Is there a vector erase tool in Affinity Designer?

[v_kyr]

Don't remember which version I've used then, since I got those tools (DrawPlus and PagePlus) once with an IT magazine subscription on a bundled companion graphics tool theme DVD some time ago.

[dutchshader]

as long as there is no knife tool, why not use the pen tool as a knife.

[Guest]

As dutchsader says, while waiting for the knife tool, I use a very fine line drawn with the pen, "expand the stroke" and "Divide". I then delete the parts to be removed and the unnecessary pieces of the line.

[dutchshader]

it allso works with the pencil tool, for more freehand shapes.

[Guest]

it allso works with the pencil tool, for more freehand shapes.

Yes, I use it more often on shapes than to cut lines.

 

Edit

 

I had misunderstood the post: I had never used the pencil in these conditions, always the pen.

[Madame]

as long as there is no knife tool, why not use the pen tool as a knife.

 

Thanks! Brilliant! I haven't thought of that before. :)

[EMZ80]

Seems every time I search for something Affinity related, I always find the first result to be a thread about it from a few to several years old saying it's not available or coming soon (but it never did come). In this case this thread from 2017, saying it's in the roadmap, another thread says the roadmap was deleted. I might have put too much faith in Affinity. 

[JDW]

8 minutes ago, Eduardo M said:

Seems every time I search for something Affinity related, I always find the first result to be a thread about it from a few to several years old saying it's not available or coming soon (but it never did come). In this case this thread from 2017, saying it's in the roadmap, another thread says the roadmap was deleted. I might have put too much faith in Affinity. 

You'll get nothing from Serif.  Sometimes the replies in this forum from members with mega-posts to their name can be helpful.  But in terms of the feature roadmap, there's little they can do.  If Serif would just respond, that's really all we ask.  If they came to us and said, we need to charge for an updated version to bring you all you've been requesting, most of us would jump in a heartbeat.  But letting the apps languish with minor updates is disheartening to say the least.  I came here several years ago in hopes the Affinity suit could unseat Adobe.  That isn't going to happen without major feature additions and meaningful updates.  And I say all this while still loving my Affinity apps.  I just wish Serif could make me love them more. 

[EMZ80]

30 minutes ago, JDW said:

You'll get nothing from Serif.  Sometimes the replies in this forum from members with mega-posts to their name can be helpful.  But in terms of the feature roadmap, there's little they can do.  If Serif would just respond, that's really all we ask.  If they came to us and said, we need to charge for an updated version to bring you all you've been requesting, most of us would jump in a heartbeat.  But letting the apps languish with minor updates is disheartening to say the least.  I came here several years ago in hopes the Affinity suit could unseat Adobe.  That isn't going to happen without major feature additions and meaningful updates.  And I say all this while still loving my Affinity apps.  I just wish Serif could make me love them more. 

Well, count me out of the paid updates then 🙂

[JDW]

31 minutes ago, Eduardo M said:

Well, count me out of the paid updates then 🙂

Don't give up so easily.  I've been in this forum FOR YEARS and ignored most of that time, yet I stubbornly refuse to give up on Serif.  They need a firm kick on the pants, let me tell you.  I am one of their biggest fans and biggest critics.  The ball is in their court to obliterate all criticism from me and other faithful users.  All they need to do is just deliver.  They just need to show us they are not only listening but acting on what they hear.  We need to see that somebody in their company finally stood up and said to the engineers, "Enough is enough, you idiots!  From today, we're going to do something great!"  Seriously, they need a Steve Jobsian style tongue lashing from within.  I am not an insider so my words have no impact on their company.  I can only hope their owner will do the right thing before it's too late.  And if the right thing involves a different paid app, so long as it has most of what we've been asking for through the years, I'm fine with it.  What I am not fine with is endless waiting in vain.  That is just plain stupid.  It angers me, actually.  Yet, I am still opening to moving forward with them.  Yes, you really can be upset with Serif yet support them at the same time.  But I can't do it alone.  If folks start abandoning Affinity apps, then nothing better will come. So I would encourage you to "fight the good fight" and continue to press forward to speak your might loudly in these forums.  Hopefully one day soon, they'll start to listen.

