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Affinity Designer Customer Beta (1.7.0.4)


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  • Staff

Status: Beta

Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes

Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer

Mac App Store: Not submitted

Download: Here

Hello,

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the beta of Affinity Designer 1.7 for macOS.

Designer 1.7 is a significant change to the currently shipping 1.6 version. Files edited in this version will not be backwards-compatible with the shipping 1.6 version. As such, we would not recommend using this 1.7 version for critical or production work at this stage. It is inevitable that there were will be a number of issues with 1.7 but we hope these will be minor and aim to resolve any issues very quickly, so please use it and explore the new features, but also do keep in mind that you may find snags and we would appreciate your help with finding and reporting these to us.

If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry.

It’s also worth noting that we aren’t done yet - we are still working through reported bugs from previous releases and hope to fix as many as possible before the final release of 1.7.

With all that said, we hope that you will enjoy the new capabilities introduced in this initial release and we look forward to any and all feedback you give to us.

Many thanks,

Matt

 

Affinity Designer 1.7 - Changes since last Beta release

- New program and document icons.

- New 'Cube' grid setup mode (take a look in 'View' -> 'Grid and Axis Manager...').

- Sub-brush editing fixes and improvements.

- HSL adjustment UI fixes.

- TIFF import/export improvements.

- Fix for loading very large JPEGs

- Fix for rendering issue with edit controls on the context toolbar.

- Fix for default artboard names sometimes causing sub-folders to be created in Export Persona output.

- Memory management tweaks.

- Fix for sporadic OpenGL issues (black squares appearing at random).

- Rotation of brush tips using keyboard modifiers can now occur during drag.

- PDF export improvements.

- Fill Tool is now plane-aware and generates initial fill handles appropriate for the current plane.

- UI gamma change now functions correctly on Mojave.

- Font list tweaks.

- 'Create artboard' option in New Document dialog should be initialised correctly now.

- Vector brushes now allow for non-pixel-aligned head/tail offsets when dragging (just hold Alt/Option to avoid pixel-snapping).

- Symbol fixes.

- Pen and Node Tool improvements.

- EPS import improvements.


Affinity Designer 1.7 - Changes Since Last 1.6 Release

Tools

- We've overhauled most of the core tools, adding subtle new features to make you more productive:

   - Node tool has a new 'Transform Mode' which provides a containing box for the selected nodes and allows for more freeform editing of the nodes.

   - Node and Pen tools have an utterly amazing Construction mode which gives easy access to common construction features to help you build complicated shapes or intersections accurately and easily, giving you simple access to parallels, right angles, reflected and mirrored angles, in addition to circular construction snaps and all construction intersections. This really needs a video to show how to use it - but it's awesome.

   - Pen tool now has a 'rubber band' mode and also a mode to allow future curves to be added to the current object's curves (for example, the character 'a' is constructed of two curves in a single 'curve object' and this mode makes that construction simpler).

   - Node tool can now auto-snap nodes if you drag a node from one curve over the top of a node from another (selected) curve and pause, it will offer to snap to the same geometry as the node you're hovering over (ie,  modify the on and off-curve nodes to match). This is really useful for trying to reconstruct areas of one curve from another curve.

   - Node tool now allows for lasso selection of nodes by holding the Alt/Option key and dragging a selection lasso.

   - Pencil tool now offers a 'sculpt' mode that allows for extending or manipulating curves in a more natural way. More to come in this area soon.

   - Many tools now allow for 'Alignment widgets' which you can toggle the visibility of in the context toolbar. When enabled you can visually adjust the alignment or even, for example, 'align to centre, snapped to the left edge of this object' by simply click/dragging.

   - Fill tool correctly allows editing of skewed fill handles and newly-created skewed fills draw much nicer now.

   - Ruler origin can be edited by simply dragging the area where the rulers intersect each other - it can even be snapped onto objects in the document.

   - Guides can be edited in most tools by simply dragging a guide in the ruler area.

   - Grid setup is now more interactive: origin can be dragged, axis scale adjusted and angle adjusted on-document, complete with snapping to objects and angles in the document to help you reconstruct useful grids from finished artworks or sketches.

   - By enabling 'Edit in Plane' on the new Isometric Studio, tools can edit objects and appear to make those edits along the currently active plane - extremely useful for artists who enjoy working with any axonometric projections.

   - You can now drag the rotation centre point (when enabled on the context toolbar) while holding Ctrl and it will translate the object - this is actually very useful for positioning and snapping objects relative to others.

   - Shapes tools now have presets so you can create your own favourite shape setups and more easily use them again.

   - There are just far too many subtle tool changes to mention here, but hopefully you'll find the tools much improved :)

 

General

- New brushes, styles and assets are now shipped with the product.

