Affinity Designer Customer Beta - 1.6.5.109

[rubs]

In the latest beta (I never noticed it before), pressing Esc in the Text Height field in the context toolbar does not take you back to the working area. The control goes blank instead. Pressing Esc again brings the current value back, and so on. Please take a look at this -- thanks.

 

[andre luiz]

Instalei mais não consigo usar, esta travando muito!

[John at Esscont]

I have installed the new Beta - with mixed reactions. 

The interface is clear and much less cluttered than your rivals, but I think that your 'out of the box' defaults could be much improved.

I do not know whether your remarks about the public version explain my problems with it.  It launched and ran as expected, after I had clicked the '10 day trial' box.  It took a while to find the way to switch from dark theme to light - perhaps you could have a setup phase in first use.

But I could find no way to make pressure vary the brush line thickness.  The 'more' tab seemed promising, but gave no way to vary what was drawn.  Then I set the mode to 'velocity' instead - still the line thicknesss was constant, although the width variation slider was at maximum.

Windows Ink has given an expectation that pressure will show immediate results.  Many applications include a 'calibration' stage for pressure, which shows the user that pressure is actually being seen.  Gimp has an 'inputs' option to select the signal sources.  Unfortunately Serif Drawplus does not, causing the paper to slide about because of touch signals - other wise it would be a contender.

There is a bug in the pressure profile setting in the 'stroke' pane, where the left and right ends lock together - fortunately a linear preset can be chosen, but pressure still has no effect!

I will now download your production version and choose the 10 day trial, to see if the version is the problem.

My designer wife has followed Corel Draw ever since Corel 1.1, spending a total of some thousands of dollars.  Corel 5 was simple and useful, but included and then abandoned Ventura page design.  Corel 8 was a good standard, leading on to Corel 13.  But then came Windows 10 which killed off all versions before Corel 17.  The prospect of spending $800 to add Corel to her new machine ruled it out of contention!

Fingers crossed!

John

PS This is not my main email address, but supports a book on control theory - see www.esscont.com

 

 

[Alfred]

21 minutes ago, John at Esscont said:

Gimp has an 'inputs' option to select the signal sources.  Unfortunately Serif Drawplus does not, causing the paper to slide about because of touch signals - other wise it would be a contender.

 

It looks as though you may have missed this in my reply to your earlier post:

 

11 hours ago, Alfred said:

You can use DrawPlus on a touch-enabled screen if you disable the scrollbars. There is an options setting for this, probably somewhere like ‘Tools > Options... > User Interface’.

 

As usual, my memory was playing tricks on me! I’ve just checked on my Windows system: the option you need to disable is ‘Display Scrollbars’, which you’ll find under ‘Tools > Options... > Layout > Display’.

[andre luiz]

Não estou conseguindo usar esta versão, esta travando congelando.

 

[Chris J]

Olá, qual é o número de referência da falha?

[VectorWhiz]

The 'Lock Children' function that probably has been there in previous versions and the 'Replace Image' function that I've never noticed before are brilliant. With each upgrade the yen for competing programs diminishes. Excellent progress in AD.

[rubs]

13 hours ago, John at Esscont said:

But then came Windows 10 which killed off all versions before Corel 17.  The prospect of spending $800 to add Corel to her new machine ruled it out of contention!

 

My company and I use CorelDRAW 15 (X5) on Windows 10. I remember we had to do some hacks to make the menus visible, but that was about it.

[MikeW]

20 hours ago, John at Esscont said:

...

My designer wife has followed Corel Draw ever since Corel 1.1, spending a total of some thousands of dollars.  Corel 5 was simple and useful, but included and then abandoned Ventura page design.  Corel 8 was a good standard, leading on to Corel 13.  But then came Windows 10 which killed off all versions before Corel 17.  The prospect of spending $800 to add Corel to her new machine ruled it out of contention...

 

I also began with CD at v.1.

 

I do believe one can simply upgrade CD from any previous version except educational, OEM and NFR versions. The price, in the USA, is $199.

 

Ventura lived on until 2002 or so and was version 10. True, it was a separate application purchase with version 10 if I recall properly. I believe version 8 still included it with CD. I still use CVP once in a while to update client work. It's installed here on Windows 10.

 

I use to have X4 on this Windows 10 laptop. All but version 2017 are now removed as i don't need to use them for client compatibility as they all have finally upgraded. Version 2018 has added some nice features.

[Uncle Mez]

Hello 

I've decided to give affinity designer beta a try tomorrow. 

Is the blend tool,  pages and few more we have read and expect to test at this stage already implemented or it's only about fixed issues for now? 

Thanks for you answers. 

 

Serif you rocks! 

[MikeW]

The current beta is the same as the retail version plus any listed fixes and/or changes and/or features listed in these posts of Mark's since the last retail version. 

[John at Esscont]

On 16/05/2018 at 8:15 AM, αℓƒяє∂ said:

 

It looks as though you may have missed this in my reply to your earlier post:

 

 

As usual, my memory was playing tricks on me! I’ve just checked on my Windows system: the option you need to disable is ‘Display Scrollbars’, which you’ll find under ‘Tools > Options... > Layout > Display’.

