Progress with the Affinity Designer feature road map (split)

[waveman777 29]

4 years later... Adobe Illustrator is winning all the way.

[ErrkaPetti 65]

1 hour ago, waveman777 said:

4 years later... Adobe Illustrator is winning all the way.

I don’t think it’s about winning or not for Affinity Designer...

If you wants a nice graphic application that do both vector and pixel manipulation, AND, don’t want a monthly subscription, go for AD!

But, if you super Pro and have high demands, together with less time doing finishing work, go for Adobe...

I think Affinitys one million paid customer is pretty satisfied eith their products... 

[waveman777 29]

12 minutes ago, ErrkaPetti said:

I think Affinitys one million paid customer is pretty satisfied eith their products... 

I paid for it over 4 years ago, when updates were rolling out all the time. I'm still unable to switch from Illustrator, because some AD solutions are making the workflow painfully slow. 

Right now I'm trying to figure out, why using a shortcut twice makes it switch to a previously used one... Whose crazy idea was that?? In illustrator, no matter how many times I click "T" tool, it's still I Text Tool, in AD, "T" can become anything, depending on what was used next, so I have to be careful all the time not to accidentally press it twice, as I'm using shortcuts constantly and switching between them. In Illustrator - I don't think about it ever, a shortcut is a shortcut! to one particular tool! AD drives me crazy.

And I'm also unable to use Undo > Redo history, because when going 10 steps back, I need to be very careful not to select any object with a mouse, because if I do, all Redo history is gone, as AD is counting object selection as an action. Another crazy idea that makes the workflow a pain. 

AD is good, for beginners, who have plenty time to play with it. If you're in a hurry and want to finish something fast, it not always the best solution. 

[ErrkaPetti 65]

2 hours ago, waveman777 said:

I paid for it over 4 years ago, when updates were rolling out all the time. I'm still unable to switch from Illustrator, because some AD solutions are making the workflow painfully slow. 

Right now I'm trying to figure out, why using a shortcut twice makes it switch to a previously used one... Whose crazy idea was that?? In illustrator, no matter how many times I click "T" tool, it's still I Text Tool, in AD, "T" can become anything, depending on what was used next, so I have to be careful all the time not to accidentally press it twice, as I'm using shortcuts constantly and switching between them. In Illustrator - I don't think about it ever, a shortcut is a shortcut! to one particular tool! AD drives me crazy.

And I'm also unable to use Undo > Redo history, because when going 10 steps back, I need to be very careful not to select any object with a mouse, because if I do, all Redo history is gone, as AD is counting object selection as an action. Another crazy idea that makes the workflow a pain. 

AD is good, for beginners, who have plenty time to play with it. If you're in a hurry and want to finish something fast, it not always the best solution. 

As I said in last sentence it’s exactly what you say in last sentence...

You paid 49 bucks for AD for four years ago, and you still are angry for the programs shortcomings...

For me, and several others, AD is enough... And with the new Affinity Designer for iPad, I’ve got a new dear friend!

[R C-R 3,066]

3 hours ago, waveman777 said:

And I'm also unable to use Undo > Redo history, because when going 10 steps back, I need to be very careful not to select any object with a mouse ...

If you use the snapshot feature, you can avoid that issue, plus you can make a new document from any saved snapshot at any time.

Almost all keyboard shortcuts can be customized, including the two for art & frame text, although the toggle between the Node or Move tools & the last tool used cannot be disabled. If you get used to how that toggle works, it can be very useful, but users are divided on that.

[waveman777 29]

23 minutes ago, R C-R said:

the toggle between the Node or Move tools & the last tool used cannot be disabled

But it should. This is one of the biggest pain for users trying to switch to AD from different software. 

Is there any scenario that you have in mind where this would come handy? 

I think being able to disable it should solve the problem and would make everyone happy. 

[R C-R 3,066]

3 minutes ago, waveman777 said:

This is one of the biggest pain for users trying to switch to AD from different software. 

It took me about 10 minutes to get used to the toggle, & I am an old man who has been using graphics software for around 40 years. I doubt I am the only one who adapted to it fairly easily or finds it handy. For example, I sometimes toggle between the Move Tool & one of the shape tools that does not have an assigned keyboard shortcut, which saves a trip to the Tools panel when I want to select & move, resize, rotate or shear a previously created object & then continue creating new shapes.

