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13 minutes ago, R C-R said:

this makes the learning curve so steep that it remains an 'app of last resort,' something I will use only if there is no other app I have that can do something it can.

A Mac alternative is VectorStyler https://www.vectorstyler.com and it too is user unfriendly but a heck of a lot easier than Inkscape. Feature rich and now in beta so that is free but still I have a hell of a time figuring out how to do simple things, but it has some features which work very well and are missing in Designer.

 

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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1 hour ago, Dazmondo77 said:

Just downloaded and had a play with the Inkscape 1.0 beta for mac and will prob use it to plug the gaps.

And the question is not "Is Inkscape user friendly or not" (that is a Trump'ish strategy) but "why do we (users of Designer) still have to plug all those gaps with other apps and workarounds". FOR YEARS Affinity users mentioned horrible alternatives, plugs and workarounds that do not provide a seamless workflow at all - but just slow creativity down. 

The more horrible description of Inkscape and alternatives from the core users here - the bigger the question mark.

I don't do tons of workarounds for years and years. Then my family would starve.

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
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Well lets hope they have some awesome manipulation tools in progress.

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
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Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

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3 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Well lets hope they have some awesome manipulation tools in progress.

2 hours ago, PaulMakesGames said:

Last week someone posted a feature request for this here: Free Transform, Perspective & Warp Tools. If everyone posts their interest there it might get the attention of the devs.

That is all you have. Hope. And no tools. Almost like hope and no vaccine. Difference is the entire world is working on a vaccine. Almost no one are working on these tools in Affinity. If anyone at all.

Developers doesn't call the shots. You are waiting for business priorities and then for a tiny team to deliver enormous amounts of new code and new features for three programs on THREE platforms. First they will prioritize Publisher for iOS. Then perhaps the DAM. Serif knows about your requests and the number of requests. You are not getting these features because the company has other priorities and only a tiny team of developers. You are probably waiting for v2.0 and a new purchase before you see some of these features. But what if it disappoints - or these features are not part of v2.0? How long can you wait then?

All you have are sticks and stones and gradients à la 1990. And hardcore forum apologists.

In short you are waiting for Affinity Wunderwaffe.

Quote

In the German language the term Wunderwaffe generally refers to a universal solution which solves all problems related to a particular issue, mostly used ironically for its illusionary nature.

 

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
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8 hours ago, ErrkaPetti said:

Thanks, but, after ten minutes with this (although a bit faster than yesterdays install) I can't stand that Inkscape is slow laggy and ugly on my iMac...

The impression I still get after another hour or so of trying to use it is that the effort to create a truly Mac-like version of Inkscape is a very low priority & it will be years before that happens.

The current version is not just too slow at doing some very basic stuff, compared to the AD UI it takes too many clicks to do the things I do most, uses too much screen space for what could have been something more like Affinity's far more user-friendly Studio panels, & generally gets in the way of how I want to work.

So sure, the extra tools & features it has that Affinity lacks are great, but overall it just isn't worth wasting any more of my time on it. Maybe someday there will be a truly native Mac version I will enjoy using, but this isn't it.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.0 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

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I don’t fight it, serif/affinity deliver, when they deliver, in the meantime I find alternative apps to do the things I need. Affinity is a single tool in a toolbox full of tools but all the tools I use have their flaws but the benefit to that tool out-ways the deficiency in a particular area.

Even if Affinity Designer had these features it wouldn’t necessarily mean I would use them if another tool had similar features but were better implemented and or had additional controls that improved functionality.

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
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Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

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That's funny. Years ago I wanted to be more  effective using Gimp that I known from the 90' Linux distros we used, and they were a  lot more modern in UI and feel than Windows or OS 9.
But for this, I had to uninstall/forbid myself use of all other similar apps.
It wasn't done in 1 hour. I think I was grumbling for at least a month (I didn't needed it every day on a personal level). But once I understand it better, andhow to find tool and use them with the slight difference there are with PS, no problem.

I had the same problem using AP: mask and some effect behaving differently, needing more tweaks and tricks than using Gimp… But I paid for it, it would have been stupid to stop.

It's different with Inkscape: I know it from when it was called Sodipodi, and it was helpfull to use it on Mac too.
On Windows, I can see  UI improvement since it was a pain to get other "skins" fully fonctional with older versions. The basics tools and features are easily accessible, and I know there are more and too mathematical/complexe ones I'm not sure I'll ever use.

Does if feel ugly or old? It's only different. I couldn't stand anymore working on OS X with the same UI for years, where the only different option was the highlight colour! (or the metalic brushed steel look).

If you really want to learn to use another app, do it, anddon't comment if you only spend 10 minutes or 1 hour testing it.

 

If you really need some features, be more persistent. Learning other apps help having a different mindset like using different features and workflows, it's is beneficial.

