deeds

Apart from …
… I wonder why -> for what purpose -> we may not choose for this "Callout Ellipse" neither fill nor stroke not to mention gradient colours while this shape object layer is selected with Move Tool … but without getting fill/stroke options offered or reported in the Context Toolbar:

 

Each individually selected object is turned into a Symbol (along with its children), no matter how many are selected, no matter how they're positioned in the hierarchy, the "make this into a Symbol" action presumes the user wanted that of all selected objects. Simple, quick.

Sorry, I think I don't understand this part (using the modes is better than the modes?) – Nevertheless, apart from the Context Toolbar the Colour Gradient Editor appears for instance …
• in the Layer Effects dialog for "Outline" and "Gradient Overlay",
• for text fill and stroke and paragraph decoration in Text panels + in the Text Style Editor dialog,
• in the Text Frame panel for fill and stroke,
• in the Table Format Editor dialog for entire frame fill and stroke
• … ? …
To me it appears rather interesting where it is not available: for instance
• as character background or
• as table cell colour (although we may apply a gradient swatch to selected cells)

Calm down. I don't see a use in discussing single gradient property interface options. The design exists. But just as pop-up only, not as panel.
A "mockup" is shown in previous posts, one by the the OP @deeds, another by @prophet.
I will not discuss this any further with you.

No. Just the current gradient options pop-up window as an additional panel. – Possibly with additional selection for fill/stroke, but note, also the current Stroke panel does not allow to select a colour, but requires to use a separate interface element for that.

I'm not suggesting any functionality of the Gradient tool be moved or changed in any way. Merely, that rather than having to make the extra click to pop open the fill (or stroke) gradient context toolbar editor, that interface could live in it's own panel.
It would make my workflow a bit quicker as it would align those options with existing panels in the Right Studio rather than appearing on the opposite side of the workspace. But to each their own.
Valid, but a panel could give more options in that regard without taking up much more space. Or remove the color popup and use the existing Color Panel in the same way as one does when just making adjustments with the tool itself.

No. It could stay with its current UI design but as panel ... just like other panels that don't close by themselves.

Yikes! That's a pretty big UI blunder.

No. The various Context Toolbar options reuire extra clicks to open their various menus. This can make its use a lot more cumbersome if you want to adjust the gradient of several objects. Just note the different handling between applying a swatch (or stroke) via the Context Toolbar versus via the opened Swatch panel (or Stroke panel).
Also note, we may have a palette for gradient swatches but the Swatches panel does not enable us to edit its gradients – although it makes us believe it would by its offer "Edit Fill…" that, if used, simply deletes the current gradient and replaces it by a plain colour … in a not undoable procedure.

I also think a Gradient Panel would be nice. Redundant? Maybe a little, but being able to quickly see all properties of a gradient fill of a selected object in a panel saves the need for an extra click on the Context Toolbar.

That's the point: "directly" versus "pop-up":
In my understanding a Gradient Panel is missing indeed, permanently available like Swatches and Colours panel. And, if not as a separate panel of its own it maybe expected at least within the Colours panel which includes already various nested interface options: space, slider, hsl, tint, wheel, swatch creation … but just not gradient.

Which version?
This is one of my minor niggles with Affinity apps, that there isn't a gradient panel with advanced gradient editing features, editing gradients is a convoluted process of multiple clicks. You have a colour panel, you have a swatches panel, logically there should be a gradients panel.
With a dedicated gradient panel, things like dragging colours from the swatch panel to the gradient being edited would be a major boon and considering how much gradients are used I'm very surprised a dedicated gradient panel hasn't been created.
By example, illustrator can do drag and drop to gradients see image below.

 

This whole thing is a joke right? I mean the lack of this functionality... like an ALT-click on the checkmarks...

