Gear maker

Up until a few versions ago the Help contained a list of all Keyboard Shortcuts in the Appendix. This is no longer showing, where has it gone.

Bodo, this is very good. I envy you that you can do the human form justice. I never have been able to and probably never will. And that doesn't even begin to discuss facial features. Keep up the good work. It's fun to see.

Retrograde, good question. I'm not finding a hint in help or any menu. This could be really handy.

Alex, that seems to work. I find it awkward when dealing with a lot of mid range colors. It always seems to do what I don't want it to do. I wish it would just create both points using the original color. Because the second point is always going to have to be changed anyway. Sometimes it's a saturation shift I want or a hue shift. AD will never be able to predict what and how much is wanted, so why try. I waste time doing things like reversing the gradient to get it closer but I still need to change the second color. I think that reversing the gradient is what causes the second issue I asked about. If the gradient has been reversed then removed, the color ends up being the color of the second point, not the first. But you can't tell which gradients have been reversed. I am always having to re-find my original color. Thanks for the help Alex. Happy New Year. I think my resolution for the new year is going to be to (almost) never reverse a gradient. :D Mike

What are the rules used by the gradient tool? Sometimes when I draw a gradient with the gradient tool it goes from the existing color and makes it darker, other times it makes the second end lighter. Also what is the proper way to remove a gradient? I normally change the type to solid in the contextual menu. But sometimes it leaves the original color other times it leaves the color that has been changed. When reversing a simple linear gradient that has its midpoint shifted, using the gradient reversal icon in the contextual menu, the resulting midpoint is not the reversal of the original. What's the rule that it uses to place the reversed midpoint? But if I use the Reverse button in the Gradient panel that is opened if the color icon (on the context menu) is clicked, then the midpoint does seem to reverse.

retrograde, nothing on the forum. Attached are a few links to jpg versions which don't really show it but I'm trying to add as much detail as possible to the drawings. I'm still learning but having fun as I do. I think I find problems most people don't because I'm frequently zoomed in several hundred thousand percent to get screw heads, rivets, logos, texts, etc. drawn and placed correctly. I hope these few give you an idea... Thanks for asking. Oh yes I try to only use vectors, using the draw persona only. https://www.flickr.com/gp/123947409@N05/FNV18T Cobra https://www.flickr.com/gp/123947409@N05/ac24oS Dave the minion https://www.flickr.com/gp/123947409@N05/96dwj9 2015 Corvette https://www.flickr.com/gp/123947409@N05/425016 P51 https://www.flickr.com/gp/123947409@N05/tQm4u2 Triumph https://www.flickr.com/gp/123947409@N05/s8we7f Cessna https://www.flickr.com/gp/123947409@N05/p1S330 Richard Mille Tourbillon Saphire Mike

If I am in AD in Separated mode. And I have a couple drawings combined, so they show as different tabs in one window. But then I have a few drawings open in separate windows (so I can drag layers from one drawing to another). With the ctrl tab I can switch from one tabbed drawing to the next. The keyboard shortcuts says this will switch between drawings. But it only switches between tabs. Also when I go to the menu > Window it only shows each window. Only the first tab opened in the tabbed window is listed. Wouldn't it be nice to have consistency where a key stroke (ctrl tab) can switch between all drawings open, and the menu Windows would allow selection of all drawings. Having to switch between the methods is awkward.

Callum, thanks for confirming. I will post in features.

I exceed 1000 frequently. Ya maybe I am nuts. :wacko:

Beta 1 just crashed on me. I had a fairly good size drawing (800 layers). I had made a change to the color in several layers of one group, then had clicked on another group. Beachball then crash. Crash 12:19:15.txt

If I am in Separated mode. And I have a couple drawings combined, so they show as different tabs in one window. But then I have a few drawings open in separate windows (so I can drag layers from one drawing to another). With the ctrl tab I can switch from one tabbed drawing to the next. How can I switch from one windowed drawing to the next? The keyboard shortcuts says this will switch between drawings. But it only switches between tabs. Also when I go to the menu > Window it only shows each window. Only the first tab opened in the tabbed window is listed. Wouldn't it be nice to have consistency where a key stroke can switch between all drawings open, and the menu Windows would allow selection of all drawings. Having to switch between the methods is awkward.

retrograde, yes the cmd + shift + V works well in some instances but most times I spend so long turning off any fx and gradient that was in the original shape that any color picker works faster. If the cmd + shift + V allowed the user to select which attribute to copy, then it would really be a useful feature.

