How does Publisher's persona feature work?

[KipV]

When Serif showed off the Publisher video on Facebook today it showed three persona icons that were the icons for the three Affinity apps. Unfortunately they didn't click between these personas so it's hard to tell how they work. Can someone at Serif please explain what the personas are?

[Bri-Toon]

Curiosity is building up. I am all ears to the answer, but I think what we saw was an early tease. I'm sure explanations will be heard when the product reaches beta. For now, I'm sure the remaining details need to stay a secret until more is revealed. Bummer.

[v_kyr]

@KipV Do you really expect to get insights about the UI layout of an early prototype stage software? - I mean things might still change and be rearranged x-times in that one, so what do you expect them to tell you now.

[KipV]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

@KipV Do you really expect to get insights about the UI layout of an early prototype stage software? - I mean things might still change and be rearranged x-times in that one, so what do you expect them to tell you now.

Yes, I do expect some explanation since they made it public. It is no longer a secret if they make it public. I don't know if the current unveiling says much. Almost all of the Publisher features can already be done in Photo and/or Designer, Quark and/or InDesign. The main feature (only feature?) Quark/ID can't do is live blending modes. I guess it is ok that they are catching up and it is nice that some of these features will make it to Photo/Designer (visible bleeds for an example.) If they are really going to release a beta in 6 months I don't know how much time they can have to make massive feature adjustments. They also have to get touch Designer iPad and a DAM tool which would pressingly limit their time. If they do another delay I can't see anyone taking them serious in this area, I already don't to be honest in a ways.

[v_kyr]

Referring to the usual vague Serif replies here in the forum to those things, I doubt you will get the detailed satisfactory answers you are looking for. Instead it will be like always, patiently waiting and see how (many) time goes by.

[MikeW]

56 minutes ago, KipV said:

...The main feature (only feature?) Quark/ID can't do is live blending modes...

 

Really? I guess it depends on your definition of live blend modes. But they're in Q2017.

[smadell]

Obviously, I have no insider information. However, when I saw those "persona"-like icons at the top left of the window, my interpretation was that they were something along the lines of (i) Edit in Publisher (the "main" persona); and (ii) Edit in Designer/Photo. My best guess is that the Edit In... personae apply to specific page elements, similar to the way one can edit embedded documents in a Photo file.

Speculation, only!

[KipV]

What I mean is when you scroll down the blend mode menu it updates the effect immediately. This is a great time saver and I haven't seen the feature on anything other then Affinity.

[KipV]

@smadell That would make sense to me. I wonder if Publisher will even have personas?!

[smadell]

As I think about this, it occurs to me that the Personas (personae?) in Affinity Photo are really just a palatable way to put the User into a Modal state - a process that must be either finished or abandoned before further work can be done. It's no surprise, I assume, that most of the Personas have a "Commit" and a "Cancel" button, in the same way that a modal dialog on my Mac has an "OK" and a "Cancel" button. i.e., once you've entered that particular persona (whether it's a new HDR, Panorama, liquification of a layer, or tone mapping) you have to finish your work and Commit it to the document before you can do anything else.

I suppose this makes sense in a flow-chart sort of way. The processes that go on in the Personas (other than the Photo persona) are generally of a type that (i) are destructive, in the sense that they cannot be edited further; and (ii) make no sense to perform half-way.

What type of process would be non-interruptable in a page layout application? I can't think of one offhand, but if you can then maybe you can identify a need for more than one Persona in Publisher!

[KipV]

I think an ebook persona would be one. Both Quark (1985) and ID (1999) predate ebooks (and modern versions of tablets and smart phones) by quite a number of years so the original developers didn't have a chance to think about this type of workflow. They may be a better way to do it then they way they are currently doing it.

I don't know how far Serif wants to get into the web development category; it probably makes sense to split that off into a separate app if they made a Dreamweaver like tool. I don't know tons about web development but it seems like the differences are still substantial over other layout.

[KipV]

I would also like to know if Publisher is project based like Quark or just only file at a time like ID. I strongly prefer Quark's approach. My layout projects are grouped together and I finder needing to go to the Finder to find ID files is a much more cumbersome approach then having all the project files readily available in open tabs.

