Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.6 - Beta 6)

[MattP]

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:

• Fix for text appearing blurry while typing.
• Fix for artistic text creation jumping between different sizes while you drag out a new object. Also added a tooltip next to the cursor to show the size of the text you are about to create.
• Fix for boolean operations of overlapping areas failing since Beta 5.
• Fix for fonts not updating correctly when told to reset.
• Hopefully reduced 'over-eager to serve' behaviour of hidden left and right studio panels.
• Reduced complexity of the results from 'Expand Stroke' so that they're hopefully more usable. I have not rewritten what it does, just made the result more usable. I will improve this to provide better results on thin strokes for the next beta...
• Fix for a few OpenType text style bugs.
• Fix Beta App icons appearing all kinds of crazy colours on macOS High Sierra!
• Fix for Metal View grid not matching the legacy view's grid when gutter is involved...
• Added 'Find in Layers Panel' menu item to the 'Layer' menu so that users can assign a shortcut to it for improved workflow.
• Miscellaneous other tweaks.

[dcarvalho84]

@MattP Just have done a quick test and that behaviour with placed documents is still there... Don't know if it's important for you or no, but it looks like it's not assuming the last deleted object... It's updating all from the view except the last deleted object. Do you want a video?

 

Edit: Found another thing regarding this. It's better if the document color space is the same of the placed one. If you have a RGB document and place the afdesign file in CMYK it will make this happen. If you make the document and your placed afdesign file CMYK you only have to make a "small move" in zoom for it to update correctly.

Edited August 11, 2017 by dcarvalho84

[anon1]

• Hopefully reduced 'over-eager to serve' behaviour of hidden left and right studio panels.

thanks

[MattP]

3 hours ago, dcarvalho84 said:

@MattP Just have done a quick test and that behaviour with placed documents is still there... Don't know if it's important for you or no, but it looks like it's not assuming the last deleted object... It's updating all from the view except the last deleted object. Do you want a video?

 

Edit: Found another thing regarding this. It's better if the document color space is the same of the placed one. If you have a RGB document and place the afdesign file in CMYK it will make this happen. If you make the document and your placed afdesign file CMYK you only have to make a "small move" in zoom for it to update correctly.

No need for another video - I do see this as important, don't think that just because it's not fixed straight away that we aren't interested - some things take longer to solve...

[A_B_C]

Added 'Find in Layers Panel' menu item to the 'Layer' menu so that users can assign a shortcut to it for improved workflow.

 

Nice … 

[Scungio]

Hey Matt, 

Thanks for the improvement to the Expand Stroke. This is just a simple test but so far I am liking what I see...

 

 

 

That is just a simple line drawn with the pen tool and a pressure curve applied. If I had to guess it would seem like the Expand Stroke command in 1.5.5 created almost 200 points whereas in 1.6 Beta 6 it may have created 20 points? It would be nice to have an Info panel of how many points an object has when you select it, manually counting it isn't fun!

Edited August 11, 2017 by Scungio
further clarification

[smallreflection]

Expand stroke does look much more promising!

At the moment I'm having a strange issue with a larger-ish file (216mb) hanging when attempting to open. It seems permanently stuck saying "Loading 1 document" and I can only quit the app by Force Quitting. Doesn't seem to be affecting my other files though, so possibly my file is damaged somehow (hope not). I might can share it privately for inspection by devs.

[Hokusai]

MattP,

 

Thanks for the update. I've really been enjoying the "Hide/Show All" commands! For me, when I select something, it automatically flips the layer contents and shows them (all of them). If I select something else, the flippy triangles are still flipped on the previous layer and then it does it to the next layer. I'm guessing that this is either a bug or a preference setting but I can't find the preference for it. Sorry if this doesn't make sense. It is a very distracting for me, is there a way to make it stop? I'm very happy to see some improvements to the expand stroke! Way to go!

 

Many thanks,
Hokusai

[Hokusai]

MattP,

 

Sorry, I figured it out. For some reason the "Auto-scroll" was enabled but I've never had it enabled before (or is that new?) so it threw me off. 

 

Thanks for all the hard work!

Hokusai

[dcarvalho84]

6 hours ago, MattP said:

No need for another video - I do see this as important, don't think that just because it's not fixed straight away that we aren't interested - some things take longer to solve...

@MattP Maybe i don't have made myself clear... When i'm talking "important" i'm referring the fact that the last object was not recognized as deleted don't know if that point is important for you to search from there, i'm not talking about the bug not being solved  I'm here to help and i know that things take time.If you need any help/test regarding this you're welcome.

[abarkalo]

@MattP Really happy with this Beta 6 - all of the big issues are gone.  Thank you for all the great work.  I will let you know about any upcoming issues or if I come across anything 

 

Quick aside Q: I'm definitely not running High Sierra until it comes out officially, but would love to know if Metal 2 speeds will speed this up any, not that it's any bit slow now.

 

 

 

 

[predick]

Wow!!!! Thanks for the Expand Stroke working.

[MattP]

High Sierra’s Metal 2 is definitely a little faster - but the best thing is that their 3d texture sampler works correctly now so I don’t have to mimic it in the Metal shader so it is comparatively even quicker

[predick]

I think expanding 'Round Cap Stroke' is not correct in this beta. I'm not sure this is the same that thin stoke bug.
macOS Sierra 10.12.6

[MattP]

What stroke width was that?

