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Comparing AD with DrawPlus


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I am really disappointed that in the time that Affinity has been out no real serious drawing suggestions have been added. I'm tempted to get a PC and install my old DrawPlus program which had more useful drawing features than Affinity has. I have asked, as well others, for Affinity to try and include most of these DP features but to no avail.

Edited by jackamus
A more appropriate title for the thread

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AD version 2.3.0

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I think when 1.7 comes out Affinity users will be like: 

 

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I think Jackamus (as I) is more interested in serious answers. Rather than dreams about Wunderwaffe from fanboys.

I too really need Designer to evolve after these years. The pace is simply too slow and I am stuck in clumsy Illustrator until more happens. If it continues like this I wont throw money and hopes into a version 2 branch. I just hit the wall every single day.

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
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Thank you for your support.

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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9 hours ago, firstdefence said:

I think when 1.7 comes out Affinity users will be like: 

 

This had got to be the worst response I have ever had to a question or comment!

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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It was a try to add some hope and fun in an answer to post about how a version 1 of an app isn't as complete as a v. 9 or v. 12 of others apps.

But there's already a lot of posts about how features aren't implemented fast enought and which feature each one of us deems most important to ba added first.

Serif also did a threat to discuss next features and added some videos to show they are making progress.

I understand your frustration, but if you can use another app while waiting for new features, that's nice.  Rome wasn't made in a day and all of us are waiting next updates like children on christmas eve.

Cheers, we'll have more features when Serif'll be happy they're behaving as expected.  But good work need time, and we should stay patient.

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About a week after I got rid of my PC and bought a Mac mini, Serif published Affinity! This was an amazing coincidence!. After using it for a while I realised that it fell short of DrawPlus 8 in its features. It was then that I started to ask if the DP features could be included in Affinity. The rest is history as they say and I am still waiting for among others:

Fitting text to a path, Cutting objects with a cutting tool, Blending colours on a path and the one I most need - applying dimensions to a drawing (i.e.engineering or architectural drawing). There was also talk of adding a perspective drawing feature similar to 'Illustrator'.

However I'm now thinking of getting an PC and reinstalling DrawPlus 8. I do have a partition on my Mac with Windows installed and also DrawPlus8 but it is too cumbersome to swap between OSs. I think would be better off with a dedicated PC.

 

 

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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I do recall something about it taking a major re-write to get rid of the annoying back-ground white ghost line between vectors of the same color. I suppose that might be something delaying release.

As far as dimensioning, myself, I'd rely on a dedicated app, such as a CAD package, or something like SketchUp. (btw, dimensioning lines didn't show up in that for several years, tho' at 1st the app was meant for casual users, and cost $500.)

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2 hours ago, jackamus said:

It was then that I started to ask if the DP features could be included in Affinity.

There have been many responses from the staff (including some from the coders themselves) explaining that the Affinity range has been created from an entirely new from the ground up code base, completely separate from the old Windows-only Serif apps, & that simply 'including' features from those apps is not feasible because the two code bases are so different.

There are multiple very good reasons for starting over with a brand new code base. A major one is it was designed from day one to support multiple operating systems, which is why we have MacOS, Windows, & iOS versions to choose from now. Another is to be able to take advantage of advances in technology that would be impractical to 'retrofit' into an older code base. A very obvious one is to build in support for a 'universal' native file format that any app in the Affinity range can open without conversion or loss of data.

Equally important from a business standpoint, the revenue stream from the Plus range had slowed to a trickle, so for Serif to stay in business, they had to develop new products with a broader market appeal.

So yes, in the current state of development, the Affinity apps do fall short of what can be done with the old range of products. Nobody is claiming otherwise. But it is far from as simple as some seem to think to fulfill even a fraction of the numerous & constantly growing list of features Plus (among other) users keep asking for.

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15 hours ago, jackamus said:

I am really disappointed that in the time that Affinity has been out no real serious drawing suggestions have been added. I'm tempted to get a PC and install my old DrawPlus program which had more useful drawing features than Affinity has. I have asked, as well others, for Affinity to try and include most of these DP features but to no avail.

To be fair, Serif have not charged for updates, not will they for a while. Apparently.

I remember Adobe and Quark bringing out relatively minor updates every year that cost more than the whole Designer app did outright.

Would you be willing to pay for updates if they cost say £30 or so each year?

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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22 minutes ago, gdenby said:

I do recall something about it taking a major re-write to get rid of the annoying back-ground white ghost line between vectors of the same color. I suppose that might be something delaying release.

As far as dimensioning, myself, I'd rely on a dedicated app, such as a CAD package, or something like SketchUp. (btw, dimensioning lines didn't show up in that for several years, tho' at 1st the app was meant for casual users, and cost $500.)

My requirement lies between a package like Affinity and a full-blown CAD program and DrawPlus8 fulfilled this adequately.

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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21 minutes ago, R C-R said:

There have been many responses from the staff (including some from the coders themselves) explaining that the Affinity range has been created from an entirely new from the ground up code base, completely separate from the old Windows-only Serif apps, & that simply 'including' features from those apps is not feasible because the two code bases are so different.

There are multiple very good reasons for starting over with a brand new code base. A major one is it was designed from day one to support multiple operating systems, which is why we have MacOS, Windows, & iOS versions to choose from now. Another is to be able to take advantage of advances in technology that would be impractical to 'retrofit' into an older code base. A very obvious one is to build in support for a 'universal' native file format that any app in the Affinity range can open without conversion or loss of data.

