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Affinity Publisher - Sneak Preview


TonyB

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I think Sony Cameras are an interesting example of differential pricing.

The figures below are not meant to be accurate they merely demonstrate the pricing model! and yes I know there are many more versions of the A7 than described!

They released the A7 for say 2000 (any currency unit works for this example

They then released the A7 Mk2 for 2500 at which stage they reduced the price of the A7 but still kept supplying it.

They then released the A7 Mk3 for 3000 at which stage they reduced the price of  A7 Mk1 even further and the Mk2 by say 500

They now sell The Mk1 version for about 1000-1200, the Mk2 probably around 1800-2000, and the Mk3 at close to original price. They can afford to reduce pricing this way as all r&d costs are already covered on the older cameras. They still get sales from the older designs because they are still very, very good cameras that continue to work for many customers with less advanced needs.

 

So a pricing model where the previous versions of software was still for sale at reduced cost when a newer version was released.

The previous version would still work for many many customers with simpler needs.

On the understanding that support would be limited and updates for the latest OS not necessarily available. With an upgrade path to latest version when needed.

 

 

 

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34 minutes ago, waxewzt said:

With an upgrade path to latest version when needed.

 

That's the tricky part when apps are sold through Apple's App Stores. My understanding is that differential pricing can only be offered through in-app purchases, and in any case I don't think Serif is very keen to lower their already low prices except for occasional promotions.

 

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
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It's probably been mentioned before in this huge thread....

Please include scripting support.

Designer and Photo don't support it, but scripting support in those is of less use. I need to be able to pull in entries from a Postgres data base and format them on a page. Ideally grabbing a template from within a publisher document, replicating it and tailoring it. If this is not done then....

Please make the file format XML based and document it.

Consider using the macOS bundle format to package up an XML file and all embedded assets. If this isn't a good idea with Windows then consider just zipping up the whole thing into a single archive.

 

Thank you

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On 3/14/2018 at 3:16 PM, TonyB said:

 

Our ability to produce professional software is somewhat governed by income from those products. Income for us is calculated by copies x price and our current price point is simply designed to produce the greatest income. Increasing the cost of the product will not increase our ability to make competitive PRO software.


Well, I'm happy with that last part. Serif is doing a great job with the Affinity line, imho. 
You've advanced to mobile quickly and somewhat made a good companion there, too. Adobe left a huge space, when they switched to their ridiculous pricing model, so you can't even keep the software you've bought (e.g. freeze the version with your first, or last payment, when you've reached a certain amount that covers the cost for a single licence. That'd be something, but no).

What I was trying to say was, that you folks are really stepping up and made something that can compete on a pro-level. You're not quite there, but very, very close. I guess by making this into a whole suite, with Publisher and with a shared asset-base and also photo-management system and you're good to go. I'm already using your Mac and mobile stuff for work, since it's lightweight approach on getting things done, is really helpful.

Maybe it's just anxiety speaking, of seeing a good thing perish because it couldn't keep up with the game (like many good software did in the past). ^_^

// sort of freelancer // professionally designing things digital and IRL // products - gfx - light - UI & UX //

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22 hours ago, Senjaz said:

It's probably been mentioned before in this huge thread....

Please include scripting support.

 

Yes, this has been asked for a numbers of times already but it's always good to hear it again. In other words we need it. QuarkXpress 2018 will add JavaScript for cross platform scripting.

This is great news for QuarkXpress users.

2017 27” iMac 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 • Radeon Pr 580 8GB • 64GB • Ventura 13.6.4.

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3 hours ago, Seneca said:

Yes, this has been asked for a numbers of times already but it's always good to hear it again. In other words we need it. QuarkXpress 2018 will add JavaScript for cross platform scripting.

This is great news for QuarkXpress users.

 

They confirmed that they will include scripting, and that same language.

Best regards!

 

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Adding scripting to all Affinity Suite apps will make more response from users to make a lot of shortcuts like crazy macros to doing stuffs. I hope that Publisher will be have autoupdate indicator as INDD. When I edit at the same time file in AD and APub I get info that file is change and I can update this. It's very usefull.

 

Can we expect on the next year Affinity Publisher Workbook to buy? Is it planned. I bought all available Suite books and I am happy with them. It'll be nice see another in collection and with tricks for DTP design like advanced text composiont using app etc.

