Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.6 - Beta 8)

[abarkalo]

1 hour ago, Frank Jonen said:

BTW, I'm editing a piece of lettering with a crap font. Someone thought it's awesome to place 7 nodes seemingly on top of each other.

It'd be nice to have a counter for nodes as well. Not just items.

With Google Fonts for example the availability of really terribly made fonts has increased. Tools that help coping with that decline in outline quality would certainly be welcome.

 

Problem with Google Fonts is that most of them are not great, and also all of them are TrueType (TTF) - a much older format and inferior to OTF, which provides elegant and advanced ligatures.  Even worse, I have found a lot of the fonts lacking coherence and artistic value, or any sense of elegance.  Just get rid of Google Fonts except maybe Roboto, Open Sans - maybe that's it.  

 

Also, since I am (still) a Creative Cloud member (year commitment not done yet - and maybe just in time for Publisher...) I have Typekit.  But the problem with Typekit is that you only get 100 fonts at a time under the Creative Cloud plan - really limiting for designers that want to experiment with fonts.  Also their font library is quite limited.  And then you have to buy fonts individually if you want a better selection.

 

Which brings me to the best solution - Monotype library subscription available at either MyFonts.com or Fonts.com (same company - Monotype own Linotype and Myfonts, Fonts.com, Bitstream, Fontshop, lots of others).  It's $115 a year or $15 a month approx.  I really am getting a lot of use out of it. You have to sync your fonts via Skyfonts - yet another sync thingie operating on your menubar - but it doesn't take up CPU (0.1% vs Creative Cloud app's 3.5%+). Right now, I have over 500 fonts (all OTF and all very high quality) synced in that library, about 20 font families.  I'm using on Affinity and I just love it.  You can't get all the fonts MyFont's has to offer in this subscription but really you have a tremendous universe - 9000 fonts, all OTF except for monospaced ones.   I figure I must have $5000 or more of fonts I have synced thus far, so the yearly rental fee is quite small.  I have Univers Next, DIN Next, Trade Gothic Next, FF Meta and the classic of classics Neue Haas Grotesk among my favorites. 

 

But a word of caution - you need to exit Affinity Designer if you are adding new fonts.  If you add a ton of fonts and Affinity Designer is open, it will cause the program to hang and you have to force quit - not something you want to do regularly.  

 

I also wrote to RightFont to see if they can sync with Skyfonts and they are looking into it for their next release.  But 1.6 Designer Beta does a great job of marking favorites and last used - so that part is great.

 

So do yourself a favor and flush your system of cheap TTF fonts - monotype fonts are fine but consider uninstalling the rest.  

 

 

[Frank Jonen]

In general I keep what I like. When I use a font from a dead foundry, I tend to fix it myself. When I like a font but it's crap, I see if it's worth fixing it alltogether ot fix the parts I use, when I use them.

I have a lot of good TrueType OpenType fonts and some bad PostScript OpenType fonts. You can't generalise by extension what quality or versatility a font has. While TTFs type of hinting is more screen orientated, Post Script works better on film rasterisers for print.

 

These font sync apps don't take up much CPU, but install Little Snitch (or otherwise monitor your outgoing traffic) and you'll rather quickly uninstall some of them  

[VIPStephan]

Yeah, the requirement to always be online when using a font is also a negative factor, in my opinion. And you never really own a font, you are just allowed to use them while you’re paying the subscription fee. I’m the kind of guy who tries to stay away from Cloud and SaaS as much as possible. Then I’d rather modify an open source font for my needs (if I knew how to do this).

[abarkalo]

12 hours ago, Frank Jonen said:

In general I keep what I like. When I use a font from a dead foundry, I tend to fix it myself. When I like a font but it's crap, I see if it's worth fixing it alltogether ot fix the parts I use, when I use them.

I have a lot of good TrueType OpenType fonts and some bad PostScript OpenType fonts. You can't generalise by extension what quality or versatility a font has. While TTFs type of hinting is more screen orientated, Post Script works better on film rasterisers for print.

 

These font sync apps don't take up much CPU, but install Little Snitch (or otherwise monitor your outgoing traffic) and you'll rather quickly uninstall some of them  

 

I only have a couple dozen high quality families but a lot of variants within.  I have a lot of creative, yes TTF fonts as well - brush, script, distressed etc.  I prefer to have the font as a non-subscription, but given that my client (entertainment industry) wants the classics, and the exact form of it, and then maybe some very artistic headline fonts (which I rework as well in outline form) I was just pointing out the economic value of the Monotype subscription. For instance DIN Next was one strict requirement for a gaming client - and that will run $500 for each family version. There is also lot of free stuff out there - Behance or download to own (Envato - great subscription) etc.  But the classic families are super expensive - in the thousands sometimes. 

 

So as far as CPU, memory and bandwidth I have a lot of that stuff to spare.  Still, not going to install thousands of fonts!  But I was just commenting on the Google fonts issues you were having. Relieved a lot of trouble by uninstalling them.  Anyway, everyone is different. 