[EMZ80]

1 hour ago, JDW said:

Don't give up so easily.  I've been in this forum FOR YEARS and ignored most of that time, yet I stubbornly refuse to give up on Serif.  They need a firm kick on the pants, let me tell you.  I am one of their biggest fans and biggest critics.  The ball is in their court to obliterate all criticism from me and other faithful users.  All they need to do is just deliver.  They just need to show us they are not only listening but acting on what they hear.  We need to see that somebody in their company finally stood up and said to the engineers, "Enough is enough, you idiots!  From today, we're going to do something great!"  Seriously, they need a Steve Jobsian style tongue lashing from within.  I am not an insider so my words have no impact on their company.  I can only hope their owner will do the right thing before it's too late.  And if the right thing involves a different paid app, so long as it has most of what we've been asking for through the years, I'm fine with it.  What I am not fine with is endless waiting in vain.  That is just plain stupid.  It angers me, actually.  Yet, I am still opening to moving forward with them.  Yes, you really can be upset with Serif yet support them at the same time.  But I can't do it alone.  If folks start abandoning Affinity apps, then nothing better will come. So I would encourage you to "fight the good fight" and continue to press forward to speak your might loudly in these forums.  Hopefully one day soon, they'll start to listen.

Good points. I will definitely let them know my thoughts in my reviews of their apps and maybe we should take it to social media, I think the only way they might listen is if they realize their lack of attention to their current users is causing them to not bring new users because we're talking about how they lag behind in basic expected features, it's only fair that potential newcomers are warned about what to expect from Serif.

[carl123]

1 hour ago, JDW said:

We need to see that somebody in their company finally stood up and said to the engineers, "Enough is enough, you idiots!

A bit harsh!

I'm sure all the "engineers" want the same as everyone else for the apps and it's simply a case of prioritizing what time and resources they currently have and to then work on the things that will benefit the most people - bearing in mind how long one thing takes over another.

[JDW]

3 minutes ago, carl123 said:

A bit harsh!

That pales in comparison to what Steve Jobs would tell them.  I am an old softy in comparison.  But they really do need a Steve Jobsian style tongue lashing.  NO EXCUSES!

I refuse to sympathize with engineers I've never met.  I can only judge them by what they deliver and what they don't.  

Lastly, I absolutely POSITIVELY refuse to "bear in mind how LONG THIS TAKES."  This has taken YEARS and still nothing.  The more people tell me to be patience, the more upset I become.  I've you want to calm me and the rest of the disgruntled users down, you need to start sympathizing with us rather than the engineers you too have never met.  And if those engineers wish to defend themselves, the forum is here, waiting for them.

[carl123]

4 hours ago, JDW said:

you need to start sympathizing with us rather than the engineers you too have never met.

I don't need to meet someone to be able to sympathize with what they may have to deal with, in life or their work.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, JDW said:

Lastly, I absolutely POSITIVELY refuse to "bear in mind how LONG THIS TAKES."

Why? Developing stable, bug-free apps takes a lot of time, & as more features are added that may interact with each other, the amount of time it takes to make sure they all will work together without causing problems increases exponentially.

It is also not as if they have added "nothing" in the years since the first Affinity versions were released.

[JDW]

4 hours ago, R C-R said:

Why? Developing stable, bug-free apps takes a lot of time...

I mean no disrespect whatsoever, but that is the old, tired excuse I've heard over the last few years.  We are not talking in terms of "weeks" or "months" but YEARS.  I am understanding when months go by and nothing substantial changes, but "years" is an altogether different matter.

I appreciate the contributions you've made to this forum, R C-R.  Indeed, I have more respect for you than Serif for your tireless efforts in helping others.  Even when you could not find a solution for someone, you worked hard to help them find it, as you tried recently with me.  With 14k+ posts to your name, you have not only become a very helpful contributor to this forum, for which Serif should be grateful, but you are also very much an apologist for the way things are.  I don't say that to slight you, but I mention it only to say that you are a very upbeat and optimistic person.  It's only natural someone like yourself would argue for the positives of the Affinity suite as it stands right now.  You appear to see the good in all things.  I'm afraid I do not.  Even so, Serif could restore joy in my soul, should they wish to make a greater effort.

