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I echo the comments.  VS has some great and powerful features, but the learning curve - in absence of tutorials and good documentation - make it almost insurmountable to me.  Recent VS Forum advice was to learn by searching the Forum... but that should be the last resort - not first.  I love both but for different reasons. 

I like the idea of merging software/features.

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5 hours ago, R C-R said:

I just wonder if the developer of VS gets it. It is one thing to load up an app with a zillion useful features, but quite another to do that while keeping the UI intuitive & user friendly enough to make it worth investing a lot of time in learning how to use all that stuff.

The Affinity apps are far from perfect but way better than VS in that respect.

I understand we all have our own unique difficulties learning software of different types, but I'm having a hard time understanding the obstacles you claim about difficulties with symbols and remembering what they are, that  keeps you from really understanding and using Vectorstyler. 

What specifically are you wanting the developer of Vectorstyler to "get"? How would you make it more intuitive? Remove the symbols? Not allow easy access to the tools? I am genuinely curious how you would improve it

You've mentioned the vertical toolbar and I assume you are also referring to the buttons at the top of the screen and the contextual menubar below that... 
I took a look in the official Vectorstyler documentation and found the section that goes in depth on every tool in the vertical toolbar. 
I also took a closer look at the Affinity vertical tool bar and main symbol bar at the top and then the contextual bar as well and found they are not really much different than the way it is in Vectorstyler. Boolean operations, alignment pull down panel, flipping objects around an axis, snapping tools, etc... its all the same on both. While there's similarity, there are also plenty of symbols in both Vectorstyler and Designer that could require hovering over to gain information. Vectorstyler is a more powerful and advanced program and so it's busier than what Affinity has - Affinity may get busier in the next update when they add a number of new features - we'll have to see. Affinity is never going to catch up with Vectorstyler in terms of features and abilities, but I also do not think that is their goal anyway - they instead seem to want to be a semi-professional program built to be sleek and work well as a unit with the other two components - nothing wrong with that. Those who want advanced vector features will turn to Vectorstyler as a primary use or as a powerful add-on to their affinity workflow. So comparing the two programs is apples and oranges in many ways.  
What you could try is taking a screenshot of the symbols and then hover over them and add their info to the screenshot so you know at quick reference what they are. I can see it being a little frustrating and cumbersome to learn so many symbols, but there are solutions like I suggested that should make this be an easy obstacle to overcome. 
If you seek the simplicity of Affinity - use that as your primary - but I don't think it's fair to knock Vectorstyler for having a busier UI when it offers many times more the features of Affinity. Any advanced program I tried to learn took time and patience and some frustration before it clicked. I remember using iMovie for so long before upgrading to Final Cut Pro - it was overwhelming for a while and then over time it got better.
Vectorstyler is not a perfect program any more than Affinity is imperfect. I agree there are some atheistical improvements Vectorstyler could make - improvements with the panels is coming for example...at some point there will be more video and tutorial options and that might help people as well 
 

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11 hours ago, R C-R said:

That's my problem. Every time I start trying to learn it, I get annoyed that so much of the UI uses icons that to me at least suggest little or nothing about their purpose, that I give up & put that off for another day.

I was reading your comment above and it made me think I'm misunderstanding you - are you thinking the only way to accomplish tasks in Vectorstyler is through the tiny icons on the main UI? If that's what you are believing to be true, I would totally understand your frustration with learning it. Nearly every symbol and icon on the UI is tied to a specific panel or option found and spelled out more clearly in the "panels" pulldown menu, much the same way Affinity has it's "Studio" menu. 
Most of the icons are just there for quick use once you know and understand the program. I hope that helps some!

Perhaps just focus on learning one topic that you could use to help you enhance what you are doing in Affinity? As @Dazmondo77 said, he uses it as a mega-pack side option and does most of his work in Affinity - that's a great way to go

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@dcrWhat do you feel like would help the UI of Vectorstyler be more intuitive? It reminds me a lot of Illustrator right now, for better or for worse. I would like to see the panels be more streamlined and less clunky looking. I would also like to see the main panels be able to be streamlined into icons if preferred, much like Illustrator has. That would help increase real estate space on the screen. Designer has a cleaner more spastic UI - which in some ways I like and in other ways, feels sparse... but I attribute that more to fewer features than anything else. As the program grows, I would predict more icons will be shown in the toolbar and UI overall.
What do you feel would make it more intuitive?
Tying in @D.E. Main's comment about "but the learning curve - in absence of tutorials and good documentation - make it almost insurmountable to me." Perhaps the fact that there's not enough existing tutorials, videos, better documentation overall, hurts the intuitiveness feeling and makes it feel insurmountable to some. I can understand that feeling for sure. My comment on that thread was to start with what you know that is very similar to affinity and illustrator already - there's a LOT of overlap. You plug away a little at a time and don't try to do too complex a thing at once - look up the topic in the documentation and try it out - then ask questions on the forum. That was what I did and now I use Vectorstyler full time and occasionally use Designer - I still use Photo quite a bit and want to do more with publisher.

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38 minutes ago, Boldlinedesign said:

what do you feel like would help the UI of Vectorstyler be more intuitive?

For one thing, an option to display both the name & icon of items on the main toolbar, just like the Affinity apps provide.

