Slightly messy Expand Stroke

[MattP]

Sorry for the lack of response in this particular thread. I did mention in another Beta forum thread that I had been very busy over the last development cycle as I was writing the iPad version of Designer, so hadn't been able to spend time tackling a number of the most-requested features and bugs. I said in the other thread, so will re-iterate here that now iPad Designer is written, so I don't have to spend time developing that next cycle, so I can devote time to actually looking into these long-standing areas.

Also, I've got to say, there is no 'deafening silence' - there is a reality that we don't have a lot of developers and that you're actually talking to them on these forums - I can't type multiple things at once so when we're responding on here, we're not typing the features, so...

[Mithferion]

1 hour ago, MattP said:

Sorry for the lack of response in this particular thread. I did mention in another Beta forum thread that I had been very busy over the last development cycle as I was writing the iPad version of Designer, so hadn't been able to spend time tackling a number of the most-requested features and bugs. I said in the other thread, so will re-iterate here that now iPad Designer is written, so I don't have to spend time developing that next cycle, so I can devote time to actually looking into these long-standing areas.

Also, I've got to say, there is no 'deafening silence' - there is a reality that we don't have a lot of developers and that you're actually talking to them on these forums - I can't type multiple things at once so when we're responding on here, we're not typing the features, so...

That's the thing most people don't realise. I understand them, because this lack of manpower can make you feel like you are not being considered... but I don't agree with their statements and how they react.

Hope you do well in your nex assignments, Matt.

Best regards!

[Oval]

3 hours ago, Mithferion said:

That's the thing most people don't realise.

Most people don’t realize that customers don’t get an answer. For years! … Luckily?

On 7. September 2015 at 9:13 PM, viterzbayraku said:

Expand Stroke functions still have a lot of problems. Any news about fixing?

 

[Mithferion]

1 minute ago, Oval said:

Most people don’t realize that customers don’t get an answer. For years! … Luckily?

I've seen some threads where the Serif folks acknowledge that this is a big problem, that they haven't solved it, and that is not easy. That's an answer. Not a welcome one, but that's them saying it in a honest way.

Now, if you mean "customers don't get a solution. For years!", then I totally agree. I'd love to see it solved, but can I do in order to get that fixed? I don't have the programming skills to go there and fix it.

Now, if someone thinks that they don't care, I don't buy that.

Best regards!

[Oval]

3 hours ago, Mithferion said:

I've seen some threads where the Serif folks […] Now, if you mean […] 

Just to explain it clearly: The last thing in “Expand stroke incorrect” that (new) members saw, was a question that no moderator felt responsible for answering. A moderator could have given a brief info that would not have taken much time, but would have been more conducive to the image of Serif than not answering.

[Mithferion]

And I believe that's how the older members of the forum can help newcomers: giving the information thay have, based on Staff member's claims.

The other way around is more Developers writing answers here than writing code (MEB is not a developer, as far as I know, but he does his best to answer these threads).

Best regards!

[dr_who]

5 hours ago, MattP said:

Sorry for the lack of response in this particular thread. I did mention in another Beta forum thread that I had been very busy over the last development cycle as I was writing the iPad version of Designer, so hadn't been able to spend time tackling a number of the most-requested features and bugs. I said in the other thread, so will re-iterate here that now iPad Designer is written, so I don't have to spend time developing that next cycle, so I can devote time to actually looking into these long-standing areas.

Also, I've got to say, there is no 'deafening silence' - there is a reality that we don't have a lot of developers and that you're actually talking to them on these forums - I can't type multiple things at once so when we're responding on here, we're not typing the features, so...

I’m glad to have learned that. Let’s hope the desktop Designer gets all the love it deserves from here on out

[dr_who]

2 hours ago, Mithferion said:

Now, if someone thinks that they don't care, I don't buy that.

Best regards!

Such speculations and rumors start to emerge when there is no communication. Anything’s possible when nothing is denied nor confirmed.

While I agree too much time spent on responding here is away from the actual development, I think there’s a sweet spot to be found somewhere in the middle.

Some of us as customers have our own realities to deal with, which aren’t limitless in terms of time and resources either. Decisions need to be made, work needs to get done. Some insight into where a given piece of software is at and where it’s likely headed to would go a long way helping us navigate all that.

[Daniel Gibert]

I have confidence in Affinity's team. It is true that some issues have a lack of communication sometimes, but I have no doubts at issues not being addressed. Now, for this particular issue, I'll love to have a solution soon, because just now spanding stroke is a mess. I just had to export a design to Illustrator and back to be able to expand the strokes because AD was being sooooooo creative with it's results… 

Is weird, because the point of bezier & vector is that are mathematical representations so expanding should be "mathematically accurate" (up to certain degree), but the results we get are more similar to vectorizing a bitmap image, a low resolution one…

Keep going! I'd have love to watch this solved on 1.7 but still not there. Next time.

[Anon223029]

Never imagined this little thread would blow up that much! 

@MattP You guys do a great job with the 'Affinity Suite' of tools ! - the stoke issue is very much a thing for font designers, used to a.., 

design in Illustrator / copy/paste  it to Fontlab kind of workflow.  Something we can't do with Affinity Designer to this point.

 

 

[dr_who]

5 hours ago, Daniel Gibert said:

Is weird, because the point of bezier & vector is that are mathematical representations so expanding should be "mathematically accurate" (up to certain degree), but the results we get are more similar to vectorizing a bitmap image, a low resolution one…

Since the free, open-source Inkscape does a good job of expanding strokes (at least in terms of not compromising the form/shape itself), there probably are freely accessible papers/info on the backend math behind it.

Fortunately the folks at Affinity have acknowledged the issue and stated that now that the iPad version is out of the way, this issue will get some attention so if a fix doesn’t make it to 1.7 then maybe 1.8…?

I sincerely hope so since this thing is the only thing keeping me (and a couple of others I know) at bay.

[Oval]

5 hours ago, vwollschlaeger said:

stoke issue

[dr_who]

This thread just got literally fired up 

[Anon223029]

18 hours ago, Oval said:

Typo Alert!!  

[Anon223029]

About the curves, Strokes, it's actually not too hard to get it right!
I obviously don't know the inner workings of Affinity's Software... therefore I'm not sure how complex
a fix of this can be. 

But since you find code written in JavaScript, doing this already decently... I kind of wonder.

http://mourner.github.io/simplify-js/
http://paperjs.org/tutorials/paths/smoothing-simplifying-flattening/#simplifying-paths

@MattP This brings up a different idea, wouldn't it be nice to be able to write little (let's say) javascript / python / etc expressions and save them as scripts/tools?
Similar to workflows you can find in 3D Software (Maya, Modo, Blender to name some). That would allow the community to fix these little issues. 

[dr_who]

5 hours ago, vwollschlaeger said:

@MattP This brings up a different idea, wouldn't it be nice to be able to write little (let's say) javascript / python / etc expressions and save them as scripts/tools?
Similar to workflows you can find in 3D Software (Maya, Modo, Blender to name some). That would allow the community to fix these little issues. 

+1

That'd be brilliant.

[Oval]

7 hours ago, vwollschlaeger said:

scripts

There are already requests for scripts/actions/… and not much hope to see those features soon (before Expand Stroke is fixed).