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25 minutes ago, affi.usr said:

Can we expect on the next year Affinity Publisher Workbook to buy? Is it planned. I bought all available Suite books and I am happy with them. It'll be nice see another in collection and with tricks for DTP design like advanced text composiont using app etc.

Since Publisher will still need time to improve (stability, workflows, features), I would expect the Book to come out in mid 2020 being optimist.

Best regards!

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2 hours ago, Mithferion said:

 

They confirmed that they will include Spcripting, and that same language.

Best regards!

 

 

No no no, it must be OSA (Open Scripting Arcitecture) I don't think there is a Javascript OSA language plug-in any more although it remains possible, currently the only supported language is AppleScript. But any Affinity Publisher scripting absolutely needs to hook into the Apple Event system and hence OSA. This is the only way you can have cross application scripting which is paramount. While I have no love for the AppleScript syntax the workflows it enables save hundreds if not thousands of hours of effort. If Affinity's idea of scripting support is something that only works in their curated garden like VBA in Windows then it will never replace existing tools for mac based publisher workflows.

 

If you want Javascript then resurrect the work done by Late Night Software (https://latenightsw.com) in producing an OSA plug-in for the language.

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Honestly they won't care what few individuals want here, just because these might have an individual need for this or that. All in all it won't be a single platform specific wish concert, so for scripting they have to take something platform portable and interoperational here. Meaning how should Windows users deal and benefit from AppleScript at all here? - So their best choices are probably to use JavaScript (which BTW is also supported by Apple) or Python here.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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14 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Honestly they won't care what few individuals want here, just because these might have an individual need for this or that. All in all it won't be a single platform specific wish concert, so for scripting they have to take something platform portable and interoperational here. Meaning how should Windows users deal and benefit from AppleScript at all here? - So their best choices are probably to use JavaScript (which BTW is also supported by Apple) or Pyhton here.

 

So Apple added Javascript OSA support without me even noticing. Guess I've been using the same scripts that just work for a very long time.

 

One thing I like about Affinity is that they don't just go for the lowest common denominator for the platforms they support. They produce first class mac applications that use the appropriate technology on the platform – look at their home page which show cases all the Apple technologies they use: Grand Central Dispatch, Core Graphics, Force Touch, Retina UI, iCloud Drive, Metal 2, DCI-P3 panel support.

 

When they ported Designer to Windows, it wasn't just a normal port, they made sure it used current Windows development best practice too. This gives me hope that they will indeed support OSA on macOS.

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18 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

So their best choices are probably to use JavaScript

I agree.

I never learned appleScript since it was OS specific and it wasn't as interesting as scripting is in Javascript with ID. (and since Javascript is easy to use, and learn, that's a good point).

The important parts I was missing with QXP was reason to use scripts, and regular expressions. Since I switched to ID, I can use both, and it's really important to improve worflow, when working on monthly magazines or bigger catalogues.

QXP was better for some parts, but it would be difficult now to work without scripts and find/replace with regular expressions. The way ID use them to apply character styles is really important too.

 

Those are time savers.

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Well every software has it's own fitting implementations here, Adobe products like PS use mostly Javascript and some JS derivates, though LR uses LUA instead. GIMP uses Skript-Fu (a Scheme dialect) and a lot of Python, Inkscape makes mostly use of Python though it's API also allows to make use of other things here. Scribus uses through it's Scripter API mostly Python. - And so on ...

So it always also depends on the general flexibility of a softwares scripting API implementation (the bridging part)  and then what fit's good here as an adapted scripting language per se. - As said before, good candidates are nowadays JS/TypeScript or Python here, since those offer some degree of flexibility, are highly portable, commonly used and thus quite well known by a wider audience.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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Really looking forward to Affinity Publisher when it is released!

New user here; have used Affinity Photo and Design for in my profession (printed and digital designer) and am well pleased with both programs.

Good luck guys and simply cannot wait to try the Beta.

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  • Staff

@beulah, welcome to the Serif Affinity forums. Thanks for your kind words of encouragement. May I ask what OS you have been using?

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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On 16/03/2018 at 5:53 PM, cyberhusky said:

Hi

will there be another preview (longer or more features shown) before beta release of AP?

