sheriffderek

I try to use Affinity, because there's so much to like...
But there's a few things like:
- that keeps me using PhotoShop or Illustrator.
This isn't a user problem: it's a missing feature - (and probably a top 10 most important features) (at least for my workflow)
For example... I'm making something... and I don't know what size it is yet - because it's based on some other graphics or screenshots.
So, instead of just using the program: I end up just taking a screenshot instead, or opening up an Adobe product as my final steps.
This thread is pretty embarrassing to "Design" and "Thinking" in general...
--
Shift + o -> drag, done..

I've been focusing on HTML and web-specific accessibility tree type things, but this year I attended CSUN conference and learned a bit more about PDF accessibility.
I'm trying to think through the steps that would be needed.
When creating documents, we already use paragraph styles. Those aren't necessarily semantic, however they aren't a big leap from tagging things. I'm laying out a pricing sheet in Publisher right now (which is fairly simple) - but as an example, if there was a panel like the paragraph styles panel - but with h1, h2, h3, h4 - (or however they do it in PDF land) - it would be quick to select the headings and assign them to their respective hierarchical tags. There could be a panel for "Assistive technology"  and it could be like the "appearance" panel / and contextual. Whatever was selected could have its options. An image could have alt text. A block of text could have optional headings. Given that there's a history panel - and we're able to record state and key: value pairs for just about everything - I'd be curious what the hold up is here. Is it a gap in the real-world reasoning for how it works? (as you can tell - I don't know either / on the actual PDF output side) (or the legal side) - But as someone who would use a screen-reader or braille reader to read a basic PDF document, that part seems like something we can illustrate to help move this forward.
As it stands, Publisher can't be used to create official (legal) digital documents for any company - unless you plan on sending them out for remediation.

@Fixx can you explain more about the DPI?

I was trying to show a student how to get grain like this in AD, but it's so fine. It's also visually confusing because it looks different when you zoom in and out. Are there any other ways besides the standard noise tool to get programatic grain and gradients like this?

I've been focusing on HTML and web-specific accessibility tree type things, but this year I attended CSUN conference and learned a bit more about PDF accessibility.
I'm trying to think through the steps that would be needed.
When creating documents, we already use paragraph styles. Those aren't necessarily semantic, however they aren't a big leap from tagging things. I'm laying out a pricing sheet in Publisher right now (which is fairly simple) - but as an example, if there was a panel like the paragraph styles panel - but with h1, h2, h3, h4 - (or however they do it in PDF land) - it would be quick to select the headings and assign them to their respective hierarchical tags. There could be a panel for "Assistive technology"  and it could be like the "appearance" panel / and contextual. Whatever was selected could have its options. An image could have alt text. A block of text could have optional headings. Given that there's a history panel - and we're able to record state and key: value pairs for just about everything - I'd be curious what the hold up is here. Is it a gap in the real-world reasoning for how it works? (as you can tell - I don't know either / on the actual PDF output side) (or the legal side) - But as someone who would use a screen-reader or braille reader to read a basic PDF document, that part seems like something we can illustrate to help move this forward.
As it stands, Publisher can't be used to create official (legal) digital documents for any company - unless you plan on sending them out for remediation.

I've been focusing on HTML and web-specific accessibility tree type things, but this year I attended CSUN conference and learned a bit more about PDF accessibility.
I'm trying to think through the steps that would be needed.
When creating documents, we already use paragraph styles. Those aren't necessarily semantic, however they aren't a big leap from tagging things. I'm laying out a pricing sheet in Publisher right now (which is fairly simple) - but as an example, if there was a panel like the paragraph styles panel - but with h1, h2, h3, h4 - (or however they do it in PDF land) - it would be quick to select the headings and assign them to their respective hierarchical tags. There could be a panel for "Assistive technology"  and it could be like the "appearance" panel / and contextual. Whatever was selected could have its options. An image could have alt text. A block of text could have optional headings. Given that there's a history panel - and we're able to record state and key: value pairs for just about everything - I'd be curious what the hold up is here. Is it a gap in the real-world reasoning for how it works? (as you can tell - I don't know either / on the actual PDF output side) (or the legal side) - But as someone who would use a screen-reader or braille reader to read a basic PDF document, that part seems like something we can illustrate to help move this forward.
As it stands, Publisher can't be used to create official (legal) digital documents for any company - unless you plan on sending them out for remediation.

