Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.6 - Beta 5)


Recommended Posts

  • Staff
1 hour ago, Aammppaa said:

Any chance that you will implement right click drag as another method for drag-cloning?

 

So nice and quick, without the need for modifier keys.

Sounds harmless enough - let me think about it :)

 

(I don't use a mouse so I'll mull it over first!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff
5 hours ago, dcarvalho84 said:

Guys, especially @MattP what do you use or recommend to use in a mac mini late 2012 with 16GB of RAM, Metal or OpenGL?

Well, I'd say if you're on Sierra or High Sierra, then it's definitely worth trying the Metal view. It's just a more efficient use of your resources... If you get any issues or it seems slower then let me know and I'll look into it - it's super-slick on my MacBook Pro on the integrated or discrete GPUs and uses about 20% of the frame time. Let us know how you get on - that's the whole point of the beta :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, MattP said:

Well, I'd say if you're on Sierra or High Sierra, then it's definitely worth trying the Metal view. It's just a more efficient use of your resources... If you get any issues or it seems slower then let me know and I'll look into it - it's super-slick on my MacBook Pro on the integrated or discrete GPUs and uses about 20% of the frame time. Let us know how you get on - that's the whole point of the beta :)

So, can you enable 10bit as an option? 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Ben said:

The drag-clone is going to be overhauled in 1.7.

 

The new approach will allow you to start a drag-clone with Alt, then release Alt to allow snapping - the clone will remain.

 

You will also be able to use Cmd - the new method will allow you to toggle the Cmd key at any time to add or remove the clone while dragging.  So you could start a drag, then make it a clone later by pressing Cmd, or remove the clone by releasing Cmd.  This will work independently of Alt to affect snapping.  So, the better approach will be to use Cmd instead of Alt to control cloning while dragging.

 

Really the Alt method was only there for people who couldn't reach that little further to use the Cmd key (or those who could only cope with the "Mac way" of using Alt to make a copy).  Something I've never been too happy with, but we've accommodated users that insisted it had to be Alt to the detriment of our standard convention that Alt only ever affects snapping.

 

 

Ben, the Alt+dragging method is not just the “Mac way” (even though it probably originated in the Finder at some point), but the “Adobe way” as well… And one of those Adobe choices that aren't that unintuitive, because they, duh, mimic the most popular OS' (for creatives who run their products, that is) behaviours.

 

Anyway, while I would love to see that being the other way around (the default setting being Alt+drag as the “cancellable duplication” operation), just having the option is great. And if I survived through working with different modifier+drag/scroll behaviours, like in my FreeHand+QuarkXPress days or even today with MS Office, I can certainly survive working with Affinity and InDesign for a few years until Publisher comes along. ;) I'm all for overhauls that add options and make my workflows easier, and I'm a click-and-drag duplicate kind of guy, so this is great news for me personally!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a few items to report that occur when working in Separated Mode:

  1. Transform panel - tabbing between the dimensions and position order still needs to be  adjusted (see previous post). In short, tab order currently goes from X > W >Y > H. It should go from X > Y > W > H. 
  2. Cmd ~ doesn't cycle through separate document windows as expected. Rather, nothing happens. If Merge All Windows is selected, making 1 window with tabs, then Cmd ~ works.

This seems to happen in either Separated or normal mode. Artistic type is creating a layer outside of the selected Artboard. Specifically, in a file with multiple Artboards, selecting any object on an Artboard, then switching to the Artistic Text tool and clicking inside the same Artboard creates a new text layer outside the Artboard, i.e., the new text layer is at the same hierarchy level as all the other Artboards. This does not happen using Text Frame Tool. Instead the text frame is drawn within the Artboard at the same layer level as the last selected object, as expected.

 

Finally, a request, please add/move the Find in Layers option to the main menu system so I can add a keyboard shortcut to it. I know there is a preference for this behavior all the time; however in documents with hundreds of layers it's unwieldy. 
 

Thanks so much!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, MattP said:

Well, I'd say if you're on Sierra or High Sierra, then it's definitely worth trying the Metal view. It's just a more efficient use of your resources... If you get any issues or it seems slower then let me know and I'll look into it - it's super-slick on my MacBook Pro on the integrated or discrete GPUs and uses about 20% of the frame time. Let us know how you get on - that's the whole point of the beta :)

Yes, I'm on Sierra. Will enable it and see how it goes. Thanks for the reply.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ACE!

Daz1.png

Mac Pro Cheese-grater (Early 2009) 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC Ram, Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5, Ugee 19" Graphics Tablet Monitor Triple boot via OCLP 1.2.1 - Mac OS Monterey 12.7.1, Sonoma 14.1.1 and Mojave 10.14.6

Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo 1.10.5 - 2.2.1

www.bingercreative.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, MattP said:

Sounds harmless enough - let me think about it :)

 

(I don't use a mouse so I'll mull it over first!)

 

Right click is already used to bring up the Contextal Menu on Mac. It Might be funky getting a pop-up menu under the cursor will cover the selected object/s... but it might work on a Windows if that's a standard system function...

