[HN Gopher] Affinity 1.10
___________________________________________________________________
Affinity 1.10
Author : codeptualize
Score : 199 points
Date : 2021-08-05 14:52 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (affinity.serif.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (affinity.serif.com)
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Hurray to Publisher, I've set two books with Publisher and
| performance was a nightmare (iMac Pro 32gb/ 12 core Ryzen 32gb,
| NVM).
|
| (Long term happy Designer Win/OSX and Photo Win/OSX user).
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Helped my wife use Publisher for a book. Working on one for
| myself ... kept running into an M1 crasher that forced me to
| work on a pre-M1 MacBook.
|
| Maybe it's resolved. Right now installing the updates.
| Mandelmus wrote:
| Love their software but Designer still (with 1.10) takes almost
| 30 seconds to launch on my maxed out MacBook Pro 16".
| planb wrote:
| I just updated and the first start definitely took less than
| that on my Fusion Drive iMac from 2015. Something's not right
| there...
| Toutouxc wrote:
| I haven't used Affinity Photo since the last boot and it took
| 15 seconds just now on a M1 MacBook Air with 16 GB RAM and
| nothing except two Safari tabs running. Subsequent runs are
| much faster, around 3 seconds, but I believe that's mainly
| thanks to macOS' caching.
| mm983 wrote:
| Affinity Designer is absolutely fantastic. Very polished, better
| UI than Illustrator imo and incredibly cheap for what it offers.
| cpfohl wrote:
| This looks exciting. Still waiting on the ability to write
| plugins... We currently export to SVG and have an over complex
| pipeline to clean and transform. Figmas plugins are great, but
| the storage is lossy in terms of precision, making Affinity our
| only choice for now....
| agys wrote:
| I switched to Affinity almost immediately and it was liberating
| to free my machine from the Adobe Cloud bullshit...
|
| Unfortunately I have to say that Affinity Photo is still not good
| enough for my use cases: the difference lies mainly in the many
| tiny details which make the workflow an efficient workflow.
|
| Publisher is a toy for now and has a lot to catch up to be on par
| with XPress or Indesign, especially if you want to do some
| serious type setting or design complex layouts.
|
| I don't have much to say about Designer as I work with extremely
| simple vector shapes and it's good enough for me.
|
| I'm looking forward to the evolution of the products but I wonder
| if the strategy to 'clone' Adobe was a good one instead of trying
| a revolution (like for example Figma).
| iaml wrote:
| >Unfortunately I have to say that Affinity Photo is still not
| good enough for my use cases: the difference lies mainly in the
| many tiny details which make the workflow an efficient
| workflow.
|
| I've seen people say that this awkwardness is not for a lack of
| trying, instead adobe is just sitting on a pile of patents
| preventing other companies from implementing the same flows.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| > Affinity Photo is still not good enough for my use cases: the
| difference lies mainly in the many tiny details which make the
| workflow an efficient workflow
|
| Could you please provide an example? I mostly use Affinity
| Photo for simple photo development stuff and I'm curious where
| its limits really lie.
| riekus wrote:
| I was really hoping to hop over to affinity photo couple
| months ago, but there was something essential missing with
| masking in multiple exposures, can't remember what exactly
| but everyone on the forums were complaining about that
| missing feature.
|
| Really liked the rest of affinity photo but it was a deal
| breaker for me.
| JustFinishedBSG wrote:
| I'll join the other poster in asking for a Linux version (foolish
| demand I know) or at _least_ making it possible to run Affinity
| on Proton /Wine.
|
| Also, please for the love of God implement paragraph wide
| justification. Without it Publisher is a toy (in my opinion) and
| not implementing it is unacceptably amateurish when it has been
| implemented, and open source, since 1981 [1].
|
| [1] http://www.eprg.org/G53DOC/pdfs/knuth-plass-breaking.pdf
| knowuh wrote:
| A consequence of using block-justified texts is creating gaping
| chasms or rivers of white between words, that looks amateurish.
| RobertKerans wrote:
| It's not a consequence of that, what you're describing is a
| consequence of poor justification algorithms + no manual
| justification. For books, generally want block justified text
| without rivers, that's why you need a good tweakable
| algorithm, which is what GP is complaining about. Lack of
| that makes it problematic for use in professional publishing
| work
|
| Even with very good justification tools (InDesign's being the
| obvious example, as it's a direct competitor) a professional
| end result still requires a lot of manual work -- adjusting
| tracking and kerning, actually editing the text. But without
| that solid basis it's _entirely_ slow manual work.
| commoner wrote:
| Proton/Wine support would be a great improvement over not being
| able to run Affinity software on Linux at all. Definitely worth
| another purchase if Linux is supported in some way. They could
| try crowdfunding development if they're not sure about the
| demand.
