3. Development & integration of VS and a desktop publishing software

Development & integration of VS and a desktop publishing software


  • Just a friendly but realistic comment: Serif (Affinity) has two... three... four... problems... five... No, it's easier to put it this way:

    One of Serif's biggest problems is that they have far too few developers for three programs on multiple platforms, and by few I mean 10-15, and I think it's closer to 10. For that reason alone, Affinity is never going to take off as a full-featured application package, and not until customers are retired. Even though the programs have a lot of code in common. It's not a trivial task.

    Until the company behind Vectorstyler is better staffed, talk of more programs is the same dreaming you see on the Affinity Forum, where people dream of Affinity Whatever. So they can get more software for less money.

    Vectorstyler is a wonderfully advanced program, which is a great task in itself, and perhaps it is even better for the program as a specialized program that it will never be limited by technical dependencies with other programs, and especially that it will not have to share developer resources with other programs either.

    Note, for example, how Affinity Designer has become a puny little overlooked and incredibly feature-weak vector program, while iPadOS editions and Publisher in particular gobble up precious developer and company resources. And yet Affinity is a desperately unfinished trio for paupers and one-man companies after 8 years of Affinity. And their grand launch of v2, which was supposed to be major update (it was just a regular one) ended in a semi-shitstorm and a forum plus social media profiles burning hot of unhappy silly customers. And the number of stingy and unappreciative customers was even striking.

    I'm very happy if the focus is kept on VS maturing as the very valuable and deeply specialized product it is. That's a gigantic task in itself, and note how many tweaks still need to be made to all elements of the already developed program.

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  • As I always preface my comments on these topics, I'm not a developer at all so I have no idea how difficult things are to create and build upon. I look from the outside in at the way Affinity has been built and compare it to what VS has accomplished and I see two very different approaches. Affinity started with Designer for Mac only and built that up for a while before adding other programs and porting to the Windows platform and then the ipad platform. They lack a ton of "basic" much less advanced features even still. As @Ingolf put it, they have a small team of developers stretched thin across three platforms and three programs each.
    The consensus on Vectorstyler is that it that a ton of basic, intermediate and advanced features already but needs more focus on UI and UX and bug fixes.
    I don't know what "realistic expectations" means to different users on the forum, but I could easily see VS getting 2-3 more years of UI/UX enhancements, bug fixes and features added following the road map provided before it was at the point the developer could focus on another program if he wanted to. Personally, I would want to see VS get to that refined point 2-3 years from now first, before diverting resources to other potential programs. I would think that with things well established in VS at that point, reusing some of the code and framework would help expedite the process if the choice was made to branch out. Hopefully by that point, increased sales of VS would allow for a hiring or two to help speed up the process...
    Could be totally wrong on it all, but it's fun to dream!

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    Serif makes no serious/severe mistakes, (almost) none ☺ Serif is doing very well for several reasons and seems to leave no one indifferent, even their last move with v2 is working to their advantage. They are very good at Serif; they have understood that the important thing is that people talk about them and their software suite (in good or even less good). They saw very quickly the importance of integrating these three essential apps to make their new creative suite (and on at least two operating systems). In addition, Affinity software has brought some interesting new features and it must be admitted that it also allows designer to do some good work. The Affinity suite does not only have its shortcomings but also advantages.

    Which tech company offers a single software with a single type of functionality ?... For a graphic designer, with a single job, the whole year's Adobe subscription is paid for... for a job that would take a few days including the time needed for research and testing (drawings, layouts, fonts), the actual management of the design(s), administrative management, etc. ) … and he/she can also afford the subscription to plugins (e.g., AG). So the question to ask is why would he/she use a single app that allows to do vector drawings to an exceptional level but without layout capabilities and/or no bitmap management? ... perhaps because it would be a software that surpasses all others indeed like VS ☺ (and/or that the designer/artist would only do vector drawing).