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21 minutes ago, Wosven said:

If you really want to learn to use another app, do it, anddon't comment if you only spend 10 minutes or 1 hour testing it.

So far, I have spent only about an hour & a half trying out the Mac RC1 version, but many more hours trying to get comfortable with various 0.92 Mac versions. Those old versions all had so many problems that I eventually gave up on them.

RC1 is better, but the problem I have with it is it isn't just about learning how to use the app itself, it is that it is still so far from being a real native Mac app that I have to learn to use what amounts to an app running in a Windows app environment with a few Mac-specific features tossed in.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.0 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

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  • 3 weeks later...

I use a compliment of apps with their multitude of tools, some of the tools are duplicated but some apps tools give particular features  that tool, I just select the app that does what I want it to do. This is a dynamic ever-changing process, with apps falling out of favour, only to rise again the next month with a big improvement in a tool, that’s the nature of such things it’s ebb and workflow of app usage. 😉

If an app gives everything people want, they change from complaining about everything the app doesn’t have, to everything it does have and it automatically becomes bloatware  🤣

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
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Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

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10 hours ago, firstdefence said:

I use a compliment of apps with their multitude of tools, some of the tools are duplicated but some apps tools give particular features  that tool, I just select the app that does what I want it to do. This is a dynamic ever-changing process, with apps falling out of favour, only to rise again the next month with a big improvement in a tool, that’s the nature of such things it’s ebb and workflow of app usage. 😉

If an app gives everything people want, they change from complaining about everything the app doesn’t have, to everything it does have and it automatically becomes bloatware  🤣

You consider a transform tool bloat? Stick with MS Paint then.

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48 minutes ago, Russ1642 said:

You consider a transform tool bloat? Stick with MS Paint then.

No thanks, much prefer my Mac’s

It was a generalisation on some apps that have gotten bloated, actually Ive used the term incorrectly but I’ve always understood it to mean apps that have tried to be more than they were originally designed to be; becoming bloated, Affinity is far from that at the mo, one could almost call it slimware 🤔

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
B| (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum)

Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have to say that making logos on Affinity Designer is a pain. Don't get me wrong, I love your software - already cancelled all Adobe, after almost 20 years. BUT can you just wake up and do updates more frequently? There are so many tools that people ask for, for years and they are SO basic to work on shapes. ALL wrap tools / perspective / distort / live trace / erase tool for vector / etc. And for example for Affinity Photo mesh warp tool for "smart objects" (live perspective) kills all advanced mockups / etc. . I read so many forum posts that like 2-3 years old... You have dedicated user base and I hope it is growing because I already convinced some people to use Affinity. BUT you have to make upgrades faster. I'm still waiting for improvement in so many basic options. If your business model doesn't allow you to be more active, change it. I would happily pay for upgrades 99$ per year, like I do in SKETCH (in my opinion it is the best business model from all programs that I use).

wakeup.gif

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  • 1 month later...

I'll add my vote. I downloaded the trial version to try to decide whether to purchase it (I already own Affinity Photo and love it). Within the first hour of attempting to do some very basic work designing badges I became completely confounded trying to find a way to accomplish this simple function. I'm shocked to discover it simply doesn't exist anywhere in the program. Definitely a must-have. I'm on the fence about purchasing it now, since I may still need to keep using AI just for this reason.

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  • 3 months later...

As much as I really like/support Affinity (and have long replaced my Adobe suite with Affinity software), I have to agree, too.

I totally appreciate that it's new in the game, and obviously there's real-world things preventing it from just creating everything anyone ever requested, etc.  I totally get/appreciate that.

That said, the ONE real 'issue/disappointment' I have with Affinity software, is (as previously mentioned) there are so many posts where people are asking about (usually) basic/standard features that appear to be missing... which is then usually followed by other users saying they noticed that too, and were curious about it.... which is then followed by an official response, which is usually 'There is currently no way to do that in Affinity, but it's something we want to add'.....  and that's when you not that the thread is 3-5 years old.

Again, I don't want to come off as angry or accusitive... I am a big fan of Affinity products, but it is disappointing, and I just wanted to 'point it out'.  The reoccurring 'it doesn't do that' does get a bit disheartening, but the fact that you then see the conversation was many years ago (and the features are still not present) kind of hits it up to a new level of... well, disappointment.

I know that I myself have also been (long) waiting for things like a 'blob' brush (vector paint brush where you paint, and it creates a final shape that is the resulting overall SHAPE of the various strokes, rather than a series of individual 'line strokes'... as well as a standard vector free transform tool (ability to pull the individual corners of the bounding/transform box around a single or group of vector shapes)... amoung other featuers I was surprised to see not present.  I can't really understand why these haven't been given high priority, considering how long they have been requested for.

