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Bug: "Force pixel alignment" does not always work


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It should also be noted that "Move by whole pixels" also takes priority over "Force pixel alignment" so it will keep something misaligned once it becomes misaligned - thus if you are using "Force pixel alignment" that option should always be turned off.

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  • 1 year later...

Pitching in, May 2021, I've just lost approximately 8 hours of billable time due to this madness hunting down and _manually typing in whole numbers_ so that slices export predictably.

If you don't want to change the existing behaviour, throw in another tickbox that says "Always Round To The Nearest Pixel Value" or so help me I'll end up back on a subscription.

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4 hours ago, davidlower8 said:

I still can't believe this issue hasn't been fixed

Make sure you have "Move by whole pixels" turned OFF, and "Force pixel alignment" turned ON.

If you have them both turned on, "Move by whole pixels" takes priority, and if something starts as unaligned, that option will keep it unaligned in spite of the "force pixel alignment" setting.

Also make sure your rulers are set in pixels.

If you have snapping to a grid or to guides enabled, make sure they are on pixel boundaries.

This should cover most things, but note that if you have an image (for example), maintaining the aspect ratio may cause one or the other of the width and height to not be on a pixel boundary.  There is not really any one "good" way to get around this on an automatic basis, but a few examples of ways to deal with this:

  • Scale it to a slightly different size until the pixels line up
  • Hold down shift while scaling to ignore aspect ratio, then nudge the size, so that the aspect ratio barely changes but the pixels line up
  • Make the image a child of a shape so that the shape is lined up and crops the image accordingly
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@fde101Thanks for the response. As I stated in my previous video (which has been deleted now) the problem is when you introduce text/fonts. I have the settings where if I am just working with shapes etc by and large the whole pixel environment stays. As you as you add text and then scale, fractured pixels are introduced. If you are doing UI work you will always be working with text.

Can you test your settings. Make a simple square. Put text inside > group the text and square. Then enlarge or scale the square up. I bet you you get fractured pixels. Can you let me know. Thanks.

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15 minutes ago, davidlower8 said:

As you as you add text and then scale

Text is another great example of something which has a natural aspect ratio.

Designer tries to maintain the aspect ratio by default, which does mean that even without grouping the text with a square, you will get fractional pixels when you scale - just like what I explained for an image.

You can hold down shift while scaling to ignore the aspect ratio, but your text will be distorted, and it will not accurately reflect the rendering of the text in an actual UI as most UI routines will not scale the text against its aspect ratio.

I would not think that having a fractional pixel value for text would be much of an issue, as an actual UI toolkit would basically be rounding it up anyway.

The bigger challenge is that when you group artistic text with a rectangle or square, having the text in the group is causing the scaling operation to take place with aspect ratio maintained, which impacts the rectangle as well.

One possible way to get around that would be to use frame text instead of artistic text.  You can then scale using the "extra" handle to scale the text and shape while maintaining aspect, then tweak either of the height or width using the normal handles to "fix" the fractional pixel value without breaking the aspect of the text.

The way that these groups are scaled could definitely stand some improvement for this use case, though there is at least a reasonable logic behind it.

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  • 1 year later...

@Affinity Designer I still can’t believe this is a problem and has not be fixed, even in version 2. I must admit I’m getting pretty tired of using affinity designer because of this issue alone. Regardless of whether I’m designing a logo, website designs, if I introduce text at any point it introduces fractured pixels.

 

So no matter how many items I export there is always an extra 1px edge or size.

 

I designed a website. I then came to export all the logos, assets, images (probably 50-60 items). Every single one I had to manually reposition so it was on a solid pixel axis AND I had to resize the item itself so it was solid pixels.

 

It really is totally stupid this issue exists.  How does the affinity team use this product.

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  • 2 months later...
On 4/5/2023 at 11:13 AM, davidlower8 said:

@Affinity Designer I still can’t believe this is a problem and has not be fixed, even in version 2. I must admit I’m getting pretty tired of using affinity designer because of this issue alone. Regardless of whether I’m designing a logo, website designs, if I introduce text at any point it introduces fractured pixels.

 

So no matter how many items I export there is always an extra 1px edge or size.

 

I designed a website. I then came to export all the logos, assets, images (probably 50-60 items). Every single one I had to manually reposition so it was on a solid pixel axis AND I had to resize the item itself so it was solid pixels.

 

It really is totally stupid this issue exists.  How does the affinity team use this product.

Agree spend ages fixing sub pixel issues that should not be there - it drives you absolutely nuts, the setting fight against you as move by whole pixels keeps the subpixel. It really needs a always align to pixel boundaries setting - which you can then disable if you need any sub-pixel nudging  - I do simpler things in Figma Free now as it so much better at it as it uses a simple snap to pixel setting.

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22 minutes ago, drkanukie said:

the setting fight against you as move by whole pixels keeps the subpixel

You generally shouldn't have Move by Whole Pixels enabled, for most work

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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  • 3 months later...

I'm affected by this so much I've just started looking into other apps. 
 

AD is increasingly death by a thousand cuts. "Small" but important problems have been ignored for years. It's just not cut out for serious interface work.
 

Figma and Sketch and Penpot get this right. Fireworks, Freehand and all the apps of the past got it right. Where did it all go wrong?

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On 10/18/2023 at 12:56 AM, matt said:

I'm affected by this so much I've just started looking into other apps. 
 

AD is increasingly death by a thousand cuts. "Small" but important problems have been ignored for years. It's just not cut out for serious interface work.
 

Figma and Sketch and Penpot get this right. Fireworks, Freehand and all the apps of the past got it right. Where did it all go wrong?

I've moved to Figma 100% - I only use this for publishing, photo masking and compositing, things that Figma can't do very well as its vector based. Also to be fair Affinity SVG is much better than Figma too so I use it to clean Figma SVG exports. Figma even has a warning that exports are pixel misaligned. Another good idea.

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  • 5 months later...

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