15 minutes ago, waveman777 said:

I think being able to disable it should solve the problem and would make everyone happy. 

That has been mentioned before in the feature request forum by a few users, mostly by those new to the Affinity apps (or at least new to these forums). Maybe find one of those topics & add your support for that there. The developers says they consider all feature requests & one of the several things they consider is how many users request any particular one.

[J a n 3]

I have both programs (Designer and Photo) for some time. Changes in the new versions are very small and incredibly slow. Both programs are very nice, but... Unfortunately, Illustrator and Photoshop are miles away, it's a different world. Publisher will certainly be interesting software. But I would greatly welcome the progress with Designer and Photo.

Sometimes I'm very frustrated at Affinity. I wonder how many of us have returned to Adobe.

I'm still working with Affinity. But how long?

[GRScott 190]

I have to agree with you Jan. As I have said earlier, it seems, all of their work has gone toward the iPad version of AD and I would guess their next release: Publisher. I find it funny because I sit and watch all of the requests for updates and fixes, but nothing is happening. I wonder if they have too many irons in the fire for their workforce? They do have a  good product for the price. but there is still a lot to accomplish for the people they are trying to reach. 

[J a n 3]

Funny, in the past 10 minutes my Affinity Photo has twice crashed. It's not a pc bug, I have really a good computer.
Designer and Photo for iPad are great ideas. But Designer and Photo were offered as a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator. Not like apps on tablets It was my fault that I believed it.

[R C-R 3,066]

59 minutes ago, GRScott said:

I find it funny because I sit and watch all of the requests for updates and fixes, but nothing is happening.

I find it funny that there have been more feature requests since the apps were released than I can count, & even ones that are well outside the scope of either app are often referred to as "must haves" or "deal breakers." Everybody has a list of features they would love to see added ASAP, myself included, but everybody's list is different. Many of them would require extensive rewrites to the core code and/or compromising one or more features that sets Affinity apart from the competition, so it isn't as simple to accommodate even a fraction of all those requests as many users seem to think (particularly considering the single native file format across all the Affinity apps that to my knowledge no other company, Adobe included, has ever even attempted).

47 minutes ago, J a n said:

But Designer and Photo were offered as a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator.

Nope. Serif has never claimed that, only that they are alternatives to the Adobe & other graphics apps. 

Edited August 3, 2018 by R C-R
fixed typo

[J a n 3]

On 4. 8. 2018 at 1:10 AM, R C-R said:

Nope. Serif has never claimed that, only that they are alternatives to the Adobe & other graphics apps. 

I agree, this is possible. I've read many reviews before buying Affinity. In my native language and of course in English. Many "journalists" have written that Affinity can replace Photoshop and Illustrator. It was tempting. Nowhere have I read a note from Affinity that it is not a substitute. Finally, you yourself wrote that it is an alternative to Photoshop and Illustrator. Both programs look very nice, professional. But almost immediately you will find that it is not a real alternative. Many very important features are missing, stability is very poor.

Example: You need some minor improvements, write to the forum. The moderator writes, thanks, we'll solve it right away. Three years are gone and no change. The same thing when you find a bug.

I very much believed Affinity and recommended it to friends and many people. But now I'm afraid Affinity will not be an ideal alternative to Adobe. Everywhere is just an iPad, iPad and iPad. Have you ever seen a professional who works only with iPad?

[ErrkaPetti 65]

33 minutes ago, J a n said:

I agree, this is possible. I've read many reviews before buying Affinity. In my native language and of course in English. Many "journalists" have written that Affinity can replace Photoshop and Illustrator. It was tempting. Nowhere have I read a note from Affinity that it is not a substitute. Finally, you yourself wrote that it is an alternative to Photoshop and Illustrator. Both programs look very nice, professional. But almost immediately you will find that it is not a real alternative. Many very important features are missing, stability is very poor.

Example: You need some minor improvements, write to the forum. The moderator writes, thanks, we'll solve it right away. Three years are gone and no change. The same thing when you find a bug.