| dantondwa wrote:
| Yes, I came to write this. If anyone from Affinity is reading
| this, I really hope they take notice of the demand for the
| Affinity suite on Linux. It's really the missing bit on Linux.
|
| I own the suite on Mac and Windows and I'll gladly buy it a
| third time for Linux. Otherwise, at least better Wine support
| will be very welcome. I'd even take part in a Kickstarter fund
| raise for this.
| mrtksn wrote:
| How is the hostility situation of Linux users towards non-OSS
| software?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I'm OK with it unless security is the top priority.
| eitland wrote:
| There are a few that is very hostile it seems.
|
| Most of us just want a choice between good desktops, 30%
| faster compiles, cli commands (e.g. git) that completes in
| milliseconds instead of seconds etc.
|
| Most reasonable persons, even the more free software loving
| ones are happy to run 50 - 75% free rather than 100%
| proprietary :-)
| TomasBaneUK wrote:
| Pragmatic people install them in a VM or inside Flatpaks and
| make the permissions more restrictive. Dual boot between two
| encrypted isolated distros is also possible. It doesn't seem
| so overkill when you have to use not only proprietary
| software but also things like npm and containers.
|
| Many pretend they don't use proprietary software while they
| still install what could be called malware directly from
| Steam. We're all forced to use proprietary software inside
| our CPUs and other hardware anyway. It would be easier to
| fight back if more people used and supported free software
| and hardware to move society to a better place. By the way
| I'm not implying that being open source or not has something
| to do with software quality.
| blue_rog wrote:
| Thank you for the reference for "Breaking Paragraphs into
| Lines". I attempted to implement something like this (quite
| naively) a few years ago; to read something in detail makes me
| realize the impressive lengths people go to in order to do
| something as 'simple' as breaking paragraphs into lines and
| further realize how little I appreciate 'tiny' things like
| this.
| indymike wrote:
| > Linux version (foolish demand I know)
|
| I'll buy all three Affinity apps again with a Linux or Proton
| version. I lug around a Mac just so I can run Affinity
| Designer/Photo/Publisher and click OK in Xcode (or some other
| trivial can't-be-automated thing) from time to time.
| Incidentally, I do pay for quite a bit of Linux software
| (JetBrains, WingIDE, DaVinci Resolve)... and that is before
| counting all the games that I'll be buying via Steam now that I
| can run via Proton. Yes, I'm probably in the minority in the
| Linux world, but Linux (KDE desktop) is easily the most
| productive for me and great software is actually worth paying
| for. Plus, the current direction towards total lockdown of MS
| and Apple is going to create a lot more users just like me.
| scns wrote:
| Well, maybe if everyone drops them an email...
|
| affinity@serif.com
| pqb wrote:
| There are hundreds of "Linux requests" (most popular [0])
| on their forums and they were very resistant to give
| although a small chance to make it happen.
|
| [0]: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/4750
| 2-affi...
| jstummbillig wrote:
| The community asking for it is a good marker for a
| passionate community. Affinity being resistant about
| implementing it is a good marker for a functional
| company.
| pqb wrote:
| > I'll buy all three Affinity apps again with a Linux or
| Proton version.
|
| Same here. I already own Affinity apps for Mac and on Windows
| but I don't see anything wrong with buying next Designer or
| Photo for Linux (with or without Wine/Proton). However, I
| know it is massive effort and still very complex errand to
| deliver even comparable experience on Linux as on Windows. I
| do still keep fingers crossed for Serif but it is frantic
| demand.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| > Yes, I'm probably in the minority in the Linux world, but
| Linux (KDE desktop) is easily the most productive for me
|
| Funny, I used to loathe KDE but I ended up with it by default
| after trying out NixOS for the first time and... I haven't
| left. It's great. Just fabulous. I haven't felt the need to
| go back to a tiling WM yet, which I still find surprising...
| indymike wrote:
| > I haven't felt the need to go back to a tiling WM yet
|
| Try out Khronkite... It's a script that makes KWin into a
| tiling WM. I'm using it now.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| But I don't even need it! Everything just works great!
| Super+arrow keys resize the window, I can even
| sequentially do super-left super-up to get a quarter
| tile. Alt-mouse to drag/resize, if I'm using a mouse at
| all. Easy to pin, shade, group, etc. It's snappy, does
| exactly what I expect nearly 100% of the time.
| liotier wrote:
| > Funny, I used to loathe KDE but I ended up with it by
| default after trying out NixOS for the first time and... I
| haven't left. It's great. Just fabulous.
|
| Same here: I was a long-time xfce user but, over the years,
| I found myself using more and more KDE applications. For a
| friend I setup a Debian with the default KDE environment...
| I ended up using that myself - with not too many tweaks I
| just love it: the defaults are sane and if I want to change
| anything I can !
|
| Has KDE changed that much or have I changed ?
| handrous wrote:
| KDE has changed, and other environments have changed.
|
| Used to be I disliked KDE for 3 reasons: 1. it made me
| feel like I was Doing It Wrong and stuff sometimes didn't
| work if I didn't use K- programs for everything (and I
| disliked basically all of those), 2) it was the worst-
| performing and heaviest (disk, memory, everything) DE
| around, and 3) the config was insane, in a bad way--not
| that you _could_ do it, but the GUI config manager was
| just a damn mess.
|
| 1 has improved a ton, 3 has improved a little, and 2
| isn't true anymore--Gnome is much heavier and has
| terrible performance by comparison (try both on a
| resource-constrained device if you don't believe me).