Accessible files can be accessed, read, processed, and used by those with disabilities who must use assistive technologies with their computers: they include screen readers, magnification software, dyslexia software, and mobility software (when someone can't operate a keyboard or mouse).
Accessible ICT (Information Communications Technology, such as PDFs, EPUB, digital media, websites) is required by the governments of most industrialized countries; it is usually part of the country's civil rights and equal access to education legislation, such as the ADA in the US. See this world map for details: https://www.3playmedia.com/blog/countries-that-have-adopted-wcag-standards-map/  But note that many more countries are in the process of formally adopting the standards and are already producing accessible files.
The United Nations and other non-partisan international organizations promote accessibility because nearly 1/3 of the world's population has a disability or impairment that prevents them from reading and using digital content. See https://www.karlencommunications.com/DisabilityRights.html
Accessibility means any type of file that is available digitally, whether via a website or other type of media, must meet the accessibility requirements spelled out by the PDF/UA-1 standards (for PDFs), WCAG 2.1 (for websites), and EPUB 3 (for EPUBs).  From Affinity Publisher, it would apply to PDFs and EPUBs made from Publisher layouts.
The standards are international: individual countries pass the legislation that requires the various accessibility standards to ensure that no citizen is prevented from accessing and reading digital information, such as textbooks for school, financial and legal paperwork, user manuals, employment/school/work applications, news, libraries/research ... just about everything we all read and/or download from the web.
Graphic designers create the bulk of this type of content, and right now, only MS Word, Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress have tools to export tagged, accessible PDFs.
There's an opportunity for Affinity to add accessibility tools to Publisher and create a solid competitor to InDesign. I can't begin to count the number of designers who work for governments (national and local), academia (preschool through post-secondary), or for major industries that are required to have accessible ICT.  They're stuck with InDesign because it's the only viable tool right now.
They'd jump ship in a heartbeat if Affinity gave them accessibility tools in Publisher.
—Bevi Chagnon / PubCom.com
Trainer, consultant, and book author for accessible documents.
US Delegate to the ISO committee for the PDF/UA standards.
Advisor and beta tester to software companies for building accessibility tools.

I really wish it did. It's a great tool for generating web assets other than this issue. I disable the layer effects, export and then manually add SVG filters to the exported SVG
 
I'd be happy even if I had to add code within AD or if SVG filters were separate and less capable than Layer effects. I just want a nice end to end workflow, exporting all assets with one action whenever I make changes.

I try to use Affinity, because there's so much to like...
But there's a few things like:
- that keeps me using PhotoShop or Illustrator.
This isn't a user problem: it's a missing feature - (and probably a top 10 most important features) (at least for my workflow)
For example... I'm making something... and I don't know what size it is yet - because it's based on some other graphics or screenshots.
So, instead of just using the program: I end up just taking a screenshot instead, or opening up an Adobe product as my final steps.
This thread is pretty embarrassing to "Design" and "Thinking" in general...
--
Shift + o -> drag, done..

Well, I'm glad you've found an outlet here. I just wish it wasn't drowning out my feature request. - for no good reason. I'm sure there are 30,000 Discord servers where you could go and correct people for fun.

OK. So, for anyone with common sense - I'm sure the request is clear. For anyone who wants to fall on their sword about the not-so-perfect wording of my request, please do so.

Who knew it would be such a snappy topic! I might not be smart enough or emotionally intelligent to understand the joke / or specific version of attitude here. But I'm OK with that.
It would benefit me, my web designer/programmer colleagues, and my students - to have the wheel match up with what we perceive to be "the top." That's just my opinion. And I totally agree that when searching the web there are figures showing it at 0deg, 90deg, 310deg - and all over the place.
But my desire is clear enough. I'd like it at the top. Anyone who cares to hear me, can talk about it more. If they want to implement a single checkbox, 4 radio buttons, or a number field to choose the degree of choice: that'll be up to Serif.

https://www.w3.org/wiki/CSS/Properties/color/HSL
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/07/hsl-colors-css/
Maybe I'm just relating it to a clock? Top is zero? When I'm skateboarding / I'm going 0deg straight.
If you think my idea is something that would hurt other people, or that there is a better way to think about it, or that you can explain some history of it - please do. I would love that. But saying "I don't care - it's fine" - is a waste of everyone's time. (yours too)
Maybe we just shouldn't use HSL at all: https://wildbit.com/blog/accessible-palette-stop-using-hsl-for-color-systems
 
I'd be curious how it works for people who can not see the colours.
 

