Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.0.21212)

[MattP]

Purpose: Improvements, Features, Fixes

Status: Beta

Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer

Mac App Store: Not submitted

Download: https://s3.amazonaws...stomer Beta.dmg

 

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.

 

 

Important Notes:

- This beta does not include the Corner Tool that you may have seen in our social media - it is still in development and is not ready for public beta today.

- We’ve added three new blend modes in preparation for Affinity Photo: Lighter Colour, Darker Colour and Linear Light. If you use these blend modes in your document, then your document will not look the same when you load it back into the Mac App Store version as they will be replaced by Normal blend mode.

- When you first run up the new beta, it will reset any modifications you’ve made to the toolbar or studios in any previous beta version you may have used. This is necessary in order to ensure stability.

 

 

Improvements/Fixes:

- New Blend Modes - Lighter Colour, Darker Colour and Linear Light.

- Fix for OS X Yosemite bug which causes terrible zoom gesture performance after clicking in certain types of controls (like the Layers panel).

- Greatly reduced the time taken to show the fonts list, even with many fonts.

- First implementation of our own EPS exporter.

- Much improved SVG export - including the option to not rasterise unsupported elements.

- Tab key can now hide/show all UI.

- Added preference options for allowing mouse wheel to zoom the view and for allowing file extensions to be hidden/visible.

- Fix for colour picker on multi-monitor setups.

- Colours should always be reflected complete with their colour profile conversions in all cases.

- Font list now shows the correct font name.

- Font size can now be displayed in points or in document units.

- Typography panel tweaks.

- OpenType improvements - we no longer stop enumerating Stylistic Sets as soon as one is unsupported.

- Fixed over-enthusiastic PDF export of dashed lines.

- Spell-checking fixes.

- Selecting items by marquee selecting their bounds is now more accurate - particularly for objects which do not fill their bounds fully like pentagon shapes. Also improved this operation when strokes have inner or outer alignment specified.

- Freehand file import now supports the ‘fill unclosed’ property of Freehand paths.

- Correctly honour the ‘always show scrollbar’ system option.

- Fix for character panel not working on OS X Lion.

- Fix for drag-dropping a layer to the system trash can to delete it.

- PDF import of text items is now less aggressive at trying to combine objects to form one text object.

- Export now limits the file sizes to be those imposed by the file format and provides warnings to this effect if they are exceeded.

- Fix for issues with blurs on masks.

- Fix for OS X Lion issues with the export dialog causing deadlocks when exporting vector formats.

- Save As now uses the default filename if one is available.

- Fix for opening GIFs with per-frame palettes.

- Brushes in Pixel Persona can now specify their own blend mode and wet edges properties.

- Insert Character menu changes.

- Support for .ase files.

- .afbrushes files will now auto-install if you double-click them.

- Opening an image names the layer ‘Background’ and locks it.

- Fix for invalidation issues when deleting adjustment/mask children applied to objects.

- Save and load the selection with the document.

- Fix for Margins disappearing in the Document Setup dialog and DPI getting doubled for Retina documents.

- Improved reporting of failed document open/save issues.

- Many PSD import and export improvements.

- Preserve DPI information when loading/saving images.

- Added Escape (and sometimes Enter) as methods to close/confirm many dialog boxes.

- Less intrusive auto-generating of structure when adding/applying masks and adjustments.

- Fix for vector format export of embedded documents.

- Improved mouse-interaction selection logic in the Text Tool.

- Text Tool can now drag a text object via its frame.

- Improvements to Bevel Emboss and 3D layer effects quality.

- Resizing documents now correctly resizes Frame Text objects.

- Improvements to adjustment UI - however, many of them will show a blank area where a histogram should be which is currently disabled.

- Active document view tab is now light and inactive ones are dark.

- Changing between documents should now maintain the Persona you were in in each document.

- Added shortcut keys for toggling view modes (outline/pixel/retina pixel).

- Numerous other small fixes and tweaks.

[paolo.limoncelli]

- Brushes in Pixel Persona can now specify their own blend mode and wet edges properties.

 

Great!  :ph34r:

[MattP]

Great!  :ph34r:

 

Hahaha, I thought you might like that one! ;)

[Dale]

Lots of people will love this list, me included!

 

*paging Raskolnikov, paging Raskolnikov* MattP just delivered a zoomy Christmas early

[Ben]

~Just to say, PSD export is still being worked on, and there should be more in the next Beta.

[000]

Wow, that's a nice list of improvements. You've been busy … thanks for sharing the beta!

[Gear maker]

Seriously bad timing.  I have a days worth of yard work to do before the rain hits tomorrow.  Now who's going to do that yard work?

