Comparing AD with DrawPlus

[jackamus]

That is obvious 'horses for courses'. I wonder how many people prefer the Windows version of AD to DrawPlus or do they have to run both? If they do I would be interested what AD has that DP doesn't.

When you or Serif say that Affinity and DrawPlus they are different applications, you could have fooled me when I first saw Affinity! If people regularly compare Illustrator with Affinity is it because they are similar programs or that they are similar applications?

[Alfred]

8 minutes ago, jackamus said:

If they do I would be interested what AD has that DP doesn't.

The first and most obvious thing is the Affinity file format. You can open an AD file in APh (or vice versa) but DrawPlus and PhotoPlus don’t understand each other’s native files.

DP doesn’t have anything like AD’s Symbols feature. DP does have QuickShapes, of course, but AD’s Shape tools are like QSs on steroids.

Quote

If people regularly compare Illustrator with Affinity is it because they are similar programs or that they are similar applications?

I’m afraid I don’t understand what distinction you’re trying to draw between ‘programs’ and ‘applications’ in the present context.

[jackamus]

35 minutes ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

I’m afraid I don’t understand what distinction you’re trying to draw between ‘programs’ and ‘applications’ in the present context.

Jend Krebs said, "it's very simple: Affinity Designer and Serif DrawPlus are DIFFERENT APPLICATIONS". It is this distinction that I refer to. I do not see why you cannot compare two programs that appear to basically do the same job but use different OSs. This has always been a contention between Mac and Windows.

I changed over from a PC to a Mac because Mac was more stable but I couldn't use DP and was about to set up a PC laptop just to run DP when Affinity was published. Now I am looking to go back to using Windows, in some way, just so I can use DP.

There was a suggestion about being able to toggle between Mac OS and the Windows OS on my Mac which I shall follow up.

[Alfred]

58 minutes ago, jackamus said:

Jend Krebs said, "it's very simple: Affinity Designer and Serif DrawPlus are DIFFERENT APPLICATIONS". It is this distinction that I refer to. I do not see why you cannot compare two programs that appear to basically do the same job but use different OSs.

My point is that you could substitute the word ‘programs’ for the word ‘applications’ and the message would be the same. Taking OS differences out of the equation, DP and AD on Windows are both hybrid vector/raster drawing applications/programs with many shared features but also some features which are unique to each one. I’ve already mentioned Symbols in AD; there is also the ‘Divide’ command for which no direct equivalent exists in DP. On the other hand, there are several tools in DP that AD doesn’t yet have, and we’ve been told that Serif aren’t planning to add any animation features to AD.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, jackamus said:

I do not see why you cannot compare two programs that appear to basically do the same job but use different OSs.

What do you mean by "appear to basically do the same job"?  For example, someone could say that every app that can display even just one kind of graphic element appears to be doing basically the same job, but that would be an absurd basis for all but the most trivial of comparisons.

[jackamus]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

What do you mean by "appear to basically do the same job"?  For example, someone could say that every app that can display even just one kind of graphic element appears to be doing basically the same job, but that would be an absurd basis for all but the most trivial of comparisons.

I'm sure you know exactly what I mean! When I had a PC I tried a number of vector based programs to see which I like best. I finished up with DP. They were all very similar but had local differences just like motor cars do.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, jackamus said:

I'm sure you know exactly what I mean!

Nope. I really have no idea what you mean when you talk about things like 'basically the same job' or 'very similar but local differences.' That kind of talk is so vague as to be almost meaningless, not much different from saying bicycles & airplanes do basically the same job so their capabilities can be compared as if they were the same thing.

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

not much different from saying bicycles & airplanes do basically the same job

I don’t think Jack was drawing(!) an analogy with comparing bicycles to planes, and I can’t believe that you really think so, either. After all, he did mention motor cars, and you could reasonably argue that a Ford and a Subaru do ‘basically the same job’.

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

I don’t think Jack was drawing(!) an analogy with comparing bicycles to planes, and I can’t believe that you really think so, either.

I did not mean to imply that he literally did that, only that it is the same kind of almost meaningless comparison one could make based on two different things doing 'basically the same job.’ 

After all, one could say that a Ford Super Duty Pickup truck & a Subaru WRX are both vehicles that do basically the same job of moving things from one place to another, but it would be absurd to compare them on that basis alone.

[jackamus]

17 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I did not mean to imply that he literally did that, only that it is the same kind of almost meaningless comparison one could make based on two different things doing 'basically the same job.’ 

 

Gimp, PaintShop, DrawPlus, Inkscape, BoxySVG and so on.

[jackamus]

45 minutes ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

I don’t think Jack was drawing(!) an analogy with comparing bicycles to planes, and I can’t believe that you really think so, either. After all, he did mention motor cars, and you could reasonably argue that a Ford and a Subaru do ‘basically the same job’.

Thanks for your support - it could have been worse - a skate board and Space Shuttle!

[R C-R]

4 minutes ago, jackamus said:

Gimp, PaintShop, DrawPlus, Inkscape, BoxySVG and so on.

