X-1a (or whatever), so they are standard PDFs. If Corel Draw doesn't open them there must be an issue with Corel Draw not accepting the PDF standard. [...]

 

I've just been looking at this, and I'm not having any problems as long as the PDF version is set low enough. I only have Corel X6 to hand at the moment and it seems to require 1.4, X-1a or X3. Same results with PagePlus.

 

Yes, we know CD cannot open AD PDFs unless they are resaved from Acrobat regardless of any feature in an AD PDF [...]

 

What version (of Corel) do you have, Mike?

[MikeW]

Hello Adam. CD X8 is all I currently have installed.

[Bri-Toon]

Well that's awfully silly for how long CorelDraw has been around. Those are well known file types for the standard graphic designer.

[adi]

I posted this in another thread in July on importing Affinity into CorelDraw but i'll put it here as well as this till seems to be ongoing:

 

CorelDraw X5, X6, X7, and X8 can import up to Acrobat 9 (PDF 1.7), it can also import PDF/A and some PDF/X

Corel say they support Adobe programs up to CS6

 

For information - CorelDraw can open an Acrobat 9 (PDF 1.7) that is exported from Serif DrawPlus, so I don't think it's entirely a problem with CorelDraw

[Bri-Toon]

I misread MikeW's post. When he said AD PDFs, I was thinking AI PDFs. So yes, it sounds like there might be something up with AD's PDF exporter.

[biscuit]

Hello,

Something I've come across several times: When editing points with the node tool with my bamboo tablet the Delete button on the keyboard stops functioning. Switch to mouse and Delete works. Then switch back to tablet and it works again.

[Todd]

First off-- Nice app! 

 

BUG: All of a sudden my keyboard shortcuts don't seem to be working for some reason.

 

Thanks and keep up the great work :)

[Mark Ingram]

1.5.0.17 is now available.