 

Thx.

 

 

We have no plans on further previews before the beta. You can always ask questions here and we will try and answer them.

 

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On 14-3-2018 at 4:39 PM, Michail said:

You can see which standards Adobe has set in terms of price. Everyone thinks that a good program must cost 1000 euros. However, Adobe's prices do not arise from the utility value, but from the maximum possible exchange value. In other words, Adobe takes what they can get and not what the software is really worth.
Just a small example: When Photoshop was still sold, the price in Germany was always twice as high as in North America. No one here understood that. The anger about Adobe was already there before the subscription model.

Not only in Germany. The whole of Europe was more expensive then North America.

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On 14-3-2018 at 6:51 PM, SrPx said:

 

They actually make *very* good software. And for a ton of years. They indeed have demonstrated their new focus (Affinity) to less amateur users, being now the target both amateur users and professionals.

 

 

Then think twice....I've seen that happening (as a completely professional user in several areas, having been both a freelancer and a professional with quite some high responsibilities as an employee) with free software even! And a bunch at quite a lower price than 50 bucks ! (wont mention a list of them to not do even more (than I often do) publicity of other brands..). Price is ONLY one part of the equation. Same way, I've seen total sinking boats being bloated apps with crazy UIs, and yet outrageously expensive.  I mean, through decades of software's history.

 

 

In my view, the focus is fully professional and the apps already are indeed , in many ways. Is very different to compare a young app and a very old, fixed and patched through decades suite, than considering it is a case of an amateurish group of apps, which, knowing A BUNCH of apps from other brands which indeed are that amateurish... I can tell you, is far from the case of Affinity. Is just a WIP, a work in progress at a younger stage than the arcane Adobe or Corel are, but imo, advancing way faster in strict comparison.

Price is mostly what they can get away with. It's not just the development of the program but the whole package, like advertising, and all the other mouths to be fed working in that company.

I always thought Adobe products were a bit overpriced, especially the last couple of years. People still think that  a high price equals professional software. This is not the case.

You can get professional looking results with free software(inkcscape, Krita), although I like Designer way better then Inkscape, if you know what you're doing.

Photoshop has become the standard, they even invented a word for it(photoshopped) but that doesn't mean it's the only capable editor.

 

I for one am very pleased that Serif is giving us a chance to switch to other software just as capable and a more responsive development team.

 

Serif is doing a wonderful job for a modest price. I don't think you can ask/wish for more. (Although there always something to be desired).

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On 7-3-2018 at 10:36 AM, nitro912gr said:

what do you mean? AD is getting updates and improvements, what is that you are still consider necessary and is not available? Personally I feel complete with the add of searchable font menu.

Sure I still want a couple of things added but with the current state of AD anything more will be a matter of polishing not necessity.

Also as mentioned above is about the holy trinity now, better to have APub out first and then refocus on improving everything, I was still able to use AD even without every tool I wanted till they add them, but I'm not able to use APub even in a premature form if they don't release it first.

 

It is the same everywhere I guess, if I have to make a list I could say 8 out of 10 colleges or universities that say they are teaching graphic design, they actually just teach specific programs. It used to be worst, at least now they have added some classes for art history, free hand drawing, color theory etc, but they are still mostly machines for mass production of people who know the programs.

Designer is still missing a tracing tool, for instance. But most can get by with other tools.

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On 6-3-2018 at 10:38 PM, Bri-Toon said:

 

The compatibility won't be 100% of course because of features that will not yet be available to support the properties. Exporting works differently for each program too. I have files I made in both Illustrator and Microsoft Word that support pages and then saved as PDF. When bringing them into Designer, I get the pages as artboards and the text is still editable. However, the ones which were originally Illustrator files have lines of text in a paragraph as individual text layers, but the ones that were originally Word files have each paragraph as a single text layer (as I want it to be). So it's difficult to answer. It depends on how the program exports the properties. One similar problem I did catch with both, however, is difference of kerning (character spacing).

 

Can you test your exported PDF in Designer and see how that works?

I have used AD's pdf import function for a while now and can say that it is superb. Everything is editable. I however don't know about enclosed fonts. 

Yes, notced the same thing concerning kerning. But doesn't that happen when AD has to replace the font, if it can't find the right one?

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