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Affinity Designer – Illustrator alternative

affinity.serif.com

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Re: Affinity Designer – Illustrator alternative

#61

Post by MattP_Affinity »

radley wrote: post #60
MattP_Affinity wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your sentiment, but to be fair, the released product will have everything the website says it will. You're testing a beta version that may have any number of things missing at this point, so please don't judge too harshly as 'not playing straight'. I could've included the current state of the AI/PDF import in the version you have - but it isn't ready yet, so instead of 'it doesn't import AI files' the co…

Why not just say EPS on your home page instead of AI or PDF?

AI and PDF compatibility will both be present in the product we launch with - which is what the website is trying to describe to interested potential users. The beta will also get these features very soon, so I don't see the problem?

We can't expect users to keep checking back on the website to see if we've added any new features that we always knew were going to be in the finished product but hadn't listed, just because they weren't finished yet, surely?

Re: Affinity Designer – Illustrator alternative

#62

Post by CmonDev »

adamredwoods wrote: post #38
buro9 wrote: post #31

This looks great, but... Mac only. I really long for a tool like this for Linux.

Or Windows, even. I thought we are in the cross-platform software era?

They want to specifically target the non-Windows 5% of users. Targeting the rest 95% of market doesn't make any business sense, apparently.

Re: Affinity Designer – Illustrator alternative

#65

Post by adrianhoward »

sbarre wrote: post #3

I wonder how this compares to Sketch? There seem to be a bunch of Mac-only vector apps coming out in recent years.. Not just these direct Illustrator competitors, but HTML5 animation tools too like Hype, Paintcode, etc.. that provide vector drawing and animation tools, and are coming from small teams and cost very little (relatively speaking)... Is this because there are more powerful native components in OS X that m…

"I wonder how this compares to Sketch?"

Sketch is focussed on UI designers. Affinity is focussed on illustrators. Different markets, with some overlap. In many ways, within the Adobe suite, Sketch is closer to Fireworks than Illustrator.

I think part of the reason you're seeing a bit of an explosion in apps, in addition to the general digruntled-ness with Adobe, is that Illustrator is one of those apps that is serving many different markets — not all of them well.

Re: Affinity Designer – Illustrator alternative

#66

Post by Osmium »

err4nt wrote: post #42
Osmium wrote: post #21

I'm looking for something with solid EPS import and export. So far, I've found Sketch flakey (some things imported incorrectly, other things cause visual glitches), OmniGraffle great except when I export a document as EPS which has other EPS-imported elements embedded in it, they appear to be rasterised (which defeats the point). And that's pretty much it–Pixelmator, despite becoming more of a vector tool, doesn't su…

I work with vectors a lot and I'm wondering why you're set on EPS as a format instead of using something like SVG. Does ElementaryOS support retina? It works well as a dual boot!

> I work with vectors a lot and I'm wondering why you're set on EPS as a format instead of using something like SVG.

Publisher requirement. It seems to be preferred for print work.

Re: Affinity Designer – Illustrator alternative

#67

Post by authordale »

safetydank wrote: post #39

Serif has had a solid Windows vector drawing app (DrawPlus) for a long time. If I remember correctly, a group of ex-Xara developers moved to Serif to write it. Affinity looks similar, I would be surprised if they aren't based on the same codebase.

Zero shared code (am not a programmer but work at Serif). The Affinity stuff is brand new from the ground up developed over the last 4 yrs by a dedicated team.

You're right that some Xara devs added to DrawPlus over the years, but the Affinity titles are fr fr fresh and have different goals and philosophy.

Re: Affinity Designer – Illustrator alternative

#68

Post by NickPollard »

punkbit wrote: post #63

Looks good, but unfortunately I'm on Ubuntu, may use Win on a VM, but that's it! Such a pitty there's so many new tools like this coming out, but just for Mac. £37 is affordable

If this was available on Ubuntu, I would definitely spend £37 on it.

Re: Affinity Designer – Illustrator alternative

#70

Post by sbarre »

tumultco wrote: post #26
sbarre wrote: post #3

I wonder how this compares to Sketch? There seem to be a bunch of Mac-only vector apps coming out in recent years.. Not just these direct Illustrator competitors, but HTML5 animation tools too like Hype, Paintcode, etc.. that provide vector drawing and animation tools, and are coming from small teams and cost very little (relatively speaking)... Is this because there are more powerful native components in OS X that m…

One of the founders of Tumult Hype here -- When we started out Adobe was still sticking to their Flash guns. As HTML5 was the only method to make animated web content on iOS, it was clear someone needed to make tools aimed at graphic designers, so we decided that someone should be us! Luckily with no other competing apps around, we didn't have to deal with an uphill battle on feature parity unlike these vector editor…

Thanks for the detailed answer.. Also, Hype is awesome. :-)
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