I very much believed Affinity and recommended it to friends and many people. But now I'm afraid Affinity will not be an ideal alternative to Adobe. Everywhere is just an iPad, iPad and iPad. Have you ever seen a professional who works only with iPad?

Just to comment on the last sentence:

Affinity Designer/Photo on the newest big iPad Pro with Apple Pencil is really amazing to use!

Especially Designer is stable as hell!

Why couldn’t Pros go iPad? It’s all about imagination and talent behavior that can make wonder, on both Mac/Windows or iPad!

This falls new iPad will get even more powerful and perhaps ligher in weight, so mobility will be awesome!

The future still looks bright for Affinity... 

[R C-R 3,066]

3 minutes ago, J a n said:

Nowhere have I read a note from Affinity that it is not a substitute.

Where have you read anything from Serif or the Affinity support people that claim the Affinity apps are a substitute for any Adobe products? I don't know about your native language but in English, "alternative" just means one of two or more available possibilities. It does not have the same meaning as "substitute," which means one thing is a replacement for another.

If you have read more than a few posts from the staff, surely you have noticed they freely & frequently admit that the Adobe apps can do many things the Affinity ones cannot, & that it may be months or years (if ever) before the Affinity apps have features comparable to some of those available in Adobe (or a few other) apps now.

This should not be much of surprise if you consider that Photoshop was created 30 years ago (& not by Adobe, who bought it) & has been in development ever since then. Similarly, the development of Illustrator began in 1985, & is now in its 22nd version. Contrast that with how long the Affinity apps have been in development, & that they have been built on an entirely new-from-the-ground-up modern code base designed to do things both "under the hood" & in the UI differently from existing apps that still rely on inefficient, resource eating legacy code for many features, & have not even used the same file format throughout their long development histories or the complete product line.

So yeah, there are still bugs & missing features, & they are not all going to be fixed or added as quickly as anyone, including the Affinity staff & developers, would like. Nobody is disputing that. I just don't see how anyone could reasonably expect it to be any different, at least if they know anything much about what they are trying to do or how hard that is.

[AffinityJules 198]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

This should not be much of surprise if you consider that Photoshop was created 30 years ago (& not by Adobe, who bought it) & has been in development ever since then.

Exactly. How easy people seem to forget this fact and then expect Affinity products to mimic Adobe's on release despite the years that span the two software companies. It takes decades to develop programs fully, and even then it doesn't stop there. Always there exists room for improvement.  

[JET_Affinity 380]

Quote

I'm still unable to switch from Illustrator...

So who says you have to "switch"?

If there were things I absolutely had to be able to do that I simply could not do without Illustrator, then  obviously, I would have to use Illustrator for those things. There aren't, and I don't. But even if there were, how does that preclude my using Affinity, Canvas, Draw, DrawPlus, Gravit, Inkscape, Xara Designer for many (or even most) other things? (It doesn't, and I do.)

The way so many people in the vector drawing segment talk, one would think there is some law that you can only use one drawing program. If there is, I've been breaking that law since the beginning of the "desktop graphics revolution."

It's not so much that way in other graphics software genres. Drafters, game developers, video producers, photographers--you name it--commonly use multiple programs and routinely switch between them, even sometimes within a given project.

Illustrator has a few features unique to it. But that's just as  true of all the others. I quit paying for Adobe apps as soon as the rental-only license scheme was announced. The money I was  paying for Adobe software until version CS6 pays for most of the other graphics software I use.

Illustrator has been around since the mid 80s, and it still fails to provide dimension tools, user-defined drawing scale, support for full multi operator expressions in value fields, proper shape primitives (what is more basic than that?), connector objects, a full-featured find and replace, axonometric grids, hairline stroke weight, and much more. Evidently, that didn't keep many of its users from "switching" to it in search of the mythical "do it all" program.

I'm sorry, but those with this oft-repeated "I still can't switch" complaint are simply habituated to Illustrator's convoluted, confused, scattered, cluttered interface; and not just to its abilities, but also to its limitations. Logically, it makes about as much sense as would my complaining that I can't "switch" from my table saw to my jig saw.

