Plugins and AP UPDATE?????

[Russ2]

Well I have to say the plugins for AP shown on    http://www.miguelboto.com/affinity/photo/plugins-support/win/ part of the site  are the same ones near as can tell that have been there since the dawn of man, there seems to be no interest from the software developers Serif   to push it forward, also I cannot remember the the last update of AP for Windows and yet On1 RAW have launched new software, Skylum also new software in there HDR offering and in December they are supposed to be updateing there image editor Luminar FREE of charge but AP/Serif nothing at all unless I have missed it. Thanks, Russ.

[John Rostron]

For the past couple of weeks, we have been promised the 1.7 betas 'in the next couple of weeks'.

For plug-ins, it is as much a matter of the plugin makers' as it is Affinity's. Affinity Photo provides an  interface that should match the standard Photoshop plugin interface specification. So, many third-part plugins that adhere to this interface will work smoothly. Other providers have produced plugins that will work in Photoshop, but not in Affinity, probably because Photoshop is more forgiving with plugins that do not strictly conform. Anyway, that's my theory!

John

[Gregory St. Laurent]

Well I use a plug-in from the company  ProDigital Software which works perfectly with Affinity Photo and I've see the developer asking if their Plug-ins could be included on Serif's list of working plug-in. To this day it's still not on the list and that was many months ago. I too am irritated at the lack of info coming out, You'd think they would want to maintain interest in their products.

[toltec]

16 hours ago, Russ2 said:

Well I have to say the plugins for AP shown on    http://www.miguelboto.com/affinity/photo/plugins-support/win/ part of the site  are the same ones near as can tell that have been there since the dawn of man, there seems to be no interest from the software developers Serif   to push it forward, also I cannot remember the the last update of AP for Windows and yet On1 RAW have launched new software, Skylum also new software in there HDR offering and in December they are supposed to be updateing there image editor Luminar FREE of charge but AP/Serif nothing at all unless I have missed it. Thanks, Russ.

I think you must have missed it  I'm not sure of the exact dates but 

AP 1.6.4 update was released in March.

AP 1.6.5 in August ?

AP 1.7 is due about now

That's three updates within nine months. All free!

 

[Russ2]

13 hours ago, Gregory St. Laurent said:

Well I use a plug-in from the company  ProDigital Software which works perfectly with Affinity Photo and I've see the developer asking if their Plug-ins could be included on Serif's list of working plug-in. To this day it's still not on the list and that was many months ago. I too am irritated at the lack of info coming out, You'd think they would want to maintain interest in their products.

Also I contacted Qimage developer and gave him a contact for AP, he contacted Serif also and was last seen hanging by his finger nails waiting for a reply.

[nezumi]

I noticed the beta of 1.7 is out for Mac :O Any idea about how far is the PC beta of 1.7? I am really excited. Really great changes for what I can read there!

[Gregory St. Laurent]

5 hours ago, toltec said:

I think you must have missed it  I'm not sure of the exact dates but 

AP 1.6.4 update was released in March.

AP 1.6.5 in August ?

AP 1.7 is due about now

That's three updates within nine months. All free!

 

I realize these updates came out, but most are bug fixes or very minimal changes with no fan fare. What I'm saying is communicate with the community better and give us a rudimentary roadmap (nothing set in stone) of major changes and tweaks that people will be exited about, this builds excitement. They've been very tight lipped about 1.7 for a very long time.

[MEB]

Hi Gregory St. Laurent, Russ,
As explained elsewhere part of these delays are due to the work being done in the new Publisher app and integration with the rest of the suite. We need to ensure that all apps are running on the same improved code/trunk (1.7) and that there will be no issues when exchanging files between them or between platforms. Quite a few changes/improvements introduced firstly in Publisher (new 1.7 trunk) are being ported to Designer and Photo along with the new features of each app individually, so there was quite work being done on background during this time. Hopefully with the release of Publisher later, things will get more stable/balanced between all apps. We've just released the first Customer Betas of Affinity Photo v1.7 and Designer v1.7 (for Mac). There's plenty of improvements and a few new features to get excited about (I think). You can check what's new/changed here and here respectively.

