In other words you don't have an answer. You can't name any examples of truly innovative features in much younger vector drawing programs. It's easy for you (or anyone else) to dismiss anything new Adobe or even Corel offers as not being "innovative" or at best "iterative." Anyone can $#!+ on a product improvement like you taking a dump on Illustrator improving its max zoom level ten fold. It's more difficult to point out positive examples of rival applications at least doing something better, if not offer something unique not found in those "long in the tooth" applications.
XML abilities. With the embroidery program that I have, I am able to store information with regard to the embroidery objects parameters, density, underlay etc. If I were to save that in Inkscape and then import/then save in Ai/DRAW that info is lost, any info that isn't strictly XML/SVG markup is lost. And they do not have any method of editing that markup directly.
Plugins. Inkscape has a fully open plugin API. So open that I can use Inkscape's own XY guides as a means of declaring the 0,0 origin of my designs (depending on the designs, hats versus shirts etc that comes in handy). This also allows me to have my embroidery files saving, save copy as to come from the main program drop down and not through the extension itself. Hence, looking like it's more apart of the program and not a separate plugin. Unlike that $3k commercial extension. Do you think that you would be able to create plugins that have that indepth of an interaction between the main program and the plugin in Ai without some licensing going on?
Now I mentioned Deno, Deno is a JS/TS runtime based on V8. SVGs (Inkscape's default file format) allows me to use the XML markup to put in IDs, Classes etc to use with JS for applications that I create with Deno. Deno/Webview/SVGs allows me to quickly come up with my sub par applications (according to you, I am paraphasing) quickly and yes in an afternoon/weekend. Again, not something that is allowed directly within Ai and DRAW as they do not have a means of editing that portion of the file, that would have to be done in a text editor which is far less GUI friendly then how Inkscape does it(no, you don't have to code XML from scratch, I believe that's what you were thinking the last time that I brought up the XML editor and using the XML markup allows one to manipulate the file in other ways that may not be allowed by the options that most people look for in the main part of the GUI). Keep in mind to, Ai/DRAW delete any extrenous XML markup that those programs don't recognize as true XML markup for SVGs.
Again though, nothing about that would interest you, so I'm sure you would only have something negative to say about it, why I didn't write what I did now before. It's not that I didn't have an answer for you. Which is what you thought.
There you go again trying to make the discussion all about me. I've explained the CorelDRAW thing, upgrade protection and yadda yadda yadda to you way too many times. If you actually don't care what the reason is why I pay for CorelDRAW or not then drop it.
They are still getting your money, regardless of what it is, despite your complaining loudly on the one hand, they are still providing you something that you are willing to pay for. If that applies to you, how many other loudly complaining people are also still giving their money for that exact reason. That all adds up. How many still subscribe to Adobe that don't like it, but for one reason or another they still do? Same thing, all that adds up.
You're not hands-on current with CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator or even Affinity Designer yet you're in this thread arguing about these applications. Again, why do you even care? You claim you've moved on, switched, ripped yourself free from the evil clutches of Microsoft, Adobe and whatever other bad guy needs to be added to the list. If that's the case why show any interest in topics related to those applications? The only reasons I can figure is you're determined to force your opinion on me (or anyone else bothering to read these reams of static), or you're just in here trolling for any argument you can spark.
I was once one of those that believed that I
needed to have Adobe. When there is a switch like that, there comes a realization that that thought wasn't necessarily true. At least not in my instance. If you actually looked through what I say, I always tell people to investigate the possibility for their own particular situation.
I also keep an interest in other software and see where they are at etc, just in case I have to go back. That's why I keep reading articles/release notes on Windows (not a Mac fan at all, despite having had several of the years, so Mac would have to be the last vendor out there for me to do that).
I've skimmed through some of Adobe's documents about plug-in development, such as this one:
https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/illustrator/pdf/sdk/getting-started-guide-cc.pdf
I can't find anything about developers having pay Adobe a bunch of money just to get access to the Illustrator SDK so they can get started. I'm sure Adobe does have things such as NDAs for plugin developers to sign. Nevertheless, judging by the sheer number of third party plugins available for Illustrator it sure doesn't look like Adobe has anything really onerous set up. Astute Graphics published this recently updated list of third party plugins available for Illustrator, along with some other links in the same page to scripts, plugins and extensions for Illustrator that are free:
https://astutegraphics.com/learn/tutorial/third-party-illustrator-plugins
I didn't say that you had to directly pay for the SDK, I said that they have caveats on the documentation that I could very get and even on a file format that
is there own format, the list that the information may or may not be the complete and the reserve the right to pull it at any time.
If the software can reasonably well on a PC upwards of 10 years old the application isn't much of a resource hog.
A computer that is within 10 yrs old now, can be resourced out to high heaven that can head the bloat, but just "brute forcing" it with RAM. I haven't run anything with less then 32GB of RAM in the last ten years. I have 64GBs of ECC ram right now in my main rig. Electron apps while a resource hog (regardless of how well written it is) just scream on that rig). So no, that even of itself isn't much of a benchmark criteria. And I would be willing to bet that we are running better rigs (for the most part) then the average person.
