Collection of bugs/suggestions (2)

[anweid]

Several unsorted bugs and suggestions for Affinity Publisher 1.7.0.128 on Windows 7, 64bit, German:

1. Confusing unit setup:
   Opened an existing PDF file and went to 'Spread Setup'. The default unit for PDF is point. Changing the unit here is apparently only for the display of numbers in this dialog. Changes have no effect on the document and are not remembered - the next time this dialog is opened, it shows points again. This is apparently because the document unit is setup in the Document Setup. It seems a bit strange to me that I have to go through two separate dialogs to set up an A4 page in millimetres. It would be easier if the spread unit would have the same functionality as the document unit...
    
2. Undecipherable text panel:
   With light background, the text panel now shows the current text settings in white on light gray background, which is very hard to read. See the screenshot.
   
    
3. Unclear icons in page panel:
   At first glance, I couldn't find any add page icon in the page panel (see screenshot). Hovering with the mouse, I found that it was the small rectangle. A 'plus' sign somewhere would be appreciated. The same is valid for a new master page.
   
    
4. Hidden cursor position while drawing:
   This is valid for all Affinity programs. Quite often, I want to know at the time of drawing an object where it will start and, before finishing it, where it will end. While moving an existing object, the transform palette is wonderful for this, but I never found any possibility to get the current cursor location while drawing objects. As a matter of fact, while drawing polygons with the pen tool, the transform panel shows the following:
     - Before clicking the first time: nothing
     - After clicking the first time: nothing
     - After clicking the second time: the second point's coordinates
     - After clicking the third time: the third point's coordinates
   It would be much nicer if the coordinate information were there before one clicks on any location...
5. Keyboard incompatibilities:
   This is valid for all Affinity programs. A few months ago, I installed a non-standard German keyboard driver (the so-called T2 layout), which allows access to all European accents and other special characters. Driver and layout are available from https://www.europatastatur.de/, and the company Cherry even sells keyboards with that layout. By some reason, every software I tested works properly with that (wonderful and useful) driver, but not the Affinity suite. Here, only the standard German key mappings work properly (well, better than nothing), but the enhanced keys mainly produce two wrong characters. It would be nice if the 'Affinities' would support that keyboard layout in exactly the same way that, e.g., PagePlus does...

With best regards,
Andreas Weidner