toth

Blend tool (object blending) has been requested since 2015. It's a crucial part of doing parametric / creative work. Any chance to put in onto priority / pipe?
Thanks

I'm trying my hardest to deselect a layer, to not have anything selected when inserting a stock photo or making any sort of new curve/text/whatever.
After clicking outside the canvas and hitting escape repeatedly, the last used layer still has a dark blue highlight. How does one fully deselect, so any new element comes in on the "root level", not under that last used layer?
(Designer by the way)

I am talking about the pressure curve in the Stroke panel:

You can run both together. 

When I have no idea what font I want to use for a project, i usually type out what I need, then scroll while hovering over the font selector to get some inspiration. I also use hover+scroll on font size, stroke size etc, but lately it seems to only work for font size and character style, not the others. Can I fix this somehow?

Updates may sometimes add certain tools or ‘tool-groups’ (those with the little triangle at the lower-right of the icon) to the tools bar.
You can remove the tools you don’t need in the tools bar by going to menu “View → Customise Tools” and dragging the tools you don’t want from the tools bar. (You may need to have a document open to see the tools properly.)

Try
Edit > Defaults > Synchronise from Selection
Then
Edit > Defaults > Save

I think this causes the biggest frustration..

+1
Still need to weekly go back to my 11 year old copy of "Photoshop Elements"(the lite version of PS at the time) to put some perspective on text - it is, as mentioned many times, a pretty baffling lack in AD.
@MEB Can we expect any answer to these often asked questions? 
I can phrase it as yes/no questions just to get som clarification: 
1: Will perspective/envelope/distort/warp come in any form to AD?
2: If yes to the above, will it be within; A: 1 year.  B:  2-3 years  C; 3-5 years

Of course he did. Why do every new post here asking for improvements have to be followed by "It is good enough for me" posts from a small circle of forum users? Everybody understands the concept of workarounds - you are not bringing new knowledge into the light. Somebody understands the concept of efficiency, possibilities, complexity and time as well. Peoples requirements are different. How on earth does it matter to people with bigger and more advanced needs than you that your more simple requirements were met? And how will Affinity evolve if hobbyists block every request for improvements?
And try to imagine the customer entering this forum meeting this attitude again and again. Ambitions are suffocated in here.

Surprised! When I need this today I find Designer does not have it.

Rolling my eyes. We are not supporting a poor company in a third world country that hasn't got the funds to implement such features before several years pass. Affinity got both a lot of attention and hype and went far beyond a critical mass of paying customers. They are doing just fine. Wake up and smell the coffee!
This is not a kickstarter. You are paying customers and remember that this company is decades old and made similar more mature software with these features until recently (plus series). Did so for many years. You don't have these features because someone decided you shouldn't. Yet. Or ever. You don't know. It is all about business priorities and scaling. Designer obviously gets the least attention and features. I still don't believe Serif has the vector expertise or the required number of developers with this expertise to push Designer further in bigger steps than we have seen (tiny steps). I don't see the evidence. Publishing software was always Serifs pet project and flagship product so lets see if Designer ever gets the love and features it needs to become more than a tool for digital painters (bitmap). Niche software. Half of Designer - the pixel features - are shared with Photo. 99% of vector brushes are in fact pixel brushes. The other half is so feature weak it is depressing. The toolbar in the designer persona is mostly shapes. Shapes!
So it it perfectly valid to air criticism and wishes here. The very high number of posts with feature requests and customers asking in disbelief why nothing happened about this and that yet tells a story about where Designer should go to evolve and serve existing and potential customers. Stiff opposition from a core base of forum users (of which ever so few are more than hobby users with simple hobby needs and no insight whatsoever into more professional use and needs) is just not what is needed for Serif or from the customers requesting these features. It is ludicrous. 
Cheap doesn't matter. As a vector drawing program Designer is not cheap because it has so few and just basic vector features. It doesn't cost "coconut money" whatever that is. Possibly an offensive term in Sweden. Designer is a simple product and you get only what you pay for. Not much more. Besides the great user interface that Serif really did well. Many small programs are actually often overpriced when you see how much you get for four times the price in professional software. But you will never reach that level of knowledge without experience and expertise. What REALLY is expensive in the short and especially long term is workarounds. Again something hobbyists doesn't see or feel.
So let the customers voice their concerns, wishes, criticism and input. Let Serif handle its unsatisfied (potential) customers and communicate the reasons for this and that. In a more professional tone. 