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if XFCE has gotten a little
| heavier, too, so the difference between the two isn't so
| stark. Especially default installs of XFCE on some
| distros, which include a lot of extras.
| dantondwa wrote:
| I think KDE has changed that much. A lot of work has gone
| into fixing the small things and making the default
| saner. The solid technology behind it + all the usability
| fixes they've been working on in the last years have made
| it really shine. I think it's the culmination of years of
| work, and I think it's finally paying off (also the fact
| that Valve is officially working on KDE will give it even
| more momentum).
| ognarb wrote:
| There has been indeed a lot of changes in the last three
| years since Nate Graham started doing weekly update about
| all the stuff going on each week:
| https://pointieststick.com/
| dantondwa wrote:
| Same here. I used to use GNOME once upon a time, then
| switched to macOS, then after 5 years to Windows, and since
| this spring I've gone back to Linux, specifically Fedora
| with KDE. I find KDE to be fantastic. I've got most
| ergonomic setup I've ever used, there is really nothing to
| complain about it, including fantastic hidpi support. I'm
| really happy.
| ajklsdhfniuwehf wrote:
| everyone ditched gnome as soon as their design head
| started to mandate "copy apple on everything, even the
| dumb things"
|
| i wasn't even too sad with them shipping features missing
| 90% of the old functionality while they got the code
| right, but doing that _just_ to copy apple frivolous
| design choices was just too much.
| TomasBaneUK wrote:
| Why do people always have to discuss distros in every
| thread. Find a hobby and stop ricing.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Kind of proves the point why next year is going to be the
| year of Linux desktop.
| TomasBaneUK wrote:
| What are you even trying to say. You're not any better
| when you leave bait in every single thread even remotely
| connected to open source. Now go on a tangent like always
| and watch me not reply.
| pjmlp wrote:
| It looks like a reply to me.
|
| Here is the thing, what you think about me, doesn't
| matter at all.
| eitland wrote:
| After seeing a salesman voluntarily using it and getting
| away with it at work, multiple influential devs using it
| both in my organization and at customera, meetings be
| held with Teams on Linux desktop at the client etc I have
| already declared year of Linux desktop on Oslo, Norway.
|
| Feels exactly like when Mac broke through 15 or so years
| ago: all the cool kids used it and advocated it,
| management wanted it and several people in IT preferred
| it and use it whenever they can get away with it.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Until one needs to plug a laptop into a customer beamer
| on a critical sales meeting.
| indymike wrote:
| >plug a laptop into a customer beamer
|
| I've had presentations where the Macbook couldn't sync
| and the Kubuntu Dell rescued me. Linux video is massively
| better than a few years ago thanks to AMD drivers being
| fully open source.
| 120photo wrote:
| I got PhotoLine running under Wine. The interface is not as
| "sexy" but the capabilities of PL are great and in many ways
| better than PS or Affinity Photo. PL has been around almost as
| long as PS but is not as known. I believe two brother from
| Germany maintain the software. It is much better than GIMP too.
| knowuh wrote:
| I am sure the ROI would be Amazing!
| zamalek wrote:
| > at least making it possible to run Affinity on Proton/Wine.
|
| I would be overjoyed even it was unofficial/at-your-own-risk.
| They previously stated on their forums that they were worried
| that they wouldn't be able to deliver the experience that they
| wanted[1]... or recoup costs.
|
| [1]:
| https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/626-affini...
| moelf wrote:
| Linux version when (sorry, but I bought their product 4 years ago
| because they said they were making one)
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| I don't think they ever said they were making one.
|
| In 2018, they explicitly said it wasn't happening:
|
| https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/72023-linu...
|
| And even as early as 2014 they never explicitly committed to
| it:
|
| https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/626-affini...
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| They've never promised it, and said it would cost $500,000 to
| build it for Linux. And that was in 2014 when the codebase was
| much smaller.
| OzzyB wrote:
| Super happy I took advantage of the sale they had a few weeks ago
| -- bought both Photo/Designer and now can finally say goodbye to
| the Adobe Subscription shackles.
|
| Thank you.
| [deleted]
| mitjak wrote:
| Affinity Photo has already been my go to for performance reasons
| (how is it so usable and snappy on an old iPad???). exciting to
| see it get faster yet.
|
| inappropriate feature request: "divide" layer blending mode.
| bovermyer wrote:
| I have been very happy with all three Affinity products since I
| got them.
|
| I double-bought each one so I'd have them available on both macOS
| and Windows.
|
| Thanks to Affinity I'm Adobe-free.
