Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.5 - Beta 14)

[MattP]

Status: Beta Release

Purpose: New features, fixes

Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer

Mac App Store: Not Submitted

Download: 1.5 Beta 14 Here

 

 

EDITED TO ADD: I have just (at 4pm BST) uploaded a new version of Beta 14 that will continue to run if you upgrade to Affinity 1.4.3 which is due to be released on 20th September in order to provide better compatibility with macOS Sierra. It is identical to the earlier download in all other respects. If you are not receiving a warning that there is a newer version then you already have this most recent version.

 

 

This is a beta of a substantial change to our codebase and as much as we have tried to ensure the quality of the code, it should be considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that you may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.5 cannot be opened in 1.4 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.5 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.4 version.

 

To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it.

 

Fixes/Improvements:

• New Welcome Screen - currently not displaying content but it should start working properly early next week
• New samples
• Improvements to 32bit documents and unbounded colours (and colour picker)
• Taking a line down to zero width, then growing it again now keeps the original line colour
• Fix for Colour Picker Tool in macOS Sierra
• Fix for double-clicking the selected row in the Layers Panel causing the incorrect behaviour
• PDF export fixes (transparency usage and clipping issues) - hopefully also made CorelDraw-compatible PDFs
• SVG export fix for exporting transformed images
• Miscellaneous other small fixes

[anon1]

any other new about what else your and Bens team achieved in the last weeks? Photo beta seems a bit beyond  :blink: what are the next steps of AD until 1.5 release? How much more will it change?

[Andrew Tang]

There won't be any massive changes to Designer from now on. No new features nor major UI changes, just mainly bug fixes as we get it to a stable state for release in the near future. If you are lucky, I think Andy is releasing a new build of Photo later today with some fancy things in it...

[GerhardL]

Sorry, THIS PDF-Exportproblems are not fixed.

 

Greetings

:-) Gerhard

[anon1]

There won't be any massive changes to Designer from now on. No new features nor major UI changes, just mainly bug fixes as we get it to a stable state for release in the near future. If you are lucky, I think Andy is releasing a new build of Photo later today with some fancy things in it...

 

hm ok, allright

 

additional two panels docking on the right side like on windows would be nice with the added panels in the 1.5 version and the bleed preview that was already kind of working in the 1.4 beta back then would be nice but seeing the rest of the roadmap we probably will have more than 2 years support for this Designer version (have to wait more than 2 years to complete the roadmap) 

 

layer links in AP are due as well as proper macros (if they happen in the 1.5 version at all)

 

hope you get back to the more frequent updates as in the beginning after this lengthy year  :)

[A_B_C]

Don’t let us get greedy … ;)

 

I am still trying my best to fathom the depths of symbols and constraints. These are immensely powerful tools that opened a world of new possibilities and new flexibility for quickly adjusting designs. And when you consider the parameters that have to be taken into account in order to make these tools work as they already do, I believe that was not quite a small achievement …  ;)

[anon1]

Don’t let us get greedy … ;)

 

I am still trying my best to fathom the depths of symbols and constraints. These are immensely powerful tools that opened a world of new possibilities and new flexibility for quickly adjusting designs. And when you consider the parameters that have to be taken into account in order to make these tools work as they already do, I believe that was not quite a small achievement …  ;)

I appreciate that you're satisfied with the state of the affinity suite but this does not mean that other things that are missing and important to others can´t be mentioned without getting stamped as beeing greedy.

[HYR]

Thanks Affinity Folks for all of your hard work. I'm looking forward to the new version. But, I'm still hoping for one feature in particular. I'd love it if that when you select a layer on the artboard/document that it would display the same layer in the layers panel. So that means scroll to the right position and expand any groups to show me the layer I selected.

 

Sketch does this very well and it's such a time saver. Having to go and find a layer I'm working on slows work down. And if you don't want it to be the default behavior, perhaps adding it as a preference to make it the default? Any chance of this making into the 1.5 release? Thanks.

 

Note: the functionality exists in the context menu "Find in Layers Panel"... I just want it as the default behavior (or a way to make it the default behavior).

[Vitako]

How can i test for free the beta releases of Affinity Designer before to pay for my own license?

[Dave Harris]

How can i test for free the beta releases of Affinity Designer before to pay for my own license?

 

You can't, I'm afraid. The Mac beta is for Mac customers only. You can try the 1.4 trial for free, and if you have a Windows machine you can use the Windows beta. If you can wait a few months, 1.5 will be released to the Mac App Store and we'll probably update the free trial to 1.5 soon after that.

[A_B_C]

I appreciate that you're satisfied with the state of the affinity suite but this does not mean that other things that are missing and important to others can´t be mentioned without getting stamped as beeing greedy.

 

No offense, MBd, you know that I am also missing some essential features, and you probably overlooked the  ;) at the end of my comment. Let me apologize if my little remark sounded all too harsh …  :)

 

Cheers, Alex

[Garytagreg]

Just to confirm that the issue I was having with renaming the currently selected layer is fixed :)

 

Thanks!

