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Workarounds for Distortion, Warp, or Perspective distort?


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1 hour ago, Huvir said:

Even if there was no development at all - you should talk to us. Regardless of the fact that we are your paying customers - you should talk.

Hello @Huvir,

since you seem to be relatively new to the forum (according the number of your posts) I want to assure you that Serif staff and moderators are constantly showing up and posting in the forums. It is also known (for those who are a little longer around) that they monitor several forum sections (i.e. Suggestions) without answering every new suggestion made. There is a tendency not to comment if there is nothing new to add to a conversation, though. This may apply to this particular thread :)

d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

Windows 11 64-bit - Core i7 - 16GB - Intel HD Graphics 4600 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
iPad pro 9.7" + Apple Pencil

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Thanks @dominik for your comment. Well, this is actually what I am well aware of: there is a staff member who reads the posts. If I wasn't sure I wouldn't send any posts here at all. What you say about the comments: it may be a habit / a rule how to approach customers. However - just reading something is basically wrong since it may cause frustration (not by the fact that warp is missing but by the fact they are not responsive). This is my feeling regardless of how long I was / wasn't a member. 

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1 hour ago, Huvir said:

However - just reading something is basically wrong since it may cause frustration

From what I have read in the forum over time there is no way not to cause frustration with some people ;)
This much more depends on the expectations (and personalities) of the forum participants than by what the Serif team is posting (or not).

I myself have come to the decision to accept that some features are not there and may take time. I don't want to get frustrated by this. But this is just me.

d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

Windows 11 64-bit - Core i7 - 16GB - Intel HD Graphics 4600 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
iPad pro 9.7" + Apple Pencil

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49 minutes ago, Huvir said:

Thanks @dominik for your comment. Well, this is actually what I am well aware of: there is a staff member who reads the posts. If I wasn't sure I wouldn't send any posts here at all. What you say about the comments: it may be a habit / a rule how to approach customers. However - just reading something is basically wrong since it may cause frustration (not by the fact that warp is missing but by the fact they are not responsive). This is my feeling regardless of how long I was / wasn't a member. 

Mesh warp is on the roadmap for the 1.x releases--which means anytime before version 2.x arrives.

What exactly do you want them to comment on? Serif cannot comment on the timing. Just that it will be before version 2. There's not much for them to say beyond that.

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2 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Serif cannot comment on the timing. Just that it will be before version 2.

That's a bit like Brexit.

Almost 3 years later (for Brexit) and we still don't know what's going to happen

Very hard to plan for your business's future when there are no timings given.

 

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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3 minutes ago, carl123 said:

...Very hard to plan for your business's future when there are no timings given.

Nah. I think it is relatively easy to plan a business when software is concerned. Future features are vaporware until such time as they are included and work properly. Therefore, use an application that actually has the [insert feature here] and works.

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9 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Nah. I think it is relatively easy to plan a business when software is concerned. Future features are vaporware until such time as they are included and work properly. Therefore, use an application that actually has the [insert feature here] and works.

The last thing people need is to take out another years subscription to PS to then find the [insert feature here] they desperately needed was added to Affinity 2 months later. That's 10 months wasted money given to PS.  If you knew the [insert feature here] would be ready in 2/3 months you could have (and would have) planned differently.

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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1 minute ago, carl123 said:

The last thing people need is to take out another years subscription to PS to then find the [insert feature here] they desperately needed was added to Affinity 2 months later. That's 10 months wasted money given to PS.  If you knew the [insert feature here] would be ready in 2/3 months you could have (and would have) planned differently.

The last thing people need is to not be able to produce their work because of a missing feature.

In this specific case, warping stuff, the aforementioned Inkscape can do the work and then port it to AD or whatever Serif application. Zero cost, unless one wants to donate to the project.

As you mentioned PS (would have been better to mention AI as it is correlative to AD and this is a thread about AD), Affinity Photo has warp capability, yes? So no need to subscribe to PS in this specific instance.

If I were a hobbyist, I would await the feature(s) being added if I was too cheap or couldn't afford a working application. But I'm not. If Affinity applications cannot do what I need, I simply opt for a working application. It's that simple.

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I was doing an extreme effort to avoid mentioning  that I do so (launch Inkscape) whenever I need a distort-warp (or a vector trace, only for 3D stuff IF am being lazy, in my case).

What is funny is... Inkscape has also that spiral shape feature... needed it badly recently for a design....and used it. It's funny that some of the most known packages do not have this...Was going to generate one manually (traditional technical drawing skills come handy) , then I remembered Inkscape has it.    When you come to think about it, the issue with that appp is the UI, the CMYK stuff (not so much now), and some consistency, as other than that, is another great app to have.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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12 minutes ago, SrPx said:

...When you come to think about it, the issue with that appp is the UI...

