mconn

Maybe I'm simply missing this, but is there any way to shift a selection around as I form it? To clarify, for those familiar with Photoshop, when you are dragging out a marquee selection by holding the spacebar down you can shift the position of the selection around.
 
Is there a similar ability in Affinity Photo? On my Mac I've tried the spacebar, ⌘, option, ctrl, and shift all with no success. I'm fully updated to 1.5.1 as well.
 
I appreciate any help.
 
Matt

I love macros. I used to really enjoy writing them on Photoshop but the ones in Affinity Photo have major functionality options missing and I like to list them here and hope 
Might be possible to get some or all of them added.
Firstly I wish I could add keyboard shortcuts to run macros. There are many macros that I create I would like to be able to run very quickly via the keyboard.
The ability to add menu items to a macro as it is running. This is a fantastic feature in Photoshop that really broadens the scope of writing abilities for macros.
The ability to stop a macro while it is running and ask for a user input. This is the least urgent in my opinion. If we can get the first two it would broaden the usability incredibly. 
Thanks and let me know if I missing something and if any of these are already possible.
Phil

The lack of a custom layer thumbnail size has been discussed to death before. It is only one of several GUI interaction design issues related to the Layer panel.
Here is what happens with longer layer labels:

As anyone can see, this is a less than desirable situation, and things will only get worse when a custom layer thumbnail size is introduced in the Affinity range. And I agree with your @hifred observation that a checkbox is the wrong indicator for layer visibility. 
There are a number of other design problems, and I again agree the entire panel should be scrapped, and rethought. For example, changing the blending range, changing the opacity, or coverage map: none of these are indicated in any way in the layer panel to show the user that a specific layer happens to have other settings applied to. Layers cannot be tagged with a colour either, nor is a search option provided to filter layers. And it is not possible to drag-select like in Photoshop.
But in this respect Photoshop is lacking as well. With both apps the user must select a layer first before it becomes clear which opacity and blend mode settings are applied. The only application that I know of that does include this information for each layer is PhotoLine, and that works very, very well. Looking at a layer comp in the layer panel immediately tells you how things work. I wish other image editors would allow for this, or at least include an option.
Anyway, the way the layer visibility controls are handled in Affinity reminds me of how a programmer would solve it. But it is only one of a whole list of layer panel issues and limitations. I do hope the developers are working to solve and improve these, but I was hoping to see some much-need improvements in the beta of Affinity Publisher, and noticed how little has changed.  Publisher is presumably the v1.7 version of the Affinity range? If so, we may be disappointed when V1.7 is released.
 

Had a brief  look at affinity photo and whilst concluding this was good value for money software I was a bit disappointed by the absence of some basic Photoshop features,these are  basic interface features which don't require fancy algorithms so I'm not sure why software which is trying to emulate Photoshop in so many  other ways would leave them out, just my 2 cents  worth.
crop doesn't remove pixels outside document bounds
layer visibility on wrong side of palette, most  other progs use the Photoshop left side,this became surprisingly annoying , the eye icon would be nice too
missing features:
no copy/cut to new layer
no default colour shortcut d
no ctrl alt z to move back through history
no hide selection - ctrl h
no right click to bring up brush properties window
 

Thanks for the replies. The quick mask method is a work around, but I'm going to suggest in the "Feature Requests" forum that positioning of a selection while forming it be added.
 
To be honest, I don't like to pigeon hole Affinity and force a Photoshop ecosystem on it, but PS has had years of development and user input that have ironed out little things like this that make editing/designing more user friendly.
 
Matt

We are going to make a professional Affinity DAM application - stay tuned in 2016 for more information ;)
 
Thanks,
 
Andy.

Yay! That's about time a pro developer steps up and fill that big hole after Aperture. Love you!  :)