You're right.  Serif has done "a few things" to make the apps better.  And no doubt their work on Affinity Publisher prevented them from making Designer and Photo better.  They also have the iOS platform to deal with.  I understand that.  But those were choices they made.  And on some level I think they are important things, especially if one is setting out to replace Adobe apps.  You need a full suit of apps to do that.  But rather than make further excuses for the status quo, I seek to set a higher standard.  I want them to press forward even harder than they have been with Designer and Photo.  There are so many great feature requests that have yet to be implemented.  If they set their mind to it, they could implement a lot of those improvements which would further drive Adobe users to Serif software.  That's good for Serif and great for us as end users.  I want Serif to see long term success.  And the best way to ensure that is to not only make existing users happy but continue to surprise and thrill them, all the while bringing in new users who stare in awe from the Adobe camp, wondering what all the fuss is about.  I want even veteran Adobe app lovers to gasp in disbelief when they use the Affinity suite, crying: "OMG!  This is so much better than I thought!"  But right now, many Adobe users are still a tad disappointed, not because Affinity apps merely do things a different way, but because they feel some key functionality is missing.  Again, that's where those creaky old feature requests come in.  They have cob webs on them now they are so old, still waiting for some engineer to take the baton and run until that code is finally implemented.  If the top guy at Serif said, "Team, we're going to do this," it would get done.

Set a lofty goal.  Then do everything possible to blow past that goal.  Where there's a will, there's always a way.  

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, JDW said:

With 14k+ posts to your name, you have not only become a very helpful contributor to this forum, for which Serif should be grateful, but you are also very much an apologist for the way things are.

I am not an apologist, just a realist.

Serif is trying to do something with the Affinity apps that to my knowledge no other company is even considering trying to do. That is to create an integrated suite of apps based on an entirely new "from scratch" code base & a common native file format that any of the eight Affinity apps (3 each for Mac & Windows & 2 for iPad) can open & edit without conversion or compromising anything any of these apps can create. They are trying to do this while at the same time maintaining as much as possible their original design goals like unusually high memory efficiency & pan & zoom frame rates.

This is by any reasonable measure a very lofty goal indeed, one that should not be ignored by anyone uncertain about why it takes them years rather than weeks or months to implement various often (& not so often) requested new features & other improvements.

They have also made it abundantly clear that (IMO, very wisely) they are not trying to compete head to head with Adobe on a feature-by-feature basis, despite what some users (IMO, not very wisely) think Serif should do.

This is essentially the same no-compromise, it-takes-as-long-as-it-takes-to-get-it-right attitude Steve Jobs embodied when he ran Apple. It is still very much a part of Apple's culture. It seems to working quite well for Apple. I see no reason why it should not for Serif as well.

[JDW]

But one thing you overlook is the power of the consumer.  Apple is a success today only because the consumer has chosen to direct their money toward Apple.  At those times when consumers withdrew their funding, products died.  The G4 Cube was an amazing machine and I own two of them, yet it failed in the market.  And that failure was not tied to bad engineering choices.  It really wasn't when you consider that we Mac users buy Macs for different reasons than PC users buy Windows PCs.  It all boiled down to what VALUE the consumer perceived in the product.  I believe those Mac-loving consumers were wrong, just as you believe folks such as myself are wrong when we advise Serif a certain way and get the cold shoulder.  I believe the G4 Cube is a wonderful machine that was greatly misunderstood.  But what ultimately will work or fail in the market is not something completely controlled by Apple or by Serif.  That success largely depends on what ALL buyers of Apple products or Serif software decides as a group.  In some ways, you are like me back in the day loving the G4 Cube when most other people didn't.  Now that's not to say I don't like Affinity apps.  I do.  But I am pointing out that they are considered to be still lacking key functionality in the minds of some users such as myself, and despite our having tried to point out those lacking areas in the forum through THE YEARS, our efforts to inform Serif appears to have been ignored.  You call it a deliberate action on the part of Serif to make a "better choice."  But Steve Jobs no doubt thought the design and price point of the G4 Cube was "the better choice" too.  The G4 Cube is but one example of many.  Apple has not had perfect success with every product as you well know.  But they were are still are a much bigger and more diverse company than Serif, so their mistakes did not take down the entire company. If Serif's direction, however noble and righteous you may argue it is, is ultimately not embraced by paying customers, it will then have been done in vain.

