Glyphs

Hi, I have been using Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo for more than a year now, and so far, I haven't seen any layer or layers group that I couldn't paste in both Apps with all their functionalities intact, which is totally great! But the downside is that it forces me to create many redundant layers in 2 similar files. When I work on an image file in Affinity Photo for example, I sometimes need to save this same file as an Affinity Designer file to work on it with different tools in Designer. Then, if I edit the original image file in Affinity Photo, I have to replace manually the corresponding image layers in the Affinity Designer file by the updated ones. I suppose there are a few ways to get around this, but there is also a very simple solution: the afdesign and afphoto formats look basically like the same format, the only difference, as far as I know, being the application it opens the file into. So why not create an Affinity Designer button in Affinity Photo, and an Affinity Photo button in Affinity Designer, which would allow us to open the current file in the other Affinity App? Let's say I have created an image in Affinity Photo, and I need to add a compound shape for example. I would click the Affinity Designer button in the Affinity Photo App, which would open the file seamlessly in Affinity Designer, then I would create my compound shape, click the Affinity Photo button, edit it further in Photo, etc. The advantage of this method is that you are always working on the same file, instead of juggling between two similar files containing identical items that you would have to update manually. Depending on the programming of the Apps, you could even go one step further and replace the Photo Persona in Affinity Designer by a whole Affinity Photo persona when Affinity Photo is installed on the computer, and add an Affinity Designer Persona in Affinity Photo, when Designer is installed. Is it possible to implement such a functionality in the Affinity Apps?

Hi, Could you give us a way to save interface layouts, with customized toolbars and palettes layouts?

Hi, Is there some file we could save in the meantime? Like a plist which would only contain preferences and interface settings?

Is it possible to save an interface layout, with customized toolbar and palettes layout?

Yes, that's what I'm doing right now. A Favorite Category would simplify things.

Could you give us a way to keep all the brushes in their respective categories, and to put the most used brushes in a Favorites category. If I am using frequently a specific brush from a specific artist, I would like to remember the category it comes from. If I just put the brush in a custom category, it disappears from its original one. The only way I have to do this is to duplicate a brush and put it in a custom category, but it would be easier to just right-click it and put it in a special Favorites Category without duplicating it. Ideally, there should also be an indication of the original category the brush belongs to in an Info button next to the brush, in its Help Tip, or in its Edit pane (with an option to lock the original and duplicate it if we edit it).

I could try to recognize it visually, at best. If the brush is here, it would be better than no brush at all. Ideally, it would be a lot better to have an indication of the folder it comes from in an Info button or the Edit pane (with an option to lock the original and duplicate it if we edit it).

To keep all the brushes in their respective categories, and the most used brushes in a Favorites category. If I am using frequently a specific brush from a specific artist, I would like to remember that it comes from his category. If I just put the brush in a new category, it disappears from the previous one. The only other way to do this is to duplicate the brush and put it in a custom category, but it would be easier to just right-click it and put it in a special Favorites Category.

Yes, but is it possible to keep the brush in its category and put it in a Favorite Category without duplicating it? Like an Alias?

Is there a way to create a Favorites folder in the Brushes Pane, where we could put Brushes without having to duplicate it?

Is there a way to import or convert Sketchbook Pro brushes for use in Affinity Designer or Photo?

Yes! It works! Thanks!

Of course I can post a screen grab :) If I couldn't, I wouldn't write it. That said, I reread post 4 like you told me, and it looks exactly like what you explained. Sorry for the trouble, and thank you very much for the files and the tutorial :)

Sorry about it, I did look at the files, but I confused clipping and masking. Clipping both groups works, and the shadows look right, but a fine line is still visible at the position where both clipping forms meet. It is visible in your latest file too. Is there a way to get rid of this?

Yes, the clipped shape is visible on the canvas, but it does look pretty simple to do:) Actually I don't think the method I need exist yet. I believe the simplest way to do this would be to create the first group with the two forms, then duplicate it and switch the positions of the forms, then use some kind of "crop layer" tool to just crop the top group like you would the document. This way, everything would be editable very quickly. For now, there is a crop tool to crop the whole document, but not individual parts or layers (at least I think so. If it already exists, I must have missed it).

I am using both, but I tend to use AD for vector shapes. When I first tested this kind of design, I only used two duplicates groups and a mask. It was the fastest way I could find to do this, but as a result, the shadows were less intense in the mask part than in the other part, since I erased a set of shapes with shadows. Is there a way to work as fast (or even faster) with a clipping shape without erasing shadows?

Can I do that in the same document, or do I have to crop the document, then place it in a new document containing the same shapes?

Thanks! The shadows seem to work better. It would be simpler if we could just used some kind of "cropped layers", but it doesn't seem possible yet.

I have created this design using two groups of moon layers. Each group contains two layered moons with a shadow effect. I duplicated the first group, inverted the two moons' placement in the top group, then applied a mask on it to obtain this overlapped forms design. But the shadows are wrong in the masked part, because the shadows' intensities of each layer are automatically added (the masked part now displays only one set of shadows instead of two). Is there a way to do this with effects completing each other instead of being added?

I am typing it in lowercase, but with the Comicraft and Blambot fonts I am using, the text often looks uppercase even when it's in lowercase, so every time I am trying to type a text in lowercase, there's always some uppercase character creeping in, especially at the beginning of a phrase, or with names. I always need to check the text afterwards. The faster way to check the text at this time is to cut and paste it into a BBEdit Text file, put it in lowercase if need be, check the "i"s, then paste the corrected text in the balloon. I could also change the font to a more classical font in the balloon, correct it, then change it back again to the previous font, but the first method is faster for me because I'm not using menu items to do it (that said, having a font manager integrated to the Affinity Apps could simplify this process)

Hi, I am using Affinity Designer to letter comics, and I think there's (at least) one function missing that could spare us a lot of work: Many hand-lettering fonts have to be used in lower case, so first, I would need an option that would put text in lower case. If this option could be expanded to all the text in a document (or in every selected documents when you add scripting to your apps), that would be great, but that's not all: when you letter comics, every character has to be in lower case save one: the capital "i" which has to be "

Hi, I finally found how it happened (but not why...). I sent you the video, which can easily be reproduced, but I can also send you the test file if you need.

Ah, talked too soon. Actually, the problem is happening in some files and not others. In some of my file, I have to constrain objects with text so that the text stays at the same place when it is put back down, and the size of the object is double that of the original. And in others, I just have to put the objects in the pane, and put it back, and everything works. Any idea about what could cause this difference?

Wow, never mind! I just downloaded the latest update, and I don't even have to add constraints to anything! Never saw something that simple! I just drag the object or group in the pane to add it, and when I put it back in the document, it's exactly the same! Thanks guys!

I am trying to test the Assets pane in Affinity Designer, to put an identical object in different files. I have created a group of forms with text inside one form, have added constraints to the group, so that the text stays at the same place when put in the Assets pane, then added it to the Assets pane. When I drag this new asset back in the document, its size is double that of the original, and I can't seem to find a way to change it. Is there a way to create assets of the exact same size as the original?