    Indeed, I am not the developer of VS but would not wait 3 years before proposing an alpha/beta version of a second integrated software. I'll aim for 1-2 years... a never-ending sequence, this software development ☺

    Edited to better reflect the idea

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  • Hah, Serif makes and has made big mistakes, and some of them they make slowly which suggests they learn nothing. But they sell fine because they sell to a large market of people who can't afford professional software, or don't have the will to pay for its tools, and you can see that on social media and their forum now. An ungrateful chorus of crying customers who have to pay a small amount of money. Or who thought they had paid pennies for free updates for the rest of their physical lives!!! My argument that the big players are wisely focusing on the big money from serious customers and largely avoiding this lowest segment of the market holds true. There's only pennies to be made here. And that's why Serif doesn't expand the number of devs. Then their business case falls apart. Their business case is that their customers are waiting for them to keep themselves alive over decades of developing slowly. And it shows.

    Customers have waited a minor eternity - 8 years - for this v2 update, which for Designers yielded ridiculously little. Publisher - ridiculously little.

    The business case for Vectorstyler is - right now - to establish itself as an easy-to-use and friendly priced alternative to clunky and expensive Illustrator, and programs like Affinity Designer which - due to serious flaws in Serifs management and staffing - can't do a damn thing vector related. And what it can, it does with poor algorithms and interface. Outlines for example... crap.

    In any case, right now it is total science fiction to talk about multiple programs for multiple reasons. Luxembourg cannot decide to occupy France. And if you look outside the package vendor market for a moment, there are plenty of specialized programs out there, with fewer customers but excellent economics. In my professional life, I use several programs from different vendors. I use the program for the task that does it best. Some programs have a smaller but important role in a workflow.

    One step at a time... on the right path.

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    Our opinions differ on some points, certainly because of our very different professions and professional experiences (& our needs)... but that's fine, the discussion is always beneficial.

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  • Agreed 🙂

    Good evening

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    I don't think I'll come back to this subject after this post ☺
    In my job, besides of course some specific software (image analysis, data processing, molecular modelling, bibliography, etc.) I regularly need a trio of software for vector, layout and photo/bitmap editing. As a hobbyist, I'm more into photography but I also like vector drawing.

    Do I need VS and all its capabilities professionally? No. Do I like this software and see its full potential? Yes.

    But I also think that other software designed like VS with all the features one can dream of (and integrated with VS) would make it a must-have and would increase the visibility of the duo or trio in the long run as @Boldline suggested.

    Also, many modules are/will be similar or even identical between VS and a page layout software, typography/characters, font and style management, print-ready export and perfect colour profile management, master pages/canvas, layers (to add, global layers), colour management, etc.

    In the end, I think that it is essential to think about a possible integration of other software "now" but not to work on it sensu stricto... the question is to think about the future and to determine what is possible and what is not (and to think and anticipate what could happen from the competitors), and only @VectorStyler can do that ☺

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    The very last post. I forgot to address the point below which seems to me also significant ☺

    An important question also is to know/determine who are/will be the users of VS, a question that only @VectorStyler can answer as well. If they are artists/designers who need only more or better than AI (and all its plugins) and/or who only do vector graphics, then indeed it is probably useless to think about more. Let's stop dreaming...

    However, if VS is intended for a wider audience, I can add this. Many organisations/institutions organise several times a year training courses on many software by external trainers/training centres. I took some probably more than 10 years ago (maybe 15!) including those organised for Illustrator and InDesign which are still given now.

    Let's imagine that a training on the use of VS is proposed (instead of AI). Interesting but with what feasibility? The first problem would be to find a trainer who knows VS and the second would be to propose to the users to purchase a VS license and also to subscribe to Adobe if they need a DP and/or a bitmap editing app. I guess the probability of this happening is almost zero.

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    As time goes by, I thought I'd put together a short list of a few ideas on what could be a VectorStyler-style desktop publishing software starter.

    This list includes some basic features needed to work on document layouts and export them for print (posters, business cards, newspapers, folders, magazines, books, long document, etc.) & digital (epub, website layout? others?) publishing.