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| I was pretty excited about Affinity, especially Designer, since
| Illustrator has been abandoned by Adobe and there's really no
| other decent vector app on Mac.
|
| But the persistent UI gaffes and defects really bring the
| products down. It's too bad, because the design issues aren't
| that hard to address. Affinity just doesn't seem to appreciate
| their severity, despite the same questions and problems coming
| up in forums again and again.
| hbosch wrote:
| I love Affinity a ton, too, and have more or less ditched Adobe
| for all my creative needs. Affinity Designer/Photo/Published
| easily fills the Illustrator/Photoshop/InDesign toolkit for
| almost any designer's needs. I am satisfied with Figma for UI
| and UX design, and it seems to be the enterprise solution du
| jour as well. The only tool missing for me is a comprehensive
| motion design tool, for which I have only dabbled in
| alternatives to After Effects (which is amazing software).
|
| If anyone's interested, I've found Cavalry to be really good so
| far but not really intended for footage if that's your use
| case. Really great for UI motion, however.
| ffitch wrote:
| DaVinci Resolve is not bad, and also free
| webwielder2 wrote:
| Apple's Motion is worth checking out.
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| Motion is under-appreciated, for sure.
|
| The UI has some design flaws, but the product is unmatched
| for what it does.
| adfm wrote:
| Check out the new Blender if you're looking for a motion
| graphics solution. The new geometry node tools and improved
| UI are worth the look.
| [deleted]
| nodejs_rulez_1 wrote:
| It's surprising how much you can offer to customers for a once-
| off PS50 when you don't have VCs/investors breathing down your
| neck.
| ddon wrote:
| Also use all Affinity products, and what is missing for me is a
| timeline tool in Photo or Designer, so we can make animations.
|
| This is off topic, but a lot of Affinity users are here, so may
| be anybody can give recommendations for this?
| adamnemecek wrote:
| What GUI toolkit do they use?
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| It's their own.
| intellix wrote:
| As a long time Photoshop user who knows all the hotkeys I really
| really hate using Affinity Photo. I refuse to pay monthly for an
| app I only have to use every so often so bought Affinity.
|
| I just can't use it. The hotkeys are different and none of the UI
| makes any sense to me.
|
| If you could just enable a "photoshop mode" that changed all the
| hotkeys and UI then I could be useful in it.
|
| I'm even reconsidering just taking the dive and paying monthly
| for Photoshop again.
| pjlegato wrote:
| I'm another long time but occasional Photoshop user who doesn't
| know all the Photoshop hotkeys very well. I've been quite happy
| with Affinity as a replacement so far, and haven't looked back.
|
| The controls are a little different, which I imagine would be
| annoying to a hardcore Photoshop user who has used it every day
| and developed deeply ingrained muscle memory. For a more casual
| user such as myself, it's not a big deal. I have to look things
| up in the (well written, comprehensive) documentation
| sometimes, I learn the new Affinity equivalent command, and
| it's fine. The learning curve has overall been much better than
| I anticipated.
| bschne wrote:
| OT: The video really made me wonder if someone actually hand-
| crafted that ginormous testing file and how long it took
| gaetgu wrote:
| oh my goodness that is an absolutely massive file! I think that
| at this point serif is just bored and thinking of edge cases to
| fix.
| lebaux wrote:
| linux version when
| lbotos wrote:
| tbh, if they released a linux version I'd happily buy it again,
| and drop MacOS.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| They've never promised it, and said it would cost $500,000 to
| build it for Linux. And that was in 2014 when the codebase was
| much smaller.
| spiderice wrote:
| Worth pointing out that GP edited their comment after this
| comment was made. Before GP said they bought the software
| because Serif promised that Linux was coming.
| CoryAlexMartin wrote:
| I always appreciate when companies take the time to focus on
| performance. Performance optimizations aren't as flashy as new
| features and senseless UI refreshes, but they save users time and
| probably also increase the amount of time users can stomach using
| the software in any given day.
| codeptualize wrote:
| 100% agree!
|
| I was kinda surprised by this performance focused update, I
| have not had any performance issues whatsoever, even in big
| documents.
|
| For this reason I can not use Sketch. It's just painfully slow
| compared to Designer (and Figma). When everything is "sticky"
| it really messes with my productivity.
| perardi wrote:
| I swear Sketch has gotten slower. (Or perhaps my documents
| have gotten more involved.)
|
| Still, it churns and grinds to a shocking degree sometimes.
