MadMak Posted June 14, 2019 Share Posted June 14, 2019 Hello, I am sorry, if this was asked for hundred times already (didn't find anything within forum search). So the problem is, that for web-design AD isn't well suited, because currently there are no options to share a file with someone, who is going to make an HTML layout out of it and doesn't own Affinity app. Exporting to PSD partially solves it, but if your design has a lot of text, it is going to be rasterized and lose all the data about the size and etc. It will be really good if you could make a viewer app, where you can not edit anything, but you can see all the measurements, copy text and export layers. A possibility to copy CSS would be good, but no really needed. And what is aswell very important is that this app must be free. Something like figma did, where you share your work with other developers for viewing purposes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mithferion Posted June 14, 2019 Share Posted June 14, 2019 Something like Adobe Reader, or Tableau Reader might prove helpful. Best regards! Quote AMD FX 8350 :: Radeon HD 5670 :: Windows 10 :: http://mithferion.deviantart.com/ Oxygen Icons :: GCP Icons :: iOS 11 Design Resources :: iOS App Icon Template :: Free Quality Fonts (Commercial Use) :: Public Domain Images How to do High Quality Art :: Mesh Warp / Distort Tool Considerations :: Select Same / Object - Suggestions :: Live Glassmorphism Effect Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friksel Posted June 14, 2019 Share Posted June 14, 2019 2 hours ago, MadMak said: Hello, I am sorry, if this was asked for hundred times already (didn't find anything within forum search). So the problem is, that for web-design AD isn't well suited, because currently there are no options to share a file with someone, who is going to make an HTML layout out of it and doesn't own Affinity app. Exporting to PSD partially solves it, but if your design has a lot of text, it is going to be rasterized and lose all the data about the size and etc. It will be really good if you could make a viewer app, where you can not edit anything, but you can see all the measurements, copy text and export layers. A possibility to copy CSS would be good, but no really needed. And what is aswell very important is that this app must be free. Something like figma did, where you share your work with other developers for viewing purposes. As a designer and webdeveloper myself I don't agree with you at all. Designer is very well suited for webdesign and even has responsive capabilities which are pretty unique I say. If you export to PDF you don't need to have a rasterized output. You might check your export settings and make sure you export everything to vectors instead. And don't use raster-tools inside the software. Than your developer can in fact get everything he needs: hex color codes, sizes and everything. And if you export directly to svg he might even use the svg directly inside the website, which is even faster. And what developer can open up (and measure) a vector graphic anyway without vectorsoftware? He just needs 50 euros and can open up your design... Most companies I worked for or together with even have a full Creative Cloud subscription per employee, so for all designers AND developers in the company, to exchange files between each other. Which is an incredible amount of money per year, so compare that to a one time buy (per this amount of time) for a developer instead. And if you still don't want him to have vector-software to do his job; just add hex codes, sizes and everything as text in your design document, like being done by a lot of webdesigners for ages. But I'd say just buy and use Designer as a viewer. Why build new software for it? It can do everything a developer needs and could wish for to understand your design for implementation, and it's still only 50 euros once. Or even if you're a freelancer and want to work with some developer not using Designer and not even having some vector software (not even using inkscape which is even free): give him a Designer install for free, you pay for his install so you can work together and you just add half an hour to an hour more to your bill to pay for the Designer install. You happy because you can deliver a .afDesigner file, developer happy because he gets free payed software and wants to work with you over and over again, customer happy because you are so flexible and great to work with and the job went so well, because the exchanging of files went so fluent. Problem solved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadMak Posted June 14, 2019 Author Share Posted June 14, 2019 46 minutes ago, Friksel said: If you export to PDF you don't need to have a rasterized output. You might check your export settings and make sure you export everything to vectors instead. And don't use raster-tools inside the software. Than your developer can in fact get everything he needs: hex color codes, sizes and everything. Did you ever tried to use exported PDF? I don't say it is impossible, but it's a pain. First of all, you can not use it in Photoshop. If you try to use Illustrator (and most of developers don't use it), it's still a pain. Why? Because a lot of objects are inside a clipping masks and, usually, developers don't know how to deal with them. Because you don't get guides, because paragraph texts are converted to single line texts. And so on. Quote And if you export directly to svg he might even use the svg directly inside the website, which is even faster. Yes, I do, but it is a nice feature to have in a viewer app oriented to web-design. Quote And what developer can open up (and measure) a vector graphic anyway without vectorsoftware? He just needs 50 euros and can open up your design... Most companies I am from eastern Europe. It's not the case here, unless you work for a very big studio. My company outsourcing heavily and hire many freelancers. Most of them use Photoshop or Sketch. When you tell them, that they need Affinity Designer, they tell you: "Never heard of it, are you nuts?". Don't forget, that most of them do not know the program as good as a designer. They use it just to get information. Quote And if you still don't want him to have vector-software to do his job; just add hex codes, sizes and everything as text in your design document, like being done by a lot of webdesigners for ages. This takes a lot of time, especially for the big projects. And why should I do this, if all the data developer needs is in the file? Quote give him a Designer install for free Hey, guys from my company are already not happy to hear about Affinity products. Do you think they would like to spend 50$ for every freelancer? I bet, they will pay me 50$ to shut up and forget about it. The viewer app can fill the gap between a designer and developer, that's why I need it. And since we have 3 apps built on the same engine (or how do you call it), why not to get a very simple one with very limited features? You will not be able to use it to create anything, but it will make Affinity software much more attractive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friksel Posted June 14, 2019 Share Posted June 14, 2019 @MadMak Wat would you expect the viewer app to do? And how much should it cost? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadMak Posted June 14, 2019 Author Share Posted June 14, 2019 1 minute ago, Friksel said: @MadMak Wat would you expect the viewer app to do? 4 hours ago, MadMak said: It will be really good if you could make a viewer app, where you can not edit anything, but you can see all the measurements, copy text and export layers. Something like in figma, where you can share your work with people, but they are not able to edit your design. View the files Get color codes, font-families and sizes View the guides, grid and distances between objects Export images and icons I guess, that's all you need to convert a design to HTML template Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friksel Posted June 14, 2019 Share Posted June 14, 2019 14 minutes ago, MadMak said: Did you ever tried to use exported PDF? I don't say it is impossible, but it's a pain. First of all, you can not use it in Photoshop. If you try to use Illustrator (and most of developers don't use it), it's still a pain. Why? Because a lot of objects are inside a clipping masks and, usually, developers don't know how to deal with them. Because you don't get guides, because paragraph texts are converted to single line texts. And so on. I personally prefer other formats over pdf to open them up in vector software, but if I try exporting some graphics work I did, like layout designs and illustrations, I don't see any problem in exporting them as vectors. I don't see any clipping masks in the pdfs and can open them back in affinity designer right from the pdf without any problem. Also in Adobes pdf viewer (Reader DC) which developers can perfectly handle and use for free even. So I don't see the problem here to be honoust. I believe exporting to pdf is no pain if you understand the settings under 'more' and create the design without using things like clipping paths or whatever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friksel Posted June 14, 2019 Share Posted June 14, 2019 2 minutes ago, MadMak said: Something like in figma, where you can share your work with people, but they are not able to edit your design. View the files Get color codes, font-families and sizes View the guides, grid and distances between objects Export images and icons I guess, that's all you need to convert a design to HTML template Honoust question: If Figma can do that, why not use Figma? Or else: would it be possible to export your design to Figma than (like with svg) and do what you want with Figma than to supply the developer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadMak Posted June 14, 2019 Author Share Posted June 14, 2019 Just now, Friksel said: Honoust question: If Figma can do that, why not use Figma? Maybe because I want to use Affinity and Figma supports only Sketch files? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friksel Posted June 14, 2019 Share Posted June 14, 2019 So Figma doesn't fit your needs because it cannot handle svg files nor pdfs, only sketch? Affinity doesn't fit your needs because it doesn't have a 'reader'. The Developers you work with are stubborn and don't want to learn new software they need for the job to get all measurements and all in your designs. You don't want to include information by text in design sheets on image. You are living in eastern europe and you don't work with big companies, but still you are talking about them not being able to open your pdf in PHOTOSHOP and ILLUSTRATOR... which happen to be in the creative cloud I'd say, which is 60 euros a month subscription so not exactly the most cheap software out there. You have a problem with exporting to pdf and think that's a pain in Designer and say Photoshop and Illustrator are not able to handle these outputs. So nothing really works, there's no money to invest and no interest by your developers to cooperate... Well good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadMak Posted June 14, 2019 Author Share Posted June 14, 2019 Look, I don't have any problems with exporting to PDF. And I don't want to hear about other software. I just want Affinity to be more usable for web-design. I don't know, why you are against it. Do you have any concerns? Currently AD is very good for my own needs if I do all the work by myself, including design, HTML conversion and programming the damn website. But as soon as I need to share my designs with other developers, that's where all the problems start. Currently I can not and I am not allowed to use AD in my company only because of these issues. In my opinion, the viewer app is the best way to solve them. One more way is to export to PSD without text being rasterized, but it solves it only for Photoshop users and I am not sure, if Affinity developers will ever make it happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pšenda Posted June 14, 2019 Share Posted June 14, 2019 I think "Affinity Suite Viewer" would come in handy, and it might not be so demanding to develop - they already have all the necessary components to view the files. Quote Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301 Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155. Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155. Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Distill7 Posted June 17, 2019 Share Posted June 17, 2019 If you can't use an exchangeable format with other developers, I guess your best chance is no use the software that they work with. Serif might not build a viewer because it can make people not need to buy the software and they'll loose potential money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.