- Visible bleed (accessed from the View menu) so you can more easily design into the bleed area - a common feature request.

- “Alternate futures” for document history have been added. Traditionally, if you roll back the undo history then do something else all your changes after that point are lost. Designer will now display a small branch icon in the history tab when you do this. Pressing that button will cycle between all the different “futures” after that history entry - meaning you will never lose work you have done.

- New 'Isometric' Studio makes it easy to setup and work with various axonometric projections within the application.

- HEIF images can now be loaded directly into Designer. If they contain a depth map, this will also be loaded as a second layer. Because depth maps are typically lower resolution than the main image, optional “smart” upsampling will be performed.

- Designer now supports custom document presets - a popular feature request.

- A new blend mode - Linear Burn - has been added.

- New “Move inside / outside” commands have been added - useful for quickly clipping/unclipping.

- New "Merge curves/Separate curves" commands.

- Grids now have an editable number of angle subdivisions.

- The Hard Mix blend mode has been improved.

- Numerous text improvements have been made - including new features such as bullets and numbering.

- Significant PDF import / export improvements and fixes.

- Fix for occasional crash when using Construction points

- Improved Freehand import slightly - failing to read all of a file shouldn't force it to produce a 'failed to load' response, instead we just load the bits that we *could* read

- Fix for very poorly named Styles (oops)

- New splash screen and Persona icons

 

Brushes

- Designer 1.7 introduces a new “sub-brush” mechanism, developed in conjunction with Paolo Limoncelli (DAUB® Brushes). This exciting feature allows any brush to have a list of other brushes attached which will draw at the same time. Each sub-brush has a fully separate and customisable set of dynamics. You can control when the sub-brushes are drawn and how they blend with the main brush.

- Symmetry (up to 32-way) is now supported - including on-canvas controls and optional mirroring.

- Wet edges and accumulation are now available on colour brushes and brushes with HSL variance.

- Brushes with multiple nozzle textures have always chosen the nozzle at random. In 1.7, the nozzle choice has a dynamic controller and ramp for greater control.

- All pixel brush tools now support left and right arrow keys for rotation - a common feature request.


Adjustments

- The HSL adjustment layer has been rewritten. It now supports custom hue ranges, a new algorithm, new UI and picker controls.

- The Levels adjustment layer now supports output levels - a common feature request.

- The White Balance adjustment layer has been rewritten.

- The Selective Colour adjustment layer has been rewritten.

- PSD import / export of adjustments has been improved.

- The Vibrance adjustment layer has been rewritten.

- The Recolour adjustment layer has gained a lightness slider.

 

Misc

- Numerous other bug fixes - too many to list!

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The newly introduced 'merge curves and separate curves' feature is cool but would be more flexible if it didn't treat everything similar to being a group and apply the same stroke and fill to everything. I love the idea of organizing your curves to a single layer and can see huge potential in greatly reducing the amount of layers in a complicated document but currently this implementation seems limited to me or not as powerful as it could be.  Maybe someone could explain a little more of the reasoning behind this feature as it currently sits? Or perhaps it's a work in progress?

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4 hours ago, retrograde said:

Thanks team!

Fix for default 'dartboard' names? Cool! ;-)

What are the pen and node tool improvements?

You know, I retyped that so many times thanks to over-active auto-correct and it still came out wrong... oh well, you know what I meant! ;)

The Pen and Node Tool improvements are mainly around snapping and cusp editing, I believe (Ben was looking into this and I've been very distracted trying to achieve another new feature... very nearly done, but there have been many many distractions!)

 

4 hours ago, retrograde said:

The newly introduced 'merge curves and separate curves' feature is cool but would be more flexible if it didn't treat everything similar to being a group and apply the same stroke and fill to everything.

I think the problem is that maybe the naming of the feature isn't giving you enough of a clue about what's happening? This feature is taking all the curves from within the selected objects and merging them into the first selected object, deleting all the (now empty) other selected nodes. The results will always be an object with many curves (a 'polycurve') and just one colour and line style. It is not creating a group of those objects. For example, draw a large circle and a smaller inner circle, hit Layer->Geometry->Merge Curves and you'll get an 'o' shape, just one object with two curves, one fill, one line. The opposite is true for 'Separate curves' - hit that and you'll get two objects, each with one curve and each with the fill and line of the original single item.

Hope that makes sense? :)

Matt

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3 hours ago, MattP said:

This feature is taking all the curves from within the selected objects and merging them into the first selected object, deleting all the (now empty) other selected nodes. The results will always be an object with many curves (a 'polycurve') and just one colour and line style. It is not creating a group of those objects. For example, draw a large circle and a smaller inner circle, hit Layer->Geometry->Merge Curves and you'll get an 'o' shape, just one object with two curves, one fill, one line. The opposite is true for 'Separate curves' - hit that and you'll get two objects, each with one curve and each with the fill and line of the original single item.