| In your experience, Figma is _faster_? That's good to know,
| as we're on Sketch at work, but consider other options.
| codeptualize wrote:
| Might be my machine or whatever but Figma is significantly
| more pleasant to work with for me. Sketch is just "sticky"
| to the point that I really hate to use it.
|
| Btw you can import Sketch files in Figma, so you can quite
| easily compare the two.
|
| As a side note: I also really like the Figma design, auto
| layout is a game changer imo, component variants are also
| very nicely done. For UI it's really good, makes me very
| productive.
|
| (For graphics I do still prefer Affinity Designer)
| car wrote:
| Really like the Affinity products, but Designer still does not
| support hatch fills. This is a real deficit, as it's required for
| technical drawings, e.g. for patent images. Does this new version
| offer this feature?
| brailsafe wrote:
| Great. Publisher is one of the only pieces of software I like.
| codeptualize wrote:
| I second that. Recently I had to use Adobe Indesign for a bit
| and I was honestly shocked.
| intellix wrote:
| As a long time Photoshop user who knows all the hotkeys I really
| really hate using Affinity Photo. I refuse to pay monthly for an
| app I only have to use every so often so bought Affinity.
|
| I just can't use it. The hotkeys are different and none of the UI
| makes any sense to me.
|
| If you could just enable a "photoshop mode" that changed all the
| hotkeys and UI then I could be useful in it.
|
| I'm even reconsidering just taking the dive and paying monthly
| for Photoshop again.
|
| I'm sure if you never used anything else before it'll be great
| jstsch wrote:
| I force myself to use it in the same way. With time, it gets
| better. But the speed I had from working 20 years in Photoshop
| is gone.
| aviraldg wrote:
| I am so glad this exists, and take every opportunity to encourage
| friends and family to switch to it and avoid alternatives from
| companies with exploitative and unfair business models (like
| Adobe.)
| junon wrote:
| I've used Affinity products a lot over the last few years - Photo
| and Designer specifically (moreso Designer). Sorry in advance for
| what will be a negative comment.
|
| For those unaware, these are $50 USD one-time payment
| alternatives for Adobe products; Photoshop -> Photo, Illustrator
| -> Designer.
|
| I think Photo is the more developed product, but Designer is what
| I really need on a day to day basis and it lacks a LOT of the
| basic features that Illustrator has.
|
| The rendering engine is pretty poorly implemented. Rotating an
| object oftentimes fills the entire AABB of the rotated shape with
| black, which also persists into the layer previews as well.
| Rotating around causes this black box to flicker. It's been
| reported before and they do little about it.
|
| Exports are rough too. Exporting to raster formats causes insane
| amounts of blur that are not present in other editors. The
| developers tell you to increase resolution, as if I don't know
| what I'm doing. Increasing the resolution is not the solution to
| everything, and it seems like crisp edges are not well handled in
| either product when dealing with vector objects.
|
| The constraint system is entirely bugged out and doesn't work for
| more than a few trivial (and thus useless) cases.
|
| Some of the panes (e.g. the guide pane) cause crashes when
| opened. Reproducible every time, reported more than a year ago,
| to my knowledge hasn't been fixed.
|
| People posting bugs or feature requests on the forums are met
| with "come on guys stop being so mean"-type comments when we're
| all paying customers too and are a bit miffed about simple things
| causing our projects to crash, cause rendering issues, or waste
| time in other ways.
|
| Further, some of the devs' responses have been lackluster,
| vaporous promises or, in some cases, outright rude and
| dismissive.
|
| Looking at the glassdoor and some other review sites, it seems
| the company has a real problem with project management and
| directional focus, which seems to all fall in line with how the
| product is perceived after doing some pretty extensive work with
| it.
|
| Overall, sure, you'll get your money's worth, but I would have
| happily paid more if it meant getting a more stable product,
| honestly.
|
| Use if you're in a pinch, but don't think it'll be a cheaper,
| more grassroots drop-in replacement to CS (even if you don't need
| e.g. content-aware capabilities and the like, which of course
| Affinity doesn't have). Even basic usage can be a real PITA.
|
| Beats GIMP and Inkscape any day of the week, though.
| Pulcinella wrote:
| I'm sorry to say I agree. I was hoping Affinity could offer a
| real alternative to Adobe, and for a while it seemed like they
| would. But in the last several years it really seems like they
| have stagnated. Sure they put our Publisher, but it just feels
| like they can barely focus on one thing at a time. Photo and
| Designer were left stagnate in that time, especially on iPad.
| It really feels like Affinity does not dog food the iPad apps
| where UI bugs and awkwardness have persisted for years. E.g.
| They use a radial slider UI element in a lot of places (e.g.