    What would be really nice is to be able to quickly test a beta version after VectorStyler 1.2. I'm convinced that developing one DP app will also bring much more attention to VectorStyler ☺

    Creating & managing documents: to be adapted/developed for desktop publishing software

    • Creating new document (also from templates & using presets) for print, web or digital publishing
    • Managing pages & ‘Page spreads’ (facing pages): using a ‘Pages’ panel for viewing, adding, moving and deleting pages, & later changing the page size
    • Creating ‘Master pages’ as templates for the document pages: using the ‘Pages’ panel to create/delete master pages & to apply MP to pages document
    • Creating different types of documents, from a one-page poster to a complex book:
      o Managing a ‘Table of Contents’
      o Creating an ‘Index’
      o Creating footnotes & endnotes
    • Managing ‘Page numbers’ & ‘Sections’
    • Creating & managing ‘Text Variables’ (Running headers & chapter numbers)
    • Allowing overriding master page ‘elements’

    Text: to be adapted but already in VS

    • Creating text frames and flowing text (manually or automatically)
    • Importing, entering & editing text (fonts, font size, leading, kerning…)
    • Adjusting the numbers of columns
    • Spelling (checking, referring to dictionaries, custom dictionaries)
    • Drop cap, bullets, numbering
    • Text decorations
    • Managing & applying character and paragraph styles
    • Text and object elements (e.g., wrapping)
    • …

    Tables: to be adapted/developed for desktop publishing software

    • Creating & modifying ‘Tables’ (adjusting cells, creating table & cell styles (stroke, fills))
    • Editing texts, creating header row, etc. & assigning character and paragraph styles to cells, rows, columns
    • Converting (formatted-)text to a table
    • … certainly many more features to add but I didn’t deal much with tables so far

    Layout & ‘Styles’: to be adapted but already in VS

    • Columns & rows guides with gutters
    • Margins
    • Alternate layouts & ‘liquid’ layouts
    • Styles for everything: objects, frames, character, paragraph, tables,……
    • Layers & global layers
    • …

    Photo management:

    • importing & editing (to be developed but can be very basics at start (contrast, levels,… already in VS for vectors)
    • ...

    Colour & vector graphic: already developed in VS

    Exporting & printing management: already developed in VS & to be added

    • Preflight
    • Spelling (checking)
    • Editing/checking using GREP
    • Managing pdf options & marks, bleeds, output… for print
    • Managing export for epub/ebook

    Miscellaneous

    • Common & shared libraries (assets, brushes, styles…) with VS

    To be continued… This list is by no means exhaustive, but I don't have the time to go any further at the moment ☺

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  • @Pat I'd love to see this as well as a raster photo/paint "styler" companion. Of course, @VectorStyler is but one man and VS needs to be financially viable to justify the expense and sacrifices to dedicate to other programs.

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    @Boldline A suite would be ideal ☺ I think that a VectorStyler-type app for photo editing would be very powerful, and there aren't many alternatives to Photoshop in terms of functionality. The same goes for DP software.

    I'm not a developer, so I'm not the one calling the shots, but it seems to me that there's less of a gap between VS and a DP app. VS already has a lot of features &, for a first DP version, it mainly lacks a few specific features for page layout and page management IMHO.

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  • @Pat I completely understand where you are coming from. I'm no developer either but from what I understand and what you eluded to, the framework that was built for VS could be recycled for use as a DP program as well (and even a potential raster/photo program).
    If either are eventually created, given how amazing VS has been coming along, I can only imagine they would be top rate as well

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    I realize that I am late to the discussion, but I'd like to add a point to ponder . . . Does a page layout application even need to be a separate application?

    Back before Adobe bought Aldus, Aldus added in PageMaker 5 the capability of grouping objects and saving/exporting them as a separate file (that could only be opened in PageMaker). I found this useful for simple illustrations and logos. For example, maybe I was working on a newsletter and created a logo for the company. I could group that logo and tell PageMaker to export it. I could then use that logo on other materials created in PageMaker, like business cards, letterhead, and so on. (Instead of expanding on the feature, I think this feature went away in Adobe PageMaker 6, but I don't remember for sure.)

    This saved me having to go into Illustrator, create an illustration or logo, export to a file PageMaker could import, then go back to PageMaker again.

    In this case, it was a page layout application adding illustration features (albeit very simple ones) but why couldn't it work the other way around?

