Arrowheads on Lines

[riw777]

Y'all --

 

I was hoping to switch off of CorelDraw to Affinity Designer -- but there are so... many... features... missing. One specific one that makes my life very difficult is the lack of arrowheads on simple lines. I don't do "graphic design" where I can use big, bold splashy arrows all over the place -- I do technical diagrams, and I need to "point" to things. Custom building an arrowhead using some technique or another for every line is impossible, and using a brush stroke that makes the line really wide is also a no-go.

 

When will this feature be available? 

[lepr]

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[riw777]

Hmmm... So the developers are focused in other areas rather than the windows application, which means the windows application is probably going to eventually die. I guess I should move back to Corel for a while, and recheck later to see if they've built a "complete" application, or if this is still around to try out when they have a few features. Thanks for the info.

[lepr]

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[riw777]

1 minute ago, owenr said:

 

I expect gradual improvement to Designer for all platforms for years to come. 

 

 

The problem is -- you can't attract users without at least some minimal set of features... I would be glad to recommend this to my friends, if it had enough of a feature set to be useful, but -- at this point, it doesn't. In the mean time, people are spending money and getting involved in other ecosystems, which makes it harder, over time, to switch back out of those ecosystems. This "slow improvement in features over a number of years" is actually little more than the slow road to being obsolete. It's sad, really, because it does seem like it's a decent, if not stellar, product, and it has potential. 

 

It's not competing against products in the same class that are also developing over many years; it's competing against fully built out, fully featured products. While Adobe is making people upset with their rather expensive subscription -- there are many other options out there.

[lepr]

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[jjfeenix]

I love Affinity Designer, but I really need custom line ends also. Please work on this soon.

 

Thanks

[Mr. K]

I've been asking for this for years. I keep hearing they are coming. I couldn't wait. I love AD, but without arrowheads, it's pretty much useless to me as a technical illustrator. There are workarounds, but the one I found easiest is to make my drawings in Vectorworks, which is my CAD app.

 

Publisher is coming....

DAM is coming...

 

In the meantime, I keep getting older and I have found other ways to do these things that I wish Affinity would do, but I can't wait years and years.

[SrPx]

I typically use a bunch of tools for any project....I have seen it not so much as a "this or that" case, mostly a case of using a different software apps for different stages of each project....Maybe I'm alone in this (too).

[Jan Gaare]

how hard is it to make a line ending as an arrow, come on.... tiny upgrade please

[Ian R]

+1 million for arrow heads on lines please. Muchly...

 

Very much so.

 

It would be a basic feature that would mean we would recommend this software even more than we do so already.

 

Arrow heads.

 

Please. thanks.

[Pšenda]

 

[Mithferion]

Spreading the joy, don't mind ME that much:

Best regards!

[Tadhg]

I find the lack of line endings like arrowheads astonishing.  In fact, for certain kinds of simple drawings for presentations etc, Serif's DrawPlus 8 is far superior. Unfortunately I have changed from PC to Mac but when I want to do quick drawings  I revert back to an old PC and DrawPlus. Affinity Designer is quite good but certainly not as cohesive and elegant as DrawPlus when it comes to putting a quick drawing together. It strikes me that with Designer there was greater clarity of purpose and perhaps restriction to fewer designers/software developers. 

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, Tadhg said:

I find the lack of line endings like arrowheads astonishing.

Arrowheads have been added for version 1.7. You can try them out in the latest beta build.

[Tadhg]

On 4/11/2019 at 10:45 AM, Alfred said:

Arrowheads have been added for version 1.7. You can try them out in the latest beta build.

My Affinity Designer did not alert me to a new 1.7. version. Can you advise me on the procedure to upgrade to this latest version? Regards

[Alfred]

48 minutes ago, Tadhg said:

My Affinity Designer did not alert me to a new 1.7. version.

No, it wouldn’t do. Version 1.7 hasn’t been released to retail yet.

On 4/11/2019 at 10:45 AM, Alfred said:

Arrowheads have been added for version 1.7. You can try them out in the latest beta build.

Designer Beta on Mac

Designer Beta on Windows

View the pinned thread at the top of the appropriate forum section (Mac or Windows) to access the download link.