Any ETA on non destructive free transform, perspective and warp tools like those found illustrator/Photoshop?
 
 

Could someone from the Affinity team please speak up?
There are a lot of requests for this simple and basic tool on the forum. Virtually all are heroically ignored by the developer. For so many Designer versions, the community cannot get something that is implemented in every vector editing program.  
To make it clear - we're not talking about AP bitmap operations but about transforming vector curves, groups and text in Designer.

Can you finally show your customers a bit of respect and at least give a clear answer when this feature will be added or why you don't want to introduce it?

This is actually infuriating. I bought AD since I graduated and could no longer use the Adobe Suite without bootlegging it. Now while I'm trying to make a mock-up of a business card (ie. trying to distort the final designs onto a photo of blank cards), I found out I can't?! I'm going to have to bootleg software just to make realistic mock-ups for my portfolio.
I know everyone's already said it, but this is a HUGE oversight and a NECESSITY for designers. Having full control of something so simple is what makes Illustrator or AD so attractive, but now I feel cheated.

Also very interested in this question

I'm wondering what the viewpoint is of the developers at Serif.

Are you guys working on it?

or is it one of the features you put in "won't fix" bucket?

Wow. I bought Affinity Photo as I was tired of Adobe's pricing model. Ditching Illustrator too I thought Designer would have this simple function. The ability to freely transform shapes.

Another voice for the 'please add this vital feature' choir.

THIS. I am currently giving Affinity Designer, along with the other Affinity apps, a test run in hopes to break my shackles to Adobe's Creative Cloud. I letter comic books, which from time to time require distortion of characters for effect. A.D. needs to have a free distortion/transform of nodes or of a grouped object. 
Other node manipulation abilities (not so much WHAT is being made, but the vector technique being used in Illustrator)
http://www.balloontales.com/tv-shape-balloon/
http://www.balloontales.com/curved-type/
These node manipulation abilities are basic necessities when working with vector objects or outlined text (curves).

@toth They would be from the Affinity Designer 1.6.1 version, the chainlink was in the Image brush set:

 
 Image 1.6.1.afbrushes
 
 

This is working okay for me in Designer 1.8.3.641 on Windows 10, see attached video.
You need to keep the right-mouse button held down until you release the left-mouse-button.
2020-04-27 13-48-14.mp4

@toth I've just tested over a VPN/Remote Desktop and it works fine for me, that being said it could still be the VPN/RDP apps that you're using.

THANK YOU! I've been struggling with this exact problem, getting parallel, but also intersecting lines. Awesome! I tried drawing letters with two strokes enabled, and now it's easy as a breeze..!

 
EDIT: PS, I also just discovered you can draw open ended roads by setting one stroke to "butt cap" and the other to "square cap"

(split from this announcement post)
Thanks for a great update.
As a  quick test, I played with the appearance panel. Specifically, I tried drawing a  basic street map, as you might see in a leaflet for a local business. 
Using the new multiple strokes capability, it’s  possible to do to such work quickly Affinity Designer. 
First I drew the roads using a heavy dark stroke. Then in the appearance panel, I added a second stroke, in a lighter colour, above the first stroke. 
That produced the effect of parallel lines, with a fill in between.
The technique will work only if another new feature in 1.7 is used: when using the pen tool, the "Add new curves to selected object object" button on the context toolbar must be selected.  Then the lines blend together.
The second stage in this exercise was to duplicate the artboard containing all the elements. On the second the strokes have brush styles to give a more hand-drawn style.
This is a quick, very rough test, and I’m looking forward to exploring the latest Affinity advances in more depth!
 

THANK YOU! I've been struggling with this exact problem, getting parallel, but also intersecting lines. Awesome! I tried drawing letters with two strokes enabled, and now it's easy as a breeze..!

 
EDIT: PS, I also just discovered you can draw open ended roads by setting one stroke to "butt cap" and the other to "square cap"