Smart objects

[Spinaz]

Hi, I'm a semi-professional, I mean I use DTP for my marketing docs, but I'm a marketer, not a designer. Anyway... today I'm using Photo & Graphic Designer by Magix (Xara), which is to me a very good compromise between photo/design/dtp editor.

Two things I love in this software are:

1. smart objects, like arrows and other shapes... things I can place, move, adjust, adapt through handles very easily. It would be great to have them also in APublisher
2. smart photo retouching without the need to change software (btw I bought Affinity Photo and I love it), but in Photo... it's very easy to make a color transparent, to maks out a shape, etc.

Thanks and keep doing the great job you're doing!

Federico

[MEB]

Hi Federico,
Welcome to Affinity Forums

1. Take a look at the smart shapes tools on the left toolbar - the button that has a small grey triangle in the corner. The select a shape a look at the options in the context toolbar. You can also adjust these settings using the red handles in the shape on canvas.

2. In the retail version you will be able to quickly switch to Affinity Photo (if you have it installed too) clicking the Photo icon on the top left of the Publisher's interface.

[Spinaz]

Thanks MEB, infact I saw the smart shapes tool, but it's more limited than the one present in Magix SW. There you can 'bend' and adjust various types of arrows and other shapes as you want; you also have the possibility to add column and cake graphs and other things. Please take a look at it if you didn't do it yet. It's quite handy for fast and semi-professional works, like the ones I often do.

Regarding Photo (SW I bought...) it's incredibly powerful and a great value for money, but sometimes you need 5% of its power to finalize a document (make a color transparent, cut off a shapre or adjust some settings for instance) and you don't need (at least in Magix) to switch to (and buy) another software.

I'm just pointing out what I feel is missing, from my point of view, to switch 100% to Affinity from Magix once it will be available...

For sure Publisher will be a more professional software, but I think that with small 'addons' it will hit a much wider market (if it's price will be in line with the others...).

Thank you

Federico

[walt.farrell]

7 hours ago, Spinaz said:

I saw the smart shapes tool, but it's more limited than the one present in Magix SW. There you can 'bend' and adjust various types of arrows and other shapes as you want;

You can also do that in Publisher, though perhaps with more work. For example, you can use the Arrow tool to draw an arrow, then Layer > Convert to Curves, and then use the Node tool to adjust the shape.

Here's an example (not a great one, but just to show it can be done):

[Spinaz]

Good point, thanks for the hint. It's also possible in Publisher, but the result is far from being nice nor handy...