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Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.6 - Beta 3)


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Status: Beta Release

Purpose: New features, fixes

Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer

Mac App Store: Not Submitted

Download: Here

 

This beta version represents 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:

  • Light UI improvements
  • Improved Metal performance on High Sierra and fixed High Sierra Beta 3 bug with incorrect colour management in Metal View *
  • Potentially large performance improvements when panning/zooming on complex documents
  • Fix for export slices not updating correctly when their artboard is transformed
  • Added 'Unlock All' and 'Show All' menu items (on the Layer menu)... finally...  :lol:
  • Numerous bug fixes and other improvements

 

* Please note that macOS Sierra has a bug in Metal with AMD graphics cards which means colour correction will not function perfectly, hence why it is disabled by default. If you have an Intel or Nvidia card then feel free to try it. This bug was fixed in High Sierra so all cards should work as expected  :)

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Just as a note for those who are interested, the 'Unlock All' and 'Show All' work on the current selection... If you have something selected (or multiple things) then this command will look down the tree from each of these selected items and unlock/unhide anything that was locked/hidden and produce a new selection from these items. If you have nothing selected then it will consider the whole document.

 

Hopefully that should give you the flexibility you need, without being over-complicated? :)

 

I'm happy to take requests for modifications... ;)

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Hi MBd. Thanks for flagging this up. Could you please let me know which OS you are running?

latest macOS Sierra (not high) on MacBook 13 Touchbar 1st gen with i7 but I think this is a more general issue (would be sprised if not)

 

cheers 

 

 

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Thanks again for the info. Are you able to reproduce the issue? 

actually no after closing, opening  :ph34r:

on my iMac the issue did not occur at all, interesting, ok..

 

actually I can totally reproduce on iMac and MacBook

 

just enter fullscreen

 

cheers

Edited by MBd

 

 

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Cool!

I like the style of light window's headline much more then before. The light top on previous release made me feel like display is rounded so it was little disturbing.

Thanks for every fix and improvement... I start to use it heavily.

Please don't forget to fix control handles snapping (or am I missing something again?)

 

Cheers!

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actually no after closing, opening  :ph34r:

on my iMac the issue did not occur at all, interesting, ok..

 

actually I can totally reproduce on iMac and MacBook

 

just enter fullscreen

 

cheers

Ah full screen! 

 

 

Glad you're liking the changes we've been working on :-)

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Great work Matt!

 

One question: I have a MBP with AMD and built-in Intel graphics as well. If I click on Use Only Integrated GPU and restart, I'm still not able to select Metal for my Display setting in AD's Performance Preferences...

 

I'm running macOS Sierra 10.12.5...

 

Status: Beta Release

Purpose: New features, fixes

Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer

Mac App Store: Not Submitted

Download: Here

 

This beta version represents 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:

  • Light UI improvements
  • Improved Metal performance on High Sierra and fixed High Sierra Beta 3 bug with incorrect colour management in Metal View *
  • Potentially large performance improvements when panning/zooming on complex documents
  • Fix for export slices not updating correctly when their artboard is transformed
  • Added 'Unlock All' and 'Show All' menu items (on the Layer menu)... finally...  :lol:
  • Numerous bug fixes and other improvements

 

* Please note that macOS Sierra has a bug in Metal with AMD graphics cards which means colour correction will not function perfectly, hence why it is disabled by default. If you have an Intel or Nvidia card then feel free to try it. This bug was fixed in High Sierra so all cards should work as expected  :)

2021 16” Macbook Pro w/ M1 Max 10c cpu /24c gpu, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Ventura 13.6

2018 11" iPad Pro w/ A12X cpu/gpu, 256 GB, iPadOS 17

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Hey Steve,

 

Nice polish on the UI. A few more notes if you care:

 

I was checking out the User Interface Preferences pane in the latest beta and noticed something interesting. The type on the top of the pane is rendered using an RGB anti-aliasing method, while the text on the bottom of the panel (where all the check-marks are located) are anti-aliase using only grayscale.

 

post-1105-0-53653100-1499874257_thumb.png

 

For those of us on non-retina Macs, the grayscale anti-aliasing provides sharper text. Apple by default uses the RGB method, but since I noticed your UI is using grays to anti-alias parts of the UI, I thought I would mention it in case it's something you can roll-out across the entire UI...

