Affinity Designer now released for windows

[me2]

I'm interested in AD but I did not try it because I read that it doesn't support boolean operations on groups. The next two things I'd insist on are ClipView or any handling of intersections that is just as fast, and I cannot work with software that needs me to hold shift/alt/ctrl while doing something with the mouse. I'm pretty sure Affinity and Inkscape are not easy to use for me.

[mwenz]

Your impressions are incorrect as regards Boolean operations and clipping objects into another as regards AD. There are more options for Boolean operations in AD than in XDP and clipping one or more objects into another is as easy as dragging one into another using the layer panel or creating a shortcut.

AD also has the best OpenType support of nearly any other application, CorelDraw being the lone exception (and I like CD's in-context alternates and stylistic sets method above all other applications).

Now, you also mention InkScape. While it is quite capable and worthwhile if generating SVG files (I run XDP, AD and Illy SVGs through it), I find it a pig to use.

[me2]

Your impressions are incorrect as regards Boolean operations ...

Oh, really on groups, too? Here someone said in december 2016 they would need to repeat the operation. https://forum.affinity.serif.com/ind...admap/&page=36

To bring my work on AD 100% I would ask 3 main features.



. Boolean with groups and not only with a sngle object.

Now I have to repeat the Boolean a lot of times.

...

I've created a little picture to show what I mean:


It looks like I should test AD. What you say sounds really cool.
My experience with buying and using DrawPlus has been "okay", though, it crashed actually at the parts that were left out in the demo.

[mwenz]

Gotta admit, I hadn't ever tried doing what you described in, well, anything for real work. (That is, the work I do in anything.)

There is a bit of clean-up in AD required after doing one of the Boolean operations, but it ends up the same...



The clean-up is some stray pieces left over from the intersection operation of the oval I used. Not that clean-up should be required, it shouldn't. The issue revolves around the creation of new curves of the shape(s). It's gotten better and likely will improve more as Serif is aware of the issue.

And I should point out that for certain things XDP does better--and it is my chosen promary vector design application--AD does other things that XDP cannot do and or it does it better. Whether this has utility for what you do I cannot say.

And I will say that Serif has worked out where and what format Xara applications put on the clipboard and one can copy from XDP and paste into AD just fine.



Cannot say the same for XDP. AD copied objects paste as a transparent bitmap. Though PDF to AD (or vice versa) works as well. I often use two or more vector editors in conjunction, so that isn't an issue for myself.

Mike

[me2]

Thanks for testing this!

I've just bought it, because they say I can return it. What I see so far is - for my narrow world of its usage - it is on par with Inkscape. The nondestructive part is good, but they simply left it out at "divide" where it would more or less reflect Xara's "ClipView". And boolean ops on groups seem not to exist.
Xara misses these nondestructive booleans, but destructing is less of a problem, I usually keep a copy or draw something again. In contrast, I think repeating a task is a bit harder to do, e.g. when you want to cut something away from a group that has lots of shapes in it.
So.. for my case it's unfortunately a bit more like DrawPlus. And I wish they would not have switched to a dark interface. Why did everyone switch to dark interfaces? I get depressed. I'm no vampire. Same with Xara (I forgot that command line switch).

[mwenz]

Thanks for testing this!

I've just bought it, because they say I can return it. What I see so far is - for my narrow world of its usage - it is on par with Inkscape. The nondestructive part is good, but they simply left it out at "divide" where it would more or less reflect Xara's "ClipView". And boolean ops on groups seem not to exist.
Xara misses these nondestructive booleans, but destructing is less of a problem, I usually keep a copy or draw something again. In contrast, I think repeating a task is a bit harder to do, e.g. when you want to cut something away from a group that has lots of shapes in it.
So.. for my case it's unfortunately a bit more like DrawPlus. And I wish they would not have switched to a dark interface. Why did everyone switch to dark interfaces? I get depressed. I'm no vampire. Same with Xara (I forgot that command line switch).

Clipping can be done by using the layers panel. Look up Clipping in the help.



The 1.6 release will have the option for a light interface. And no issues with it like in Xara products.



In any case, AD will be a useful application. It does need to mature and it will. But not bad for a 1.x application.

[me2]

Clipping can be done by using the layers panel. Look up Clipping in the help.

Thanks for pointing me to this, I've looked it up, it works, one can do quite a lot with the layers, it's better than I thought.
(though, clipping without using the (layer) organizer panel and looking more at the drawing would be nice)

Serif seem also to be working on a envelope warping (mould) tool, at the moment. In DrawPlus there was one, but it had a slight tendency to crash, I think.

I think Affinity Designer could become great. They are developing at the core features, something like this.