Equally important from a business standpoint, the revenue stream from the Plus range had slowed to a trickle, so for Serif to stay in business, they had to develop new products with a broader market appeal.

So yes, in the current state of development, the Affinity apps do fall short of what can be done with the old range of products. Nobody is claiming otherwise. But it is far from as simple as some seem to think to fulfill even a fraction of the numerous & constantly growing list of features Plus (among other) users keep asking for.

Surely the operating system has nothing to do with the features. I accept that you cannot simply 'lift' DrawPlus8 features and dump them in Affinity. All the drawing features in DrawPlus8 would, in my view, should have been the starting point for Affinity.

And I accept it is 'far from simple' but there must have been a 'spec' written-up for the new Affinity vector drawing program.

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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26 minutes ago, toltec said:

To be fair, Serif have not charged for updates, not will they for a while. Apparently.

I remember Adobe and Quark bringing out relatively minor updates every year that cost more than the whole Designer app did outright.

Would you be willing to pay for updates if they cost say £30 or so each year?

That's a bit of a straw man argument requiring a yes or no answer. Would having to pay for updates bring them about any quicker?

 

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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1 minute ago, jackamus said:

Surely the operating system has nothing to do with the features.

Actually, the OS has just about everything to do with if or how features can be implemented. Among other things, Macs & PCs use different windowing & access control models. The printing systems & for that matter all I/O is abstracted completely differently. They do not support the same file systems & each OS has unique features the other does not have.

 

26 minutes ago, jackamus said:

And I accept it is 'far from simple' but there must have been a 'spec' written-up for the new Affinity vector drawing program.

Another thing that has been mentioned more than once is the Affinity range began as a research project at Serif to see what a graphics app running on a device with very little available RAM could do. (They actually did this using early generation iPads.) The results were promising enough that they decided to develop what became the Affinity range, incorporating into the new code base that research plus other things like serialization, mipmaps, reduced dependence on modality, & provisions for using OS specific APIs where possible to increase efficiency.

It took about 4 years of development before the first Affinity product for Macs became a reality, but the 'spec' was never just for that one app.

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I still can'r see how the chosen OS can affect what can be done in a graphics program. Are you saying that in Windows it might be possible, for example, create 'text on path' but not on a Mac?

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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5 hours ago, jackamus said:

I do have a partition on my Mac with Windows installed and also DrawPlus8 but it is too cumbersome to swap between OSs. I think would be better off with a dedicated PC.

Have you considered installing Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion? This should enable you to set things up so that the Boot Camp partition is treated as a virtual machine, allowing you to swap in and out easily without rebooting (and making it easier to share PDF or SVG files between the two programs).

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Ah his is new to me but then I'll not very computer literate. This sounds interesting to follow up. Do you have a link I can use?

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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14 minutes ago, jackamus said:

This sounds interesting to follow up. Do you have a link I can use?

Try this one, Jack: https://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/

Or this one: https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion.html

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The old community plus forum has lots of advice on running Serif Plus products on a Mac

This is just one of many posts

https://community.serif.com/forum/photoplus/880/anything-for-macs

Which will help you determine which product to go for

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 hour ago, jackamus said:

That's a bit of a straw man argument requiring a yes or no answer. Would having to pay for updates bring them about any quicker?

 

Well, if updates became a bit of an industry on their own, I would imagine Serif could employ more staff. More staff = more updates?

If they could find enough people of a high enough standard of course. I don't expect it's that simple though.

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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That seems logical and it is always an option that Serif can use.

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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4 minutes ago, jackamus said:

I still can'r see how the chosen OS can affect what can be done in a graphics program. Are you saying that in Windows it might be possible, for example, create 'text on path' but not on a Mac?

No, what I am saying is that modern operating systems are highly abstracted, meaning everything is broken down into complex, interrelated hierarchies of small structured steps that together determine what tasks can be performed on the behalf of apps by the OS, & what the OS allows an app to do on its own without first asking the OS for permission to do so. This affects everything, including how, when, & even if the simplest of tasks will be executed.

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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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OK. Is it possible then that some of the features requested will not be possible because of the OS being used or that it would be too difficult to design? This begs the question, "Is this something that the developers would know at the time"?

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

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I'm not a fan of free stuff. Software or updates, not that I don't like something for nothing :D

However, it stifles production. Look at Linux, because almost everything is free, 99.9% of Linux users expect software to be free all the time. So there is no really good software like Affinity. It's all very self defeating, hence the constant pleading for a Linux version of Affinity on this forum.

In fact, I'm amazed that there is stuff as good as Inkscape and Gimp as it is.

 

.

 

 

 

 

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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Jackamus, it's very simple: Affinity Designer and Serif DrawPlus are DIFFERENT APPLICATIONS.

Affinity Designer is not a ,continuation' of DrawPlus as such and Serif has been very clear about that.

If you need an application that does EXACTLY what DrawPlus does ... well, simply get DrawPlus (at just 20 GBP from www.serif.com) or use the license you have. No-one forces you to use Affinity Designer if it doesn't do what you need it to. If you cannot do your work with Designer, it's just not the right software for you, period.

In my opinion, Designer not doing what you want it to do is no reason to be disappointed.

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