    Another example is PageStream. A couple years ago, I tried the Mac demo. (The Mac version hasn't been updated in years so if you want to try it, you'll need an older Mac.) Its drawing tools are more sophisticated than what PageMaker 5 had.

    Instead of going back and forth between PageMaker/InDesign and Illustration, you can do everything right there. And, if you want to save/export a particular illustration (and not everything on the page/artboard), you could select it and export just the selection so you could use it in another project.

    Easier than even Affinity's StudioLink because you have just one program and no switching of personas or whatever. Everything is just available to you.

    At any rate, that was my thought. Since page layout and illustration applications have a lot of overlap anyway, it would seem to make sense to have them all in one program rather than two. While that one program may be more complicated, it also means there is only one application to keep up to date which may be helpful for a small (or one person) organization. Instead of two code bases to maintain, there would be just the one.

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    This was my first idea when I suggested that there should be more layout features in VS.
    In fact, I have no preference : extending the functionality of VS or creating a suite with perfect synchronisation would be equally good. However, for all professionals using VS in their workflow, VS performance should not be reduced. I'd just like to point out that another app seems to be evolving well and I don't know if it's already too late to offer a suite that includes a DP app. I have nothing to add other than what I've already written & I'll stop here as far as I'm concerned ☺

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    With the acquisition of Serif by Canva, I think it's time to reactivate this thread ☺

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  • @Pat I was actually thinking about the same topic earlier today. I wondered if you'd be revisiting this as well.

    I would LOVE to have a "Pixelstyler" companion app that has the ability to share a file type with Vectorstyler similar to what Affinity offers. I can already imagine how powerful it would be. My hope is that the "bones" of VS can be used at some future point to expedite the creation of "Pixelstyler"

    That said, I think we are still in the same place as before, as of now. VS needs to both continue to improve and continue to become more stable (@VectorStyler is doing a great job with this) and the word needs to keep getting spread about VS and what it offers. This is where we come in. I also was thinking I wanted to redouble the efforts to make VS easier to digest for newcomers and to help edify it's use for us veterans. Tutorials, youtube videos, etc. I had mentioned it a while back, but we are all busy...

    I'd love to see us collectively pick a tool or topic and all share things we've learned about using that specific tool or task in the forum in the tutorials section. There are plenty of areas I could use more help understanding deeper, even after reading the documentation and experimenting. We could pick a topic a week or so and then always go back in and add more information as it's learned. Anyone willing to commit to this with me?

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    @Boldline If there's a wish to conceive other VS companion programs or to extend the capabilities of VS, with the latest improvements in v1.2 in the management of guides/margins, text blocks, paragraph styles, etc., I remain convinced that VS already possesses many indispensable tools for this and could initially integrate the creation of documents made up of pages with Master pages (see above to avoid repetition).
    Then gradually add the features of a desktop publishing program...
    I'd also like to see the development of PixelStyler ☺

    I agree that tutorials would be very welcome. I'd also like to start writing some with a practical and operational approach (from the beginning for beginners: creating documents with margins, guides, text management, styles, etc.) but indeed we're all busy.

    The idea of choosing a tool and exploiting its features is a very good idea ☺

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    @Boldline said in Development & integration of VS and a desktop publishing software:

    We could pick a topic a week or so and then always go back in and add more information as it's learned.

    Think it's a nice idea. But creating tutorials is work, and thats also
    the case with small tutorials.

    That's why my thoughts tend to be to just allow the recorder to run
    without comments for a small project. Because i think that most users
    would find it already helpful to simply see tools in a everyday use
    to get some inspiration.

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  • @Subpath said in Development & integration of VS and a desktop publishing software:

    @Boldline said in Development & integration of VS and a desktop publishing software:

    We could pick a topic a week or so and then always go back in and add more information as it's learned.

    Think it's a nice idea. But creating tutorials is work, and thats also
    the case with small tutorials.

    That's why my thoughts tend to be to just allow the recorder to run
    without comments for a small project. Because i think that most users
    would find it already helpful to simply see tools in a everyday use
    to get some inspiration.

    I understand about not having time to invest in full tutorials. What I was mainly referring to was a running discussion on a dedicated topic on the forum. Where we just add bits of helpful info

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