 

BTW, MacOS does support 3 button nice; so it might make sense to map it onto the middle click button... my 2cents 

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff
19 minutes ago, ronnyb said:

 

Right click is already used to bring up the Contextal Menu on Mac. It Might be funky getting a pop-up menu under the cursor will cover the selected object/s... but it might work on a Windows if that's a standard system function...

 

BTW, MacOS does support 3 button nice; so it might make sense to map it onto the middle click button... my 2cents 

Ha! We were talking about this at the same time you were posting! Basically, we select the item you were over on the mouse down itself and then bring up the context menu, so this would not work at present. I had thought that we selected and showed context menu after we recognised a right-mouse click event (i.e. not a drag) but apparently not. We would have to change a bit more than I'd like to at this point so we won't add it for now... In the future, we may change this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

Performance increase for boolean operations performed on many objects at once

 

Is this the issue previously discussed in which the time to complete was scaling approx. logarithmically instead of linearly?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff
26 minutes ago, R C-R said:

 

Is this the issue previously discussed in which the time to complete was scaling approx. logarithmically instead of linearly?

Yes :)  It still very much depends on what you're doing as to how fast the operation will become - it needs more work, but many trivial examples are obviously much faster now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, abarkalo said:

There is a slight cosmetic glitch that bothers me ever so slightly:  When I type text in a text box it it funny and then gets sharp as I type - a sort of blur trailing effect.  

 

You wouldn't accidentally have a gradient, transparency, or gaussian blur applied, would you? If not, could you show a screenshot?

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It doesn't stay blurred - can't take a screenshot of it.  Just a very slight delay (0.25 sec) in redrawing text it seems as you type.  Yes I do have a gradient in a layer underneath.  I thought this was a Metal issue so I switched to OpenGL - but same issue.  But then I created a file with the same gradient in 1.5.5 and there was no delay.  Also I created a new file, a very simple one without even a gradient in beta 5 and there was the redrawing issue.  It's not very noticeable unless you look at the type that is being written, so I am nitpicking but it's definitely there.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, abarkalo said:

It doesn't stay blurred - can't take a screenshot of it.  Just a very slight delay (0.25 sec) in redrawing text it seems as you type.  Yes I do have a gradient in a layer underneath.  I thought this was a Metal issue so I switched to OpenGL - but same issue.  But then I created a file with the same gradient in 1.5.5 and there was no delay.  Also I created a new file, a very simple one without even a gradient in beta 5 and there was the redrawing issue.  It's not very noticeable unless you look at the type that is being written, so I am nitpicking but it's definitely there.  

 

I can confirm, it also happens to me. It seems that the text is momentarily rasterized.

It's really subtle, not really bugging me but it's definitely here.

I tried on a legacy display and didn't encounter that 'glitch'.

 

BlurryText.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/1/2017 at 4:40 PM, ronnyb said:

I hope the awesome Devs have a chance to code a shared folder structure repository for Affinity assets (brushes, styles, keyboard equivalents, etc) across all their apps. 

 

No, that would be dangerous as they may make changes to the structure.  It's good to have a separate directory, but some kind of an import/export option for brushes/styles/tools/whatever would be good because it also helps with a re-install - you just run one export and it's all backed up, and one import and it's all back.  Maybe I should propose that as a feature, possibly tied to the serial number to prevent people mass copying brushes etc.

Regards, Binc

 

Warning: dark, twisted sense of humour.  Do not feed after midnight.

Wheat and BS intolerant.  Only use genuine Guinness to lubricate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Tekikou said:

 

I can confirm, it also happens to me. It seems that the text is momentarily rasterized.

It's really subtle, not really bugging me but it's definitely here.

I tried on a legacy display and didn't encounter that 'glitch'.

 

BlurryText.png

 

I tried uninstalling everything (beta and Mac store app), rebooted and reinstalled app and beta and same issues.  I want to revise my statement - it is actually bugging me.  It takes away from the natural writing experience.  Also if I go in and edit text all the text in front of the cursor is blurry during the time that I'm editing.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, BatteriesInc said:

 

No, that would be dangerous as they may make changes to the structure.  It's good to have a separate directory, but some kind of an import/export option for brushes/styles/tools/whatever would be good because it also helps with a re-install - you just run one export and it's all backed up, and one import and it's all back.  Maybe I should propose that as a feature, possibly tied to the serial number to prevent people mass copying brushes etc.

I agree that would be dangerous to combine all that stuff into a shared directory -- if nothing else, it would make managing keyboard shortcuts a nightmare because each app has different Personas & Persona-specific shortcut conflicts would be very likely to occur.

 

I also agree that an import/export 'backup/restore' option would be a great feature -- I mentioned that somewhere about a year ago but I do not remember if it was in feature requests. It would not be trivial to implement -- at the least some 'sanity checks' would need to be included to prevent importing stuff from an older version incompatible with a newer one. 