| representing 0-100% of some blur effect) that is just awkward
| as hell to use. The element is circular but you can't move your
| finger in a circular pattern to change it like you would if it
| was a knob or slider on a physical circular track. Instead
| dragging from left to right or bottom to top will increase the
| value. This leads to the user having to remember to drag from
| bottom right to top left. Otherwise if you drag from bottom to
| top, but also move slightly from right to left, the two
| behaviors fight each other and what happens is undefined.
|
| As you said there also haven't been many feature improvements
| over the years. While I don't expect complete feature parity
| with Adobe, the gaps between the apps and their Adobe
| counterparts seems to have only widened over the years and
| their is no road map for improvement.
|
| I just hope they don't turn out like the OmniGroup where an
| initially strong company with strong software stagnates over
| years.
| angst_ridden wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what platform are you on? I run Designer on a
| Mac and on an iPad, and haven't had any crashing issues.
|
| I see bugs in the boolean operations, and some of the vector
| exports are less-than-ideal. I'm looking forward to getting
| this update to see if the SVG export is better.
| junon wrote:
| I had it on Mac and that's where the majority of crashes
| were.
|
| I now have it on Windows where the majority of rendering bugs
| are.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I love Affinity products and am a happy user, happy to see the
| team continue to make strides. Would love to see Linux support
| happen.
| ambirex wrote:
| What strikes me with the performance is the potential to use the
| engine for a motion graphics app. Think somewhere in-between
| After Effects and Apple Motion. This might be wishful thinking,
| but I would love to see it and would purchase it in a second.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| I wanted a non-Adobe alternative to After Effects (that also
| wasn't quite as Final Cut-focused as Motion) for years until I
| discovered Blackmagic Fusion (now part of Da Vinci Resolve).
|
| If you're not in the VFX industry (I'm not), it's probably
| completely off your radar, but Blackmagic has taken Apple's
| "take a loss on software to sell hardware" model to the next
| level and distributes Resolve for free. The workflow is
| different from After Effects, but it took me only a few days to
| adjust from pre-comps to box-and-pin, and its power and
| flexibility is incredible.
| ambirex wrote:
| Totally, I too am not in a pro vfx type person. But I have
| been slowly learning Da Vinci Resolve (which is really nice).
| I'm just a real fan of Serif, which as been producing solid
| apps for a reasonable price.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| I've been using Affinity Designer since its beta in 2014, and it
| has made the gradual decomposition of Illustrator CS6 (the last
| non-rental version, effectively unusable on modern MacOS) much
| easier to endure.
|
| For my professional needs, Designer is a perfect fit, as I only
| use it when I need to design an icon that would be too complex
| for Sketch. For side projects, I've made it work - for all the
| effort Serif has put into improving the fundamentals, Designer
| remains a feature-poor Illustrator replacement for complex
| illustration.
|
| Serif's long-term aims with its vector package remain a mystery
| to me. Circa 2015, they had a public roadmap of everything they
| planned to add to the 1.x branch, including key illustration
| features such as shape blends and distortion envelopes. That
| roadmap has long since been deleted, and most of the features
| added to Designer since then have been subtle workflow
| enhancements (a contour tool last year was a notable exception).
|
| The obvious explanation for this is that $50 six years ago isn't
| enough to sustainably develop all the functionality of a full
| Illustrator replacement, but to that end, I wonder why Serif
| hasn't made any movement toward a paid upgrade path.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| I'm in a similar boat. Very happy to be out of the Adobe
| ecosystem, but just not seeing a lot of action feature-wise
| from Affinity. Notably, I've been waiting on some kind of
| bitmap auto-trace, a thing that's been standard in Illustrator
| for at least fifteen years.
|
| Pixelmator seems to be on a much better track than Affinity
| Photo for bitmap editing, but I'm just not aware of a better
| alternative to Illustrator than Affinity Designer.
| fmajid wrote:
| Have a look at Vectornator. I have no experience with it, but
| it was used to demo the M1 Macs when they were introduced.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| INTERESTING. I've been using this on the iPad for a couple
| years, how did the Mac version escape me...
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Presumably Serif is either still working on the level of
| improvements that would justify a v2, or simply don't think
| adding more income/manpower will output a better product.
|
| I appreciate that while I know they'll inevitably launch a v2,
| they didn't choose to claim every possible dollar on the table
| on the way there.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I wonder if the market for vector tools is small compared to
| bitmap/photo tools. Anecdotally I know a lot of people using
| Photoshop but nobody who uses Illustrator.
| charrondev wrote:
| I'd imagine one of the biggest uses of vector design tools
| is UI design. This market has been absolutely devoured by
| Figma (a web based vector design tool).
| angst_ridden wrote:
| I find Designer a really good low-end CAD package. You
| can enter dimensions in whatever units, enter math (e.g.,
| 12in - 3/8 in + 0.22mm).
|
| It's great for simple designs to send to the laser-cutter
| or vinyl cutter for making physical products.
