Hokusai

MattP, Thanks for the response. I'm glad that my sample file was able to illustrate my problem. For me it is more intuitive that nothing is selected when I click into an area that is empty than to select the shape that surrounds an empty space. MEB, No worries about the shortcut. Once I read your suggestion, I tried a few different key combinations until I found the correct one. Thanks.

I have a question concerning colour. When I create a new Affinity Designer document, the Default Black colour isn't 100% Black, it is 72 Cyan, 68 Magenta, 67 Yellow and 88 Black. Why that colour? If it was "registration" (100% of all colours) I could understand but it isn't. It is odd because I have set the colour space to be CMYK when I created the document. Is this a bug or is it supposed to be that way? For someone who has experience working with images for print it isn't as much of a problem (it is annoying but can be dealt with) but for someone who doesn't quite understand the printing process this could be a problem. On screen it looks black but if it were to be printed commercially, it wouldn't look so good.

MEB, Thanks for the hint but it didn't work for me. Shift-click didn't work but after playing with it some, Option-click (or Alt-click) did allow me to cycle through overlapping objects. It worked like a charm, thanks! I'm still not sure why when I click into an area that has nothing but is surrounded by an object, it selects the object? For example, if I had the black rectangle selected and I wanted to deselect it, I should be able to do so by clicking into the white area of the eye or the nose of my crude looking figure but I can't because the black rectangle will still be selected.

MattP, Thanks! I spent a long time trying to figure out how to attach a file and I never would have figured it out without your help. Here is my file. You will notice that it is a simple black square with 2 circles and a triangle cut out. Under the black square there is a red rectangle but I can't select it or even click in the non-shape areas with the node tool. Thanks for your help. Sample.afdesign

MattP, I would be happy to upload an .afdesign file to show you what I'm talking about but maybe I'm slow or something but I can't for the life of me find an "attachment" button on this forum. How do you upload a file?

MEB, I have a Selection question for you. I'm not sure if it is a preference setting or this is normal behaviour. I often create shapes which have other shapes or pieces cut out of them. When I click in an area that has nothing in it (a shape or piece has been cut out or removed from the top shape) the top shape is selected even though the place that I clicked is empty or cut out. I wasn't sure why the top shape is selected? Does my question make sense?

MEB, Thanks for the response. I understand the need to keep the development team focused, I think that is a good idea. As someone who has been using Illustrator for over 20 years, I realize that the program took a long time to mature and develop. Affinity is off to a great start and I'm looking forward to seeing how it matures. I can't wait to see what will be added for version 2 and I'm ever hopeful for Hide/Show All!

Meb, Any chance that Hide/Show All might be on or added to but just not listed on the official Road Map? I'm surprised that not many people are requesting this as it is one of the biggest time savers for me when using Illustrator. Being able to hide something with a simple keystroke and then being able to show it without having to mouse over to the Layers palette and toggle the Hide/Show button every time I need to hide/show something saves me an enormous amount of time. I'm still hoping that it will be added some time in a future release. I know that the development team is working hard and that they've got a full plate but I'm still hopeful for this. Just as an update, after my trial was up, I purchased Affinity Designer from the App store and I'm very happy with it. I have been thoroughly enjoying the program. I love how easy it is to adjust lines, a real improvement on the way other programs work. I also like the way Affinity Designer handles gradients, very interesting. Keep up the great work, I'm looking forward to seeing how the program matures.

MEB, Thanks, I'm glad to hear it. I'm very impressed so far with Affinity Designer and it is only going to get better from the sound of it. Hokusai

Never mind about the colours, I've been using Illustrator too long and I just assumed that things would be the same. While they are similar, they are not the same. I played around some more with the colour selection and what was throwing me off was the fact that Affinity Designer shows the fill and stroke "well" (I'm not sure what the actual name is but the fill/stroke indicator, in Illustrator it is a square and in Affinity Designer it is a circle) in three different places. There is one on the Colour palette and one on the Swatches palette as well one in the area below the main menu. As well, the confusing thing for me was that they are opposite of Illustrator. The one on top is the fill and the one on the bottom is the stroke. It also seems odd that the eye dropper is located on both the swatches palette and the coulors palette but not the tool bar? I still find the swatches palette needs some work. I'm still hopeful that you will be able to add a "hide/show" option other than accessing it via the layers palette.

+ 1 for "Unlock All" it saves a lot of time being able to unlock everything at once.

The selection menu is currently a little limited. Are there plans to add things like select same color, opacity, stroke, etc?

This is my first post and I would like to say to the Affinity team, way to go on creating a truly promising vector application. I downloaded the trial and I'm still playing around with it to get a feel for it. I have been reading these forums since October. I have been very excited about the possibility of a vector program that can replace Illustrator (without the stupid subscription). I have been enjoying the trial version for the last 3 days. Thanks for making a trial version available. I do have a few requests. I know that you can hide and show items but in Designer but having to go to the Layers menu and then weed through tons of different shapes just to hide and show things takes too long. In Illustrator there is a simple "hide" command and it can be assessed in the menu or by shortcut (command 3), as well as "show all". These two shortcuts alone are a huge time saver. As well in Illustrator you can add the apply the last color or gradient used with a shortcut (the comma key for color and the period key for gradients). I know that Designer has some shortcuts but for me, more is better. They help to save time and time is money. One of the only things I dislike about the program is color selection. Selecting a color and applying a color should be easy but for me it seems very confusing and not at all intuitive in Designer. I don't know if it is only me that thinks this or not but comparing it to Illustrators super easy to use and easy to understand way of applying color and selecting swatches, Designer has some way to go. I'm not saying that the Illustrator way is the best but it is easy to use and very intuitive. Keep up the great work and I'm looking forward to seeing how Designer develops. I'm also excited about your forth coming photo and layout app as well.