Undecided

I don't know Affinity's terminology. But say you have two curves. Drag one on the layers panel until it's a child of the other curve. This can be 'released' by right-clicking the child curve in the Layers Panel. (In other software I'd call this grouping a compound curve, but it doesn't seem to be the case here!) It doesn't seem to be possible to just click on the parent and 'release child objects' -- this would be *very* useful when breaking up imports from, say, Excel charts where you might be trying to release hundreds of items at a time. Equally there's no way to assign a keyboard shortcut to release these child curves -- 'Release' only applies to Designer's idea of compound curves as made in the 'Layers' menu. The intuitive way would seem to be by clicking on the parent item and release everything below that level.

Add a stable API and those users with the expertise (and a burning desire to so so!) can develop new bindings beyond the obvious candidates for interpreted languages (Javascript or Typescript; Python). Personally I'd like to see something for compiled languages too (C++, Rust) but my skills aren't up creating a binding. Although I've echoed some preferences myself, I still don't think saying "It must be language x or language y" is the way. Better to set things up from the outset so that other bindings are possible later on. Speed of execution isn't so much of a thing from where I sit -- much likelier to build a complex single page table setup than a 1500-page behemoth these days! For my uses, speed of development wins over execution speed nearly all the time. That's why I'd love to see Python. But I could live with Javascript/Typescript with only limited grumbles

Correction -- on exporting to PDF (using any PDF settings) or printing to PDF (using the MS PDF driver) there's a grey background (as against the actual blue swatch colour). And on export to PNG, no background colour at all.

Hi, I just tried to change the background colour of a few table cells to a swatch colour, using the Table panel. Full opacity applied. According to the panel the colour is now set. According to the table itself, there is still no background -- it's transparent.

Thanks GarryP. The table panel seems like the best method in that it allows precise row heights to be entered. I'm still nonplussed at the Transform panel working beyond the selected table rows. That should come with a health warning.

How do I set a custom row height in a table? When I select a row and adjust its height manually in the 'transform' panel, that setting is applied to every row -- as much use as a chocolate teapot for any serious table design job. If there is a method, it's very well hidden.