Then, again, why waste your time on this? If Adobe's products are "cheap" to you then what's the problem?
I told you, price isn't my main problem. The rights/abilities that I have with their software now is. Why I didn't stick with Windows as well when 2015 came along. If I wasn't able to make the switch (as in the software didn't work out) then I would still be where I was 6 yrs ago.
The "worst" inconvenience I've gone through with Adobe software upgrades when I didn't have a prior version already installed on the hard drive (like when getting a new computer) is I had to insert the previous version's installer CD. IIRC, this was before Adobe and many other vendors started applying online activation schemes to their applications.
Not for me, it required an active previous versions already installed.
Unless the plugin is doing something really simple it's not going to get thrown together and made as a functional prototype in an afternoon.
Have you ever done anything with Python/TKinter, Python/Qt, Godot or Deno? If you have never done anything with this type of work and thus don't have the direct experience with using them (experience seems to be something that you are really nailing home), what is your reasoning to being able to say that? I have used those technologies and more (even low level technologies using C++/Qt). Your usage is what exactly? I'm tending not anything at all based on your previous comments, but I could be wrong.
Here is the kicker, if you just create a CLI script/program, that makes even the C++ dev time even less. GUIs are what astronomically add to the dev time on any stack. If it's just a console app, not only does even your C++ app remain portable among platforms and archs, but that can shave off months of having to deal with "drawing" the GUI and depending on what platform you are using, that can make it even longer depending on the documentation. That's why I like libraries like Qt, not only do they abstract all that away from you, but they also have a WYSIWYG designer, but then again, since you are familiar with this process, you know all about that.
This thread has been all over the place without any relation to any Affinity product. Please don't act like you've been showing any concentration on Photo or Publisher. Other than the mention of your mother using Affinity Photo in the #2 post the topic has mostly off the rails completely ever since.
I didn't say that I concentrated on that. You said that I didn't say squat about Affinity at all in this thread, which was shown to be false and if you noticed in that post, I did talk about Affinity Photo with no mention of anything else at all. You keep on moving the goal post to suit your own argument. First it was I didn't say anything at all about Affinity, then it was this thread was only made about Affinity Designer, now I didn't concentrate on Affinity at all.
Don't forget that I also said that I did try Photo on the iPad as well. Can't forget that.
Having actual hands-on access to current versions of Illustrator, CorelDRAW or Affinity Designer is kind of important if one is going cast judgment against a new feature, the application's performance quality or any other technical issues. I've already repeated it numerous times how more than a few CorelDRAW users have been staying put on old versions. But you keep fixating on my own personal choices
Because when you are talking about your own experiences, I'm getting it from the source. Not some nebulous other people that may or may not have chimed in. Even when I answered Ikarasu's post when I mentioned Johnny, I mentioned a specific user handle and mentioned if I recall correctly. If he chimed in (which he did) great, if not oh well.
It was already a problem for Corel with customers skipping one or more product cycles when they went to a yearly release schedule just to cosmetically appear like they were keeping up with Adobe.
That is a common problem for all software vendors using the perpetual license schema, they have to continually win people over. Subscription gets one some time, but not forever.
The sheer lack of updates, even small bug fixes, is a worrisome sign.
That it is indeed. Bug fixes, big or small are the absolute baseline for keeping software going as that is the price of a vendor maintaining said software.
I think SAi is risking a LOT traveling down the same road as Corel with their Flexi application -effectively making it a subscription-only thing. We have 3 licenses of it at my shop. But none are newer than version 12. Version 19 was buggy. And the new setup isn't bringing anything new to the table that we can't already do in other applications. We do most of our design work in CorelDRAW and Illustrator. Even if we have to ditch Flexi completely it's not going to do much harm at all. Our "master" files aren't in FS format.
I would say so as well.
Those plugins aren't current; CS6 can only use "legacy license" plugins from Astute Graphics.
I didn't say that they were current right now. I mentioned them to show, since you seem to think I have something against paying for things, that I even pay for the plugins that I use. I don't have a problem with commercial, Qt is commercial, Ardour is commercial. Both of which are open source. Imagine that, open source with a commercial bent. What is the world coming to.
Affinity Designer doesn't have any built-in vinyl cutting/plotting capability. AFAIK no one has made any vinyl cutting/plotting add-ons for Affinity Designer.
I would check to see if you are able to setup an HPGL printer as the cutter. Hopefully using the RAW HPGL protocol (some cutters are "smart" enough to parse what they need and leave the rest, my Rolands are able to do so). Then it would just be as simple as File->Print to the cutter. Downside to this is everything would need to be setup by the user either manually every time, or thru a plugin/macro or something like that (which I doubt since I don't think Affinity has a plugin system in place). Inkscape does have Inkcut, but to my knowledge that is the only one worth anything. I haven't used the new version as I just do the File->Print method as I have python scripts that do what I need to do as far as setup goes (again nice thing about having a fully open python API).
The nice thing about RAW HPGL protocol is that it does not need (at least in my experience) a driver for the cutter. Which is good for me as no OEMs support directly what I use as far as the OS goes.