My Suggestions / Requests

[AquaSky]

Hi All,

 

First of all, I love the applications, and for the price, they are incredibly good value for money (obviously). I downloaded the trial for both yesterday, and I will be purchasing Affinity: Photo when I get paid at the end of the month. Unfortunately, there are a lot of features I use in CorelDRAW that seem to be missing from Affinity: Designer, and as such, I can't justify purchasing it as it simply wouldn't be used. Don't get me wrong, this is in no way a dig at the developers, or the application as it's a great piece of software, it just needs to mature a little (which I'm sure it will).

 

So, from my short time using Affinity: Designer, and in an attempt to offer my input to improve it, here are my suggestions:

 

1. Comprehensive ability / toolset to measure and annotate the dimensions of any element / object of your document. I use CorelDRAW to create blueprints / diagrams, and as such, it's essential for me to measure distances, lengths and angles of any aspect of my designs (in real-world units, as in, millimetres / metres etcetera). I'm aware that you can see basic object dimensions, and the distance between them already, but a fully annotated design document requires so much more. Accuracy of at least two decimal places would be beneficial, also

 

1. Bezier handles that snap to the grid etcetera when amending nodes. I really miss the handles snapping to the document grid, so this would be something I’d like to see implemented (it helps a great deal with drawing accuracy).

 

1. Ability to specify degree increments to snap to when creating curves. I’m aware that you can constrain the angle you’re drawing when you hold shift, but it’s limited to 45-degree increments. It would be nice to be able to set the increment to snap to. For example, 22.5, 5 or 10 degree increments (again, this helps with precision drawing).

 

1. The transform panel needs to display more comprehensive information, for example, it’s beneficial to be able to see the co-ordinates of each node of the selected object, all in one place, at the same time. Again, this aids in precision drawing

 

 

Lastly, I really love the simplified / clean UI of these applications, and it’s a primary reason I want to switch to using them as my primary design tools. It’s just going to take a little time, I guess.

 

Thanks, and I apologise for the convoluted post!

 

P.S. A 'golden ratio' and a 'rule of thirds' overlay would be nice, too (but it's probably pushing it a bit!).

[Aammppaa]

All good requests - many of which have been mentioned before, so I think "It’s just going to take a little time, I guess" really is the truth of the situation.

 

v1.6 is on its way - lets see what goodies that brings :)

[SrPx]

Hi All,

 

First of all, I love the applications, and for the price, they are incredibly good value for money (obviously). I downloaded the trial for both yesterday, and I will be purchasing Affinity: Photo when I get paid at the end of the month. Unfortunately, there are a lot of features I use in CorelDRAW that seem to be missing from Affinity: Designer, and as such, I can't justify purchasing it as it simply wouldn't be used. Don't get me wrong, this is in no way a dig at the developers, or the application as it's a great piece of software, it just needs to mature a little (which I'm sure it will).

 

So, from my short time using Affinity: Designer, and in an attempt to offer my input to improve it, here are my suggestions:

• Comprehensive ability / toolset to measure and annotate the dimensions of any element / object of your document. I use CorelDRAW to create blueprints / diagrams, and as such, it's essential for me to measure distances, lengths and angles of any aspect of my designs (in real-world units, as in, millimetres / metres etcetera). I'm aware that you can see basic object dimensions, and the distance between them already, but a fully annotated design document requires so much more. Accuracy of at least two decimal places would be beneficial, also

• Bezier handles that snap to the grid etcetera when amending nodes. I really miss the handles snapping to the document grid, so this would be something I’d like to see implemented (it helps a great deal with drawing accuracy).

Can't remember right now if AD does this, but usually in most vectorial packages you would press and keep pressed shift key (or ctrl, depends on the app) to force a vertex handle "line" (the line from the node to the handle) to be only horizontal or vertical (snapping) .This allows so for more accurate stuff, perfect curves, etc. This while dragging a node's handle; while drawing a node it has a different effect.

Yep, worky, just double checked: Press shift while you move the handle.

 

• Ability to specify degree increments to snap to when creating curves. I’m aware that you can constrain the angle you’re drawing when you hold shift, but it’s limited to 45-degree increments. It would be nice to be able to set the increment to snap to. For example, 22.5, 5 or 10 degree increments (again, this helps with precision drawing).

 

Meanwhile, and/or if you can't afford the 700+ $ of Corel Draw suite, you can activate snapping assistant, set advanced grid, etc, etc, customize Designer for this specific kind of work, as it has more depth in it than it seems. For the rotation and etc: As this is not a CAD program, neither a very mature application like Corel Draw (I still remember Corel 1.0, back in dunno if '91... It was rather basic, back then, in its beginnings) , the annotation thing, that it'd would make it automatically for you, I can't find now an easy work around. But for the rotation with precision issue, while far from ideal, you can do this so :

 

For example (but serve with any object) using the pen tool (P), make a dot, click some other place to make your line, the V key (or click on the move tool icon). So that you will have access to transform operation of rotation. if you have, like me, your UI so that transform dialog (View/studio/transform) , right at your right side (or drag/undock it wherever in the screen) of the screen there's that dialog always ready for you to set a specific angle, ie, 22.83 º. Is absolute, non relative, so you can reset always the line to 0º. Also, the rotational pivot (or for scale, move, etc) for the transform is that quad icon you see at the left of the transform fields. Ie, click on a corner to make the line have that rotation pivot.

 

Of course, gotta love -as i do- my dear Blender 3D, where I just -for example- hit "E" (extrude) , double tap the axe (for instance, "Z" axe) to make it local object coordinates, then simply type -27.34. (extrude in negative Z,  27.34 in my scene unit (I do 3D printing, so, milimeters).  It appears, this data, in the bottom status bar , not even a dialog is necessary, no graphic or clicks needed. And is super fast and accurate. If that's what you want, I believe is not there in AD, but for my work is just fine to do it as I explained. If you are doing technical drawing as a main thing, a cad software might be more what you need... You could do a base in those, then export to AD for the embellishment...

 

IMO would be inaccurate to say AD is not mature as a designing package. Might not work like Corel or a Cad software for very specific uses, but for general professional design -its aim, IMO- is quite complete and good. For the reason you mention one could say Illustrator is not mature yet, as is not focused in this specialized type of drawing, and that'd be very unfair, and not true. I can bet without much fears of being wrong, that there are more people making logos and brochures than this other type of thing (very useful, specially in technical illustration)

 

Not to get back fav to my fav free 3D software, but Blender 3D has an addon one can trigger to display all those things (length segment displayed on poitn even with many decimals, area, angle, etc, and configruable) you mention -or most of them- and you can work with it as a 2D software(heck, you could even export an SVG from there !) , in certain way. But mainly for line work, to export to other packages. I might even consider doing this that you need in one of the several great free or even open source tools -I believe Freecad is freeware or open source- export the thing with annotations and all from one of those, as SVG, then import in AD, and do the real high quality finishing -and more- in AD. That's what I'd do, but I'm obsessed with the practical POV of using and mastering many applications, and have many (cheap/free) utilities installed to help in the orchestral effort of making a complex project. Most people don't share this point of view. (and that's fine)