Aammppaa

Thanks for the video. It clearly shows exactly what you are experiencing.
I absolutely agree that the Contour tool would be better if it snapped to other objects.
But I also feel that Affinity is already providing you with a number of tools / workflows that would avoid your other issues...
Imagine machining a piece of wood to a specific size, I could of course do it by hand, and if I had sufficient patience and skill could make it a precise 10cm cube. Or I could tell a computer controlled mill to make a cube of exactly 10cm.
Similarly, I could try to drag a square of precisely 10cm and add a contour of 4mm. With a high DPI mouse, a steady hand, sufficient decimal points on the measurement display and considerable patience I could do it.
Or I could type 10cm into the Square tool, and then type 4mm into the Contour tool. And if I need the same size contour on multiple shapes, I'd just use the Style Picker.
The measurement boxes are there for a reason - they fill the exact role that you are asking for.

An interesting question as to whether it is reasonable for the software to remember the transform origin for every arbitrary selection of objects.
In your example what would happen if I decided to not to select one of the objects? Would the transform origin still be honored for the rest?
Or if I selected an additional object? Then what?
How about if the object has been the member of two arbitrary selections? And what if it already has its own transform origin, is that forgotten?
Am not trying to be argumentative, it just seems to me to be a non-trivial problem, to which I don't immediately know the answer.

Expand Stroke does not work correctly, if the curve nodes overlap and their handles have the same direction and length.
This curve Expand fine:
 
Move node to overlap end node, handle isn't identical, Expand work fine:
 
Adjust handle of the node to identical direction, but not to identical lenghts, Expand work fine:
 
Adjust handle of the left node to identical direction and lenght, Expand don't create round cap:
 
Adjust handle of the right node to identical direction and lenght, Expand don't create round cap:
 
Adjust handle of the both node to identical direction and lenght, Expand don't create round cap:
  

I don't think that the OP was asking for a link to an external website about Regular Expressions, but rather that there should be a tool-tip definition, or help icon that leads to some Affinity specific explanation and example of a Regular Expressions, and how they might be used in the States Query.
At present I can't see any help for the States panel, so perhaps this information will be added when the help is updated?

Fantastic, thanks Lee!
 
Until then I've discovered I can use the [X] key to switch between Fill and Stroke contexts. Just discovered this shortcut in the Preferences for Affinity Designer, and it really speeds things up on its own! Can't believe I didn't find it sooner.

Please include the option to update all 3 programs at once so we don't have to load each one and update separately.
If a user owns Publisher, I assume it can see the file paths for the Designer and Photo installs.
The updater should check each program's version and make sure D and P are at least the same version as A
 

That is not really 2 questions, it is one question phrased 2 different ways  
We now try to launch the betas with all the features for that version, hence why we did not start before Xmas. However having said that we are trying to get an updated SerifLabs Raw version, but not sure if that will make 2.4.0 or be held back, but other than that this is the list for this beta cycle.

Thank you very much @Aammppaa, I never paid attention to this option.
Thanks again !... 🙂

I use the designer for making SVG files for laser cutters. Laser cutters have an internal logic to determine if a line is a cut line or an engraving line or if it's a 2D area for area engraving. Area engraving is a bit different, because the laser head is not like "follow the line", but more then "print like an ink jet printer". Obviosly cutting is not possible without a "cut line"
The internal logic is determined by the thikness of the line. In other programs like Inkscape or Corel (as in this screenshot) you can choose "Haarlinie" (german for hairline) as thickness. Then and only then, a laser cutter will recognize this as a cutline.
Maybe you can add the thickness "hairline" in Designer too?

Perhaps I am missing something obvious... but the triangle shape only has one parametric control (Top Point), which defines where the top point sits as a percentage of the width of the triangle. The preset in question has this set to 50%, the middle, which is where it would need to be for an equilateral triangle, BUT...
I can drag out a triangle of any height and click the preset. It will center the Top Point, but it is certainly not equilateral!
If I drag and hold Shift to constrain height = width, again this is not equilateral. Indeed the height should be: width × sin(60)
So, I agree with @Timespider... the triangle tool can not easily create equilateral triangles, and the first preset draws isosceles triangles, not equilateral. Plus there is no way to force the triangle tool to draw only equilateral triangles, nor to save a preset that only creates equilateral triangles.
And the help agrees too...
Though to be fair the icon does show an isosceles triangle!

It would be nice to formalize the ability to use gradients with the Paint Brush, not just solid colors. While it is evidently already possible to do this, it's an awkward process, and apparently an unsupported feature. From what I can tell, the only way to paint with a given gradient in AP is to already have it pre-defined as a Swatch or Recent color (i.e., there is no way to define or edit a gradient with the Paint Brush selected). So it would seem helpful to have the option to create and edit gradients from within the Color Chooser.
 
Please refer to this topic:
 

The v2.3.1 update was a quick release to fix a handful of critical regressions. Many more bugs have already been squashed in the v2.4 beta (though others have been introduced).
Each release specifies exactly which bugs have been fixed, so by definition anything not on the list still exists.

Another thing I think could be improved is the editing window for brushes. The new Update Brush operator should be present in this window, since it already has Reset and Duplicate built into it. I also think that renaming of brushes should be possible in this window with the name being at the top of the General tab. 


 
I also think that having the brush preview in the editing window with the red dot in the corner could help with determining if you have edited that brush. Perhaps even go so far as to make the blue sliders and highlights turn red if you have changed a parameter, which could make the editing window even more clear with what specific settings you have actually changed.