Thank you for the replies.
kirk23: I have tried your suggestion with outline layer effects.  I have not quite managed to get to what you are showing, especially with regards to opacity.  With practice I'm sure I get better, but I find it fiddly to get it right - and it crops the image. If alignment is set to outside or center then one has to deal with round corners - unless you crop it?
GarryP:  Is this available in Affinity Photo as well?
General comment: The image I presented was only an example and maybe I should not have used the 'inner frame' - it distracts from the topic and I use it only occasionally. I am more interested in borders.
I am an Affinity Photo novice and I am still struggling with a lot of things in Affinity.  I know, I am only scratching the surface of Affinity's capabilities with how I want to use it - namely photo editing (plus borders, I guess?!). Watching YouTube videos, it seems that there are many ways to create borders, but non of them seem straight forward or as effective, but rather complicated.
To me, it would be nice to simply have options that do what they say, and do them well, like adding borders, vignetting, <regular tasks> etc. instead of trying to figure out so many workarounds.
(Though this is off the topic, but vignetting is another one of those tasks. As is, the vignetting filter is not very usable when it comes to moving the center or rotating the vignette - and I find it awkward to use. There are other ways to applying a nice vignette, but you have to understand so many other things before you can comfortable apply a vignette - why does the 'vignette filter' not do that?  btw. can you create presets for life filters?)

Oh, I so miss having a story editor in Publisher. I keep holding back moving content from .rtf/.docx into Publisher until it's absolutely necessary (which causes other issues) so that I can continue to edit content in a sane manner (and have access to proofing tools such as Antidote[1]). It may seem like a small thing, but when you have dozens, or hundreds of flowing text pages, being able to just focus on the text (with tools designed to manipulate text) is such a godsend.
Also, being able to link text documents (in .rtf/.docx) and be able to update them via the Resource Manager would be a fantastic addition, and somewhat reduce the need for a built-in story editor (although it would still be nice to have one).
[1] InDesign and Illustrator both have Antidote support available. It would be massively helpful to many English and French users around the world if Antidote integration were possible within the Affinity apps.

As there is no sign of a text editor for editing long form text linked boxes, hopefully scripting support will be added soon so we can develop our own.
Indesign had a story editor, heck even Scribus has a story editor, but Publisher, nope!

Scripting was and still is essential in the DTP world too. - What you descripe reminds me partly to what I've recently read about the former times and nowadays ways of creating a popular german IT-magazine, where they also tend(ed) to use a bunch of custom scripting for their specific workflows.
For those interested in a read of those article, how it was in former times ...
Drei Äpfel für ein Halleluja: eine DTP-Geschichte der c‘t   (DE - original former times DTP usage article) Three apples for a hallelujah: a DTP story from c't  (EN - Google translated article of the above) ... versus nowadays ...
Wie entsteht ein c’t-Artikel?  (DE - original nowadays DTP usage article) How is a c't article created? (EN - Google translated article of the above)

I think one of the problems here is how each of us interprets 'scripting' today.
In the early days of InDesign, and when Quark ruled the DTP world, scripting was usually thought of in relation to automation; enabling a script to complete a series of mundane, repetitive tasks that enabled users to focus on more high-value work. In the years since, the concept of 'scripting' has morphed considerably. While we still create scripts to automate repetitive tasks, we now also create scripts to create new tools, workflow and functionality that extend our existing tools, enabling us to perform complex tasks that would have taken hours or days, in seconds and minutes. Going beyond simply creating new tools and functionality (Cinema 4D, Illustrator, etc), scripts can also be utilized to create entirely new generative works (Processing Blender, Rhino, etc).
From here it's not a huge leap to see AI as the evolution of scripting. We use it today to perform tedious, repetitive tasks, (object selection, masking, etc) and to create new tools (for writing, style transfer, content-aware fill, etc) as well as to create entirely new works (Firefly, etc). Even the way we create 'scripts' is changing. While we still write scripts in various languages, we also now have tools such as Apple's Shortcuts which employ a Scratch 'block-like' interface, or tools such as Unity, Unreal, etc which also provide visual node-based/flow-control scripting tools.
I think that while focusing on matching existing scripting support from other workflows is helpful in the short-term, it could quickly lead to a situation where user expectations have moved far beyond what was considered state-of-the-art just a few years ago, and risk leaving the Affinity suite feeling further dated, and increasingly irrelevant.
In the wise words of a fellow Canadian “…skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been”.

