Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.6 - Beta 1)

[MattP 4,271]

Status: Beta Release

Purpose: New features, fixes

Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer

Mac App Store: Not Submitted

Download: Here

 

This is the first 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 may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 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:

• First and foremost, the 1.6 version is mainly about: Light UI! (go to Preferences->User Interface)
• Improved view pan/zoom performance and new pixel-differencing pixel shader
• Improved performance with large documents
• New font chooser dropdown with recents, used fonts and favourites
• New Glyph browser
• Stroke stabiliser for all pencil and brush tools
• Align to key items (first/last selected)
• Text frame vertical alignment options
• Fit frame to text (double-click on bottom centre handle).
• Transform panel uses the rotation centre
• Scale/shear can now be performed about rotation centre
• Double-click now resets shape handles and rotate/shear handles
• Many PDF export improvements including vector export of multi-stop gradients
• Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements

[predick 62]

Wowwwwwwww! Thank you.

[Matthias 154]

Thanks. Super eager to check it out.

[Aammppaa 655]

Congratulations on this first step towards the  1.6 release.

 

Yay! Excite to try it out

 

Argh! I just noticed this is the Mac release. Assume Windows ins't too far behind?

[VIPStephan 310]

Oooooooh! Yaaaayyyyyy! Finally! :D

I haven’t even tried it; just saw the new thread and felt like jumping out of joy.

[MattP 4,271]

Congratulations on this first step towards the  1.6 release.

 

Yay! Excite to try it out

 

Argh! I just noticed this is the Mac release. Assume Windows ins't too far behind?

I think the Windows version is building still... shouldn't be long ;)

[ronnyb 894]

Congrats Matt! Looking fwd to using the new goodies!

[A_B_C 1,860]

Highly anticipated, and what a (de)light! Thank you so much! Congratulations, Matt and the entire team!  :D

[CartoonMike 345]

Thanks! Looks like there's a lot of neat things to play around with.  :)

[Mithferion 708]

I think the Windows version is building still... shouldn't be long ;)

 

Yeeeei. :)

[Busenitz 60]

Excited to try features, still *trying* to be patient for offset/contour.  :-)

[Heinrich 11]

Great stuff! Really like the new text/font functionality. 

 

Keep up the great work!

[Mt. 3]

Light interface!!! Thank you  ;)

[gdenby 639]

Bless my old eyes, the light UI is clearer by far.

 

Brush stabilization, nice! Rotate/shear based on rotation center very welcomed.

[PeterB. 9]

Light UI <3

[Jens Krebs 322]

Looking forward to the glyph browser … not sure yet what it is, but if it is what I think it is, my day is made.

[Jonas14 179]

Was ist das für ein merkwürdiges Verhalten des Medienbrowsers: (s. screenshot), unter AP 1.6 beta funktioniert er einwandfrei?!

[bagmetv 30]

Hi Matt,

 

Many thanks for new beta! Great performance and speed, I'm so impressed!!!

 

The very first request is please make (or fix) 'copy/paste in place' feature) from artboard to artboard.

It really slows down workflow when you have to copy one element (logo, for example) from one artboard then to paste it in other (with same size) artboard and... after that to correct element position.

 

Here's a link about this issue earlier:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/14983-copy-paste-between-two-artboards/

 

Cheers

Vitaliy

[retrograde 996]

Cheers team for the new beta!

 

Glyph panel looks pretty extensive and will be a very welcomed addition.

 

Couple issues straight off though...

 

- I'm getting an instant crash upon selecting the light UI button in the interface preference panel...

 

- spacebar panning the document for me isn't working and sometimes moves and copies objects around on the artboard.... 

 

any thoughts?

 

I noticed this beta opens up will all of my previous settings intact, panel locations, installed brushes etc... is there a way to open up a clean default UI. Maybe something from my previous setup is affecting the new beta??

[MEB 7,609]

Hi retrograde,

Press and hold ⌃(ctrl) while launching the app from Launchpad, tick all checkboxes then press the Clear button from the dialog that will open to reset the app.

[retrograde 996]

Hi retrograde,

Press and hold ⌃(ctrl) while launching the app from Launchpad, tick all checkboxes then press the Clear button from the dialog that will open to reset the app.

 

Cheers MEB, I'll give that a try. :-)

[JackofDiamonds 19]

The new features for the font list are super sexy, but a bit blurry.

[Bauke 39]

The new beta looks great!

 

The vertical aligning of text didn't work correctly at first try, because it seemed the text had a negative offset equal to its leading. When I changed the leading to zero the text jumped into the right place. After that I encountered no more problems with it, even when setting the leading to a different value. Unfortunately I can't seem to recreate the issue.

 

A question: is there a button in the UI for the vertical text alignment or am I missing it?

[MEB 7,609]

Hi Bauke,

As far as i know, no, there's no UI button but you can set shortcuts for all vertical alignment options in the Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts section.

[JackofDiamonds 19]

There seems to be no way to turn off text vertical align baseline snap without turning off snapping altogether.