Affinity Designer for Windows has launched!

[johnhattan]

Bought it this morning. One problem I was having on the website, though.

 

I'm in Texas, but the "buy" page was convinced that I'm in Canada and gave me the price as CA$54. Paypal properly converted the price when I checked out ($40 US), but it might give people pause that the product seems more expensive than it is :)

[Carlosgraphic]

Hello, I'm new here.

I enjoyed the beta and I already bought the program. I'm still learning new things with it. I don't know if the questions have to be post here or in the beta section, but there is no beta anymore, right?. Well my question is following: Is there a way to read CDR files like do with illustrator file in this program?  Of course, the illustrator file has to be save with PDF compatible file previously. I work with illustrator and corel, mostly Illustrator. I can open almost all my illustrator files but I can not open Corel files. It will be good is there a form to read or import design from corel files. I say this because many people use illustrator and many use corel but if I can use one only program (affinity designer) to see or manipulate their file without use Corel or illustrator it will be amazing. Thanks.

[stfart77]

Hello i try to buy affinity windows but there is an error message saying that this is not possible at the moment and that you take care of the problem at best. Purpose 24 hours are past and still not possible. I wish I could buy it before November 24th. can you help me ?

best regards

Hello i try to buy affinity windows but there is an error message saying that this is not possible at the moment and that you take care of the problem at best. Purpose 24 hours are past and still not possible. I wish I could buy it before November 24th. can you help me ?

[Alfred]

Are you a DrawPlus X8 registered user or did you signup for the beta?

 

We have decided to offer all customers a special discount price to avoid unfairness on who should qualify and who shouldn't.

 

 

Both.

 

Hmmm... broken promises from Serif again.

 

I would have liked a double discount, of course, but don't think it's entirely fair to label this as "broken promises" unless we find that the discount for DrawPlus X8 users disappears when the launch offer ends.

[Alfred]

I don't know if the questions have to be post here or in the beta section, but there is no beta anymore, right?

 

Questions about functionality are easily overlooked in a 'News and Information' thread like this one. I suggest that you post again in the Questions forum, but I suspect that the answer is the same for CDR as for AI: it's a proprietary format, so unless there's something like the PDF stream that can be included in an Illustrator file, there's nothing that AD knows how to read.

[Petar Petrenko]

Questions about functionality are easily overlooked in a 'News and Information' thread like this one. I suggest that you post again in the Questions forum, but I suspect that the answer is the same for CDR as for AI: it's a proprietary format, so unless there's something like the PDF stream that can be included in an Illustrator file, there's nothing that AD knows how to read.

 

Yeah, but Inkscape opens CDR files up to version X4, even CMX ones. Maybe they have a deal with Corel?  :)

[Petar Petrenko]

...and AI files from version 9 and above.  :)

[MattP]

I'll just add a quick mention here that CDR import is entirely doable - it has been done many times before so I'm sure we can add it (we worked out Freehand import - broadly - and that hasn't been attempted many times, after all!) it's just a case of waiting for the time when that addition will be of most benefit to our customers, vs some other functionality that they may benefit from as we only have limited development resources.

[NilsFinken]

Congratulations to the developer team and to every Designer user! An impressive and overwhelmingly pleasant product at an unbeatable price. Even the license terms are fair and adapted to people like me with more than one computer.

 

Absolutely no need to clamour for further rebates. The people at Serif should be commended for their hard work.

 

Looking forward to buying Affinity Photo for Windows next.  :D

 

 

[Petar Petrenko]

I'll just add a quick mention here that CDR import is entirely doable - it has been done many times before so I'm sure we can add it (we worked out Freehand import - broadly - and that hasn't been attempted many times, after all!) it's just a case of waiting for the time when that addition will be of most benefit to our customers, vs some other functionality that they may benefit from as we only have limited development resources.

 

Every new good implemented import filter means one app less to use, more room on the HD and more computer speed.  :)

[janndk]

I would have liked a double discount, of course, but don't think it's entirely fair to label this as "broken promises" unless we find that the discount for DrawPlus X8 users disappears when the launch offer ends.

 

I didn't ask for double discount - just answered the question (whether i am a DrawPlus user or beta tester).

 

But, about the broken promises: As you know, some months ago Serif Executive Chairman Gary Bates sent a message telling: "DrawPlus X8 owners will get a special discounted price for Affinity Designer for Windows...", and even WebPlus and MoviePlus users would get "a special discount".

 

And now here at Affinity forum:

 

TonyB - "All Serif DrawPlus owners should have been emailed today. The introductory offer of £29.99 applies to DrawPlus owners and Beta testers. You also get some free goodies for being loyal customers. The offer end on 24th November."

 

A half hour later (after i wrote that i haven't got any mail and that the same price seems to apply everybody):

 

TonyB - "We have decided to offer all customers a special discount price to avoid unfairness on who should qualify and who shouldn't."

[MattP]

I don't know all the business decisions - I'm basically just a developer - but I do know that nobody would ever have been deliberately trying to mislead you. Plans change over time and that's fairly natural. If the decision was later made to offer all customers a discount for the sake of fairness, then I can't help but think that's actually in the interests of everyone?

 

I agree that maybe there should've been a supplementary email to all Plus customers telling them that the plan was to now offer a discount to everyone for the first week, but that's the only thing I think could have been more transparent.

[janndk]

I agree that maybe there should've been a supplementary email to all Plus customers telling them that the plan was to now offer a discount to everyone for the first week, but that's the only thing I think could have been more transparent.

 

So the offer [for everybody] ends on 24th, but continues for DrawPlus users?