The advantages of JavaScript far outweigh any advantages of Python, IMNSHO, for anything to do with creativity and user empowerment extensions of an engine/core written in C/C++.
It's easy to think of JavaScript as a "lite" and dynamic C with objects/prototypes as an added means of wrapping, and dot notation for access, and go from there.
Further, any programmer able to make something significant with Python will be able to do the same thing in JavaScript, or Lua, Wren, or MaxScript or any other scripting language, as scripting languages are no longer the barriers to production. With the possible exception of Apple Script, which is a wholly different beast able to turn sane men mad.
Similarly, any skilled vector artist can produce with Illustrator, CorelDraw, Freehand, Designer etc. They might not like the workflow as much in some of them, but minus the need for a Blend tool, they can do their vector works in any of these.
However, the processes of making a binding between an evolving program (and Affinity products are definitely evolving) and a scripting language needs (for best rates of production and freedoms of evolvement) a stable, specific scripting language choice for optimal flexibility so the tail doesn't wag the dog.
Any attempt to be a truly agnostic creative engine for all scripting languages will heavily wag the dog and quickly begin curtailing and/or slowing the evolvement of the underlying software, despite the fact that scripting empowerment of a user base rarely leads to significant general buying of the software.
The provision of plugin development in native languages, however, is a whole other thing, and also should not be at all curtailed or limited by scripting language choice, and especially not by a choice to try to be generically and generally extensible by all/any scripting languages. Plugins are a long game, though, and might be over for most creative software, now that we have "AI" that's soon going to be able to control other software. 
 

What is so funny? Except a few shapes, standard pen, standard node tool, standard fill and gradient, one transform tool (contour) and recently added knife and shape builder (nice, I admit) it has nothing. No perspective, no extrusion, no free shadows, no vector brush, no mesh gradients, no envelope, no eraser, no distortion, roughen, smudge, blend tools... FX effects? Cool, so helpful when you design something... Of course you can draw everything using only a pen, but...

+1 for vertical writing.
There are two main reasons why lots of Japanese are hesitant to migrate from Adobe to Serif.
1: No vertical writing
2: No options for Japanese-style crop marks

Sadly, today on June 24th, 2023, Affinity still does not provide vertical text functionality. Consequently, I have resubscribed to Adobe Cloud Indesign for my Japanese vertical text publishing job.
I implore Affinity to consider the significance of vertical text for billions of people on planet Earth, including Chinese (including mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong), Japanese, and Korean readers. Failure to address this crucial feature results in a substantial loss of marketing opportunities and sharing potential for Affinity.

Unfortunately, in Affinity 2.1.1 the export quality of PNG and JPG or the antialising has not been improved. It is clear that a professional software should include a high quality export of files. Although many comments have already been written on this topic, Serif ignores this. What a pity!

What's particularly sad about this is Serif just completely redesigned the UI for v2, but chose to disregard many basic UI/UX fundamentals along with modern usability recommendations. I'm not sure having Serif go back and redesign it again will magically fix all of the issues. Hopefully, Serif are paying attention (not just here, but also in various communities across the web, Reddit, etc) and will honestly begin to work to resolve these issues in the coming v2 updates.
I'm not sure I'd be willing to fork out again for v3 if these issues aren't addressed. 

That’s the problem!
Size and hardness settings are fine. That’s not a problem. Flow controls how “fast” the blur is applied, but the opacity (strength) should control how much blur is applied. As it is it’s quite difficult to fine tune how much something is blurred.