Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.7.0.2)


Recommended Posts

7 minutes ago, Aongus Collins said:

The Node tool’s new Transform Mode allows for a high level of distortion and transformation. Now in addition to the traditional rectangular selection, it’s possible to lasso-select points freehand style. Designer highlights the selected points  in a bounding box on which operations such as skew, scale, move, rotate etc can be performed. Just started exploring this feature, which promises to be very powerful.

I’ve used mesh fills in Illustrator for years, and look forward to seeing them in Designer some day!

A knife tool would work faster (though probably less precisely) than my current practice of selecting points and clicking ‘Break Curve.’ 

Allright, thx, sounds interesting. But if you need (envelope) distortion applied to an entire group? Any good for that?

Knife: that is also a very simple cutting scenario. 

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Wafer said:

Allright, thx, sounds interesting. But if you need (envelope) distortion applied to an entire group? Any good for that?

Knife: that is also a very simple cutting scenario. 

No, it doesn't seem to work in a freeform or AI envelope way.

On first glance the most powerful envelope distortion feature in this release appears to be isometric projection. A group consisting of text, curves and shapes can be projected on to any isometric plane, then flipped, rotated, moved on that plane and even projected on to another plane. Most impressively, the text remains editable. Otherwise, while text frames can be rotated, text must be converted to curves (expanded) before any skewing can happen. It would be good to see such functionality expanded beyond the confines of the Isometric Panel: the ability to skew type can be really useful in other forms of perspective drawing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Aongus Collins said:

No, it doesn't seem to work in a freeform or AI envelope way.

On first glance the most powerful envelope distortion feature in this release appears to be isometric projection. A group consisting of text, curves and shapes can be projected on to any isometric plane, then flipped, rotated, moved on that plane and even projected on to another plane. Most impressively, the text remains editable. Otherwise, while text frames can be rotated, text must be converted to curves (expanded) before any skewing can happen. It would be good to see such functionality expanded beyond the confines of the Isometric Panel: the ability to skew type can be really useful in other forms of perspective drawing.

While it does sound slightly interesting, it doesn't seem flexible or usable for any creative use of distortion tools. It seems Affinity Designer is for computer game graphic graphics for Sim City or for brush tool painting on a digital canvas. 

Thank you for your detailed answer, though, I appreciate it @Aongus Collins

And for Serif, let's quote scrum.org before we wait another 12 months for another update and perhaps... customer satisfaction.

Quote

4. In order to validate value, release early and often
As I always share in my Professional Scrum Product Owner Trainings when we talk about Value, there is one thing that you as a Product Owner must remember: "You have to release a Product to customers/users, in order to find out if you have delivered value for them!". Unfortunately, I encounter a lot of Product Owners in daily practice, who think that 'working on the Product for just a couple more Sprints' will create a Product that customers/users will certainly love. Often, this results in a lot of disappointments... So, start validating value, by releasing to your customers and users early and often!

 

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Wafer said:

Knife: that is also a very simple cutting scenario. 

Not necessarily. Knife tools can cut along straight lines, along bezier curves, or possibly along other paths; may or may not be able to cut multiple selected text, vector shapes, & raster objects in one operation; & may or may not include an option to close open vector curves the cut creates. There are also knife tools with settable cut widths that delete everything inside that width instead of just cutting along the path.

Without knowing which of these features they plan on including with an Affinity Knife Tool, or how they will integrate with existing features like the stabilizers, snapping options, or maybe the new construction aids, etc., there is no way of knowing how simple or complex the scenarios that tool supports will be.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A little late to the party but gotta say I'm loving the alignment solution, very slick. Love the fact that it's right there with no going to a dialogue or ui panel. Very powerful and simple. Thankyou! Would love to see a way to have "distribute" get included in this somehow. :-) Also a small thing on this, but the alignment arrows might be more visible (on top of similarly coloured shapes) if they had white outlines on them like the circles currently along the alignment border box.

Loving the new iso panel as well! Going to come in very handy. Cheers Team...

...back to tire kicking...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

@R C-R

He means that the features can be copy pasted, implying there is no additional development time needed. Not strictly true but most of the heavy lifting is done by developing in one app

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

@R C-R

He means that the features can be copy pasted, implying thete is no additional development time needed. Not strictly true but most of the heavy lifting is done by developing in one app

Yes, I have a library of subroutines that I use often and link those ones I need, into source code (kind of Copy/Paste :)).

