[switching apps leaves empty windows]

I pop back and forth between Photo and Designer a lot. [File | Edit in...] Every time, it leaves an empty window. When I close one, it seems to close all the empties.

This doesn't seem like expected behavior, but I'm new to the tools and may be doing something wrong.

[Photo: perspective adjustment along one side, not one corner at a time]

Super. I use it in Photoshop at least weekly, almost daily, so it'd be massively helpful.

[Photo: perspective adjustment along one side, not one corner at a time]

Got it. Like this:

[UI :: Transform Panel > tab key order]

I came to post this issue and found this. On my Mac Catalina Designer's Transform dialog still has the broken X W Y H tab order. I have only used the tools undocked so I don't know if that's a contributing factor.

[Eye Dropper help]

@Vicente Bermúdez SO very helpful. Was driving me mad. Glad I found this thread. Thanks for asking, @Slotcar Bob

[Subtracting a shape from an image.]

This was making me crazy. Erase blend mode is perfect.

[Designer for Mac: frame text flowing out of frame side]

Huh. Accidental click. Thanks.

[Designer for Mac: frame text flowing out of frame side]

I made some formatting change (leading, font size, don't remember all of it) and now my text is ignoring the frame. I can't figure out, short of deleting and starting over, how to turn it back into frame text. Starting over is simpler, but I'm trying to grok Designer better so I can spend more time working and less time Googling.

Thanks.

frame-text-ignoring-frame.afdesign

[Photo: perspective adjustment along one side, not one corner at a time]

Coming from Photoshop I'm used to moving one corner and having the opposite corner match the movement, creating, well, a perspective look (I'm making 3d book covers, making the spine and cover have perspective.)

I can't figure out how to make this happen in Photo. All I seem to be able to do is move one corner at a time, and to make them match I'll have to come up with some way to measure them which kills the old eyballing method I've used for years.

[Fonts are extremely oversized even at 5pt]

I asked a dumber question once. I don't remember what it was, but I'm sure I did. Then again, maybe not.

Yes, a font's actual height is from descender to ascender, and dependent on the designer's whim to some extent.

Isolation is messing with my brain. Thanks, folks.

[Fonts are extremely oversized even at 5pt]

Similar question, different issue: my fonts are much smaller than expected.

I have my doc set at 72dpi and my Helvetica 118pt capital X is 70px wide by 84px tall.

This is on a Mac running Catalina using a ViewSonic monitor at 1080p.

I'm doing some tricky calcs to script svg files before touch up in Designer, and I'll need to understand what's up with font sizes to make it work.

[Photo: separate words to layers]

Indeed. Chipping away first at getting the parameters sorted in the tools I know best, then I'll be streamlining it.

[Panels always above windows.]

On 6/5/2020 at 7:47 AM, Sean P said:

Hi abn5x,

We do have this reported to development - specifically that the New document dialog does appear below the panels. I will get your comments passed on.

Thanks,

The challenge I have is that on my two-monitor system, with all the panels on the secondary monitor, the 'open document' explorer opens behind the panels on the secondary monitor, so I dig around to find it, move it to the primary monitor, open the file, WHICH OPENS BEHIND THE PANELS ON THE SECONDARY MONITOR, then I move it over.

EVERY SINGLE TIME.

I cannot conceive of a scenario where I would want the document I'm working on to hide behind my tools instead of being on the whacking great open unused monitor over here.

[Photo: separate words to layers]

Here's the process I've settled on, using processes I already know well:

1. copy/paste the text from my songs, poems, and stories into VS Code

2. replace spaces with carriage returns

3. lower case all (these two steps are trivial in VS Code)

4. In Google sheets, paste the word list

5. I have columns of x and y coordinates, and lookup tables for font-size (by the word's part of speech) and weight (inverse by size; big text = thin weight)

6. type in the part of speech for each word (may eventually automate with a dictionary lookup, because I'm a command line junkie)

7. copy pre-created code for each line  (formulae etc. concatenate it all) thusly:

<text x="128px" y="256px" style="font-family:'Helvetica Neue';font-size:30px;font-weight:500;">because</text>

8. stick it all in the svg document

9. open in Designer and fiddle

Yes, Designer. I did buy Photo, but among the other good hints and tips in this thread I realized Designer is better for my text-based art.

Thanks, one and all.

joel

[dialog boxes and tool palettes]

And is there any hope of this unusual and unhelpful behavior being changed? It's a right nuisance.

[Photo: separate words to layers]

@v_kyr Understood. But scripting in conjunction with the tools is, for me, as good as scripting within the tools. And Python isn't difficult.

Since my real decision is "pay Adobe $10/month forever" or "pay Serif $25 once" I'm only looking for an absolute deal-breaker to make me stay with Photoshop. Thanks to your comment, this is not that.

@R C-R I create typographical posters from my song lyrics, like this one. In Photoshop it became immediately apparent that since I was using multiple sizes and weights in a nonlinear layout, separate layers were required. If Affinity Designer or Photo obviates the need, all the better. Thanks for raising the question.

[Photo: separate words to layers]

That's madness. Did you whip that up just to answer my question? I am awed. Thank you so much for a truly meaningful response.

Designer is probably a better place for typographic art. I never learned Illustrator so Photoshop is my hammer for ever nail. I still need photo manipulation software, but if I can bring scripting to both Designer and Photo, I'm chuffed.

Thanks muchly, @v_kyr

[Photo: separate words to layers]

I'm considering the move from Photoshop to AFPhoto. A script I use every day in Photoshop is to separate a text layer word by word into layers, one word per layer. From what I read Photo doesn't support scripting, but how would I go about doing this with macros? I can't even conceptualize the process.

I'm a coder from way back, so I'm hoping the Affinity tools will eventually allow scripting.

Thanks.

[how to split a stroke by offsetting another object]

Perfect. Does exactly what I needed, right up until AD crashed Only lost 90 seconds' work.

[how to split a stroke by offsetting another object]

I will give both a try and see what I can learn. Thanks muchly.

[how to split a stroke by offsetting another object]

Nothing? Anything? Anybody?

[how to split a stroke by offsetting another object]

In the attached file I've used white objects to overlay the stroke of the main object to give the appearance of breaks in the stroke. I'm sure there's a more elegant way to do this by actually splitting the stroke, but I can't sort it and don't find an existing question in the forum (though I'm not certain what terms to search for so I may have missed it.) I know how to split a stroke and give it square ends, but the ends are perpendicular to the stroke, and I need them to follow the adjacent object's edge.

I'm using Designer v1.8.3 [honestly, microscopic grey text on a black background for the version number?] on a Mac running Catalina with 16GB of RAM and plenty of hard drive space. I'm quite comfortable with computers, Photoshop, and CAD, but have just started using vector drawing apps.

owl-outline.afdesign