 

Also, the baseline for the line reading Decimal Places for Unit Types: is getting cropped; the decenders for the y and p in type are truncated.

 

Keep up the great work guys!

 

Ah full screen! 

 

 

Glad you're liking the changes we've been working on :-)

2021 16” Macbook Pro w/ M1 Max 10c cpu /24c gpu, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Ventura 13.6

2018 11" iPad Pro w/ A12X cpu/gpu, 256 GB, iPadOS 17

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Hey Steve,

 

Nice polish on the UI. A few more notes if you care:

 

I was checking out the User Interface Preferences pane in the latest beta and noticed something interesting. The type on the top of the pane is rendered using an RGB anti-aliasing method, while the text on the bottom of the panel (where all the check-marks are located) are anti-aliase using only grayscale.

 

attachicon.gifScreen Shot 2017-07-12 at 11.38.07 AM.png

 

For those of us on non-retina Macs, the grayscale anti-aliasing provides sharper text. Apple by default uses the RGB method, but since I noticed your UI is using grays to anti-alias parts of the UI, I thought I would mention it in case it's something you can roll-out across the entire UI...

 

Also, the baseline for the line reading Decimal Places for Unit Types: is getting cropped; the decenders for the y and p in type are truncated.

 

Keep up the great work guys!

Thanks for the info Ronnyb - You've got a sharp eye for detail! This kind of observation really helps us make the software better.

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Ah full screen! 

 

 

Glad you're liking the changes we've been working on :-)

I'd argue a certain performance boost compared to the last beta is noticeable, the last one was not so much better than openGL for me but the recent one might be the one...quite good

(vignette filter rendering is still broken though)

 

just did a retouch on your new iPad beta as well and it worked without a crash

 

"Glad you're liking the changes we've been working on :-)"

 yeah kind of  :ph34r:

 

 

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Glad you appreciate it..

 

One more observation on the grayscale vs RGB anti-aliasing: I think all the checkboxes display the desirable grayscale anti-aliasing. Perhaps it's due to different color modes (gray vs RGB) used in defining the two types of blacks? Also noticed this issue with the Studio panels' titles; they seem to be RGB anti-aliased vs the actual contents of the panels, which are grayscale anti-aliased (I'm looking at the Character studio panel)...

 

Also, some more UI observations:

 

1. The search field in the upper right of the Preferences pane while in dark mode is almost invisible.

 

2. Please respect users' Highlight color for the UI as specified in macOS's System Preferences, otherwise provide a color picker...

 

3. Nudge Distance label/field under Preferences > Tools panel is also getting cropped at the baseline while using Large type

 

4. OpenColorIO label/field under Preferences > Color panel is also getting cropped at the baseline while using Large type

 

5. The Preferences pop-up menu icons (next to the < and > buttons at the top left of the panel) are still out of order relative to the icons on the main Preferences window, as previously reported

 

6. Some of the bold labels feel a little cramped, like they could use a hair of tracking to help legibility; for example all the Preference pane labels on the main Preferences panel; there's certainly room for more legible typography there

 

7. First layer in the layer stack in the Layer studio panel is cropped off at the top.

 

Cheers!

 

Thanks for the info Ronnyb - You've got a sharp eye for detail! This kind of observation really helps us make the software better.

2021 16” Macbook Pro w/ M1 Max 10c cpu /24c gpu, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Ventura 13.6

2018 11" iPad Pro w/ A12X cpu/gpu, 256 GB, iPadOS 17

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Cheers Matt for the update and the unlock/lock all/show all implementation. At first glance I think it's a good start but I do have a couple of comments/questions and if I am not understanding anything please let me know.

 

- I agree with Hokusai that a 'hide' ability is needed that doesn't require a trip to the layer panel.

 

- I think the unlock all should unlock ALL (at least everything that's not hidden) regardless of what layer/element is selected or not selected. Maybe I'm not understanding the implementation fully but shouldn't this be the expected behaviour, I think anything else is adding an unnecessary "wrinkle" in there.