That worked as far as the dancing paper is concerned.  But now another problem raises its head.  The 'auto-fill' seems to be activated sporadically, so that sometimes the stroke is as it should be, sometimes it is weirdly filled.  A possibility is that the wireless keyboard is sending odd unrequested characters.

I'll keep struggling!

[John at Esscont]

Still struggling!

I downloaded a ten-day trial to see if the beta version was the problem -  no difference.  The line-thickness does not change with pressure, even when a brush with pressure is selected.  Using the 'more' tab to change to velocity still gives a constant thickness.  Maybe there is some different setting that I should choose, in which case the problem would be with the documentation and the user interface.  In either case, something should be fixed if you ever want to sell to anyone with a Surface Studio.  Having lashed out a heap of cash for her new machine my designer wife is looking for perfection!

 

[Chris J]

Hi John,

 

You can click the 'Force pressure to control size' button on the context toolbar - to the right of 'More' to set the pressure. Alternatively, you can alter a particular brush dynamic by clicking the 'More' button and bringing up the brush dialog; Switch to the 'Dynamics' tab and increase the 'Size Jitter' (I chose 50% pressure).

 

Regards

Chris

[John at Esscont]

Chris J

I cannot see any 'force...' button to the right of 'more'!

In the 'more' dialogue there is no sign of pressure.  Affinity just does not seem to see the pressure on a Surface Studio!

Cheers

John

 

[Chris J]

Vector Brush Pressure:

Raster Brush Pressure:

Raster Brush More Dialog:

[rubs]

On 5/15/2018 at 8:41 AM, rubs said:

In the latest beta (I never noticed it before), pressing Esc in the Text Height field in the context toolbar does not take you back to the working area. The control goes blank instead. Pressing Esc again brings the current value back, and so on. Please take a look at this -- thanks.

This is a really annoying bug. Will you fix this for the next beta? Please?

[John at Esscont]

Chris J

Very many thanks - your first image worked the trick.  Not the brush stoke, but the ringed menu item.  That had not appeared on my screen!  So a close inspection showed me the >> and that brought it up!  With only one or two days left of the trial, Ros has renewed enthusiasm to try it out.

But I would strongly encourage you to put that control inside 'more'.  There is a lready a control there to choose 'velocity' 'pressure' or 'none', but with that hidden control inactive they have no effect at all.  Put the controls where the new user cannot help tripping over them!

As a product it is excellent, simple and clear without the clutter of its rivals, having may features in common with DrawPlus but avoiding the pitfalls like the default brush.

Cheers and thanks again

John

 

 

[John at Esscont]

Chris J

As soon as I had finished typing all that, there was a wail of anguish!

The context menu had vanished, the 'studio' had vanished and not much seemed to be possible.

Ros had objected to the 'studio' taking up so much of the screen, she also had wanted to move the tools.  So in 'view' she had ticked or unticked everything in sight!

Some groping around brought it all back.

I strongly recommend a 'dock it' button on the studio, rather than just ctrl-shift-H.  At least let it be shrunk to be unobtrusive.  With the correct default brush, most can be achived within the 'more' tab, clicking on the colour icon to bring up the colour menu as at present.

You might consider an option at startup to load a set of preset options from a choice of 'beginner', 'simple', 'bright', 'expert' and such.  Remeber that your product is targeted at artists, not nerds.

Cheers

John

 

[Chris J]

@John at Esscont Excellent! Glad to have helped John. The Surface Studio is an excellent piece of kit and Affinity looks great on it. I hope you and your wife enjoy it for many years to come . I've taken note of your suggestions and feedback, so thanks for that too.

 

@rubs I have checked in a fix for that, thanks for reporting. It will be picked up in the next build.

[John at Esscont]

The only deficiency that I see is the lack of a tracing feature to turn a bitmap into a genuine vector state, rather than vector with embedded bitmap.

But maybe I have again missed something!

Cheers

John

 

[Mark Ingram]

6 minutes ago, John at Esscont said:

The only deficiency that I see is the lack of a tracing feature to turn a bitmap into a genuine vector state, rather than vector with embedded bitmap.

But maybe I have again missed something!

Cheers

John

 

Hi, we don't have a tracing feature, most people will trace an outline of a bitmap with the pen tool to produce vector curves.

[Alfred]

6 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

Hi, we don't have a tracing feature, most people will trace an outline of a bitmap with the pen tool to produce vector curves.

@TonyB posted something about plans to add an auto-trace feature eventually, but only when you’re happy with the output quality. Is that still on the cards?

[andre luiz]

Please help me, I'm trying to install the beta, but the error appears in the image, and my windows final aversion nor accept.

[rubs]

9 hours ago, Chris J said:

 

@rubs I have checked in a fix for that, thanks for reporting. It will be picked up in the next build.

Great, thanks for the info.