The best that can be said about the Inkscape UI (well, Scribus, GIMP...seems almost any graphics/layout application that is OpenSource), is that the UI is, well, unique. Less kind would be the UIs are like they have been designed by committee. Or, perhaps they just don't care!

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I do not deny that it is a useful function, especially for those who work in sportswear to create vintage graphics. I'd like to have her in AD, but I'm waiting. Deep down AD offers me so many things that other software don't have, especially a work logic that others badly implement.

AD allows you to draw by hand with a tablet or cintiq as if it were a paint software, it allows to merge vector and bit-map elements like no other.

I find it useful and decisive for many things ... that can be improved, updated, but his work philosophy meets and blends with mine, and that's why I chose it.

Even more so Designer compared to AP, Publisher is on the right track.

The fact that the three software blends so well with each other is again a fantastic and better assembled element than the competitors.

Of course Serif could be faster and punctual with updates or news, on the other hand they have a much more democratic price policy that respects the work of creatives ... they could grow and have more programmers, but often all this distances software houses from their audience and intent that moved them from the beginning. And we've seen this with so many other software houses.

We have been using Publisher for months, the end date has been moved, but we can use it anyway.

I am still a member of the CC but I use it less and less ... maybe a lot of hatred is not needed to solve.
It is better to know that it will be done compared to so many promises.

A suggestion, invest in a new resource when it covers more than fifty percent of your operational work needs.

This is simply my thought.

 

Ciao

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Most of those OpenSource apps have a longer lifetime history originating back to old Unix X11 times, so these evolved over long time mostly in terms of adding features/functionality but not that much in terms of overall UI (re)design.

As workarounds for vector based "Distortion, Warp, or Perspective distort" I use other third party apps for Win/Mac, since AD sadly doesn't support yet anything like that.

☛ 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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5 hours ago, carl123 said:

That's a bit like Brexit.

Edited by myself : I was going off topic, here.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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Hope based on what exactly? Serif is hiring new people again, but still no math wizards with coding skills for complex features. They are hiring for marketing and web:

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/careers/senior-web-application-engineer/

There is hope if you need the requested features around 2022 or later or if your time has no value. Serifs strategy is to milk the cow they have NOW. It is obvious. With small improvements along they way. We know that from their legacy range. Nothing changed.

Designer is advanced paint software and it will probably not evolve into much more.

  • "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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I think one very big problem (I've been guilty as well) is that these are such full featured, beautiful, fast and amazing programs to use that we get really passionate about them. Perhaps like rabid fans? lol j/k  but seriously, it's easy to forget that the Affinity Team isn't that big, compared to what? hundreds? thousands? of Adobe employees. That's why it's hard for them to be specific about everything and take more time than we think they should.. And we are such fans that we just can't wait! :D

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Listen. We are requesting missing basic vector editor features in a commercial program - not requesting feature parity with Illustrator. And all we get is fanboy apologists answering.

And exactly because Serif is a small company people are concerned that with too many products being developed - development will slow to a crawl.

Fans? Justin Bieber has fans. Serif has costumers. I am waiting for basic features for commercial work. I am not excited. I am just waiting.

Lets quote Serif:

  • "The Best Graphic Design Software Available"
  • "The complete graphic design solution"
  • "Pro Vector Illustration"
  • "Professional graphic design software"

Professional? Just look at the half- empty toolbar in Designer. If it could speak, it wouldn't say "LOOK at the professionel features", but more likely whisper "I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

Designer is advanced paint software and it will probably not evolve into much more.

  • "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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You have high expectations. Surely of the highest professional level. I am a freelancer, and have worked at a very high level at many companies, many areas. I know when a level of functionality and certain features are requested, or money is lost, one just don't wait a second (not years) to get the best of the best. In this case the most complete solution would be the highest Adobe subscription plan. I find it strange... Why don't you just go for  that solution, instead ? 50 bucks is not like the 700$ of Corel, which you could also get instead of Affinity. So... you actually do have other options. I don't get it. And reading your posts, obviously you are not staying around for your love for Serif....

Quote

Designer is advanced paint software and it will probably not evolve into much more.

BTW: I do professional work with BOTH Designer and Photo. They are BOTH great professional tools. Designer is not an advanced painting software -that would be Rebelle 3, Art Rage, Corel Painter, ProCreate- ; it's a different type of beast : A (very good) graphic design tool, and also great for vectorial illustration. Painting software is in a 99% in this world raster based software, like those I listed. Have you done many actual projects with Photo and Designer, or... are you.... waiting ?