I can't "switch" from my dualsport motorcycle to my trials bike. Heck, I can't even bring myself to "switch" between my two trials bikes (one a 2-stroke; the other a 4-stroke).

In the drawer next to me, I have these ostensibly "do it all" multi-tools:

• The original Leatherman (the one with the full-size pliers)
• A Leatherman Juice (a more compact one with pliers)
• A Leatherman Micra (more compact still, but has a really good scissor)
• A Victorinox Sailor (even has a splicing fid!)
• An early Craftsman (has a hex bit socket)

… and others.

I sometimes prefer one over the others, depending on whether I'm on the dualsport, the trials bike, the sailboat, or just fiddling around the house. But the one by far most often in my pocket is hardly the one most "fully equipped": A pretty standard medium size Victorinox, because it has the all-important (to me) T-handle Philips, pliers (albeit tiny), and tweezers; and because it doesn't have a stupid, useless corkscrew.

But be it shop tools, motorcycles, pocket knives, or drawing software, if I suddenly had to rent any one of them to keep using it, it would be gone in short order. And I'd do just fine without it.

JET

[R C-R 3,066]

1 minute ago, AffinityJules said:

Always there exists room for improvement.  

More than a few people have said they already consider the Affinity apps improvements over the Adobe ones, even considering the disparity in their feature sets. The reasons mentioned are as diverse as the user base, including such things as the shared file format across the product line, a less cluttered UI made possible by the Persona concept, better resource utilization & ability to handle larger file sizes than Photoshop can, faster live previews & panning/zooming, less reliance on modal dialogs, far better customer support, & of course freedom from an enforced subscription model that gives the user no control over how much they have to pay to keep using the product.

Obviously, not everyone feels the same way about all of that, but that is the point -- no product can be all things to all people, so everyone needs to decide for themselves which one(s) best fit their needs.

[JET_Affinity 380]

Quote

...everyone needs to decide for themselves which one(s) best fit their needs...

One little character says so much.

Mission-critical dependency on a single tool is self-defeating folly, especially in something as volatile as graphics software. Heck, I still have six different airbrushes I used every day before Macs and graphics software.

JET

 

[R C-R 3,066]

43 minutes ago, JET_Affinity said:

One little character says so much.

Technically, it is three, but who's counting. 

[Vaaish 4]

I don't post much on these forums but I do regularly follow the discussions and check out what's happening with the roadmaps and betas. A bit of context before I continue. I've practiced as a graphic designer specializing in branding and web for the last 10+ years and used Adobe products for as long as I can remember. I stopped upgrading once Adobe released CC because I saw no reason to upgrade from CS6. Last year I started a comprehensive review of all my tools and workflow to see if there was a "better" option out there. Eventually I settled on Figma for UI and prototyping and started looking seriously at Affinity.

Overall I've been impressed with Photo. For my workflow, there's really nothing it can't handle and there's some nice functional options with snapping controls, exporting and handling of vector objects that I don't get with CS6. Where things fall apart is team integration with agency work where I have to deliver PSDs. Photo does an admirable job of importing and exporting PSD's but unfortunately we can't export a PSD with editable type. So... that is a hard stop that adds an extra step of adding type in CS6. 

I also purchased Designer recently because I was fed up with the travesty that snapping is in AI CS6 and the lack of an updated pantone book. Again there are wonderful features that aid my workflow with how Designer deals with clipping masks, symbols, grids, and snapping. For most of my work, Designer functions quite well but sadly it feels less intuitive and polished than Photo. There were definitely some hurdles with how Affinity deals with open paths and joining paths, but primarily, file delivery is a problem. I need to be able to deliver files that can be easily edited using the Adobe suite and that's proven... difficult with Designer. EPS has it's limitations and it also seems that Adobe cheats by embedding a full AI inside the EPS that it actually loads when you open an EPS generated by AI. SVG is the only other real option here as PDF also has issues. It seems that there are other odd limitations, for example setting strokes to anything other than centered expands the stroke and getting gradients to open as vectors took some effort. That partly opens the door to pulling the illustrations into AI to export but does require an extra step of adjusting the design to make sure it functions correctly for handoff.