The same issue about not being able to select multiple nodes using the marquee exists in RC8 as it did in RC7 https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/15503-affinity-designer-customer-beta-13517-rc7-gm2/page-2 A ctrl reset did not clear the problem.

ckgdm, if you go into Preferences > Performance > View quality is this set to Nearest Neighbor or Bilinear? This should only affect the quality of what is seem on the screen, not your output. Not sure if that is what you are meaning. I'm assuming you are talking about AD not AP. I hope this helps.

I don't know if this is an RC7 issue. But I've never seen it in other recent versions. If I open the attached, zoom in so the image fills 3/4 of the screen, select all layers contained in the group Ruler. Then in the Node tool draw a marquee around any assortment of nodes, only a few of the nodes are able to be selected this way. The horizontal lines were made with the Power Duplicate. Then the length of the entire assembly was stretched by pulling the center bottom handle using the Move tool. Ruler.afdesign

What is the layer re-ordering command? Is it just dragging layers to reorder them or is there something else?

Thanks for all the feedback. Guess I'll just set it for the max I have. But then maybe I should set it for 64GB just incase it magically will increase my RAM. ;)

Okay I admit that I know enough about computers to be dangerous. So I hope someone can explain this to me. My computer has 12 GB of RAM. Why does the RAM limit of the preferences allow me to allocate usage of up to 64 GB? Shouldn't the max be the amount of memory in the computer? Or maybe even the available RAM after the OS is loaded? Yosemite uses about 3 GB, so what happens if I set the allowance at higher than 9 GB? What should this be set to?

Leigh, what I have found is that with AD 1.3.5.7 ...8 or ...9 the red dot is not shown in a simple test of drawing a circle and then moving one of the control handles. But in AD 1.3.5.10 and ...11 the red dot is shown. So it looks like this was already corrected. Thank you. Mike

Leigh, I'll need to keep my eyes open for another case of this. As I mentioned it does work with a red dot lots of times, but sometimes I find it just doesn't. I'll send one the next time I notice it. Glad I at least filmed it last time.

Why is it that sometimes when I move a node's control handle so that it gets to be in line with the opposite handle it turns red and hesitates, other times it just hesitates without a color change? Shouldn't it always have a color change to indicate it's in line? I think both nodes were created using the pen tool, then the control handles were created when the path between was pushed to curve using the Node tool. Red dot.movNo red dot.mov

Hi MBd, I've not had too much experience with embedded documents. But from what I see it looks to be a rasterized pixel layer when I opened the parent up in AD after doing the perspective filter on the embedded document layer in AP. Am I missing something? :wacko:

But it is rasterized when perspective is applied in AP even though it was a vector originally.

kevn86, that was outstanding. You are right the video was worth a million words. I created the same test document and was playing along with the video. So the main difference seems to be how selection is accomplished. I've always used groups in AD seeing as they are easier to create (and I couldn't see a difference). Going to have to try using layers on my next project to see which seems handier for my workflow. The developers seem to think the layer is a higher functioning object than the group seeing as they have a "Promote group to layer" command. Thank you very much for that input. Mike

The problem with turning off layers is that the layers are so interdependent that most tasks can not be performed without all layers in the area showing. And it takes a long time to determine which layers are close to each area being worked upon. If it's the fx then wouldn't the real solution would be to be able to turn off and on the fx for layers. Currently that is not possible without making prodigious amounts of notes external to AD. I did go through and turn off (delete) the hundred or more fx in the file and it did speed up the redraw significantly. Unfortunately it ruined the drawing and was impossible (impractical) to recreate. I am surprised that zooming in only 20% (from 1500% to 1520% which is really only a 1.3% increase in zoom) requires a complete redraw. I can see where zooming out might cause problems, but can't the same rendering be used when zooming in a small amount (something greater than 1.3%)? I'm sure several people would appreciate help in this area. I suspect I'm not the only one attempting to do complex drawings in AD. Thank you. Mike