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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21 minutes ago, SrPx said:

You have high expectations. Surely of the highest professional level. I am a freelancer, and have worked at a very high level in many companies, many areas. I know when a level of functionality and certain features are requested, or money is lost, one just don't wait a second (not years) to get the best of the best. In this case the most complete solution would be the highest Adobe subscription plan. I find it strange... Why don't you just go for  that solution, instead ? 50 bucks is not like the 700$ of Corel, which you could also get instead of Affinity. So... you actually do have other options. I don't get it.

It is not "high expectations". At. All. Let me repeat:  We are requesting missing basic vector editor features in a commercial "professional" program.

Of course I am on the Adobe subscription plan. How the Hell would I be able to work and deliver only using Designer?

The point could be - just could be - what would it take to move many Adobe or Corel users from that kind of expense and feature overkill to fx Affinity Designer. Perhaps something like a few features that you would expect in any professional vector design program. Photo is surprisingly feature packed. Designer is surprisingly ... not.

So, when Serifs marketing is allowed to claim that Designer is "The Best Graphic Design Software Available" - they have to deliver more and in an acceptable time frame. 

  • "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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Quote

Of course I am on the Adobe subscription plan. The point could be - just could be - what would it take to move many Adobe or Corel users from that kind of expense and feature overkill to fx Affinity Designer.

That's a very interesting debate. Overly optimistic as I am for most things, I wouldn't be on that one. That is, I don't believe the technical aspect is what really would have them make that move.  The issue is that the companies' pipelines are totally chained to Adobe for life. Is too much of an entangled net. I've been at some places that ended with me thinking... "wow, to re-build all these [interconnected pipelines, engines, etc, etc] with other suite, would take decades...."  . Plus, the market is like that snow ball rolling. The more clients it drags with it, the harder to stop. Everyone is expecting a fully featured PSD/AI/etc file editing by the professional, that will open great back in the latest CC, for example (so, yeah, imo those staying with CS6 are already a bit out). The issue is with the ton of plugins, actions, home made scripts linked to the native files, smart objects and etc. And lastly, the perception. I had an extreme hard time (and got to repeat it at every company, almost) to convince my bosses in several places to let me use Blender and Wings3D instead of using Max/Maya for the mid cage modeling. And convinced them with character modeling quality FOR MY SEAT. That did NOTHING for the rest of the company. One can't truly change that...IMO.

So, am guessing the Affinity path is for ever different. Is for those aspiring to a different take in a purchase system vs renting, and certain company style. With business reasons only, you can't beat Adobe (or Autodesk, for that matter) from the first place. But you can do, IMO a brilliant second. And that's a ton of income, in the entire world. 

Also, is already a jewel for freelancers, and small studios. The renting is a tough barrier for many, that have already replaced their video editor, animation package, the 3D app, and so on, for a cheap/mid cost purchase-only option (and in some specific cases, with an open source tool).

More  than... a number of features, what attracts pros, anyway, is if an app is effective in their everyday work, which require N features (not all). If has less features, but is a functional tool for their tasks and plate of food, there you have it. So I believe will vastly vary from one individual to the next one. And very strongly among different professional fields.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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11 hours ago, MikeW said:

The last thing people need is to not be able to produce their work because of a missing feature.

In this specific case, warping stuff, the aforementioned Inkscape can do the work and then port it to AD or whatever Serif application. Zero cost, unless one wants to donate to the project.

As you mentioned PS (would have been better to mention AI as it is correlative to AD and this is a thread about AD), Affinity Photo has warp capability, yes? So no need to subscribe to PS in this specific instance.

If I were a hobbyist, I would await the feature(s) being added if I was too cheap or couldn't afford a working application. But I'm not. If Affinity applications cannot do what I need, I simply opt for a working application. It's that simple.

If we all thought like this then no new company would ever rise up unless they had virtually limitless investment funding. I purchased the software to support the devs so they can hopefully get things done quicker. There is literally no point in this software if they don't pivot themselves as Adobe competitors. Obviously, that's exactly what their main goal is as they have released direct software competitors to Adobe software and marketed them in the same way. Every month that passes that they lack the most basic features is a detriment to their overall goal. If they keep up this strategy they will find out really quick why Adobe switched to a monthly subscription plan. $50 for software isn't going to pay the bills for very long. When Affinity first came out I was excited at what they had and what was coming. As time passes it just gets more disappointing seeing their chosen direction and very slow updates. GIMP is open source, it can't be that difficult to take open source features and give it your own UI and UX and perfect it how you see fit. GIMP has SO many more features and is free, while I'd rather support Affinity at this point, their lack of updates makes it very difficult and I've already gone back to Adobe for the time being. 

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12 hours ago, silent_knight said:

$50 for software isn't going to pay the bills for very long.