Regarding the plugins list (note this is not an official list but one I maintain for reference/help) I do intend to update it wherever possible while I test the plugins with the new v1.7.

[Gregory St. Laurent]

55 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi Gregory St. Laurent, Russ,
As explained elsewhere part of these delays are due to the work being done in the new Publisher app and integration with the rest of the suite. We need to ensure that all apps are running on the same improved code/trunk (1.7) and that there will be no issues when exchanging files between them or between platforms. Quite a few changes/improvements introduced firstly in Publisher (new 1.7 trunk) are being ported to Designer and Photo along with the new features of each app individually, so there was quite work being done on background during this time. Hopefully with the release of Publisher later, things will get more stable/balanced between all apps. We've just released the first Customer Betas of Affinity Photo v1.7 and Designer v1.7 (for Mac). There's plenty of improvements and a few new features to get excited about (I think). You can check what's new/changed here and here respectively.

Regarding the plugins list (note this is not an official list but one I maintain for reference/help) I do intend to update it wherever possible while I text the plugins with the new v1.7.

Thanks for the clarification, any idea when the Windows 1.7 Beta will be released? I'm very excited at all the new improvements!

[Wosven]

@MEB +1

(We need the "like icons" as emoji in the forum for times when we're out of "likes" )

[MEB]

Hi Gregory St. Laurent,
There was a last minute issue that prevented them from being released along with the Mac versions. As soon as this is sorted out they will be published/released in the forums. It may take a couple days though.

[rudyumans]

Russ2, do you even like Affinity?

Just wondering. 

[Islafurst]

I used to use Flaming Pear's Flexify PS plugins on Windows until I changed to a Mac and AP.  It doesn't seem to be mentioned in the quoted list of tested plugins.  Does anyone know if it's likely to work with AP?  

[R C-R]

23 hours ago, rudyumans said:

Russ2, do you even like Affinity?

So, are you asking if Russ2 has an affinity for Affinity?  

[Alfred]

On 11/15/2018 at 1:41 PM, Wosven said:

(We need the "like icons" as emoji in the forum for times when we're out of "likes"  )

Better yet, we shouldn’t ever run out of “likes”!

Meanwhile, please feel free to use this  or this  or this .

[toltec]

34 minutes ago, R C-R said:

So, are you asking if Russ2 has an affinity for Affinity?  

[Friksel]

On 11/15/2018 at 1:00 PM, MEB said:

Hi Gregory St. Laurent, Russ,
As explained elsewhere part of these delays are due to the work being done in the new Publisher app and integration with the rest of the suite. We need to ensure that all apps are running on the same improved code/trunk (1.7) and that there will be no issues when exchanging files between them or between platforms. Quite a few changes/improvements introduced firstly in Publisher (new 1.7 trunk) are being ported to Designer and Photo along with the new features of each app individually, so there was quite work being done on background during this time. Hopefully with the release of Publisher later, things will get more stable/balanced between all apps. We've just released the first Customer Betas of Affinity Photo v1.7 and Designer v1.7 (for Mac). There's plenty of improvements and a few new features to get excited about (I think). You can check what's new/changed here and here respectively.

Regarding the plugins list (note this is not an official list but one I maintain for reference/help) I do intend to update it wherever possible while I test the plugins with the new v1.7.

Hi @MEB Thanks for this explanation. As others I reported a lot of issues and requests, but this is the first time I read about this (that Designer and Photo trunks will be updated in a large step from the Publisher trunk and thus have a lot of fixes at once applied). Because of not knowing this this caused a lot of people a lot of disconfort/irritation, because a lot of issues aren't fix for a long time and people are waiting for looooong requested features. Also I see the same bugs and requests reported pretty much everyday here on the forum and people don't know about statusses and therefor keep posting them and opening new threads with all frustration coming with it if there is no response from Serif. Well, at least that's what I am experiencing a lot till the point I really start asking myself why I still report bugs if we don't see any fix (or know about what you guys are working on) and I really wonder if we can still trust Serif in fixing bugs (and thinking about professional customers working with this software all day).