[paolo.limoncelli]

I was not aware of the upgrading thing for Draw Plus purchasers.

As macOS user I appreciated this choice, since I bought a license of AD for my Mac two years ago and consider this a cross-grade option for my windows machine.

 

I think Serif only tried to be fair with the whole Affinity user community (which so far has been a Mac-only thing) extending the Plus line upgrading policy to everybody. At least this is how I interpreted this announcement  :)

[MattP]

So the offer [for everybody] ends on 24th, but continues for DrawPlus users?

The offer is supposed to end on the 24th according to all the literature I've seen - I don't know if they'd planned to continue it longer for certain users, but I doubt it?

 

As Paolo says, consider the community of Mac users (like myself) who also wanted to buy the Windows version - why shouldn't we also get the special price? All Serif has done is just made a wider decision to include more people. There's no way to know if I had bought the Mac App Store version (as Apple have no facility to allow us to identify customers) so we have to just open it up to everyone - as far as I'm aware?

[MikeW]

Please know upfront I think the pricing is fair.

 

From a long-standing Serif customer POV who was also told DP, etc., users would get a special discount, it is, well, unfair is a poor choice of wording. But it is disingenuous to not stick to the promise that was made originally.

 

I have made stupid promises in the past in various businesses. I was "expected" to keep them--but I wouldn't have really thought about not keeping them either. Oh, it's not that I didn't think about it. But it didn't take but a second to reassure myself that keeping the promise was worth more in the long-run than a few dollars in revenue in the short-term.

 

I believe that it wouldn't hurt Serif at all to simply extend the time of the offer to former Serif customers as a means of appeasing the ill-will y'all will bring on yourselves.

 

Serif was afforded the opportunity to fund the development of the Affinity products by those long-term Serif customers.

[geotev]

Serif is the Best! They gave us beta testers a great price of only $39.99 US plus a ton of additional add-ons (waiting for the download for these additions). Just as with the beta, easy download and installation. I already setup my preferences to start my new projects.

 

I loved DrawPlus, but now I will become an Affinity Designer expert. I think being a long time Serif customer has its benefits. They seem to really want feedback and actually act on it. I hope Adobe users see the light and switch over to Affinity. Besides being expensive, Adobe Illustrator can be very difficult. Serif as usual gives us high end software that is user friendly. The support is great. I will do my best to pass it on when the regular rollout starts. 

 

Again, thank you Serif for giving us beta testers a great price for the full product!!! :)

[af-user]

Just my 2 cents:

 

I think it was already a bonus to be part of this great beta period where one could at least try to lead the development in some way and bring up ideas in a very early stage and the development team was very responsive to questions.

[MikeW]

Just my 2 cents:

 

I think it was already a bonus to be part of this great beta period where one could at least try to lead the development in some way and bring up ideas in a very early stage and the development team was very responsive to questions.

 

Serif (the people we largely interact with here) has always been a great model of interaction with customers, both "normal"customers and those who have done beta testing on the Plus products. It's a model that I wish more companies would adopt.

 

At the same time, there has also been a historical disconnect between the programmers and their bosses and those who have made marketing decisions. It is a problem with a long history.

[garywood84]

Affinity has now become officially cross-platform with the launch of Affinity Designer for Windows. 

 

Has any progress been made on the licensing issues that are currently preventing Affinity Designer from being truly cross-platform? If one licence can be installed on two machines, it needs to be possible for one of those to be a Mac and the other a Windows PC.

 

I know that there was discussion of this in the old Serif forums, and at that stage, the intention was that anyone wanting to use the software on a PC and Mac would need to buy two copies. That's not how licensing works for most other software that's available on two platforms (think Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Cloud), and -- for me at least -- is a barrier to switching to Affinity.

[Saard]

How to install The Box Set and Day Essentials? Thank you for answer.

[Alfred]

Please know upfront I think the pricing is fair.

 

From a long-standing Serif customer POV who was also told DP, etc., users would get a special discount, it is, well, unfair is a poor choice of wording. But it is disingenuous to not stick to the promise that was made originally.

 

I agree that the pricing is fair, but it would be unfair to renege on the promise of a special discount for DrawPlus X8 users just because the launch offer has ended. As things stand, registered users of DPX6 still qualify for a substantial discount on the price of DPX8, and we were given the impression that the same unlimited offer period would apply for users 'upgrading' from DPX8 to AD. (For those who don't know, there never was a DPX7, so X6 was the last version before X8.)

[Alfred]

Is it really a upgrade?

 

No, Arun, of course it isn't really. That's why I wrote 'upgrading' in quotation marks. ^_^

[MikeW]

I agree that the pricing is fair..

 

And of course I meant the pricing was fair in general...

 

I will be waiting for various things to be fixed. As such, I do not expect to get any discount as the fixing may be too far down the road. And that also means that as I will not be purchasing at this time, I will need to rely on posts indicating those items have been rectified before I purchase as I won't be entitled to use a current beta under the "one must be a customer" scheme to participate.

 

Which is OK as after my poor experience with Adam back when the beta testing began, I haven't filed a single bug report...my own stubbornness I suppose. I have commented in threads about issues as I found them in an attempt to help users and testers, but no real bug reports of my own (and the list has grown since then).

[MikeW]

I think he is not AdamW, may be Andy.

 

Don't know about your stubbornness, but I find you as a very knowledgeable and helpful person in Serif Plus Forum.  

 

Well, could have been. My memory is suspect at times. But hey, at least the name started with an "A." 

 

So with all due apologies to one or the other...