[abarkalo]

Slight export issues - PDF export for a document with multiple artboards.  Typically the first time I export I only get one artboard.   The second time I export I get the whole document as a multi-page PDF.  I thought I was selecting just a layer/artboard but I'm actually selecting the whole document.  I know there's something wrong because when that happens the export is super fast - but will someone look into this?

 

Also another rather benign cosmetic glitch.  When I attempt to close a document that I haven't saved, Affinity warns me to save it - good and normal behavior. But after I save the document stays open. I wonder if I've saved it (I have) and then I can close it.  Would be easier to save and close together.  

[Bri-Toon]

On 8/27/2017 at 4:56 PM, JGD said:

Guys, you have a UI bug on light mode; some of the icons in the preferences window, on the drop-down menu, are not fully visible unless you hover above them. I'm guessing you kept the positive version unchanged, and the white on white parts are, thus, rendered invisible.

 

It seems fine on my end without having to hover.

 

[Frank Jonen]

14 hours ago, VIPStephan said:

Yeah, the requirement to always be online when using a font is also a negative factor, in my opinion. And you never really own a font, you are just allowed to use them while you’re paying the subscription fee. I’m the kind of guy who tries to stay away from Cloud and SaaS as much as possible. Then I’d rather modify an open source font for my needs (if I knew how to do this).

 

There's hope.  FontLab is getting a better interface in version 6. More and more people move to Glyphs though. I haven't given it much of a look myself but from what I've been hearing it's fast, makes common tasks easy and is less tech focused and more creative supporting than FontLab Studio (which is very tech focused). 

 

There are more options now to get started.

[Oval]

On 27. August 2017 at 10:56 PM, JGD said:

some of the icons in the preferences window, on the drop-down menu, are not fully visible unless you hover above them.

Check it out:

 

2:1, same here. 

[Tekikou]

On 8/27/2017 at 10:56 PM, JGD said:

Guys, you have a UI bug on light mode; some of the icons in the preferences window, on the drop-down menu, are not fully visible unless you hover above them. I'm guessing you kept the positive version unchanged, and the white on white parts are, thus, rendered invisible.

 

Check it out:

 

 

Tried the light UI for the first time and I got the same result. You're definitely not alone 

 

 

[MEB]

On 8/27/2017 at 9:56 PM, JGD said:

Guys, you have a UI bug on light mode; some of the icons in the preferences window, on the drop-down menu, are not fully visible unless you hover above them. I'm guessing you kept the positive version unchanged, and the white on white parts are, thus, rendered invisible.

Thanks JGD, Issue logged.

[Bri-Toon]

It's strange how some users face certain issues and others do not. Huh.

Anyway, I came across one, but it happens randomly, so it's hard to prove. Some times when zooming in or out, the drawings disappear. But they will show again if you do the opposite (zoom out or in). I tried taking a screencast, but the problem decided to stop itself. I noticed this happens more with pixel layers and masks.

[Kristian Mohl]

Please check out this thread I started in April, related to 2 (I'd say major) bugs I found in AD 1.5.5. Those bugs are still there in 1.6.0 Beta 8, please don't allow them to make it to Alfa.

 

[MattP]

1 hour ago, kmohl said:

Please check out this thread I started in April, related to 2 (I'd say major) bugs I found in AD 1.5.5. Those bugs are still there in 1.6.0 Beta 8, please don't allow them to make it to Alfa.

 

Hi kmohl,

 

Sorry these bugs interrupt your workflow I can tell you that both of these issues are already fixed in the 1.7 codebase, but that is because of a major upgrade to our tool architecture that has given us some seriously cool new functionality (and made it much easier for us to extend our tools going forward...) As a result it would be a huge pain to engineer a solution for the 1.6 release (and risky at this stage) for something which we'll then throw away as we already have the new, fixed code ready for 1.7. Both issues you cite are simply to do with nudging - it is not committing the nudge transform correctly and I will obviously check to see if I can easily fix the issue, but it is also possible that I could damage much more than I fix as this area has some unexpectedly complex interactions (hence why it is going wrong in the first place...)

 

Thanks,

Matt

[MattP]

1 hour ago, Bri-Toon said:

It's strange how some users face certain issues and others do not. Huh.

Anyway, I came across one, but it happens randomly, so it's hard to prove. Some times when zooming in or out, the drawings disappear. But they will show again if you do the opposite (zoom out or in). I tried taking a screencast, but the problem decided to stop itself. I noticed this happens more with pixel layers and masks.

I suspect (as usual) that it may be translation-related, but I'll look into it... Thanks!  

 

[Although, having said that, I looked at the code and it's definitely not!... The problem appears if you have just changed from dark to light UI, then go to the menu. It appears wrong. If you exit the application, then try it again after running up in light mode, the icons work fine. We'll sort it!]

[Bri-Toon]

55 minutes ago, MattP said:

[Although, having said that, I looked at the code and it's definitely not!... The problem appears if you have just changed from dark to light UI, then go to the menu. It appears wrong. If you exit the application, then try it again after running up in light mode, the icons work fine. We'll sort it!]