Would it be possible for Serif to create and keep up to date some general forum/sticky thread to keep us users informed on what you guys are working on and give us some trust Serif is really (finally) fixing some nasty bugs and communicate this in a more central way? That might perhaps also prevent all the double threads on the forum to be opened.

I am hoping some mayor bugs will finally getting fixed the coming days, although in the Mac-forum I unfortunely still read mayor bugs like the boolean-operators are still not adressed in 1.7 beta. And probably (but I hope not) the same goes with convert-to-curves issues?! I hope not!

I keep my fingers crossed in that some mayor issues will get fixed soon. I really would like to renew that trust in Serif, I really would like to, cause next to this this is such a great tool with a lot of potential.

Thanks! 

[Friksel]

On 11/15/2018 at 7:08 AM, toltec said:

I think you must have missed it  I'm not sure of the exact dates but 

AP 1.6.4 update was released in March.

AP 1.6.5 in August ?

AP 1.7 is due about now

That's three updates within nine months. All free!

I admire your positivity, but bugfixes are not really extras but things that needed to work in the first place. And those bugfix-updates were not really addressing mayor bugs unfortunetely. This is not an open source project.

[MEB]

Hi Friksel,
Both boolean and expand stroke operations are more complex to fix and also require some testing. As Matt explained here, he has been quite busy with the iOS version of Designer during the last months (besides helping with Publisher/other things) and thus hadn't the chance to look at these features/issues yet. I'm sure he will get to/look at them as soon as he can. All dev teams are doing their best to fix the issues reported by users but the amount of work still exceeds the dev resources we have so we need some more time to address them. Hope you understand.

[Friksel]

35 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hope you understand.

Thanks for your response @MEB. I don't having any doubts you guys are working hard. But I keep on wondering why you (seem to) keep the development team so small and (at least as far as I can tell, sniff, see on your website) don't hire extra developers to fix these things. I understand it needs testing and all, but these bugs are open for months to years now. I would say plenty of time to fix them, but the priorities Serif put on an additional product (Publisher) and new features instead of fixing long-and-lots-of-reported issues keeping us from doing regular, basic artwork stuff everyday as professionals.

This to me is not a matter of you guys working hard or not, it's a matter of thinking as a company to have enough manpower to do the job. It seems like you guys took way too much work on your head for a small team, without growing and expanding. That's asking for problems and complains of users.

Again, I am a faithfull professional customer and I am sure you guys are on the right track of things and you guys have great responses on the forum and enthousiasm, but in the end for professional users it's important that the software works too. Rightnow you just can't sell the amazingly long waiting (I'm talking about years!!) it takes for bugs to get solved. And I'm not talking about exceptional issues, but basic stuff we use everyday.

And when this is a matter of finances (which I doubt with such a user base), I'm possitive professional users are happy to pay some extra for your products if it's stable and has basic functionality like simple deformations in it.

But I'm talking in circles, I wrote this way too often and other users did too here on the forum and it doesn't seem to change so far. Hopefully things will change if the publisher if finally released and there's time to help Designer and Photo-users again.

I just hope Serif will finally see this and change it and keep my fingers crossed. Again, I'm eager to stay and hoping for a change. But to be honoust and sorry to say; last weeks I was longing back to the days with Adobe where we paid a lot monthly, but didn't have to spend all the times for workarounds costing a lot more mondy in the end. But again, I like your products and I'd rather stay and don't want to go back to that silly licensing system and being held prisoner with their system.

I try to understand... and keep my fingers crossed. And to conclude: it's the briljant base of very promising software and I really like it. That's what keeping me waiting. Hoping for the best and thank you!

[BTW I just wanted to add a THANKS to your post, but I seem to be out of THANKS and LIKES on the forum... ]

[MEB]

Hi Friksel,
Serif/Affinity has been hiring for months but finding qualified programmers/developers is not easy. Also remember most income is coming from new users (because all 1.x updates are free until version 2) so to ensure we can continue working/cash flow we have to balance the free updates with new applications/new platforms to grow the user base.