| codeptualize wrote:
| I do also wonder about that. I think so far maybe they have
| enough revenue from the different apps they have created
| (Publisher/iPad apps). So far.. I have bought all haha.
|
| But even then it's not that much.
|
| Before I thought they might still be coasting on their old
| products, but afaik they discontinued those.
| gardaani wrote:
| Vectorstyler is a new vector graphics app for Mac and Windows.
| It has more features than Affinity Designer: distortion
| envelopes, bitmap tracing, shape blends.. some features are
| even more advanced than in Illustrator. Check if it fits your
| needs.
|
| https://www.vectorstyler.com
| Chris_Newton wrote:
| I wonder how much demonstrable interest it would really take to
| convince the management at Serif that a real Linux port of
| Affinity is a worthwhile exercise. Every time the software comes
| up in discussions, it feels like half the comments are just
| enthusiastic people hoping for a Linux-friendly version. I
| understand the hesitation, and surely Serif have had a
| conversation internally and maybe done some market research.
| Still, if the cost guesstimate for doing it that I saw someone
| apparently from Serif mentioning in a previous discussion was
| even close to realistic, I can't help wondering if they could
| easily raise that much just in pre-orders if they ran a
| Kickstarter-style "Will it work?" campaign, and probably a lot of
| goodwill from the tech community as a bonus.
| overcast wrote:
| The Linux community is a very vocal minority when in comes to
| the internet. While it would be nice to have available on all
| platforms, the reality is the majority of people are happily
| working on the other two major platforms and don't care.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| And Linux[0] is absolutely the worst "platform" you could
| ever have to port commercial software to. There is a
| ludicrous level of fragmentation where even individual
| distributions break compatibility with themselves every few
| years, and there is no widely accepted standard for binary
| application distribution[1]. That's without even getting into
| things like driver issues that are arguably not Linux's
| fault. As game developers discovered, Linux will often
| account for a vastly disproportionate amount of your bug
| reports for its share of installs.
|
| I sympathise with people who want to be able to use their
| favorite software on a FOSS OS, I'm right there with you, but
| that will always be an uphill battle on Linux because the
| culture is deeply anti-platform.
|
| [0] "Linux" here is taken as shorthand for "The GNU/Linux
| Desktop". The kernel itself is a fine platform.
|
| [1] unless you lump all the different package repos, formats,
| and managers together. I shouldn't have to explain why this
| is a problem here.
| fouric wrote:
| > There is a ludicrous level of fragmentation where even
| individual distributions break compatibility with
| themselves every few years
|
| Even worse, there is a vocal group of users who believe
| that this fragmentation is a _good thing_ , and that
| software developers should target multiple distributions
| (or be shamed for it), as opposed to doing the _sane_ thing
| and just targeting Ubuntu (or some common abstraction
| layer).
| hitekker wrote:
| The vocal group you speak of overlaps significantly with
| the group that wants the price of all software to be
| voluntary donations. At some point, their desires become
| parasitical.
| themulticaster wrote:
| Except there is a widely accepted standard for binary
| application distribution: AppImage (https://appimage.org/).
| It's a fire-and-forget solution: You download the AppImage
| and run it. No need to install anything.
|
| AppImage was created for precisely this scenario: When you
| want to distribute a proprietary application without
| worrying about packaging it for different Linux
| distributions.
|
| And for the driver issues: This is being brought up now and
| then, but comparing the amount of issues I've had with my
| AMD graphics card on Linux (essentially none) [1] with the
| amount of anecdotes of Windows driver issues I regularly
| see in certain forums, I'd say driver issues are a myth by
| now (to a certain extent of course, please don't bring up
| how you had to install a firmware package for your Broadcom
| wireless chipset...).
|
| [1] I'm not saying there aren't ever any driver bugs now
| and then, but just a food for thought: My graphics card
| works perfectly out of the box, without any configuration
| or driver installation at all, on most recent (read: not
| ancient) Linux versions. On Windows I'd have to look for
| whatever piece of ad-laden "graphics management suite" I
| need and then install it as well as regularly update it.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Except there is a widely accepted standard for binary
| application distribution: AppImage
| (https://appimage.org/)
|
| Oh, if only AppImage was widely accepted. Very few
| developers distribute via AppImage and basically no DEs
| understand what they are. Not that AppImages need them
| to, but it'd be nice.
|
| > AppImage was created for precisely this scenario: When
| you want to distribute a proprietary application without
| worrying about packaging it for different Linux
| distributions.
|
| Yes, and it does about as well as could be expected.
| Which is to say, it kinda mostly works for most
| distributions that have some level of sanity.
|
| > And for the driver issues: This is being brought up now
| and then, but comparing the amount of issues I've had
| with my AMD graphics card on Linux (essentially none) [1]
| with the amount of anecdotes of Windows driver issues I
| regularly see in certain forums, I'd say driver issues
| are a myth by now [...]