I have just tested it, and Affinity does it correctly according to standard mathematical convention, where 0° is at X=1, Y=0 of the coordinates of a unit circle (the circle centered at X=0, Y=0, with radius r = 1) and then the angles are increased counterclockwise (so 90° is at X=0, Y=1, that is to say on the top of the circle).
This is high school trigonometry.

Or grade school geometry.

Except affinity swapped the y-axis which breaks your analogy immediately  
It is totally arbitrary and  subjective where to set the reference and direction (clockwise/ counter clockwise) depending on context. 
school trigonometry  geography / navigation (GPS GLONAS air traffic) Clocks / time measurement  Astronomy Photo / Designer apps  
There is no single truth.  Let the user decide what works best for him. 

Who knew it would be such a snappy topic! I might not be smart enough or emotionally intelligent to understand the joke / or specific version of attitude here. But I'm OK with that.
It would benefit me, my web designer/programmer colleagues, and my students - to have the wheel match up with what we perceive to be "the top." That's just my opinion. And I totally agree that when searching the web there are figures showing it at 0deg, 90deg, 310deg - and all over the place.
But my desire is clear enough. I'd like it at the top. Anyone who cares to hear me, can talk about it more. If they want to implement a single checkbox, 4 radio buttons, or a number field to choose the degree of choice: that'll be up to Serif.

https://www.w3.org/wiki/CSS/Properties/color/HSL
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/07/hsl-colors-css/
Maybe I'm just relating it to a clock? Top is zero? When I'm skateboarding / I'm going 0deg straight.
If you think my idea is something that would hurt other people, or that there is a better way to think about it, or that you can explain some history of it - please do. I would love that. But saying "I don't care - it's fine" - is a waste of everyone's time. (yours too)
Maybe we just shouldn't use HSL at all: https://wildbit.com/blog/accessible-palette-stop-using-hsl-for-color-systems
 
I'd be curious how it works for people who can not see the colours.
 

I care more about AD specifically, but the whole sweet uses the color wheel. So, I think the change would be across all of them.
The H in HSL - is a 360deg (well, and beyond in many cases) - spectrum of hue.
Most examples/figures show red at the top of the wheel.
Being able to learn the colors - is a major win over hex or rgb. You can't really learn those. However - you can could on 0deg or 360deg being "red" and then adjust the saturation and lightness from there. You can count on 180deg being a light blue. Over time, you can learn where the colors are - generally.
The color wheel in affinity - is a daily joy. We love it. It's the best. But - the red starts at 90deg. If we could set it to turn -90deg then it could match up with our mental model for the degrees. A checkbox in settings would be lovely.
 

I care more about AD specifically, but the whole sweet uses the color wheel. So, I think the change would be across all of them.
The H in HSL - is a 360deg (well, and beyond in many cases) - spectrum of hue.
Most examples/figures show red at the top of the wheel.
Being able to learn the colors - is a major win over hex or rgb. You can't really learn those. However - you can could on 0deg or 360deg being "red" and then adjust the saturation and lightness from there. You can count on 180deg being a light blue. Over time, you can learn where the colors are - generally.
The color wheel in affinity - is a daily joy. We love it. It's the best. But - the red starts at 90deg. If we could set it to turn -90deg then it could match up with our mental model for the degrees. A checkbox in settings would be lovely.
 

I would like to rename a bunch of paths to the same name. (because then when I export - I want to change those IDs to classes for some inline SVG CSS stuff).

I can select many layers with command and click /or with select > similar
https://affinity.help/designer/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Layers/selectEditLayers.html?title=Selecting and editing layers
but I do not see a way to rename all of those things.
In our case, I can't group them - because they are many paths away from each other - in a stacking order.