[MikeW]

34 minutes ago, KipV said:

What I mean is when you scroll down the blend mode menu it updates the effect immediately. This is a great time saver and I haven't seen the feature on anything other then Affinity.

 

The blend modes in Q are both live and non-destructive.

 

As to how great a time-saver it is would depend upon what one does day in, day out in a layout application.

[MikeW]

I doubt there will be a project-based approach in APub. That is a fairly unique Q thing and it is great, so it would be nice if APub had it.

[KipV]

The blending modes don't function live when I try them. Not sure why that is. When I discussed this with Martin it sounded like he wasn't aware of Quark being able to do that. If Publisher doesn't competitive with features like projects (and other things) I would find little use it using it. ID just recently caught up with end notes so they already have a competitor gaining around on them.

[MikeW]

With the image selected, add a color like cyan to the frame itself. You won't notice any change. Open the Image editing palette. Select the drop down for the modes and use your keyboard to move from one to the other.

 

If projects aren't available it's not a real show-stopper for me. I'll still use it as it develops for some work. My biggest bugaboo will be the lack of commercial plug-ins. Hopefully there will at least be scripting.

[R C-R]

15 hours ago, KipV said:

Yes, I do expect some explanation since they made it public. It is no longer a secret if they make it public.

But what exactly have they made public? On FB they literally say this is merely "a sneak peek of an early alpha build of Affinity Publisher" & that they "still have lots to do." They have made it very clear they are not 'unveiling' anything, just demonstrating that they are "not making the whole thing up."

 

How much more of an explanation do you expect than that?

[Seneca]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

How much more of an explanation do you expect than that?

 

I agree, it would be very foolish to read too much into that.

 

Although, an early access into the alpha version of the product would be super cool.

I think that a lot of good feedback on features that work and features that might be tweaked coming from the community would be super beneficial to the developers.

 

Text Styles would be one area that might benefit greatly from that feedback. We've been at for for more that 30 years so we know a thing or two about that.

This is just one example of course and there will be many others.

Regards

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Seneca said:

Although, an early access into the alpha version of the product would be super cool.

I think that a lot of good feedback on features that work and features that might be tweaked coming from the community would be super beneficial to the developers.

I think that as it is there has been no shortage of feedback about the features people want or expect Publisher to have!

 

But more than that, at the alpha stage a lot of features simple won't have been coded at all, or will still need quite a bit of work before they will work, even partially. The developers don't need the distraction of feedback about that, or the inevitable mile-long list of things various users consider "must haves" that won't be implemented until much later versions have gone through the alpha, beta, & release stages of development.

 

There is also another issue to consider, that being tipping off the competition prematurely about features or unique implementations the product might have by the time it reaches the public beta stage.

[KipV]

@R C-R I would expect them to show things other products can't do. What is the point of a product that just does all the same things? The earliest demos of Photo and Designer showed things that the competitors couldn't do so this unveiling was largely a disappointment.

[MikeW]

It's just a teaser for the masses to demonstrate it exists. In that regard it succeeds. 

 

I quite expect when the formal promotional video(s) are made they will be like the former ones.

[KipV]

10 minutes ago, MikeW said:

It's just a teaser for the masses to demonstrate it exists. In that regard it succeeds.

I really doubt there are people who didn't think this product existed and Serif was just lying to us. It seems like your bar for success is set pretty low.

[MikeW]

Yeah, that's me. Low expectations and a warped sense of success. Ya got me there, Kip.

 

I think I know where I went all wrong. I actually took TonyB's post literally. Damn him anyway. Next time I'll just assume he is deceiving me and think, damn, what a crappie video and write little demanding posts like you.

[MikeW]

More seriously, I have an installed alpha of another company's software right now. There are some neat things that are working, other things that I can only guess what their utility is for because they don't really work but are available in the UI. And there are things that I can tell are being built in but absolutely don't do anything.

 

And of all those things, some likely won't be ready for release. Some that do work may not even make it to release.

 

What exactly should that company do? Create a promo video of things that don't work? r don't work properly? Or may not make the cut at first release or at all?

 

The basics as shown in the APub video and some of the apparent global type of things look interesting to me. But, I am a simpleton with low expectations after all.

[KipV]

I don't care about working vs. non working as much as I do about innovative vs rehashing old ground.