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Matt,

Is it possible to fix/change this (IMHO) wrong layer name selection behavior in Vector and Pixel Personas?

Seeing this issue from at least 1.5 version. When I double-click on layer name then click for removing layer name text selection BUT it selects all text again and I think it's not Ok and not comfortable. In contrast, name editing In Slices menu is Ok and natural.

Extra questions.

Is it possible to add shortcuts for:
- layer renaming?
- artboards selection?
- atrboards collapsing?

Cheers
Vitaliy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, bagmetv said:

When I double-click on layer name then click for removing layer name text selection BUT it selects all text again ...

I am not exactly sure of the behavior you are describing but for me, after selecting (highlighting) a layer name, the next click just positions the blinking text cursor (a.k.a. caret) in the text field at that point. It does not reselect (highlight) all the text.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, R C-R said:

Without knowing which of these features they plan on including with an Affinity Knife Tool, or how they will integrate with existing features like the stabilizers, snapping options, or maybe the new construction aids, etc., there is no way of knowing how simple or complex the scenarios that tool supports will be.

Ehm, I was referring to his very simple cutting example (break curve). :)I did not in any way discus how Serif will implement the knife tool.

I need support for most of the the knife cutting scenarios you described. It simply accelerates and simplifies work flows (and reduces cost - customers tend to like that, business survival relies on it).

Let's see if 2019 or 2020 or 2021 will be the year of the knife tool.

OxlDaGt.jpg

3uBjggw.jpg

 

QiXi35S.png

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

I am not exactly sure of the behavior you are describing but for me, after selecting (highlighting) a layer name, the next click just positions the blinking text cursor (a.k.a. caret) in the text field at that point. It does not reselect (highlight) all the text.

Thanks for checking.

For some reason I'm still experiencing this all text auto selection/highlighting after blinking cursor (that happens not 100% of times).
Here's another video with clicks below:  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Wafer said:

Ehm, I was referring to his very simple cutting example (break curve). :)

Thanks for clearing that up, but it doesn't change the fact that in general users want a knife tool to support considerably more than very simple cutting scenarios. There should be nothing very surprising about how long it is taking to implement such a tool in the Affinity apps. Not only will it need to be integrated with & leverage the power of the existing features in the 1.6 versions, the new ones currently in development in the 1.7 beta builds, & whatever else they have planned on adding to the 1.x versions; it also needs to be compatible with the unified native file format.

Just as a point of reference, if I am not mistaken Corel Draw added the "enhanced" version of its knife tool with support for the more complex cutting scenarios only around two years ago. That app has been in development for much, much longer than the Affinity ones.

The bottom line is adding features & capabilities -- sometimes even ones that seem simple to implement -- often take much more time to develop & integrate into apps than either users or developers would like.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, bagmetv said:

Thanks for checking.

For some reason I'm still experiencing this all text auto selection/highlighting after blinking cursor (that happens not 100% of times).

That it does not happen all the time for you (& never for me that I can tell) suggests there is something about your system that isn't working right, but I have no idea if it is in the app itself or somewhere else, like maybe a conflict with something you have added to your system that affects selections.

Have you tried resetting the app to see if that changes anything?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

58 minutes ago, R C-R said:

The bottom line is adding features & capabilities -- sometimes even ones that seem simple to implement -- often take much more time to develop & integrate into apps than either users or developers would like.

I am employed in a huge software company - I do know about iterations and complexity. Especially the role of architecture. I also know about a fact - we secured our always growing market share by delivering and in the right order I might add. Giving our customers a plate but letting them wait for fork, knife and spoon certainly never was an option. Temporarily scaling projects up did make more sense - when needed. "Bear with us" is a no go in communication with customers. After a number of years with hard work and late nights at work we are harvesting.

Several users here aired concern about the size of Serif and the number of software projects they are working on - when Publisher is released fx, will Serif work on an iPad version too? Sure they will. Publisher, Designer, Photo for Windows, iOS and OS X. A mouthful too big.

Complexity of architecture is a minor factor compared to the complexity caused by limited resources and too many projects. 

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, Wafer said:

Several users here aired concern about the size of Serif and the number of software projects they are working on - when Publisher is released fx, will Serif work on an iPad version too? Sure they will. Publisher, Designer, Photo for Windows, iOS and OS X. A mouthful too big.