 

- for the workflow of this to shine and to really realize the potential it would be ideal to have (and forgive me for bringing this up again but...) a 'lock all but selected' and a 'hide all but selected' ability. Essentially to isolate elements for editing and to un-isolate elements. I do this countless times during a project in my current workflow and really miss this in Designer.

 

I am looking forward to relying on Designer more and more for my heavy lifting, everyday workload and these considerations would go a long long way towards realizing that.  :-)

 

__________

 

Thanks again for all of the hard work you guys are doing and your willingness to hear from and comment on stuff us users toss your way.

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One thing that I think could be improved is the "multi-shape" tool (with a flyout). I love that I can add individual shapes from the multi-shape tool to the individually shown tools but when I do so, it makes two of them in the tools. Shouldn't a tool that is added to the shown tools be taken out of the multi-shape tools to avoid taking up screen space? Sorry if that isn't clear. Please see my attached screen shot. There shouldn't be two of the same tool shown is my point. 

 

Hokusai

post-3209-0-06136100-1499880798_thumb.png

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- I think the unlock all should unlock ALL (at least everything that's not hidden) regardless of what layer/element is selected or not selected. Maybe I'm not understanding the implementation fully but shouldn't this be the expected behaviour, I think anything else is adding an unnecessary "wrinkle" in there.

 

I can definitely make it do this if you think it's the only case that matters, but I was finding it quite useful to select a layer (for example) and choose 'Unlock All' and it unlock all the things on the selected layer and produce a selection of them... If you just hit Escape to remove the selection, hitting 'Unlock All' will do what you described you're looking for? I'm happy to change it, just don't want to lose any useful functionality if it can be avoided...

 

I'll add 'Hide' to the menu too so you can assign shortcuts to all of these...

 

'Hide all but selected' is a different command and I'd need to add that - I will do, but not in the next couple of weeks... I'm trying to nail down these view drawing problems I keep hitting with Metal changes on High Sierra - as fast as I can fix one thing, they throw me another curve ball with their next update :(

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Matt I like the extra flexibility afforded by your current implementation as well...

 

I love the idea of having an Isolate command! Hide All But Selected seems a tad wordy

 

I can definitely make it do this if you think it's the only case that matters, but I was finding it quite useful to select a layer (for example) and choose 'Unlock All' and it unlock all the things on the selected layer and produce a selection of them... If you just hit Escape to remove the selection, hitting 'Unlock All' will do what you described you're looking for? I'm happy to change it, just don't want to lose any useful functionality if it can be avoided...

 

I'll add 'Hide' to the menu too so you can assign shortcuts to all of these...

 

'Hide all but selected' is a different command and I'd need to add that - I will do, but not in the next couple of weeks... I'm trying to nail down these view drawing problems I keep hitting with Metal changes on High Sierra - as fast as I can fix one thing, they throw me another curve ball with their next update :(

2021 16” Macbook Pro w/ M1 Max 10c cpu /24c gpu, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Ventura 13.6

2018 11" iPad Pro w/ A12X cpu/gpu, 256 GB, iPadOS 17

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Cheers Matt! Love you guys!

 

Yes alternate functionality is great as long as it doesn't overly complicate matters. Being able to add this or that feature is valuable if it really contributes to getting results and doesn't add complexity. Lean and mean. :-)

 

My goal with Designer is to able to fly through a work session with as little thinking as possible. Seriously, to me that is the mark of a smart tool, in any situation. 

 

Personally, knowing it's being considered 'hide all or lock all but selected' can certainly wait for the more important drawing issues you mentioned above. :-)

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Hello everyone, just found a bug in AD beta 3, on macOS high sierra: creating few layers, creating shapes - changing color for the shapes from swatches makes layers not draggable anymore, its still can be selected, but can't be move around, not only the layers, but any items under layers tab.

Regards

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5. The Preferences pop-up menu icons (next to the < and > buttons at the top left of the panel) are still out of order relative to the icons on the main Preferences window, as previously reported

Hi Ronny, the dropdown menu is ordered alphabetically, the main Preference windows seems to be ordered by some logic regarding importance … IMO it would be just consistent to have all of them alphabetically rather than changing the order in the dropdown.

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