Preliminary Questions

[JimGoshorn]

Hi,

 

I'm coming from Illustrator so I'd like to post some questions to understand how Designer would compare to Illustrator:

 

 

1. In Designer are there compound paths and compound shapes like Illustrator’s or just compound shapes (as demonstrated in your cheese example)?

 

2. For RGB, LAB and Grayscale Designer offers 16 bit but in CYMK, Designer offers 8 bit. Why the difference?

 

3. How interoperable is Designer with Illustrator? Let’s say I want to create an object with a gradient mesh in Illustrator and then place it in Design. How does that work?

 

4. Are you planning on offering some kind of Attributes panel like Illustrator has where fills, effects etc can be stacked on an object and edited?

 

5. Do you use objects to create clipping masks or is it done only by brushes?

 

6. Is there a simplify function to remove unnecessary anchor points?

 

7. How do you reflect, rotate and flip objects?

 

8. Compared to Illustrator, are color swatches in Designer process or global? In other words, if I specify a color for an object from the swatch panel and then change the swatch, will the object's color change?

 

9. Will swatch panel be able to hold more than just colors (like gradients and patterns)?

 

10. Your description says that Designer is written to take advantage of OSX technologies. Will you apps take advantage multiple cores and the second GPU in the newer Mac Pro computers?

 

Thanks for any replies

 

Jim

[Hokusai]

Jim,

 

I see it is your first posts, welcome to the forums. A good place to start is the Road Map, it will give you an idea of where the program is going https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/842-affinity-designer-feature-roadmap/. There are some things effects that you can do in Illustrator that won't work well if you open them up in Designer (things like the vector effects warp, fish eye etc. I don't know about the gradient mesh tool as I haven't tried opening an Illustrator file in Designer that contains a gradient mesh but I would guess that it won't work well yet but it might in the future). As well there is a trial that you can download and I think that would be best for you to try it out and see if it is for you. As someone who has used Illustrator for over 25 years and as well Freehand (and Corel Draw a little if I had to) and I am very happy with Affinity Designer. In fact sometimes I have to use Illustrator and I miss all the features that make life easier that I have in Designer. There are some things that are not there yet but the developers are working very hard to make it a great app and as well the developers actually listen to users advice and requests. Let me try to answer your questions.

 

1). Yes, you can make compound paths and shapes both (in fact you can do non-destructive boolean operations too but there currently isn't a "merge" function like in Illustrator yet) 

 

2). This is one for the developers

 

3). See above but it depends on what kind of things you do in Illustrator. Most things will open just fine between them but there are somethings that won't. 

 

4). Another one for the Affinity team

 

5). Sorry I have no idea about this one?

 

6). I believe that there isn't yet but I know some people have requested it already

 

7). Rotating and flipping objects is easy much like Illustrator (skewing is better in Designer).

 

8). As of now Designer's colour swatches aren't global but it might be something that will change down the road.

 

9) The Swatch Panel currently allows you to hold gradients and colours (patterns haven't been added yet I believe).

 

10). Another one for the Developers.  

 

For me Affinity Designer's unlimited Zoom, the awesome corner tool, the easily adjustable shapes, the node tool that allows you to manipulate paths are way, way better than Illustrator. There are many other things that are much better as well but those are things some of the things that I love about Designer. Designer has lots of nice little touches that makes you think "wow that was clever" and "how did I live without this before?". Things like a "History" Palette, the ease at which you can move things between layers, and many more. Sure there are some things missing but it is a great app and it is getting better all the time. Also once you buy it for a very reasonable price you can then also download and use the betas along side the Mac App Store version. The betas, while betas, are solid. 

 

Best of luck,

Hokusai

[JimGoshorn]

Thanks for the reply and answers, Hokusai. I have downloaded the demo and am experimenting now and have posted some feature requests. Designer is pretty impressive especially considering it is in it's infancy and the price.

 

To be fair, some of the things that Designer offers can be had in Illustrator if you are willing to purchase additional plug-ins (some of which cost as much as Designer though).

 

I opened an Illustrator file and some things like varying width paths appear to be expanded so unless you are dealing with basic paths, it doesn't look like files can effectively be exchanged and worked on between Illustrator and Designer  :( 

[evtonic3]

I looked at the Illustrator wiki page and I quickly discovered where I'd say Designer is right now when compared to Illustrator features list. And it looks like, I believe, that Designer RIGHT NOW is comparable to Illustrator 9. After 9 came distortions, warping, etc. along with other features. Not to say Designer is very in the past, its actually a lot smarter and works in some ways entirely different not to mention fast, but this is to be expected as they are not here to make an Illustrator duplicate. Where else can I find awesome raster brushes, layer effects, and other things without leaving the app??!! Its a great app that is only going to get better.