 

Thank you for looking into it. For me, however, I haven't used the dark mode since the first 1.6 beta, so I'm not sure that's the case (on my part). But hey, I'm noticing even little crumbs on the floor are getting cleaned up. 

[VIPStephan]

1 hour ago, MattP said:

I can tell you that both of these issues are already fixed in the 1.7 codebase, but that is because of a major upgrade to our tool architecture that has given us some seriously cool new functionality (and made it much easier for us to extend our tools going forward...)

You tease!

[Alfred]

 

1 hour ago, VIPStephan said:

2 hours ago, MattP said:

I can tell you that both of these issues are already fixed in the 1.7 codebase, but that is because of a major upgrade to our tool architecture that has given us some seriously cool new functionality (and made it much easier for us to extend our tools going forward...)

You tease!

 

Only all the time!!  

[Bri-Toon]

Speaking of that cat being a tease, I haven't heard from the member, Mouse, for a while. I hope it's not just a coincidence.

[abarkalo]

On 8/27/2017 at 11:43 PM, VIPStephan said:

Yeah, the requirement to always be online when using a font is also a negative factor, in my opinion. And you never really own a font, you are just allowed to use them while you’re paying the subscription fee. I’m the kind of guy who tries to stay away from Cloud and SaaS as much as possible. Then I’d rather modify an open source font for my needs (if I knew how to do this).

 

I made myself sound like a subscription monster in my last post but I assure you that if I could get rid of all subscriptions I will absolutely do so.  But I am getting rid of Adobe CC  - that's $600 a year!  (As soon as Publisher is out...) And I will lose Typekit, which isn't a big loss since there are not that many fonts there.

 

Also there are about twenty font families that I really care about, or I should say more accurately that my clients care about these. If I could buy them vs rent them I would - but I have done the math and it would cost me about $15,000 to buy them outright.  So $115 a year (not $600) and the possibility of choosing from over 2500 families is a very solid compromise.  Also I've checked CPU resource from Skyfonts and network usage (it was 9Kb out 23Kb in - because I installed a font today - really not even a shadow's shadow).  

 

Now, getting away from the big bands like the Linotype, Bitstream and FontFont foundries let me point out some great independent fonts that I have bought and just love, and are quite affordable.  First there are Mark Simonson's fonts - Proxima Nova, Metallophile Sp8 and Refrigerator Deluxe, and many of his others. Great font designer.  And I do love me some letterpress effect fonts from Yellow Design Studio - Veneer, Lulo and Sucrose.   Bought these families for $30ish for the family.  Love them for great graphic effects. 

 

Lastly, I write all this font info here because I have met and worked with masterful vector designers and raster artists/photographers etc, and quite a few of them surprisingly lack an eye for typographical design.  Serif has raised the bar on raster/vector integration and I'm discovering hidden gems in Designer like tightening text to prevent widows (option + left arrow, or option + right arrow to loosen).  Or CMD-Shift-T to see all the typography options esp with OTF fonts.  

[Alfred]

13 minutes ago, abarkalo said:

Now, getting away from the big bands like the Linotype, Bitstream and FontFont foundries let me point out some great independent fonts that I have bought and just love, and are quite affordable.  First there are Mark Simonson's fonts - Proxima Nova, Metallophile Sp8 and Refrigerator Deluxe, and many of his others. Great font designer.  And I do love me some letterpress effect fonts from Yellow Design Studio - Veneer, Lulo and Sucrose.   Bought these families for $30ish for the family.  Love them for great graphic effects. 

 

We could have a long and varied discussion about our favourite font designers, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't belong in an AD on Mac customer beta thread!

[abarkalo]

2 minutes ago, Alfred said:

 

We could have a long and varied discussion about our favourite font designers, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't belong in an AD on Mac customer beta thread!

 

Yup, you're right except for my comments in another thread asking the community what they thought about further categorizing favorites.  

[Lojza]

Just a small bug: Paste Style (Cmd+Shift+V) does not work in certain cases. The one I spotted is when there's a stroke applied on an image object and then the image style is being applied onto another image object. The stroke style isn't copied to the target.

[Nguyen Ha]

Hi Matt,

 

Thanks for the betas.

 

For some reasons, I can't use many fonts in my language (Vietnamese) especially the UTM packet in all 1.6 betas. For new document, the fonts weren't listed in font panel and it pops missing fonts for my old 1.5.5 documents. I attached two of unusable fonts below, please take a look.

 

MacOS's native telex keyboard is fail too, I have to use 3rd telex keyboard app which is unstable to type in my language since 1.5.0, just for you know

 

Best regard

UTM Alter Gothic.ttf

UTM Sharnay.ttf

[A_B_C]

These fonts give me warnings. Corrupt name table. Hmm … 

 

 

[Nguyen Ha]

1 hour ago, A_B_C said:

These fonts give me warnings. Corrupt name table. Hmm … 

 

 

 

I can use it normally in Adobe CC and AD&AF 1.5. If 1.6 version does not accept it, I have to switch back to Adobe

 

Edit: Nevermind, I found a way to fix it