[predick]

24 minutes ago, MattP said:

What stroke width was that?

9pt

try my file

stroke.afdesign

Edited August 12, 2017 by predick

[anon1]

42 minutes ago, MattP said:

What stroke width was that?

the issue about expand stroke depending on the size of the object seems a bit weird to me in general 

 

vectors are size independent and as such the algorithm should genuinely not care about the size?! 

[Gear maker]

Matt, the expand stroke is sooo much better.  I really appreciate all the hard work you put in to improve it.  One of the many tests I have tried was just a rounded corner rectangle.  In the original stroked image there was a slight bow to the stroke on the 2 vertical members.  But after expand stroke the bow was gone.  

 

Back in 2015 I had noted that a rounded corner rectangle went from 8 nodes to 47.  Well today this one went from 8 nodes to 16.  That's perfect.  Thank you.

 

Now I just need to remember to go back to using the command.

Mike

[Scungio]

Hey predick, 

 

Hope you don't mind me posting a screen capture of your stroke.afdesign. I took one of your lines and opened it in Designer 1.5.5 and used the Expand Stroke, did the same with Designer 1.6 Beta 6 and then copied and pasted the line in Illustrator CC and used the Expand command. Then I put them all side by side to compare:

 

 

The point count is reduced dramatically from 1.5.5 to 1.6 beta 6 using the Expand Stroke. I was kind of surprised to see Illustrator handle it pretty poorly in having the left round cap just straightened, flattened out. I think Designer and the Expand Stoke option is doing pretty well right now, major improvement. To get anything better in Illustrator you would have to shell out $90 and get the Astute Graphics plugin VectorScribe 3, and use the PathScribe and Smart Removal brush. 

[MattP]

2 hours ago, MBd said:

the issue about expand stroke depending on the size of the object seems a bit weird to me in general 

 

vectors are size independent and as such the algorithm should genuinely not care about the size?! 

In theory that’s completely correct but in practice computers need tolerances and scale factors to get  the right results at different sizes - this is why I asked as it’s relevant

[predick]

2 hours ago, Scungio said:

Hey predick, 

 

Hope you don't mind me posting a screen capture of your stroke.afdesign. I took one of your lines and opened it in Designer 1.5.5 and used the Expand Stroke, did the same with Designer 1.6 Beta 6 and then copied and pasted the line in Illustrator CC and used the Expand command. Then I put them all side by side to compare:

 

 

The point count is reduced dramatically from 1.5.5 to 1.6 beta 6 using the Expand Stroke. I was kind of surprised to see Illustrator handle it pretty poorly in having the left round cap just straightened, flattened out. I think Designer and the Expand Stoke option is doing pretty well right now, major improvement. To get anything better in Illustrator you would have to shell out $90 and get the Astute Graphics plugin VectorScribe 3, and use the PathScribe and Smart Removal brush. 

 

I think maybe this shape created by AD make Illustrator bug.

I try to draw the same shape/nodes and more complex nodes in Illustrator but get different result.

[anon1]

3 hours ago, MattP said:

In theory that’s completely correct but in practice computers need tolerances and scale factors to get  the right results at different sizes - this is why I asked as it’s relevant

So you simplify a small shape more than a big shape..

not totally sold on this approach but maybe it is the same as everyone else does and maybe a good idea..

 

...this just means one should not zoom too much after using expand stroke  (which is kind of heavily advertised by Serif)

[ronnyb]

9 minutes ago, MBd said:

So you simplify a small shape more than a big shape..

not totally sold on this approach but maybe it is the same as everyone else does and maybe a good idea..

 

...this just means one should not zoom too much after using expand stroke  (which is kind of heavily advertised by Serif)

 

3 hours ago, MattP said:

In theory that’s completely correct but in practice computers need tolerances and scale factors to get  the right results at different sizes - this is why I asked as it’s relevant

 

Maybe be a "solution" is to 1. upscale the selected shapes to an optimal size for the algorithm, 2. apply the expand stroke command with the proper tolerance settings (which seem to have improved drastically in the new beta) and 3. then scale down to original size? All this would happen behind the scenes of course. Admittedly this appears more like a temporary hack, but if it yields results without breaking things elsewhere...

[anon1]

17 minutes ago, ronnyb said:

 

 

Maybe be a "solution" is to 1. upscale the selected shapes to an optimal size for the algorithm, 2. apply the expand stroke command with the proper tolerance settings (which seem to have improved drastically in the new beta) and 3. then scale down to original size? All this would happen behind the scenes of course. Admittedly this appears more like a temporary hack, but if it yields results without breaking things elsewhere...

The algorithm should just work scale independent which would not be an issue on its own (as @ronnyb says it is even possible to simulate this yourself) but as @MattP phrased it I think it is more like a "feature" to preserve detail and reduce complexity 

[ronnyb]

14 minutes ago, MBd said:

The algorithm should just work scale independent which would not be an issue on its own (as @ronnyb says it is even possible to simulate this yourself) but as @MattP phrased it I think it is more like a "feature" to preserve detail and reduce complexity 

 

You know the thing about "shoulds"...