 

I like that the "Save as" has the name of the original file.  What it didn't do was default to the location of the original file.  It came up with Desktop when the file I opened was in an Affinity Designer Drawings folder.

 

Having more ticks in the zoom attached to the Pan Tool and Zoom Tool is handy.

 

Great work everyone.  The screen seems to be updating faster now when changes are made.  That list of blending modes is getting seriously long.

 

Time to play!

[CartoonMike]

In the heavy rain (which we need here in California!), this news brightened up my day! Can't wait to install and see what it can do.

 

Thanks all!

[Cam]

Excellent improvements, thank you.

 

I've experienced a few panel bugs to Swatches, Brushes, History and Navigator. Panel tabs disappear when selected for Brushes, History and Navigator.

 

Also, the eyedropper tool doesn't apply the correct sampled colour, seems to apply a slightly darker colour.

 

[GRScott]

Thanks all for the work being done.

[ZVK]

Thank you very much. 

[ronniemcbride]

Thats it?! LMAO! Damn do you people sleep?  Thank You!

[Gear maker]

I'm noticing a definite delay when deleting several layers that I haven't seen in the old Beta or MAS.  When I have selected several layers (5 or more) and click on the trash can the layers disappear.  I can then click on a new layer followed by a shift click on another layer but I get a spinning wheel.  A few seconds later the last layer clicked on is the only layer selected.  The range was not selected.  The more layers deleted the longer the delay.

[Andreas Larsen]

Convert rectangles to curves => crash

[Andreas Larsen]

Can't use "shift+tab" to jump back between dialogs - e.g. "tab" jumps from cancel to export but "shift+tab" doesn't jump back

[retrograde]

WOW!! That's a long list. Cheers guys.

 

You're making it hard to concentrate on getting my "work" done...

[Lescot]

Fantastic news and features. Installed it an hour ago and started a new illustration.

 

Rectangle to curves worked for me, also multi-selecting layers and delete: no problems, neither blanks nor reduced performance.

 

One thing I found out: don't know if it is a new feature or a bug, sometimes it is possible to autoselect objects on layers.

 

This can work very smooth, some other time only once or twice or not at all.

 

I am using a Macbook Air, late 2012, 4gb RAM, 10.9.5.

[Nikson]

Thank you, guys! You're BEST! 

[Lescot]

Another minor bug:

 

Created a rounded rectangle and wanted a gradient fill.

 

It will give me all options except color ( yes, all variations/ sliders/ wheels are shown) - only black to white.

 

Colorpicker will display the correct color but again not apply.

 

After multiple attempts the button greyed out.

 

Clicking the layer, not the object, will bring it back but it's still not working.

[Gear maker]

I just opened Beta with it in Separated Mode.  The Tool Bar and the Tool Panel opened, but none of the panels on the right of the screen; Colour, Layers, Navigator.  I created a new document and still none of the right side panels appeared.

 

I went to separated mode from non-separated mode and still no panels on the right.  Is there a menu setting that turns these off?

 

Yosemite, 27" iMac

[Lescot]

Lol, two more:

 

When opening text window ( scrolling my fonts ) the panel has now double width, right side blank.

 

So it's no more possible to check the new font directly in your drawing.

 

Layers: no more possible to drag a layer onto the new layer symbol to duplicate it.

[retrograde]

Just noticed in the character panel with fonts that have many weights, if you pick a weight other than the regular weight it will change it in the document but in the character panel it jumps back to the regular or first font in that family. The font in the document doesn't change though... just in the panel list.

 

Actually it's not consistent... anyway something funky is going on.

[bpedit]

In OS 10.8.5 on iMac i5:

 

Still losing style icons in Stroke panel after returning from Swatches or Brushes panels. Icons are back in place on return from Color panel.

 

Ditto with Swatches after returning from Color or Stroke, return from Brushes brings them back.

 

Also, if the Navigator panel is selected from its tab (in the default docked location, bottom right) the navigator portion expands upward into the zoom and tab space making the zoom unusable and hiding the tabs. The tabs can still be selected with a blind click. (This is also the pattern with the Stroke and Swatches panels.) The other two issues were extant with the last beta, this one is new.

 

[edit]  The third issue is intermittent, it seems to have mysteriously resolved for now.

[Garytagreg]

OS X 10.10.1 on MacBook Pro Retina

 

I can no longer get a context menu by right clicking (2 finger tap on the touchpad) on brushes like I used to be able to (both Draw and Pixel persona modes) which means I can't move brushes to new categories or delete them. I haven't seen any other way to do these operations, so I guess the missing menu is unintentional?

[Garytagreg]

I was also missing the panel on the right in Pixel Persona. I got it back to how it was before by selecting the menu item: View->Studio->Reset Studio.