TL;DR:
Sub-brushes have an option to specify a base texture, but their parent brush only "sees" the brush nozzles and ignores their base texture.

Is this a bug? Or is this intended?
~~~~~
I want to create a pixel brush that simulates "ordered dithering patterns" (Ordered dithering - Wikipedia) for painting gradients in pixel art.
The end result should look something like this:



What Works: Basic Dithering Brush
It is important that these patterns are aligned pixel-perfect so that an area doesn't change no matter how often I paint over it (given the same dithering pattern).
This is easy enough - I know I can achieve this is by creating a new round brush ("Brushes" > "New Round Brush") and simply adding a base texture ("Base Texture" > "Set Texture"):



This works perfectly fine - I'd just have to make a separate brush for each dithering pattern (±16 brushes). Having to change between brushes all the time to get different gradient levels isn't too nice, though.

The Problem: Adding Pressure Sensitivity
I want to add pressure sensitivity so that each pattern gets "triggered" by applying some pressure.
In theory I could do this by adding multiple sub-brushes, each using one of the dithering patterns as their base texture, and adding some step function in the "Dynamics" tab so that only one sub-brush is drawn at any time.



For some reason this doesn't work, though (see above).
It seems like sub-brushes don't use their base texture at all, the parent brush only "sees" the brush nozzles of the sub-brushes.

Is this a bug? Or is this intended?
Does anyone know how to solve this problem in a different way?

At first I thought your observation made perfect sense, but upon reflection, I do think there is a need for both buttons, and that is because the visible state of the different objects that make up a query could have their visibility changed from the layer panel. For example, let’s say that you have some objects matching a state query that are currently invisible, and some others matching the same query that are currently visible. In that case with mixed visibility, which state should a single toggle show? In the current implementation, the two buttons are effectively “make all visible” and “make all hidden,” and they will both have an effect when the objects have mixed visibility settings.

I left a similar comment on a new feature addition of the 2.4 beta (Space Horizontal / Vertical now considers key object) in the excitement of the moment, unaware of its "suggestion nature". I'll elaborate more on this post.
Affinity's "Tidy up" version
What I was referring to is a "logical next step" of the new alignment behaviors in the 2.4 beta: an option that would equally or separately distribute the space between objects selected horizontally and vertically, in a similar fashion to the "Tidy up" option present in Figma. The result being a grid that may also let us set a specific space between each item in the two axes.

Quick grids case
The Affinity apps already promote the creation and management of grids with the "Quick grids" option: by pressing the right or down arrow key while creating a shape you'll see duplicates, which also let the user set a distance between them by long pressing the same keys.
Promotional material showcasing product design uses cases
I'm fully aware that the scope of an app like, for example, Affinity Designer is a bit different from the likes of Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, etc. In the sense that it's not really trying to be a prototyping tool, but we are all aware that the promotional materials showcase product design use cases.

And such uses cases would certainly benefit people like web designers, for example. So it's then to be expected that the Affinity Team would obviously be aware of such features, and I know they are . So that's why in my original comment I asked if something like this was already being thought on for a future update.
Thanks!

Guess which websites are mentioned in https://affinity.help/publisher2/en-US.lproj/pages/Text/find_and_replace.html …?  
Spoiler alert:
 

Three Additional Feature Requests
The option to duplicate Queries... Quite often you may have an almost identical set of Query criteria where you only need to change one or two settings so rather than recreate from scratch each time it would be great to be able to duplicate an existing Query, rename it and just change the relevant setting/s...
  The ability to reorder Queries similarly to reordering Asset categories in the Assets Panel via drag and drop...
  The ability to select multiple Queries together using Shift or Cmd (Ctrl) Click so they can be deleted (or dragged) to a new location in the stack... Currently, Queries can only be deleted one at a time...

Has been requested many many times, dating back many many years!
https://www.google.com/search?q=search shortcuts+site%3Aforum.affinity.serif.com
Here is my own request from 2016...
Given than the whole Settings dialogue was redesigned as part of the UI overhaul in v2, it is a real shame that a filter / search was not implemented. Nor a way to list / jump to conflicts.
Still with v2.4 on the horizon, and an ever increasing number of available shortcuts, perhaps this will get some attention.
Please, Serif?
 

Please, please add a filter function in order to search inside the Preferences/Shortcuts, because it's starting to be very tricky to manage all these functions. PhaseOne CaptureOne Pro has a really nice one… check here…

For the beginners in the room, I'd love a little link to explain how Regular Expressions work. I love documentation though, just me.
 

this is a great feature but any reason why this is not extended to "insert inside the selection" ?

Yes, I thought you feared the risk some users may inadvertently create russian-doll layer structures, but I think there is definitely value in being able to lock this button too. As Bit Arts mentioned in his/her post, I also find myself repeating an insert into clipping mask action several times and locking this button would definitely help.
I recorded this small video as an example. Note that on last step I forgot to click insert inside and got my shortcut action sequence wrong. But you should get the point
lock insert inside use case.mov

Panel background seems dark compared to other panels in the Light Theme. "Scope" label is in white, on light grey in the Light Theme. There is no way to rename a Query. Could the Layer Type be collapsible? Takes a lot of space if you aren't using the options. No confirmation for deleting Queries.

Panel background seems dark compared to other panels in the Light Theme. "Scope" label is in white, on light grey in the Light Theme. There is no way to rename a Query. Could the Layer Type be collapsible? Takes a lot of space if you aren't using the options. No confirmation for deleting Queries.