These are great options to have.  I don't have it in front of me to look at this just now but does separate curves separate all of the curves, or can you select a node on one or more curves and have just those curves split out into an new object?  I can see doing this selectively as being useful.  I might need to play with this later...

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9 hours ago, nosywiz said:

This is what I get when I enable Character or Paragraph panels in View > Studio.

 

Probably a bug.

Screen Shot 2019-01-09 at 09.58.41.png

Hi nosywiz,

This was a known issue that has been marked as fixed in 1.7.0.4 - I presume you have updated to this version? Could you go to View > Studio > Reset Studio - that should make the panel behave. If you still keep seeing it after doing that then please let us know!

Thanks!

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Hello Everyone !

First of All Happy New year.
... This year starts with a great touhc of Creativity and some Fresh Air.
This Beta Release just comes on time.

@MattP @Sean P Thank you for this good one, i just Hope you had good Festive season with your family and friends.
Promise you will see great stuffs created with Affinity Designer this year.

Blessings !

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

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Happy new year to you too, @Uncle Mez!

I think it's interesting how the sculpt mode is a function you can toggle on and off. Depending on the design, there are times it's needed and times it's not needed, so it works that way. When I used Illustrator, I drew open lines very close to each other, and they accidentally connected.

Anyway, I've been making a list of bugs I found over time. I figured I'd wait for the next beta to come out to mention them since some have already been mentioned. Three of them have been solved in this beta. Four have not. Should I mention them here, or should I create separate topics for them?

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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Just now, Bri-Toon said:

Happy new year to you too, @Uncle Mez!

I think it's interesting how the sculpt mode is a function you can toggle on and off. Depending on the design, there are times it's needed and times it's not needed, so it works that way. When I used Illustrator, I drew open lines very close to each other, and they accidentally connected.

Anyway, I've been making a list of bugs I found over time. I figured I'd wait for the next beta to come out to mention them since some have already been mentioned. Three of them have been solved in this beta. Four have not. Should I mention them here, or should I create separate topics for them?

I would suggest new topics for the four of them. Makes it easier to keep track of the solutions.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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1 minute ago, Bri-Toon said:

Happy new year to you too, @Uncle Mez!

I think it's interesting how the sculpt mode is a function you can toggle on and off. Depending on the design, there are times it's needed and times it's not needed, so it works that way. When I used Illustrator, I drew open lines very close to each other, and they accidentally connected.

Anyway, I've been making a list of bugs I found over time. I figured I'd wait for the next beta to come out to mention them since some have already been mentioned. Three of them have been solved in this beta. Four have not. Should I mention them here, or should I create separate topics for them?

Hello @Bri-Toon find me happy to read from you and see you are still around.
Watched your content and was a bit surprised but at least you are here and i feel better thinking that i will run the test same period as you will but i'm also thining about all the geeks around who are helping ADesigner to become even better.
i too will wait until the next beta release to talk about what i find in there.

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

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13 hours ago, A_B_C said:

Happy snowy … new year everyone!

Happy New Year to you, too, Alex! (Is it too late to wish you „einen guten Rutsch“?)

Lovely pic, BTW. :)

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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I tried "checking for updates" under the Affinity Designer Beta menu and it didn't register that a new beta was available. So I just downloaded from here like in the good old days...

Happy New Year everyone!

2021 16” Macbook Pro w/ M1 Max 10c cpu /24c gpu, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Ventura 13.6

2018 11" iPad Pro w/ A12X cpu/gpu, 256 GB, iPadOS 17

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Hi @MattP @Sean P

sorry if i ask this and it is in a wrong place but ... after looking around i simply realized this:
1- software icon is changed
2- many stuffs and tools have been upgraded/improved

still the export persona have not seen visual improvement nor upgrade and none of the recent changelog have mentioned any thing to happen on that persona.
Can we expect to see new stuffs in there too ?

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

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Hi Rivka

As you probably know the typography panel is populated according to the features supported by the current font, so the contents can vary.

Have you saved the document from 1.6.1 and opened in 1.7.0.4, does that give you the same results? Would you be able to attach the font (and document) that is giving you that behaviour please? I'm not seeing this using the fonts I've got on my machine.

Thanks

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I understand that the behaviour of this panel is also being deliberately changed. The development of Publisher has caused a reconsideration of the population of this panel and @Dave Harrishas explained that the behaviour of this panel in 1.7 Affinity Designer is coming into line with that of Publisher. Perhaps that is incomplete? I will try to find out

Please make sure that you have the same font selected in both versions (as Sean says) and that for both you have the "Show all font features" checked for both or neither (unlike your screen shots). 

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

 

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