Further questions!

[Raymondo]

 Have been looking more into publisher and finding my way around gradually. Just a few more questions though as follows:

1) Are you able to/will you be able to place an image across several picture frames?

2) can you set up multiple page sizes ie. book jacket design including spine as in InDesign? Also for brochure design where you may want different size fold ins. If not, is this coming soon?

3) this has been flagged already but I will just confirm that the app crashes when you click on some sliders and some sliders don’t collapse when you click away.

Overall getting more used to publisher but really do need 1/2 above.

[Wosven]

1. You can do this with different picture frames you add/substract, etc. (right-clic > geometry), they'll be converted to some curves and you'll be able to insert your image in it.

Or you can do the same as with AP or AD: use Rectangle tools, etc. to create curves and put your images in it.

 

2. If you right-clic on a spread you can modify page or spread width and height (but it seems for now it's buggued and modify the spread each time, even when you select only a page and select the "page" option in the panel).

[Raymondo]

Don’t know if you are Mac or Windows but on Mac right clicking on page or spread does nothing. No page size choice. Hopefully this option to layout book jackets or brochure templates will be added. Without this option to specify different page size spreads makes publisher limited for the time being.

[Wosven]

On PC. Here what I've got:

[h_d]

55 minutes ago, Raymondo said:

on Mac right clicking on page or spread does nothing

Are you on a laptop with a trackpad? If so, try a two-fingered click on the pad. You may need to set this up in System Prefs - Trackpad - Point & Click - Secondary Click.

 

Ctrl-click doesn't work for me on the laptop, two-finger click does.

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, h_d said:

Ctrl-click doesn't work for me on the laptop, two-finger click does.

I am using an iMac & (as with many other things in the Affinity & a few other apps) Ctrl-click is not generally an equivalent for a right button click.

[Raymondo]

Wosven, you clearly get something different in Windows than  we do on a Mac. Firstly there is no way to right click on the page icon and get anything to happen, secondly as you can see, on Mac you have slightly different setup. See spread setup tab which you don’t appear to have and its called spread properties for you so there are differences on both platforms. I simply want to be able to create a 3 page spread sitting side by side horizontally whereby I can adjust the centre page width to create the spine for a book jacket as I would do in InDesign. It doesn’t appear that you can do that yet on the Mac version. 

I’m surprised that it’s not possible as this is such a basic function. Having said this, maybe there is something I haven’t yet discovered. Maybe the dev team can explain please.

[walt.farrell]

30 minutes ago, Raymondo said:

I simply want to be able to create a 3 page spread sitting side by side horizontally whereby I can adjust the centre page width to create the spine for a book jacket as I would do in InDesign. It doesn’t appear that you can do that yet on the Mac version.

Nor on the Windows version. Spreads seem to be only 1 or 2 pages at the moment. I do not think that Serif would consider that a bug, but more of a feature request/suggestion.

[R C-R]

30 minutes ago, Raymondo said:

Firstly there is no way to right click on the page icon and get anything to happen ...

I get the same contextual popup menu @h_d shows in the earlier post above when I right-click on a page icon. Have you tried the suggestions in that post to see if anything changes?

[Raymondo]

I don’t think spread layout options should be a Matter of feature request or suggestion as it should be there by default. In my view its a must for anyone building book jackets or brochures and should be a basic function in any layout program. RCR, I’ve tried every combination I can think of but without success. I’m pinning my hopes on Serif adding more functionality in this respect before it’s fully released. I can’t believe Serif would overlook such a basic design function so I remain hopeful, otherwise it’s not going to be adopted by many professional designers. 

I don’t think Serif are a company for copying and nor should they  but I do think something along the lines of InDesign functionality for page layout is going to be needed if it’s going to be a success. Over to you Serif, hope you’re listening. 

Would like to say finally that I have been fully behind Serif since 2014 and will continue to give my support and hopefully contribute constructive comments where possible so keep up the good work Serif, it’s a very promising piece of software.

[walt.farrell]

11 minutes ago, Raymondo said:

I don’t think spread layout options should be a Matter of feature request or suggestion as it should be there by default.

From my experience during 45 years as a commercial software developer, a missing function is usually viewed by the developers not as a bug, but as a new feature to be considered and possibly added in the future. Even when it's a function users consider important to their particular job and needs, lack of that function is not a bug.

Generally a bug is a situation where the developers intended something to work, and it fails for some specific situation.

I have no idea whether Serif plans to allow 3-page (or more) spreads, nor when, nor how they will work if implemented. But as the functionality is not there today, its not a bug unless it was supposed to be there and working in this build.

(Again, that's my opinion, as a software developer. I suspect that the Serif staff would feel the same way, but I do not and cannot speak for them )

[lepr]

.

 

 

[Raymondo]

Funny Walt don’t remember mentioning anything about a bug. Whilst you are a very experienced man as a developer, I too have been a professional graphic designer for many years working with design software since the early 90’s. Whilst page layout may not be that important to a developer, it most certainly is as a graphic designer. If you’re not able to layout your designs in the most basic creative way then no matter how clever you are as a developer, if the end users experience is limited then so does your design become the same. Anyway Walt I agree its not a bug but it is a function that should have been there from day one, not as an add on.

still the boys and girls I’m sure are working hard on what I’m sure will eventually be a great piece of software.

Regarding the last post, are you using a mouse or tablet? This may have a bearing on things. Haven’t used a mouse since year 2000. I think I will resurrect it and see if anything happens different.

[Raymondo]

Just tried with the mouse, still no go....zilch! Strangely though your screen shot shows a bleed tab, I don’t get that.