Plainly - "naming many layers at the same time" - is useful just by itself because you are doing something 1 time instead of many. You might have 20 "eyes" in your illustration of a jungle at night - and want to name them all "eye." Currently: you would (find the layer, double-click twice, and type "eye")*20.
Here is one of my use cases:
I have this illustration. I'm tasked with preparing it to be used for an SVG / where I'll be giving each path it's own --custom-property for dark mode and it may also be animated in some way. Affinities options for SVG export are another can of worms, but - I'd would like to select > similar fill (which will then highlight all of the layers with paths using that fill color) - and I'd like to name those layers. If I could right-click and just rename them all - that would be really fast. Other wise, clicking each one will remove the highlights - and I'll be doing the process many times.
In this situation, grouping them is not an option. And these layers must stay in this source order.
Does that help explain it?

Plainly - "naming many layers at the same time" - is useful just by itself because you are doing something 1 time instead of many. You might have 20 "eyes" in your illustration of a jungle at night - and want to name them all "eye." Currently: you would (find the layer, double-click twice, and type "eye")*20.
Here is one of my use cases:
I have this illustration. I'm tasked with preparing it to be used for an SVG / where I'll be giving each path it's own --custom-property for dark mode and it may also be animated in some way. Affinities options for SVG export are another can of worms, but - I'd would like to select > similar fill (which will then highlight all of the layers with paths using that fill color) - and I'd like to name those layers. If I could right-click and just rename them all - that would be really fast. Other wise, clicking each one will remove the highlights - and I'll be doing the process many times.
In this situation, grouping them is not an option. And these layers must stay in this source order.
Does that help explain it?

I would like to rename a bunch of paths to the same name. (because then when I export - I want to change those IDs to classes for some inline SVG CSS stuff).

I can select many layers with command and click /or with select > similar
https://affinity.help/designer/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Layers/selectEditLayers.html?title=Selecting and editing layers
but I do not see a way to rename all of those things.
In our case, I can't group them - because they are many paths away from each other - in a stacking order.

@sheriffderek, if you want to go the brush route here's a tip:
Create the original brush with a simple black to white gradient.
Then, when applied to a stroke, add a Posterize adjustment in order to quantize the grey into steps corresponding to the number of lines (* more on this below). In this case 5. Now you can use a Gradient Map and have full control over the color of each individual line..... as opposed to having to make a new brush with each color change. 
* Yes, I did try to make the original brush segments specific solid grey values in order to use the Gradient Map directly, but the colors, for some reason were not exact when mapped. Close but not exact. Anyway it's easier to just do a gradient and use the # of lines rather than trying to figure out the percentages of grey you'd need (beyond simple divisions that is).

I don't think it's funny. And although it's frustrating 2% of the time... I have to try and remember that Serif is a much smaller company than Tesla. I also - don't want a bot to "do the washing." So,  - I'm happy enough to use Illustrator - for this one thing. After deciding to teach Affinity Designer at PE, to can't imagine being any happier (except of course... with those few little warts removed.) I am joyous when I use it. Every time. I feels like my little friend. The things they are doing right - far outweigh the faults. As a graphics professional / it seems pretty reasonable to have many graphics programs. After all - Affinity is basically free. So, you're only really paying for Adobe.

Affinity Designer is a vector illustration program.
Graphic artists in the web space take those graphics and use them on websites. 
We need the paths to remain paths.
We also need to warp/distort/ or whatever you call it --- and so, turning it into a bitmap is NOT an option.
Do we need to start a separate thread for every single reason that "turn it into a bitmap" - isn't a solution?
           
There's a thread here already for supposed "workarounds"  - but    THIS thread is about a feature request / and hopefully includes compelling use-cases                                                 
If it hasn't even been considered for over 6 years... I'll guess that something about that engine will brick the rest of the program - and that this just isn't going to ever happen.
If you can afford Adobe (meaning you make absolutely ANY money from your graphics) / then this isn't a problem. I use Affinity for the color-wheel - and to integrate with the iPad app - and then I use Illustrator anytime I need to do something that isn't flat. Sure - I'd rather just give Affinity $50 a month instead... but that's not an option.

Because it is an independent company you probably can buy it, but you'll have to over pay.