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Development Status - Where is Affinity 1.5 Beta?


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Cool stuff Matt, that should really help out a lot on complex repetitive type pieces. Cheers!

 

Any more 1.5 secret goodies coming up? :-) I won't tell anyone, I promise. ;-)

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Great ! I don't like the word "symbol", I prefer "Instance" but it's a detail.

 

Can we have the same symbol with several scales ? Is scale dependent of the symbol ?

 

Agreed that symbol is actually quite a bad and confusing word for what this is.

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Agreed that symbol is actually quite a bad and confusing word for what this is.

I too thought the term was confusing when I first encountered it, but that was in Flash 15 years ago. It's become the norm now.

 

I think the term comes from computer science: A symbol, as I understand it, is a term for an entity that points to the actual data somewhere else.

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Attributes at the moment are not necessarily split into the best groups they could be, and we can tweak that over time, but in your example, 'yes' you could adjust the radius of one button's rounded corners and it affect all the others even if you'd changed the transform of one of them detached and/or its colour, blend mode etc...

 

Nested symbols work. We want this same technology to be flexible enough to use as the best Master Page feature in any publishing application and that requires being able to use symbols within symbols.

 

This looks like the most powerful symbol system I've ever seen! Continuing the UI design example, if I have a symbol of a button, turn off sync, change the text, make the background wider to match the new text, then turn sync back on, can I change the colors and still have it propagate to all the other instances?

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This looks like the most powerful symbol system I've ever seen! Continuing the UI design example, if I have a symbol of a button, turn off sync, change the text, make the background wider to match the new text, then turn sync back on, can I change the colors and still have it propagate to all the other instances?

Yes, you definitely can :)  Until you change an attribute with syncing turned off, it remains connected to all the other instances :)

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With the caveat that text formatting, including colour, is part of the text and not a separate attribute. So if you edit the text words with syncing off, and then turn syncing on and change the text colour, the text colour won't propagate.

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This all sounds good and impressive.  So when do we get our hands on this wonderful beta to play with? I would hope we get a realise before the end of this week so some of us will have a long weekend to play with this shiny new toy ;)   Come on, Serif Affinity!!!  You can do it!!! :)

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This all sounds good and impressive.  So when do we get our hands on this wonderful beta to play with? I would hope we get a realise before the end of this week so some of us will have a long weekend to play with this shiny new toy ;)   Come on, Serif Affinity!!!  You can do it!!! :)

FYI

MattP posted 17 March 2016 - 07:20 AM

"… I'm expecting maybe 2 weeks for a 1.5 beta, roughly?…”

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FYI

MattP posted 17 March 2016 - 07:20 AM

"… I'm expecting maybe 2 weeks for a 1.5 beta, roughly?…”

 

It's going to be a while. First we have to do another 1.4 beta, then update the Mac App Store with it, and only then can 1.5 beta see the light of day.

 

Hi Dave and Oval,
 
There seems to be a bit of confusion here.  Based on Dave's response, there is going to be a 1.4 beta with fixes with a final 1.4.x version pushed into MAS before 1.5 beta is beings. On the other hand, when I check the resolved comment for some of the bugs in the "bug reporting section" such as "Not able to edit text box content after duplication" closed off by Dave, his response is "Thanks for your help with this bug. We have now resolved the problem and will make the fix available in 1.5 beta 1." (AFD-1091)
 
My question is that how is a bug in 1.4 being fixed for release in 1.5 if you there are plans to release a new 1.4.x version into the MAS before the 1.5 beta 1 release begins?  I would expect that bugs found in 1.4.x version series will be fixed in the same release version number.  If the fixes are in 1.5 version, then what is the point of releasing the 1.4.x MAS version?
 
I hope someone will be able to clarify that for us because it sounds a bit confusing.
 
Nana
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Hi Nana,

 

Sorry for the confusion. I mentioned initially that we have two code branches at the moment - only super-safe critical things are being fixed in the 1.4 branch so that customers will receive an update that doesn't break anything (only making things better). The fix Dave made went into our pre-beta 1.5 branch - it's the only safe and responsible way for him to make the change and be sure it won't have adverse consequences. So when the 1.4.2 update goes live it will stabilise 1.4, whereas when the 1.5 beta goes live it will include the fix you're referring to

 

Hope that makes sense? :)

Matt

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Matt nothing opens it says all are old versions :(

Don't know what to do I'm a little workaholic here help :((

 

Note: the latest beta version is the one not opening.. in the meantime im working in not beta

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Matt nothing opens it says all are old versions :(

Don't know what to do I'm a little workaholic here help :((

 

Note: the latest beta version is the one not opening.. in the meantime im working in not beta

 

Yes, we just thought in the morning: Are we the only ones?! Again Nothingham without an explanation why it has expired. Perhaps they don’t like our bug reports any more. :-(  Look here.

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The thing that I am most worry about is the fact that they mentioned they won’t release a feature until it’s exactly as they want it. But as in the artboards case, their view of how things should work fine didn’t match our views(most of us anyway). We wanted them separated from the layers panel in their own panel list. 

 

The partial implementations in the more frequent betas would have caught those sort of issues rather fast. But now we just have to accept whatever they come up with regardless if we like it or not. 

 

It seems there was some policy change by management or something regarding beta release frequencies or they want to save the time it took to release a beta(probably wasn’t that much anyway)?

UI Designer, CG Artist

 

Macbook Pro 15" 2014

2.5 Ghz, 750M

 

https://www.behance.net/VladMafteiuScai

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Hi Oval,

All Betas have an expire date set to prevent abuse and to ensure people update them (otherwise what's the point of testing them if they don't have the latest features/fixes). Due to some delays (the developers are currently working on two different Beta branches - see more below) the current Beta has expired before a new one become available and since this is Easter Weekend plus Bank holiday today on UK, most of the staff is taking a break, that's why there wasn't any news or a new Beta yet. This will be addressed this week as soon as the staff returns to work. The Mac App Store version doesn't expire. You can use it until a new Beta becomes available.

 

@00Ghz,

I believe you misunderstood this "they mentioned they won’t release a feature until it’s exactly as they want it". This refers mostly to its quality/reliability, not necessarily how it works.

No matter how we implement things, there will be always users unsatisfied with them because everyone have their own preferred methods of working or are used to other tools/processes from other software. If we change continuously features/functionality to try to please everyone we will never move forward. It's extremely difficult to get consensus around the way something should work. This is not easy for devs too.

 

As far as i know there wasn't any change regarding the Beta's policy. They are simply delayed because the devs are working on two different Beta branches - one for 1.4 comprised mostly of bug fixes/refinements to the current Mac App Store version, and another for version 1.5 which is an important update and includes a few new things, some of them require quite work.

The Artboards are not finished yet - there's still a few issues remaining - and their development will continue with 1.5 beta cycle.

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@MEB, I understand the need for beta expiration dates, but perhaps it may be worth considering extending them so there is a bit of overlap after the release of a new beta or particularly a new MAS version? It is inconvenient to have to switch back to the app store version, as settings and preferences are not shared. Looking forward to trying out the new beta!

 

Cheers,

Oliver.

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