I would have problems to make that statement. Even 10$ per unit can make any company stupidly rich depending on how many copies (of apps, games, whatever) they sell.  AND Adobe has a ton more expenses to pay than Serif,  I'm pretty sure about that. Is the balance what counts. Also, the reasons behind why Adobe went with subscription are anything but simple.

12 hours ago, silent_knight said:

GIMP has SO many more features and is free

Really? Gimp ?  (plus, if "has many more features", I'm guessing than Photo, as is that type of product. The thread is about AD (and AI in the Adobe side). But I get it, we're speaking in general, late posts)  Like... Gimp is yet lacking entirely a CMYK mode ? Which is crucial for printing. Or.. Are we comparing UIs and efficient workflows, number of clicks, as professional factors ? 'Cause I certainly would !.....  And I don't follow with the list of what Photo has it so much better ironed than Gimp, as it'd destroy the lovely open source tool, and I deeply love Gimp and most open source solutions. But a tool must be most of all streamlined for fast and efficient work.  In this Affinity wins against the open source competitors by KO (and yes, I would LOVE open source tools to be better in that. I only make the exception with Blender and Wings. Those are already at very high level. ).

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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21 hours ago, SrPx said:

I would have problems to make that statement. Even 10$ per unit can make any company stupidly rich depending on how many copies (of apps, games, whatever) they sell.  AND Adobe has a ton more expenses to pay than Serif,  I'm pretty sure about that. Is the balance what counts. Also, the reasons behind why Adobe went with subscription are anything but simple.

Really? Gimp ?  (plus, if "has many more features", I'm guessing than Photo, as is that type of product. The thread is about AD (and AI in the Adobe side). But I get it, we're speaking in general, late posts)  Like... Gimp is yet lacking entirely a CMYK mode ? Which is crucial for printing. Or.. Are we comparing UIs and efficient workflows, number of clicks, as professional factors ? 'Cause I certainly would !.....  And I don't follow with the list of what Photo has it so much better ironed than Gimp, as it'd destroy the lovely open source tool, and I deeply love Gimp and most open source solutions. But a tool must be most of all streamlined for fast and efficient work.  In this Affinity wins against the open source competitors by KO (and yes, I would LOVE open source tools to be better in that. I only make the exception with Blender and Wings. Those are already at very high level. ).

$10 per sale can't make any company rich. $10,000 can't either. They have a very specific target market and constantly high development cost. Well, at this rate I can't be sure of their development cost, but that's beside the point. The longer the updates take, the more complaints they will receive on online forums and reviews on Reddit which have a huge outcome on their customer's purchasing decisions. They don't spend much on marketing from what I can tell (which can be good or bad) and their website looks really nice but does a HORRIBLE job of selling the products. There are dozens of more popular apps and software out there with comparable or cheaper cost. I did a few searches in the app store. While it sounds like I don't like them, I'm just giving constructive criticism. I bought both Designer and Photo and didn't want my money back so that says something. I actually REALLY like the software and would be a huge supporter and recommend it to a lot of people, but at the rate they're going it's difficult to maintain a steady sales flow and I can't be sure of their longevity. Perhaps that's where we're at right now as development seems pretty slow imo. Maybe I'm expecting too much. The thing is, if they don't address it quickly the main problem for them will be customer perception. If they plan on me or other people purchasing future software they really need to step it up. When you don't market much and don't utilize your website to sell your products you are going to heavily rely on word of mouth, the strongest type of advertisement. When those recommendations show a lot of people complaining and saying they support other software, that's not the type of advertising you want. They are definitely trying to pivot themselves directly with Adobe, which is great imo. I just hope we can get to version 2.0 sometime in the next 5 years. The current roadmap is very basic stuff that should already be here but instead, we have to wait for the basic stuff, then the more powerful features will hopefully, eventually come. People will move on by then and competitors will only get stronger. Here's to wishing Affinity the best and hoping they can speed up this development. It's a great platform, it just needs a few more powerful features. 

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An interesting implementation talk with samples about this theme (Github warp.js) with references ...

... see the following references:

Warping Text via Warp JS samples ...

For T-Shirt designers ...

For the C# coder ...

For those who love algorithms and higher math ...

☛ 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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  • 1 month later...
On 3/2/2019 at 9:26 PM, walt.farrell said:

They very seldom respond to suggestions. From another thread:

 

I registered to add my "vote" for this feature as well, and I have to comment, "favouritism" is a really, really WEIRD reason to not participate in an official community forum.

Compare this to the Procreate forums, where the developers are very forthcoming with feedback, even marking threads as considered/under development and so on.

Also, the McNeel forums (creators of Rhino) have staff answering questions literally every day (I have no idea how they have time/can afford that).

Edited by eobet
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