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Alignment Handles can be very helpful as they can be used to target specific objects within the group. Point Transform tool can be used in the final example. Drag the transform origin to the top of the inner square, then drag the outer square, and it will snap to the external square.

How are you getting the SVG into your document? If you are using the Place tool or drag & drop, then the SVG will become an embedded document, and you will need to drill down into it to access the actual contents. The Layers panel will tell you the object type. Double click to open an embedded object. Pixelmator is showing the same as Affinity... a group with ~30% opacity, and a black stroke.

The opacity here is set for the layer, so check the Layers Panel. As you said, the colour is Black, the opacity is applied to the object.

Confirmed. Broken for me too.

Nice improvements. Is there any chance that we will get absolute differences in addition to relative differences? This has long been requested with Power Duplicate. Some easy way to make (for example) 100 concentric circles, each 20 pixels larger than the last would be a real time saver.

Absolutely agree. Have requested access to context toolbar buttons in the node and pen tool in the past. Fingers crossed it can be added one day soon. Seems like such a low hanging fruit for Serif... don't need to set default keys even. Just give us the option to add our own.

An interesting suggestion. Not sure how it would feel without being able to try it!

Hi @falasky, welcome to the forum. You can place your Affinity Designer files as linked content, that way any changes to the external file, will be updated in the Publisher document. https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/pages/Media/embeddingVsLinking.html

Staff member NathanC confirmed there is a bug with Set as Default.

Can't offer any insight into why the issue is happening, but can confirm that I get the same behaviour both on your files and creating my own similar files in Designer v1 and v2.

The Shape Builder tool will do this for you. Hold Alt and Click.

I hesitate to ask, but what is the result you are trying to achieve? If you want a line of text wrapped around a circle, with accurate control over the spacing, why not use text on a circular path, rather than messing with Rectangular to Polar filters?

Have you set the decimal point display to sufficient number in your setting? Settings > User Interface > Decimal points for unit types. Also consider setting up the grid to handle rotations of 22.25° if that is something you need a lot in your project, that way you can do your rotations live on screen and snap to the correct angle, with no need to use the transform panel. View > Grid and Axis > Advanced.

You may be eligible for the 25% discount... https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/store/upgrade-offer/ Otherwise, wait for a sale. Black Friday is not too far away (November 24th).

While I agree that there is a bug here (the corner rounding should of course not vanish), I don't think it is a bug with the shape builder tool... Try recreating your star shape using the regular Boolean tools, and you will see the same behaviour. Perhaps not surprising as the underlying calculations are probably the same. Try drawing your star shape with the pen tool. You will now find that you can't even apply corner rounding! The corner tool really doesn't like the incredibly fine points of the star that are formed when the control handles are perfectly aligned to the vertical (or horizontal). If you move one of the control handles very slightly away from the other (zoom in to 10,000% first so it is a microscopic movement), then corner behaves correctly when mirrored. So I'd suggest that the issue is with the corner tool itself. Here is a bug report I made 4½ years ago about a similar issue. Sadly v2.1 and v2.2 Beta both still exhibit the pencil sculpt bug. Could one of the Affinity team please log both bugs for attention? Thanks.

@GarryP Really? I've never seen this one sided behaviour of the contour tool. And the help clearly shows a curve being offset on both sides. https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/pages/CurvesShapes/contouringShapes.html So far as I am aware there is no easy way in Affinity at present to offset to one side only. So, you either need to draw the center line, and offset in both directions, or find some way to mask one side of the offset, or convert the offset to curves (bake) and destructively remove the inner (or outer) half.

What is the disadvantage of a large pasteboard? What would you expect to surround the document instead? Sorry if these are daft questions... am no publishing expert.

Can you share the file so we can take a look? How did you create the shapes? I just created something similar, and had no issues with the shape builder tool.

Specifically... To split curves with a new node: Do one of the following: -click the node before the adjoining curve segment you want to add a midpoint node to and select Split Curve After Node. Select a node, then click the same option on the context toolbar. Which segment is split depends on the current curve orientation (indicated by a red-line indicator). Use Reverse Curve to change this curve orientation or reselect an adjacent node to split from.

Blend modes such as multiply will tend to look different for different colours, hues, contrast etc. so not a universal solution. However you did prompt me to think of another 2 methods... 1. Nest a mid grey fill layer with the blend mode set to Erase 2. No fill, but a huge stroke aligned to inside, set stroke pressure to 50%, and brush alpha variance to 100%

Can you give some specific examples of what you would want a flexbox to achieve? Publisher has constraints which may help implement some reactive design elements.

Without seeing your file it is impossible to say what is going on, but be aware that there are (at least) 8 ways to achieve transparency...

Use Symbols. Create your sticker as a Symbol. Duplicate underneath. Ensure Sync is OFF, and add a white stroke to outline everything. Duplicate the sticker again. Sync still OFF, and fill black, set opacity, add Gaussian Blur FX if desired to get shadow. Addition of a black stroke allows control of Shadow size. Turn Sync ON so that alterations to the sticker propagate to the Outline and Shadow versions. Sticker with Outline and Shadow.afdesign

Alternatively it may be simpler to do things the other way around... Make the group into a Symbol / Linked Layer, and use it to mask the object (which could be a group) that you want clipped. This only requires one duplicate of the symbol, rather than one per element in the group, but the clipped objects will lie over any stroke on the clipping group.

Your suggestion (feature request) is fine - a group can't be a clipping mask at present, and I can see how that might (on occasion) be useful. If you are looking for a workaround in the mean time, you can use Symbols (in Designer) or Linked Layers (in Photo) to get the effect you are after. It does mean having a copy of the symbol clipped into each object in the group, so may only be practical for fairly simple arrangements, but it works...