Do you at least understand that just like every other app, each of them must rely on the OS to do the "under the hood" stuff the OS will not allow them to do on their own & why that is necessary?

[jackamus]

16 hours ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

My point is that you could substitute the word ‘programs’ for the word ‘applications’ and the message would be the same. Taking OS differences out of the equation, DP and AD on Windows are both hybrid vector/raster drawing applications/programs with many shared features but also some features which are unique to each one. I’ve already mentioned Symbols in AD; there is also the ‘Divide’ command for which no direct equivalent exists in DP. On the other hand, there are several tools in DP that AD doesn’t yet have, and we’ve been told that Serif aren’t planning to add any animation features to AD.

I am aware that there are at least two differences but for me DP is better then AD.

I have been able to set up the Windows OS using a program called 'Parallel' on a 14 day free trial.

[Paul Martin]

I, too, have a a lot of investment in maps that I drew with Drawplus over the life of that excellent programme and the lack of any import facility per se put me right off Affinity Designer. What I can see is that AFD handles much greater magnification very well and, bluntly, may survive longer. So I set about transfering my "legacy" drawings to AFD via the PDF format. I was pleasantly surpised to find that, providing you are willing to expoert from the *.dpp file to PDF a single layer at a time, the layers can be successfully imported into AFD and built one by one into a new AFD file. Tedious? Certainly. Always effective? Not with some shapes which translate as images rather than vectors.

The jury is still out on whether this is a viable option - I will know in a few weeks time. What really grieves me is that the customer-focused, friendly company whose every product I cheerfully tried in multiple versions seems to have been replaced by  people who don't listen to the previous customer base's concerns.

[R C-R]

11 minutes ago, Paul Martin said:

What really grieves me is that the customer-focused, friendly company whose every product I cheerfully tried in multiple versions seems to have been replaced by  people who don't listen to the previous customer base's concerns.

It is not that they don't listen. It is that there is no practical way to import .dpp files directly into Affinity Designer that does not involve unacceptable data & file structure loss. This is because each app supports different features that have no equivalent in the other one. They have explained that it would take years to develop an importer that could do a better job than using an intermediate exchange format like PDF, & there still would be no guarantee that it could import everything correctly.

[jackamus]

I concur Paul.

Its been some time since there has been an AD update and I have given up on making suggestions. I mainly use DP8 for adding dimensions and scaling drawings.

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, jackamus said:

I concur Paul.

Its been some time since there has been an AD update

Have you somehow missed the 1.7 customer beta for Designer?

[jackamus]

Was this for the iPad version? I don't use an iPad.

[firstdefence]

@jackamus No there is a 1.7 beta version of Designer, Photo and Publisher.

 

 

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/publisher/

 

[Paul Martin]

On 1/1/2019 at 11:21 PM, walt.farrell said:

Have you somehow missed the 1.7 customer beta for Designer?

I will investigate. I don't recall receiving any notification, though I have all three.

 

[jackamus]

Now downloaded AD1.7 and looking for something to test it on - I don't have any projects at the moment!

[PaulEC]

People keep saying that AD is still fairly new, and that it takes time to add all the features that people want. (Many of which DrawPlus had.)

I was using DP for twenty odd years while all the features were being added - I don't think I can wait another twenty odd years for AD to catch up

 

[Paul Martin]

Tsk, tsk  - you young folk have no patience. Now when I was a nipper...

I wonder how much of the problem is that features aren't where you would expect to find them - because the arhitecture is so different - and the help index doesn't much. For instance, I just wanted to create a dotted line. You might think "dotted line" would call up something? Nope. Eventually, I found that a similar question had been answered for another baffled user. The answer was, needless to say, "logical" but not "intuitive", in part because the Stroke unction - it shows a little dotted line! - doesn't do anything until you have applied the parameters that follow. Personally, I'd have made the default "dotted lines" a simple one like dot-dot-dot dash-dash or whatever.

[jackamus]

This strikes a chord with me! Way back when desktop publishing fist started my first reaction to the way it worked was, "This was not designed by graphic designers or graphic artists but by 'programmers' and wasn't intuitive. Did the programmers not call upon graphic designers to help them with the terminology? Also DTP put an end to good design because it brought graphics withing the scope of office girls. This is evident with some of the bizarre creations using all the gizmos offered by the software. If something didn't fit then it got stretched or squashed, including type, until it did.

All that has changed is that graphic designers have had to re-learn their trade.

Regarding the 'dotted line' point - why are lines referred to as 'strokes' what was wrong with' line'? It is still only one word! You can still this today in some website designs. Doing this easier and faster is not necessarily progress - its a form of dumbing-down.

 

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, jackamus said:

Regarding the 'dotted line' point - why are lines referred to as 'strokes' what was wrong with' line'? It is still only one word!

Lines are a kind of object that you draw. A stroke is a border around an object. You do not draw a stroke; you generate it around the object.

As they are different things, used differently, they deserve separate terms to avoid confusion when discussing then.