Hopefully, this is taken as the friendly contructive 'criticism/comment on what I (we?) would like to see' it is intended as, and not an angry attack.  I was actually going to post my own thread on this, but ran into this existing thread.... oddly enough, because I was confused by the apparent lack of a free transform tool, and wanted to make sure I wasn't just missing something!'.  I wanted to simply do a bit of a perspective distortion on a vector background I am creating, so it was a bit angled to the camera view.

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4 hours ago, ladlon said:

As much as I really like/support Affinity (and have long replaced my Adobe suite with Affinity software), I have to agree, too.

I totally appreciate that it's new in the game, and obviously there's real-world things preventing it from just creating everything anyone ever requested, etc.  I totally get/appreciate that.

That said, the ONE real 'issue/disappointment' I have with Affinity software, is (as previously mentioned) there are so many posts where people are asking about (usually) basic/standard features that appear to be missing... which is then usually followed by other users saying they noticed that too, and were curious about it.... which is then followed by an official response, which is usually 'There is currently no way to do that in Affinity, but it's something we want to add'.....  and that's when you not that the thread is 3-5 years old.

Again, I don't want to come off as angry or accusitive... I am a big fan of Affinity products, but it is disappointing, and I just wanted to 'point it out'.  The reoccurring 'it doesn't do that' does get a bit disheartening, but the fact that you then see the conversation was many years ago (and the features are still not present) kind of hits it up to a new level of... well, disappointment.

I know that I myself have also been (long) waiting for things like a 'blob' brush (vector paint brush where you paint, and it creates a final shape that is the resulting overall SHAPE of the various strokes, rather than a series of individual 'line strokes'... as well as a standard vector free transform tool (ability to pull the individual corners of the bounding/transform box around a single or group of vector shapes)... amoung other featuers I was surprised to see not present.  I can't really understand why these haven't been given high priority, considering how long they have been requested for.

Hopefully, this is taken as the friendly contructive 'criticism/comment on what I (we?) would like to see' it is intended as, and not an angry attack.  I was actually going to post my own thread on this, but ran into this existing thread.... oddly enough, because I was confused by the apparent lack of a free transform tool, and wanted to make sure I wasn't just missing something!'.  I wanted to simply do a bit of a perspective distortion on a vector background I am creating, so it was a bit angled to the camera view.

Well said 👏🏻. I have stated before that I think affinity is astonishingly good value, and would be happy to pay for “premium” updates. Maybe not all users would have a need for some of the features mentioned, nor others that affinity had in mind for the future. But having options to purchase individual “plugins” may be a way that the developers could justify the apparently unjustifiable additions to the program you mentioned. In the long run, it is only going to get harder for Serif with their business model. I am definitely not saying they should go down the creative cloud route (cus f*** Adobe that’s why) but again, I value designer and photo enough, that I would happily support the company further than the initial payment while also ensuring that Serif has the liquidity to remain current in the face of Adobe’s rather lucrative business model.

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2020 is coming to an end soon and it looks Affinity still has no solution for this. 

This is very disappointing.

I mean, it's a vector graphic software and it's 2020! Corel Draw had sophisticated tools for transforming and distorting vector graphics and text 30 years ago! Think of it. 

As nice as the apps look, there's simply too much missing to make them real alternatives to Adobe CS. 

It's the same with Publisher which you can't really rely on for complex print productions, or Affinity Photo, which doesn't even have a tool to create a path from a selection. 

That are basic tool professional users need. 

What do you other users think of such limits? 

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I have a theory. 

As much as I initially liked Affinity's concept, I fear that the company may be financed by Adobe and set out only to milk the market of potential users of a cheaper but seemingly also professional software with another price model. Once enough users bought it, it's enough and they don't develop vital functions any further to protect Adobe's flagship CS. Since you already bought Affinity, it's also useless to tell Affinity that you will switch back to Adobe, too. 

I hope this is not the case. 

But seeing that essential functions in both, Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer have not been integrated despite of so many user requests after more than 3 years (!) lets me doubt there is a real interest to establish a market leading graphic design software suit that can really go head to head with Adobe. 

Just a speculation.

Would really love to hear from the folks from Affinity. I hope they can prove me wrong. 

Thomas 

 

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On 11/22/2020 at 12:00 AM, Thomas M. Braun said:

[wild conspiracy theory snipped] lets me doubt there is a real interest to establish a market leading graphic design software suit that can really go head to head with Adobe. 

That's the point. Affinity's apps are not meant to be a full replacement for Adobe's products. There's only a fraction of adobe's customers which Serif is aiming at. 

That said, this doesn't excuse the missing of some essential functions (partially established for decades in comparable programs) in their apps at all. Like a free transform tool or vector brushes for a vector program!

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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