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I see it as an AFFINITY folder with independent subfolders for each Affinity app: Designer, Photo, Publisher, DAM for macOS, Windows, iOS (sorry Linux). Something that can live on a cloud folder somewhere, independent of App updates, easy to backup, so that we don't have to keep re-installing custom brushes, palettes, styles, keyboard settings for each app every time it's updated; it's tedious and easily solvable via the cloud. Don't fight the cloud... #firstworldproblems

 

5 hours ago, R C-R said:

I agree that would be dangerous to combine all that stuff into a shared directory -- if nothing else, it would make managing keyboard shortcuts a nightmare because each app has different Personas & Persona-specific shortcut conflicts would be very likely to occur.

 

I also agree that an import/export 'backup/restore' option would be a great feature -- I mentioned that somewhere about a year ago but I do not remember if it was in feature requests. It would not be trivial to implement -- at the least some 'sanity checks' would need to be included to prevent importing stuff from an older version incompatible with a newer one. 

 

6 hours ago, BatteriesInc said:

 

No, that would be dangerous as they may make changes to the structure.  It's good to have a separate directory, but some kind of an import/export option for brushes/styles/tools/whatever would be good because it also helps with a re-install - you just run one export and it's all backed up, and one import and it's all back.  Maybe I should propose that as a feature, possibly tied to the serial number to prevent people mass copying brushes etc.

 

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, MattP said:

Ha! We were talking about this at the same time you were posting! Basically, we select the item you were over on the mouse down itself and then bring up the context menu, so this would not work at present. I had thought that we selected and showed context menu after we recognised a right-mouse click event (i.e. not a drag) but apparently not. We would have to change a bit more than I'd like to at this point so we won't add it for now... In the future, we may change this.

 

Unless you slip in some ninja code + slick custom UI tweak to initiate the Duplicate command after pulling up the standard macOS pop-up menu IF AND ONLY IF the user:

 

Conditions:

 

1. Continues holding down right mouse button for a user defined period of time in App's prefs; or

2. Drags left (away from pop-up menu) or in a user defined direction set up in app's prefs; Like a super simple "gesture"  or

3. Add a Duplicate drag command as the first option in the pop-up menu; or

4. ????

 

6 more cents...

 

 

Also the Reset Fonts command doesn't work on my 10.12.6 macOS install

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, ronnyb said:

Something that can live on a cloud folder somewhere, independent of App updates, easy to backup, so that we don't have to keep re-installing custom brushes, palettes, styles, keyboard settings for each app every time it's updated ....

We don't have to do that now (because per user prefs, customizations, etc. are not normally touched during updates). The value I see is when we either have to use any of the reset options that clobber those things; reinstall the app after wiping the hard drive so there are no per user settings remaining, or when installing the app on another machine.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know this is more of Publisher feature, but for now as many of us are working in Designer with multiple artboards as doc pages, can you guys look into a search text or find/replace?  I realize this is a main thing missing.  I badly needed to do that today for a deck.  (Or better yet, give us Publisher!!!! - I know, later in the year :) )

 

And before one starts to ask why don't I do this thing in InDesign (which I have) and why I love Designer - two words:  Guassian blur.  You can't do realistic shadows without, and don't want PowerPoint-like drop shadows on 3D objects on screen!  ID doesn't have that, or masks, or pixel persona, or embedded-editable objects.  Illustrator has Gaussian blur but theirs is more of an inner blur - nothing I can use for realistic shading - what on earth is that btw?  Did I forget to mention that you can't drop in SVG files?  Or better yet that mildly complex vectors (their own AI files) slow down ID to 0.0002 FPS.  So yes, while I bitch about what is needed or wanted I appreciate what I have with AD.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, R C-R said:

We don't have to do that now (because per user prefs, customizations, etc. are not normally touched during updates). The value I see is when we either have to use any of the reset options that clobber those things; reinstall the app after wiping the hard drive so there are no per user settings remaining, or when installing the app on another machine.

 

So you don't have to reload all your custom brushes when you update Affinity apps? Funny, it seems like I have to on mine machine... 

 

Syncing app and user assets via a cloud drive is not something unheard of. That other company does it and it works quite nicely. Creative cloud let's you keep all your assets in sync so once you log into any app via CC you have all your stuff ready to go. If I install a new brush while working on Photo iPad, I want that brush automatically available for my other Affinity apps so if I switch to desktop I don't have to repeat the process. Same with App palettes, etc.

 

Mark my words: Affinity will need to do something similar for corporate /professional departments at some point...

 

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, ronnyb said:

So you don't have to reload all your custom brushes when you update Affinity apps?

No, at least not for the last few updates -- I think maybe some things got wiped out during the transition from the 1.4.x to 1.5.x versions, probably because of the change in the native file format, but in general all the per user support files (preferences, brushes, styles, & even tool & toolbar layout customizations) are preserved.

 

I am on a Mac so it might be different for Windows but in the Mac versions all the per user files are in the user Library/Containers folder in a subfolder named for the app (so there can be up to four of them if you have both the retail & beta versions of AD & AP installed, plus several for the AP extensions). Judging from Finder's "Date Modified" column, some have not been altered for a year or more, & the others correlate well with what I remember about the last time I changed/added something on purpose.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.