Affinity Designer

[garethglynn]

Has anyone tried ou the beta of Affinity Designer? You can sign up for free at .

I just did that and will post feedback as soon as I get the chance to try it out

[FFH Mark]

Yes, please let us know how it compares to FreeHand. I'm most interested in the draw and selection/delete tools and whether they follow Illustrators method or FreeHands. Also text handling. Overall ease of use.

Right now, only GRAVIT follows FreeHand's draw tool and selection.

[Matthias]

I installed the application yesterday and so far it seems to become a very, very promising migration path for FreeHand users. They are working on a FreeHand importer, too.

Yesterday I sent the affinity guys a few of my FreeHand files, partially rather complex ones (together with PDFs for double checking) and today I got a mail claiming that the documents were successfully imported!

At the moment I am busy suggesting to build in FreeHand behavior, e.g. how the pencil tool works, how selection works etc. The developers respond typically within minutes and are very keen of looking into the FreeHand legacy. I also sent them the FreeHand-vs-Illustrator-PDF from the Adobe case and they are very interested.

Plus they are building a layout- and a photo application, all based on one file format. Looks like there is finally a serious competitor …

[Matthias]

Here is a today’s quote of a developer from the affinity forum:

“We were going to deliver import of Freehand files after the initial release but after learning more about the situation FH users are in on the Mac, I decided to prioritise it and deliver it with the initial launch.“

https://affinity.serif.com/forum/index. ... le-format/

[FFH Mark]

This...is...incredible!

These guys at Affinity need to be supported. If they are this dedicated to FreeHand users then we may have a good future ahead of us. Along with Gravit, FreeHand's future in a modern application(s) looks promising after Adobe.

Thanks for sharing this latest news, Matthias.

[Matthias]

You’re welcome, Mark!

I suggest that as many FreeHanders as possible join the Affinity Designer Beta forum to provide the developers with input (and with the experience that there in fact is an widespread urge). I myself will now head over to affinity to suggest more FreeHand-like text and wrapping features.

Yesterday evening I learned that the application will in fact support multipage layouts and - this is incredible - one will be able to open and edit any Affinity document in any of the three Affinity applications (Designer, Photo, Publisher).

[garethglynn]

Matthias, Mark

thanks for these positive interactions and report-back.

As I've struggled with Illustrator for a couple of years I'm looking for a FH replacement that specifically has comparable one-click tracing (Illustrator's drives me nuts) and path tools (punch, union etc).

On a quick initial review Affinity didn't seem to offer either right now. But I was impressed by the choice of colour models etc; it looks like it can produce work for all media.

As soon as I get some time (hopefully mid next week) I'll start it up with some current work and see how I get on. Will report back then.

thanks again

Gareth

[Matthias]

Hey Gareth,
Affinity Designer’s got path tools. Tracing will come a bit later, though.

[Bertrude]

Sadly it's a no go in Snow Leopard (10.7+ only) so I can't try it out. Nevertheless, this is most interesting seeing Serif go down this new Mac path catering for a more professional market and can't help route for a company taking on Adobe and wish them all the best

I design quite a bit for print so colour consistency is vital. Does this application support spot colours and include a Pantone library?

Also, Freehand's typographic control was pretty expansive. Will Affinity designer offer the same level of control?

[FFH Mark]