Trial Version Stability

[Mr. K]

While testing the trial version, I've encountered numerous odd behaviors, mainly not being able to select and modify an object. Quitting and restarting the program brings back the functionality. Is the trial version different than the paid version other than 10 days time locked?

[MEB]

Is the object you're trying to edit embedded?

If not, can you post a sample file with one of those problematic objects.

Also adding the OS you're using may help.

[Mr. K]

How do I attach a file here? I'm running Yosemite 10.10.1.

[MattP]

In the reply section (below) you hit 'More reply options' and then you'll get a full editor that gives you the option to upload and attach files to your post :)

[Mr. K]

This file was created in Illustrator and modified in Affinity Designer.

Test.afdesign

[MEB]

Your file is working fine on my system. 

What may be happening is that you are trying to select the images on the canvas while you still have the Text layer selected in the Layers Panel. If that's the case you can't select any of the images. This is because Affinity only lets you pick objects from the layer selected in the layers Panel. To be able to select any object from any layer in your document, press Edit All Layers icon on the bottom left of the Layers panel.

 

Can you try it and tell me if that solved the problem?

[Mr. K]

Look at this post of mine. I think it answers the question.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/3461-snap-settings/

[MEB]

The issue you reported in this thread is related to not being able to select and modify an object as you described in your first post.

Snapping isn't the cause for this.

[Ben]

Yes - I'm still not entirely sure what the issue is either?

[Mr. K]

My problem with that file is overall functionality and responsiveness. Selecting objects is sluggish, and things just fail to work after a period of time.

 

I had asked if the trial version is different than the paid version of Affinity Designer?

[Dave Harris]

The trial version is essentially the same as the paid-for version. It's from the same code base and is not deliberately crippled or made less responsive. We also have a public beta version, which is available to customers who have paid, and which comes from a later code base that has some improvements over the other two versions.

 

It sounds like you may be encountering bugs. We would like more detail so we can understand what is going wrong and fix it. Do the slow selections affect just text, or is it all types of objects? Is it just selecting that fails to work?

[Mr. K]

I can't pin it down, but certainly text snapping is a problem as you have confirmed. I'm just testing with this file. Things have stopped working with this file randomly, and my only fix has been to quit and restart. I can't say more than that. For now, let's just forget it until I can pinpoint the problem.

 

One confusion I have is the use of snap candidates. Is there info you can provide about acquiring and using snap candidates? What makes them available, and when do they become unavailable?

[MEB]

To enable snap candidates, go to View -> Snapping Manager... and check Show snapping candidates. A purple outline will appear around the objects considered as snapping candidates.Those are the objects that will be used to snap your object to. To add a new snapping candidate mouse over the object you want to add until the purple outline appear. Then you can snap to that object.

Here's a video tutorial covering snapping and snapping candidates that may help.

[Ben]

I am seeing some peculiarities when snapping text objects.  This is something I'll look into when I get back onto working on snapping soon.

 

Essentially, we do snapping on tight bounds of candidate vector objects, but a text object can have a logical box that is bigger than its physical bounds. We need to address how text box snapping works.