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

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Features such as this STILL missing from this program (in 2022!) lead me to believe that the Affinity team have decided that their software is good enough. I'm very disappointed in this team and this software and like most of my colleagues I've had to go back to using Illustrator. It would be nice if we could move past the indie status of Affinity products but like the Serif suite, the Affinity suite is already old and unfinished, in an industry that is always moving forward. It is a shame because Affinity had a good start but it seems content to have its head stuck in the ground dwelling on the past. I guess I'll have to check back in another 3 years.

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@Diller I agree in large part with your comments. However affinity has said that 2.0 should be coming out sometime in 2022, so there's a five month window for that goal.

I've been using vectorstyler as my primary vector design program the last few years as I wait on affinity. Ultimately the combination of Vectorstyler and affinity covers most everything most designers need.

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Yes, but no mention at all from Affinity about this most crucial of missing features. The impression that has previously been given is that this is not an important feature to the development team. It's such a shame that a product that is so good in so many ways is missing such a fundamental feature.

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Is Affinity even being developed anymore?? I jumped into this software on V1.9 and at the time it seamed like it was a steamroller, highly promoted and all over social media, thought I was into a good thing and in the coming years I would see all the updates/features I needed…. But since then I feel like it’s been abandoned? Is it just me??

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm really wondering that they irgnore this request for so long. Should be easy to implement a function which simply creates symbols of a given object and order them in a linear, radial or spline driven pattern...
Actually, this missing pattern function is the biggest drawback of this otherwise very nice tool.

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  • 2 months later...
On 3/21/2019 at 11:54 AM, MEB said:

I see what you mean. I also wouldn't mind to have the ability to fill objects with vector patterns. Thread moved to the Suggestions for Affinity Designer on Desktop section.

More than three years later, we still don't have anything like that. You know it's useless to have a Suggestions forum when none of these suggestions ever get implemented, right? I'm honestly very disappointed in Serif, their software has such great potential, but they REFUSE to listen to their community and add the features that could make it rival industry standard software suites. The suggestions forum is FULL of threads from 2019 that request basic features that are STILL not implemented, with no plans to implement them either. I just feel like Designer hasn't been updated since then, I just don't see any noticeable difference in the feature set.

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46 minutes ago, prophet said:

And how do you know that?

No APPARENT plans to implement them either.

Lack of any indication to the contrary is causing many people to just give up on the product. I have certainly forgotten about and given up on it, except on the occasions when another forlorn post to this topic comes to the surface again.

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Agreed - It's the silence (neglect?) that is frustrating.  A reply such as "we hear you.  We are currently focusing on other key improvements and priorities and will give you an update later.  This feature IS on our planning list."

That said - I love the product and do recommend it for most users.  I've also said in surveys before - I'd be willing to pay more for the base product - It's more than worth it.

The silence spurns roumours and loss of interest, unfortunately.

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My impression is that being a small company and using a one-time license purchase for its software (as opposed to a subscription like most of the rest), serif doesn't have the resources needed to do this. Instead, it focuses them into improving and maintaining that which makes more business sense, since it gives a monthly income: the assets market. 

If that's the case, I wouldn't mind changing to a yearly subscription for example, if that means adding and maintaining those extra features it seems to be unable to add right now.

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1 hour ago, Comet said:

No APPARENT plans to implement them either.

To compare, what features have you noted that do have apparent plans to be implemented?

Not to be contrarian, but none of us can say what is or isn't in the works. You are looking for a roadmap, which could certainly be helpful, but as has been mentioned many many times here in the forum, such a roadmap caused more trouble than it was worth. We must all just be patient or, if we can't, move on to other options.

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30 minutes ago, prophet said:

To compare, what features have you noted that do have apparent plans to be implemented?

Not to be contrarian, but none of us can say what is or isn't in the works. You are looking for a roadmap, which could certainly be helpful, but as has been mentioned many many times here in the forum, such a roadmap caused more trouble than it was worth. We must all just be patient or, if we can't, move on to other options.

This is exactly the problem. They don't share ANYTHING with their community. "Neglect" is the exact word I'd use for their attitude towards their own community - they seldom even acknowledge our existence. At first when I bought Designer I was so hyped, because it was *ALMOST* exactly what I was looking for, with some more work and features it would have been perfect. It's so frustrating to see them get so close, but fall short of expectations, and just sit on their thumbs and keeping silent all the time.

A roadmap would be awesome to have, or even little teasers about what they're working on would do. Instead all we get is radio silence. Certainly makes me lose interest.

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15 minutes ago, Imonobor said:

This is exactly the problem. They don't share ANYTHING with their community. "Neglect" is the exact word I'd use for their attitude towards their own community - they seldom even acknowledge our existence. At first when I bought Designer I was so hyped, because it was *ALMOST* exactly what I was looking for, with some more work and features it would have been perfect. It's so frustrating to see them get so close, but fall short of expectations, and just sit on their thumbs and keeping silent all the time.

A roadmap would be awesome to have, or even little teasers about what they're working on would do. Instead all we get is radio silence. Certainly makes me lose interest.

What he said...

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There is distortion of vector objects that may meet my needs.  It's clear that Affinity has been focusing energy on the V2 - which overall is great.

 

I'm hopeful now that this new platform really will allow some of these asks to be more readily included.

 

Thanks Affinity - a new V2 suite owner.

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12 hours ago, David.P said:

Can you imagine that I just bought the whole bundle of version 2, and only then looked up the new features?

However, I fear that there are still no vector fills, right?

Yep. But hey, there is dwg import, and guess what it imports the bloddy hatches from the dwg so maybe it's near? New tools are cool too, 1 step closer to being a complete thing.

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