Even if the consumer is technically wrong, catering to their wants and needs still makes good business sense.  It's a fine and delicate balance, but you must create your roadmap with consumer wants in mind.  Companies that forget the importance of that across their entire product line never have long term success.  And I say all of this wanting Serif to have long term success.  Indeed, if I was utterly apathetic toward Affinity apps or even hate them, I would not make all the time I have made to write all these words in this forum, nor would I waste my time with feature requests through the years.  I want the apps to become better, even if that deviates a bit from Serif's current plan.  Even if some contend "it's not best to make the path easier for Adobe users because there is a better way," I still feel it is right because that potentially brings more paying customers into the fold.  The lifeblood of any company is not a noble and righteous goal but filthy lucre.  It's a cold, hard reality.

[R C-R]

I'll keep this brief: what you see as being ignored I see as turning a blind eye to the real world difficulties of delivering all the many diverse things some users consider to be key functionalities in some time frame you believe they would find acceptable.

That is what I mean about being a realist.

[Catshill]

Could a crowdfunding option work?

 If enough users put in x amount to fund time for a developer to work on a missing feature...

[jasonhibbs]

+1 for blob/eraser tools

[Ron P.]

@JDW,

Interesting that you argue Apple v Serif,  yet my understanding is that Apple is not Adobe. Apple does have a vested interest in Adobe, but it is a separate corp. They try to balance rival and ally. Reading your posts where you're using Apple has the comparison with Serif, would be saying that Serif is an ally to Apple or whatever brand PC (Dell, HP, IBM), or Microsoft.

Reading between the lines, you would love nothing more than Serif to copy Adobe's Indesign, Illustrator, and PhotoShop, but offer it for pennies. Don't worry you're not alone in that. Spend some time reading through the Feedback section of the forum. There are countless requests for Photoshop functions and features. A lot of them seeming to speak for the masses, that if this (insert whatever they're wanting), it will somehow be the demise of Serif. OR It's the single function/feature whatever, that is keeping them from dropping Adobe for good. These arguments have the appearance of self-serving people. Do it my way or else.

I get it, where there are a lot of people that come from Adobe's products, wanting to drop them due to their marketing practices. I'm from that camp, albeit just the smaller photographer package of LR and PS. I decided that I was not going to continue down that path of installments/renting their programs, so I dropped them. I still have and use LR6. I had used LR for years in my workflow, not so much PS. That said, there are some functions of PS I miss, but I certainly do not expect any other software company to change or make their product mimic PS.

Simple question: IF Serif would make all three of their apps as identical to Adobe's, would you pay the fair market value of that? I think Serif would adjust their prices accordingly, and they could even see jumping on the subscription model. I know the CEO was asked the subscription model question. Guess what the answer was.... He didn't rule it out.

[JDW]

@Ron P.

Rather than waste so much effort getting argumentative with me, I think we would all be best served if you pitch that idea directly to Serif.

But to answer your question, I would be able and willing to pay a fair value for Affinity software products if and only if they promise not to move to a subscription model. That’s the key for most people. Subscriptions make sense until you run out of money. That’s why I subscriptions are stupid in the long haul for consumers. And that my friend is precisely why Affinity products even have sales value and is why so many want to ditch Adobe.

[dock]

I tried hand drawing in Affinity for a while but the lack of Vector eraser was a huge blocker for me.  I doubt it'll be in Affinity Designer before 2025.

All of my hand drawn stuff is now drawn in GoodNotes on iPad, or OneNote on Windows/iPad.  With Onenote I end up having to use 'print to PDF' to export the drawings as vectors. It's a nasty workaround, but at least it's an option.  I wish I didn't have to work this way, but the 'eraser' solution in Affinity Designer is terrible.

[seljean78]

2021 neither shape eraser nor knive tool. It's on the road map, got it