[Tadhg]

Many Thanks

 

[Tadhg]

Hello Alfred

I downloaded the Beta Version and as you said you can have arrowheads etc on the ends of lines. However if you then insert a shape, Designer will try to add arrowheads to that shape including circles unless of course you reset to no endpoints on the stroke tabs. This is disappointing because if you select a circle, rectangle, triangle etc you obviously don't want arrowheads on these shapes and the software should recognise this. This may seem a small thing, in one way, but it is indicative of a piecemeal approach to the development of this software and typifies the "rat's nest" approach to writing code ie making changes to one function without realising the impact it has elsewhere. I find this disturbing and indicative of not enough work done at the very earliest stage of the software development. 

This is why I have the sense that Affinity Designer somehow lacks the coherence of Serif's DrawPlus software and why I suspect the design team or philosophy for Affinity has changed and not for the best. I still like many features of Affinity Designer but, at the moment,  I am looking for a quick, smart and simple drawing package to supplement it.

[Alfred]

12 minutes ago, Tadhg said:

if you select a circle, rectangle, triangle etc you obviously don't want arrowheads on these shapes

{snip}

I have the sense that Affinity Designer somehow lacks the coherence of Serif's DrawPlus software

The user may well want arrowheads in circles or other closed shapes! Both AD and DP allow you to control the behaviour by choosing whether or not to synchronize defaults.

[Tadhg]

Defaults make sense of course. In DrawPlus if you set up specific line ends then that becomes the default for lines until you change it. And in DrawPlus that default is clearly displayed in the context ribbon. However it really does not make sense to make line endings the default for all shapes. Let's be realistic. When I raise these issues, I am not taking potshots at Affinity but genuinely pointing out areas which slow down the process of drawing and are irritating. I have always had great admiration for Serif software and used their Drawing, Photo, Publishing and WEB software extensively for many years. I am concerned that they have lost something along the way but hopeful that they will find remedies for obvious omissions. The "arrowheads" is not the only issue that bothers me. I do get the sense that you are somewhat defensive about affinity. Perhaps I'm wrong. Regards

[Alfred]

7 hours ago, Tadhg said:

I do get the sense that you are somewhat defensive about affinity. Perhaps I'm wrong.

I’m not at all defensive about the Affinity apps. I think there’s plenty of room for improvement (e.g. to address the deficiencies of ‘Expand Stroke’) and the addition of missing features such as blend, envelope and knife tools.

[Tadhg]

21 hours ago, Alfred said:

I’m not at all defensive about the Affinity apps. I think there’s plenty of room for improvement (e.g. to address the deficiencies of ‘Expand Stroke’) and the addition of missing features such as blend, envelope and knife tools.

Fair enough. I agree with the deficiencies you point out. I am left wondering, however, if Serif can sort some of these issues satisfactorally. Fixing things in software after it has been developed and launched is expensive and not always successful. This is not like adding new features, it's really trying to change the the basic package features and as I mentioned previously this can have unexpected repercussions on other aspects of the design. As it stands Serif are in beta mode with their publisher and there was some talk about them developing a DAM package. Have they taken on too much, too fast?

[SrPx]

Nah, they're completely fine. Adobe went through rougher corners back in the day. And most others too, people just don't know/remember.

Plus, I see a ton of more advances than mistakes, their apps are extremely useful and versatile, for a ridiculous price. So, nope, can't see the "taking too much" issue. You can't either be super shy or ambition-less when carrying a business. 

[SrPx]

Right now am remembering the entire whole history of Autodesk's 3DS Studio versions, from MS-DOS era (it was another company first), and till Max version 7.0 (when I stopped working as a game artist to move to design/illustration/the web). Plagued with bugs and crashes, it was a way, way worse state of things compared to Affinity. And you know what? At the job(s) we loved it. We learnt to avoid the never solved bugs (think it this way: I felt proud to have learnt to avoid such a number of situations, that I was able to run some very complex/heavy projects in a 10-12 hours of day work without crashes. That was quite something!), or just dig at some cgtalk / cgchat deep forum thread to find some brilliant pro discovering a trick to avoid the issue until the dev team would fix it (some would last like 5 entire numbers of versions .,...3.0, 4.0, 5.0... ). And we loved it as it DID allow us to create amazing projects and business. For many years. I was never in the boat of Maya vs Max, is stupid, as both were/are amazing. Happens with some many things like that.

Today, just pick any starting new line. Not starting business, as Serif is old. But an entire new product or product line. Is completely normal to find  obstacles and lack of polish in the starting years. 

So, if they need to pause some feature, or an entire project, so be it. Some people are not really assigning the value that this suite has, judging some threads am reading lately. But facts will impose, these apps are really useful and well priced (at this price and versatility, there's no real competitor). The mass will "vote", nothing will stop that.