So, what does that have to do with this thread? Well, in a vacuum, Affinity functions well for my needs and significantly improves my workflow but once I have to deal with file handoff Affinity adds inefficiency to my workflow. Roadmap wise, things are a bit murky and the timeline is undefined with the further complication of support for the new iPad versions and the upcoming Publisher. Unfortunately that means I can't expect any change in the foreseeable future and Photo and Designer, while capable of professional level work, just can't play ball as part of a team that 99% controlled by Adobe. Give me the ability to seamlessly handoff files and we're golden until then, Adobe wins. 

e: I'm still planning to use Photo and Designer for non agency work, because it meets all the needs I've had and significantly boosts my workflow efficiency but it's definitely not a one stop solution. 

[bighache 6]

1 hour ago, Vaaish said:

<snip>Give me the ability to seamlessly handoff files and we're golden until then, Adobe wins. <snip>

I've been using Adobe products for over 20 years and I concur with this assessment.

Now I do think it's absolutely fair to say Affinity never advertised replacements for PS and AI. At the same time I would ask: if I have PS and AI why would I need to buy Designer and Photo? Well I wouldn't. That's why I think it is fair to say if you're looking at Designer or Photo it's to replace Adobe products or buy in lieu of.

I use Designer and Photo at home for personal, non-commercial work. Because I'm in a vacuum these meet 80-90% of my needs. That 10-20% just becomes stuff I live without or find a workaround for. Because of file compatibility I wouldn't be able to use these professionally, necessarily. I guess that depends on what the overall goal is and brings us back to... road map.

Am I satisfied with Affinity's products? 80-90%.

[VIPStephan 307]

On 8/3/2018 at 11:38 PM, waveman777 said:

This is one of the biggest pain for users trying to switch to AD from different software. 

The thing is that every switch between some programs will also include a mandatory change in habits and workflows, there is no way around that. If you can’t adapt then keep on using whatever you are more happy with. Not every user interface/workflow fits everyone.

Funnily, I have a direct comparison with a very similar development in music notation/scoring software. I’ve been using the “dinosaur” Finale for more than ten years to create music layouts and had various issues with how this program makes me do things to achieve what I want (i. e. the workflow). Then I learned that there is going to be a new player in town, which is now known as Dorico, and how it does things very differently than Finale. It doesn’t yet do everything that Finale does and the workflow is different but just knowing that the development is more active for Dorico than for Finale and how the different workflow makes it so much more fun to work in it, I can’t complain that it’s not as mature as the older programs.

On 8/4/2018 at 12:34 AM, J a n said:

I have both programs (Designer and Photo) for some time. Changes in the new versions are very small and incredibly slow. Both programs are very nice, but... Unfortunately, Illustrator and Photoshop are miles away, it's a different world. Publisher will certainly be interesting software. But I would greatly welcome the progress with Designer and Photo.

The fact that all three programs will support each other’s files (I’m already including Affinity Publisher here) lets me conclude that whenever there is an update in one there will also be updates in the other two. So, the fact that updates have been slow recently just makes me think that when the next one comes it will be even bigger and for all programs. And I dare you to find another suite of programs in the same league that has more updates.

23 hours ago, J a n said:

Many "journalists" have written that Affinity can replace Photoshop and Illustrator. It was tempting. Nowhere have I read a note from Affinity that it is not a substitute. Finally, you yourself wrote that it is an alternative to Photoshop and Illustrator. Both programs look very nice, professional. But almost immediately you will find that it is not a real alternative.

What many fail to see is that not everyone has the same requirements when it comes to features and workflows. For many users Affinity already is an alternative and/or replacement for Photoshop or Illustrator. It’s unfortunate that it isn’t for you (yet) but that’s not everyone else’s mistake, and most certainly not Serif’s.

10 hours ago, Vaaish said:

I can't expect any change in the foreseeable future and Photo and Designer, while capable of professional level work, just can't play ball as part of a team that 99% controlled by Adobe. Give me the ability to seamlessly handoff files and we're golden until then, Adobe wins. 