I don't know how it works at your company, but as the developers have mentioned many times, at Serif improvements in the core code applies to all the apps in the Affinity suite, so it is not as if the architecture of each of them is being developed independently of the others.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I don't know how it works at your company, but as the developers have mentioned many times, at Serif improvements in the core code applies to all the apps in the Affinity suite, so it is not as if the architecture of each of them is being developed independently of the others.

Welcome to software development. Dependencies and architecture. Many feature requests are accompanied by a handful of changes to the architecture. Thats why we design and prepare the core for the future as far as is humanly possible. Smart thinking early means more fun later. But remember that developers don't run the company. Business decisions counts. We are in fact scaling projects up massively when needed - and down after release - otherwise we could never deliver certain features before we retire. That also means that we get input and insights from new architects and programmers and user experience designers from time to time. 

Serif published a road map. What I would like to know if it is their business strategy to develop many projects simultaneously with limited resources thus lettings us wait for many years for whatever is listed on their OWN PUBLIC road map. If they know we have to wait a decade - tell us. Or remove the road map entirely. Waiting four to six years or more?? in the dark is pointless.

I enjoy the user interface very much - and the new approach to some features - but they years of waiting with no solution in sight killed my enthusiasm. 

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, Wafer said:

If they know we have to wait a decade - tell us.

I assume you know that for most software businesses -- even very large ones like Apple or Adobe -- predicting with any reasonable accuracy how long it will take before some feature is fully debugged, integrated with existing features, & is in all other respects "ready for prime time" is extremely difficult. In fact, most of them don't even say anything at all about that until the feature appears in a release candidate (sometimes even when it is obvious to everyone that it isn't close to ready for prime time).

Personally, one of the things I like a lot about Serif's approach with the Affinity roadmaps is that they do make them publicly available & are very honest about it when things on them take longer than expected to implement. I understand why you don't think that is a very good business strategy but apparently it is working quite well for them, so it seems like a waste of time to speculate about what might theoretically be a better one for Serif, regardless of how well something else might work for another company.

But hey, if that is what floats your boat, go for it. Nobody is stopping you.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In version 1.6 there is an icon (widget) in the node tool context toolbar for Snap, "'Snap-off curve handles" this allowed the node's handles to be snapped at 90 degree intervals of the other node handle.  I found this extremely handy to get a smooth transition between a straight segment of path (without a handle) and a curved section (with a handle).  It is missing in 1.7.0.2, or I'm blind.  It now snaps to vertical and horizontal which isn't much help with nodes.  How can I get the old functionality?

iMac (27-inch, Late 2009) with macOS Sierra

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

I assume you know that for most software businesses -- even very large ones like Apple or Adobe -- predicting with any reasonable accuracy how long it will take before some feature is fully debugged, integrated with existing features, & is in all other respects "ready for prime time" is extremely difficult. In fact, most of them don't even say anything at all about that until the feature appears in a release candidate (sometimes even when it is obvious to everyone that it isn't close to ready for prime time).

Personally, one of the things I like a lot about Serif's approach with the Affinity roadmaps is that they do make them publicly available & are very honest about it when things on them take longer than expected to implement. I understand why you don't think that is a very good business strategy but apparently it is working quite well for them, so it seems like a waste of time to speculate about what might theoretically be a better one for Serif, regardless of how well something else might work for another company.

But hey, if that is what floats your boat, go for it. Nobody is stopping you.

I expected ... this kind of reply... :34_rolling_eyes:

zzu3sRX.jpg

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, osang said:

Is it just me or the export doesn't work?

Which format isn't working for you, & do you mean File > Export or the Export Persona isn't working?

I just did a quick test exporting to PNG & it worked fine for me, both from the file menu & the persona.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Which format isn't working for you, & do you mean File > Export or the Export Persona isn't working?

I just did a quick test exporting to PNG & it worked fine for me, both from the file menu & the persona.

Strange. I'm getting an error on any file format I want to export...

"An error occurred while exporting to:..."

I'm using iMac, Mac OS X Yosemite v. 10.10.5 by the way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guys i'm just in love with the new very simple CMD+Drag to clone a subject (shape, curve etc...) it's nice to feel free of the old Shift+Alt thing !
Did someone noticed it yet ?

Never be the Same Again !
---
Dell Optiplex 5090 SFF
Intel Core i5-10500T @2.30GHz with 12GiB 2666MHz DDR4
Intel UHD Graphics 630 for 10th Generation
M.2 2280, 512 GB, PCIe NVMe Gen3 x4, Class 40 SSD

Windows 11 Pro x64 22H2 + LibreOffice 7.5.3

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.