[genki]

I'm facing a problem of crash when I create new folder in export(save) dialog.

[Tatyana]

Hello everybody!

 

There is a problem AD 1.15 beta 14 with Emoji and symbols, it is not clear why but they are not activated :(

My computer has been rebooted several times, in the hope that the problem will disappear.

I made a video that would be clear what is at stake.

I would be glad of any help in solving this problem.

 

Tatyana

баг.mov

[Wiredframe]

I don't need any more features, it's almost perfect now. Just the PSD text issue still makes the workflow a bit difficult. :)

 

I'd also suggest to release new betas every month instead of every week. Maybe that would help the team to be more focued on features and improvments instead of fixing user issues.

 

EDIT: I've noticed that since the betas of September moving objects in documents I saved earlier Affinity Designer was freezing. I fixed that by selecting an other snapping profile. Just in case anyone is experiencing the same issue.

[MEB]

I'm facing a problem of crash when I create new folder in export(save) dialog.

 

Hi genki,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

We are aware of this issue but this is a bug in OS X itself. There isn't much we can do about it other than suggesting to not create a folder inside Affinity when saving a file.

[lexislav]

Hi.

A lot of crashes when saving files with new beta. I have no this experience in previous versions.

 

EDIT: This is probably related to a specific file. I am sending it over to @MEB. File is compressed with keka/7-zip and divided to two pieces as the solution for the dropbox file size limit.

EDIT2: any manipulation with objects on poster can crash affinity, not just saving the file. but save the file crash AD at 90 % :-/

[Julian23]

I really really think there should be done something for the track-bars which allow input in the range  

  0 ... 100 

such as, but not only, the effects properties.

 

The value 100 is a lot if you are designing an icon, but not very much when you design an object on a paper layout. The change should be somehow relative to the current resolution. 

 

If you cannot change that system now, it should be at least possible to "free" the track slider in this way: 

 

When the user clicks on the slider and also presses CTRL s/he can move the mouse to the right and the value will increase beyond that fixed value of 100. 

Consequently if the mouse is moved to the left, the value decreases.

[VIPStephan]

When the user clicks on the slider and also presses CTRL s/he can move the mouse to the right and the value will increase beyond that fixed value of 100. 

Consequently if the mouse is moved to the left, the value decreases.

UI wise it’s probably better to not have a range slider at all then and perhaps a number input field instead.

[A_B_C]

Just downloaded the macOS Sierra compatibility updates from the App Store … thank you so much … looks definitely better now …  :)

[Julian23]

UI wise it’s probably better to not have a range slider at all then and perhaps a number input field instead.

Did you try to find a good value for the shadow value without a slider? There is a lot of trial and error involved. It is not very user friendly if numbers have to by typed.

 

I think most surprising is that Affinity is using pixels in some dialogs  -  PIXELS! What is a pixel in modern layout design? That unit has no meaning.

A pixel can be visible in 72dpi and is almost invisible at 300dpi. 

 

Above I am suggesting a work around - even better would be to use relative values here - switchable between resolution (point) and object size relation (%).

[lexislav]

Seems like auto crop of rasterized objects respects the bleed now. Thanks, that is huge improvement!

However, I still believe that rasterizing should not crop the layer/objects at all. That decision should be left to us ;-)

 

New wellcome screen offer to claim free Grade UI Kit seems to be broken, nothing happens after clicking it ;-(

[VIPStephan]

I think most surprising is that Affinity is using pixels in some dialogs  -  PIXELS! What is a pixel in modern layout design? That unit has no meaning.

A pixel can be visible in 72dpi and is almost invisible at 300dpi. 

 

Above I am suggesting a work around - even better would be to use relative values here - switchable between resolution (point) and object size relation (%).

If you are designing for the web you aren’t thinking in DPI and the pixel unit does have a meaning (albeit challenged, I admit). But in any case, it’s certainly strange that shadow attributes are measured in pixels and limited to a maximum of 100 thereof. But in my opinion this would count as bug that needs to be fixed rather than require a new UI implementation.

[Tekikou]

I think most surprising is that Affinity is using pixels in some dialogs  -  PIXELS! What is a pixel in modern layout design? That unit has no meaning.

A pixel can be visible in 72dpi and is almost invisible at 300dpi. 

 

Above I am suggesting a work around - even better would be to use relative values here - switchable between resolution (point) and object size relation (%).

 

I agree, I'd rather use point unit.

[Patrick Connor]

I agree, I'd rather use point unit.

 

We agree that you may wish to set your effects up in pts or whatever, and I have made a bug report, as you should be able to type any other units into those pix based fields in the effects UI (you already can type other units in the Windows version).

 

As for the suggestion of the effect UI reporting in document units, a suggestions have also been added independently into the database.