|
| Consider that there are an order of magnitude more
| Windows Desktop users than Linux Desktop users. And I
| know plenty of people experiencing frequent driver
| regressions who'd disagree with you.
|
| > On Windows I'd have to look for whatever piece of ad-
| laden "graphics management suite" I need and then install
| it as well as regularly update it.
|
| Incorrect. Windows quite often has a driver available via
| Windows Update, sans overengineered bullshit control
| panel. It is usually a bit behind the latest-greatest
| though.
| themulticaster wrote:
| > Oh, if only AppImage was widely accepted. Very few
| developers distribute via AppImage and basically no DEs
| understand what they are. Not that AppImages need them
| to, but it'd be nice.
|
| To clarify: Not many FOSS developers distribute via
| AppImage, or not many proprietary software developers
| distribute via AppImage? Since the former is to be
| expected, but I'm curious about your experiences with the
| latter. To be honest, I haven't seen that many AppImages
| in the wild either, but I'm also not using a lot of
| proprietary software on my system at the moment.
|
| > Incorrect. Windows quite often has a driver available
| via Windows Update, sans overengineered bullshit control
| panel. It is usually a bit behind the latest-greatest
| though.
|
| That's good to know. Do you happen to have a document or
| some other resource explaining the Windows Update
| graphics driver distribution system? IIUC Windows a)
| configures some sort of "Windows Basic Display Adapter"
| on first boot, before b) installing basic IHV-specific
| drivers via Windows Update. But I understand the IHV
| drivers installed by Windows Update support all graphics
| card features, only without the control panel? I always
| thought there is no alternative to the separately
| installed IHV graphics driver, especially if you need
| OpenGL/Vulkan/CUDA/etc. support. But if Windows manages
| to provide that functionality automatically through
| Windows Update, that sounds like a good alternative.
| Firehawke wrote:
| They're pushing very hard to have the actual standard
| manufacturer drivers available via Windows Update, and
| shipping the control panel as an optional download via
| the Windows Store.
|
| I had to do a Windows 10 reinstall recently after I broke
| something severe in the networking stack (entirely on me,
| I was playing with something I knew I shouldn't have been
| playing with) and I had the NV 2060 drivers back on my
| machine pretty much immediately as part of the update
| installation chain. I just had to go back into the
| Windows Store to redownload the control panel since it's
| a hybrid video laptop and I wanted more control over
| settings.
| themulticaster wrote:
| I wrote up an edit for my comment but then barely missed
| the edit deadline, so I'll have to do it this way: I
| realized my comments on driver issues are a little
| snarky, sorry for that. Please ignore that part of my
| comment.
|
| Using more neutral language, my main point is that Linux
| drivers nowadays are better than their historically bad
| reputation would suggest, and that they often offer a
| better or at least comparable out-of-the-box experience
| compared to Windows drivers. An important caveat is that
| free software-oriented distributions often make it
| somewhat more difficult to enable on-free firmware or
| drivers.
| dantondwa wrote:
| While undoubtedly true, it's also true that Linux is
| nowadays the default OS for VFX, for example, and this
| means that a lot of commercial 3d software targets it (for
| example, Autodesk Maya or the Substance suite). There is a
| standard "platform" of reference that allows companies to
| have a fixed target for their software:
| https://vfxplatform.com
|
| I think targeting it would be probably the best solution
| for a company willing to porting to Linux. Alternatively,
| Flatpaks/Appimages provide a very nice and user friendly
| solution to this problem.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _While undoubtedly true, it's also true that Linux is
| nowadays the default OS for VFX_
|
| That's mainly because it's cheap and VFX is like a
| "factory production line" style job. But VFX is also very
| much a niche compared to vector graphics and DTP (and
| even more so, compared to bitmap graphics).
|
| In other words, if Affinity's concern is that the Linux
| market for their stuff if small, then the intersection of
| "the Linux market for their staff" that "has the standard
| platform for VFX" is much much smaller.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| These discussions remind me of the people asking for a small
| iPhone. Apple responded but it failed to find enough customers.
|
| Linux has 1% of the desktop market and even within that small
| number the majority are used to getting their software for
| free.
|
| I'd say the chance of a Linux version is effectively zero.
| hitekker wrote:
| Yep, those folks engaged in "performative commenting"
| upvoting and agreeing that they would all buy small phones if
| only Apple would make them. Then Apple made the small
| phones... and crickets.
| aendruk wrote:
| It takes time. With luck I shouldn't need to buy a new
| phone for at least another year or two.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| > I wonder how much demonstrable interest it would really take
| to convince the management at Serif that a real Linux port of
| Affinity is a worthwhile exercise.
|
| Probably more than is demonstrable. It will never be a money
| maker. It might still happen for other reasons.
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