[Friksel]

17 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi Friksel,
Affinity has been hiring for months but finding qualified programmers/developers is not easy. Also remember most income is coming from new users (because all 1.x updates are free until version 2) so to ensure we can continue working/cash flow we have to balance the free updates with new applications/new platforms to grow the user base.

Thanks, but again, as a professional I'd rather have stable software that just works than 'free' updates with some minor bugfixes that don't address mayor flaws. The issue of outline-strokes not working is open since 2013/2014.... that's 4 to 5 years!!! You just can't sell that to professionals. It seems like Serif thinks it's an open-source company and working for amature-users. But in realitiy it's paid software and you advertise the software to be made for PROFESSIONALS. We have our problems too and we need to be able to rely on Affinity products. I trusted Serif on this promise to fix with regular updates and making software for professionals. But this is not the type of reaction I would expect from a professional company understanding client needs.

You reaction seems to state we should be happy with every small bug fix we get in months. But the realitity is that that's nothing extra or optional, it's just basic stuff a software company SHOULD provide it's customers. Software should just work and if it doesn't it should be fixed. If the income is too little Serif simply set the price too low or their expectations to high. That's not something you could lay on the shoulder of your clients. It's something Serif should fix or customers just walk away.

What could you do with a product and new features when there are no clients left because the product isn't stable and clients got tired of waiting and waithing and waithing for basic stuff to get fixed? Even open source products have better update cycles and don't have these kind of flaws. This is just just crazy. You can't treat professional customers like this. It's amaturistic.

Maybe I just made the wrong choice trusting Serif in accomplishing what they advertised to do. Or maybe Serif is advertising at targeting professionals although they in realitity target a private, 'amaturistic' crowd that was already happy with open source software and everthing they can get for free and just needed a dark interface.

Sorry to tell you, but I just feel betrayed with these kind of silly reactions and the same lame excuses over and over again we get everytime after years of bugs not being fixed. You also seem to forget how much effort people put in reporting bugs and feature requests. And testing software for you guys. Without seeing anything in return in the form of fixes or additions we REALLY need. Who asked for bullets in a textbox? We need vectors to work, outlines of strokes to render the way they were designed, boolean operators to work etc etc. All issues reported thousands of times and nothing happens. Promises and promises.... soon... next... later... but still nothing.

Come on guys... get a reality check and fix it instead of making more products while the existing products are left with bugs.

 

[MEB]

1 hour ago, Friksel said:

You reaction seems to state we should be happy with every small bug fix we get in months. But the realitity is that that's nothing extra or optional, it's just basic stuff a software company SHOULD provide it's customers. Software should just work and if it doesn't it should be fixed. If the income is too little Serif simply set the price too low or their expectations to high. That's not something you could lay on the shoulder of your clients. It's something Serif should fix or customers just walk away.

I never said or stated that you should be happy with small fixes or the current situation. I understand your frustration and reasons. I'm just trying to explain that things are not so easy to balance from the outside as it may seem. We are well aware of these issues and are doing our best to address them. Affinity Photo/Designer 1.7 does improve/address some common requested/reported issues: Crop Tool improvements, RAW performance, Nodes manipulation/transforms, Grids/Guides/Rulers/Axonometric improvements, etc. I'm sure upcoming versions will continue addressing the remaining issues.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, Friksel said:

[BTW I just wanted to add a THANKS to your post, but I seem to be out of THANKS and LIKES on the forum... ]

 

On 11/15/2018 at 1:41 PM, Wosven said:

(We need the "like icons" as emoji in the forum for times when we're out of "likes"  )

 

3 hours ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

Better yet, we shouldn’t ever run out of “likes”!

Meanwhile, please feel free to use this  or this  or this .

 

[Russ2]

On 11/15/2018 at 3:06 PM, rudyumans said:

Russ2, do you even like Affinity?

Just wondering. 

Well as I dumped Photoshop to go to AP then I would say AP is OK, is it better than P/S? No, nowhere near but once bought it's yours, like most editing programs it does a job and for someone like myself who does not need all the bells and whistels in P/S just to edit images it does again the job.