But this, again, is not the problem of Serif. Convince your team to use Affinity and you can seamlessly hand off files to them. ;) Adobe is not a law of nature that can’t be changed, it’s a choice of the users/customers using it. You’ll never get full compatibility between native file formats because how would Adobe profit from that? Likewise Adobe will never support Affinity file formats, and, in fact, nobody is asking them for it in turn.

[Vaaish 4]

14 hours ago, VIPStephan said:

But this, again, is not the problem of Serif. Convince your team to use Affinity and you can seamlessly hand off files to them. Adobe is not a law of nature that can’t be changed, it’s a choice of the users/customers using it. You’ll never get full compatibility between native file formats because how would Adobe profit from that? Likewise Adobe will never support Affinity file formats, and, in fact, nobody is asking them for it in turn.

I'm not asking for full compatibility. Seamless handoff means I can provide an end user editable format either vector or raster and know that they can open the doc and make any necessary changes in Photoshop or another app. That doesn't necessarily mean that we are able to hand off Adobe native formats, just some format that's common and can be used as an interchange between Affinity and Adobe. 

[MEB 7,188]

Hi Vaaish,

The issue is that those common formats don't support all functionality/features of Adobe or Affinity software so there's no way to keep everything editable as in the original program. There's always some loss.

 

[JET_Affinity 380]

Quote

Seamless handoff means I can provide an end user editable format either vector or raster and know that they can open the doc and make any necessary changes in Photoshop or another app.

But that is an unrealistic expectation. For example, you can't even provide an "end user editable" Adobe Illustrator file and "know that [the recipient] can make any necessary changes in Photoshop." Illustrator can't "seamlessly" open an Adobe Fireworks or an Adobe Flash file and "make any necessary changes" nor vice-versa.

Are you aware that Adobe InDesign can neither open nor even import native Adobe Illustrator content? It can only import the PDF content that is stored within the Illustrator file. You can try this yourself. Simply save an Illustrator file without turning on the "Create PDF Compatible File" option, and then try to import it into an InDesign file. Turning that option on merely tells Illustrator to create a PDF of the entire file's content and then include it within the supposed "Adobe Illustrator" file.

File exchange between raster imaging programs has always been more "seamless" because, when it comes down to it, a raster image is a simpler construct; basically just a rectangular array of pixel color values. And since the beginning, their cross-application exchange has been accomplished by means of cross-application raster formats (.TIFF, .GIF, .JPEG, PNG, etc.)

Vector-based graphics program (drawing and page-layout) files are collections of individual, independent objects. (vector based paths, raster images, live text, and various proprietary constructs which combine and elaborate upon those objects). So unlike raster formats, there was no plethora of cross-application open exchange formats. (This is a large part of why vector-based graphics has been so long and slow in coming to the web.) There was only PostScript (EPS); basically an uneditable "locked box" which the importing program could just pass along to the printer. And not all drawing programs created PostScript output, and not all of those that did were actually full-blown PostScript interpreters.

So vendors of vector programs had to sort of "reverse engineer" their own import filters so as to claim to "open" (dissect and try to convert) competing files. And that has never been perfect, and still isn't; not even between different programs from the same vendor, because all such programs create native constructs which the other programs don't understand. For just one of many examples, both Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw provide path Blends. But that doesn't mean they are identical constructs. Both programs claim to "open" the other's files. But in either direction, the Blends are often dumbed-down to just stacks of individual paths with no "blend" functionality. Similar issues occur with other proprietary constructs.

It's the same way with CAD/CAE programs. You don't directly "open" a native Solidworks file with, say, AutoCAD; you export the Solidworks file to an exchange format, and then open that exchange format file with AutoCAD. And much is lost in the "translation."

But today there are at least a few standardized open exchange object-based formats which the various vendors can choose to implement (primarily PDF and SVG), and Affinity supports both. But even of these, PDF is not actually intended to be an editing format. And with either format, full editability at both ends of the exchange is far from "seamless" in terms of native round-trip editing, because the exchange formats do not fully support all of the native editing constructs of all the programs that use them.

That doesn't mean one can't use multiple drawing programs in the same workflow. But you have to be aware of the limitations and devise your workflow accordingly. It's always been that way anytime you try to share files between competing products, and Affinity is not to blame for that.

JET