ilcalvelage

I may have mispoke describing my issue. Appologies - I'm new to Affinity. Im referring to arboards effectively acting as clipping masks to what is currently on (or rather inside) them - anything on/in an artboard that extends beyond the artboard's bounds is clipped. But It's been brought to my attention that artboards are more of a specialized layer type rather than an additional canvas in Designer. So that might just be something I have to figure out how to work around in documents that require such things.

100% agree. I'm new to Affinity and coming from Adobe. I submitted a topic ranting about how artboards are handled just this morning. 😅 I'd at least appreciate the ability to not have artboard clipping as a permanent state of existence in all documents with artboards. I do a lot of preproduction work for screenprinters and RIP softwares dont always recognize overprint properties so I have always used a bunch of artboards. Most of the differences I'm encountering are ones that I could actually see being improvements if/when I get used to them but that one in particular is just a thorn in my workflows' side.

OMG. THANK YOU! This was driving me nuts. Short of accidentally clicking that option, I don't know that I would have figured that out. I assumed it was a type of lazy-mouse function.

Having to go to the layers and Alt+Clicking the thumbnail is a bit inefficient. I think that bringing an element/group into isolation is more commonly needed than switching to the node selection tool (which could easily be done instead via holding Ctrl while using the selection tool as is done in most other softwares) - So doubleclicking the selection could bring the item/group into isolation and doubleclicking outside of the selection would exit isolation. It'd also be nice if the items NOT in isolation were merely dimmed rather than removed from the viewport entirely as many edits done in isolation are done with visual relation to other elements in mind.

A live preview of the next line segment being visible prior to clicking to creating it would be a nice touch. Being able to see where/what the next segment will look like in real time based on the cursor location would take a lot of guesswork out of pen-tooling.

While they are available on the top taskbar, it'd be advantageous to make them available within their own standalone window. nesting options is fine but users should also be able to opt for a dedicated menu panel with all related options viewable in one location visually - at least on desktop versions of the program. I use dual monitors and tend to have all of my options and windows of one monitor and the base UI/workspace on the other. Many of the options/windows I frequently use are unable to be partitioned in this way as they are only available in the top taskbar. It would prevent a lot of unnecessary back and forth with the mouse.

Adjusting colors and transparencies within gradients is a little too simplified in terms of the UI. I think it'd be preferrable to allow for a standalone window with all options available as to not force the user to have to go multiple menus deep to access regularly-used options. This could also allow for the drag-and-dropping of colors/swatches into the gradient rather than back an forths between color and gradient tabs.

In documents with artboards, the option to disable "clip to canvas/artboards" needs to be able to be disabled. Selecting different artboards manually is somewhat tedious in comparison to Adobe Illustrator. And only being able to see (as well as access) shapes on that layer but off of that artboard is frustrating. Even something as simple as dragging artwork from one artboard to another becomes a chore. Determining which artboard art is "assigned" to should be determined by the X,Y coordinates of the artwork (on the artboard) and possibly even proximity to the artboard via a tolerance variable able to be adjusted within the settings. But all art should be able to remain visible regardless of which artboard the user is on. Having the ability to clip elements that arent on artboards is fine (and I can see where it would be advantageous in certain situations) but it at least needs to be able to be toggled on an off as needed. Also, I think the editing of artboard (size/renaming/positioning) should only be available through the use of the artboard tool OR to a toggle on/off LOCK ARTBOARDS option. I noticed that i was accidentally moving them while trying to select them. Users need to interact with artboards and elements on them far more often than they will need to adjust the artboards themselves.

While there is the Flood Select Tool available in the pixel persona, the designer persona is sorely missing an equivalent to the Magic Wand Tool from Adobe Illustrator - wherein the user can click vector element(s) and, based on the criteria and tolerances dialed in by the user in some settings menu, other vector elements that match the clicked element are selected. Without this functionality, much of what would otherwise be a single click, becomes a tendious manual process. Yes, there is "select same" in the dropdown menus but I would think that tethering those functions/options to a tool would be easily doable and it would make the process far more efficient than having to go multiple menus deep every time in order to accomplish.