GarryP

So what is “Auto-scroll” supposed to do? The documentation says: “Switch off Auto-scroll (panel scrolls to layer content when it is selected on the page)”. However, all it seems to do for me, if switched OFF, is that the layers panel no longer scrolls when I drag a layer in that panel.

I think I might be getting myself a bit mixed up so may I confirm something so I know we’re talking about the same thing? From your posts it sounds like you want the following functionality: “When the user selects a layer on the canvas, the Layers panel should automatically highlight the selected layer and scroll to where that layer is in the layer hierarchy if that layer is not currently visible in the Layers panel.” Is this what you want to happen, or something else?

Unless I’ve misunderstood the requirements, you can also set the Layers panel to “auto scroll”. When this option is on, when you select a layer on the canvas, the selected layer should be automatically highlighted in the Layers panel. To make this happen, go to the top-right corner of the Layers panel, click on the little menu icon, and check/tick “Auto-scroll”. Having said that, I’ve also seen this behaviour when “Auto-scroll” is off and, conversely, “Auto-scroll” doesn’t always scroll to the layer that was last created so I’m not sure if it’s working properly or I just don’t know exactly how it’s supposed to work (there’s not much in the Help about it). P.S. Deleting threads makes it impossible for other people in the same situation to find the same answer without asking the same question again.

I think I’ll keep my version to myself. I didn’t get very far with it and, looking at it just now, it was even more basic than I remembered. I got some of the background done but as soon as I started on the robot I saw that I simply didn’t have the artistic ability to get anywhere with it that I would have been happy with. I’ll keep my eye out for Electra Glide in Blue just in case I spot it being shown on a movie channel somewhere; thanks.

This would be great as a prog-rock album cover. I’m already imagining Rick Wakeman wearing a gold cloak and a top hat behind a stack of keyboards. Nice work.

Yeah, it’s probably not for everyone. I watched it back in the late 80’s – late-night UK Channel 4 if my memory serves me correctly - so there’s a chance I might not like it now either. You’re welcome. When I first got Designer I tried to make a replica of the original poster but I quickly got to the stage where I realised that I didn’t have the skills/talent required to make it look good so I gave up. (Designer is the sort of application that inspires people to make stuff but some of us just don’t make the grade when it comes to artistic things.) Your version is far superior to mine and very much deserves all the praise it’s given.

Lovely stuff. It’s all great, but I especially like the lighting/shadows on the buildings. P.S. The 1984 Giorgio Moroder restoration of the film with a pop soundtrack was a good version from what I can remember. (It sounds weird but worked strangely well.)

As a ‘quick fix’ you could use a single-cell table. That way you can use the table cell border formatting for the whole frame.

Welcome to the forum. Some interesting ideas there. The default, when placing a new object, is to put the new object above the currently-selected layer. Your first suggestion – if I have understood correctly - is to replicate this behaviour when adding a new ‘empty’ layer. This seems reasonable to me. Always having a new empty layer added to the top of the stack can be awkward sometimes (the Auto-scroll function doesn’t follow it) and, as far as I know, there’s no inherent reason for that behaviour. Your second suggestion sounds quite reasonable also. If you have multiple layers selected then it’s usually because you want to do something with them together, and adding a ‘wrapping’ layer when they are selected – rather than just putting the layer at the top of the stack as usual - sounds like it could come in useful. Unless there are good reasons why these two suggestions shouldn’t be considered, they sound like good candidates for inclusion to me.

There is a Leading Override setting in the Character panel, in the “Positioning and Transform” section. You can use this to set different leadings in the same paragraph but, naturally, it only works on a line-by-line basis.

I agree that the Help icons are much clearer than those in the application but the arrows – in this case – are necessary to show what happens. One of the issues some people had was that the application icons can look the wrong way round to people who read right-to-left as there was no way to see ‘which way round’ they were.

But why would I want to draw an invisible curve around/between an object or objects, or for any other reason? That’s what I don’t understand. I can understand why I might want to see where the curve started if I wanted to draw a closed curve but I don’t know why I would want to draw a closed – or otherwise – invisible curve in the first place. I’ve been playing around with graphics software for quite some time but I’ve never drawn an invisible curve because I’ve never needed to draw one and that’s why I don’t see the use of being able to see the path of an invisible curve. If you could give me an actual real-world example - what you would use an invisible curve for and why you would need to use the Pencil tool to draw it - then I might be able to understand, but at the moment I just don’t see the purpose of it.

dutchshader: My first attached image shows how the buttons look on my screen: Break; Close; Smooth; Join; Reverse. The Close and Break buttons icons are not the same as in the Help, which is a little troubling. The little lines coming out of the single node on each are confusing to me. Also, the icon on the Close button doesn’t look like what it actually does. The icon looks like the function will join two nodes whereas the function actually puts a curve between the two end nodes. So Close should look more like my second attached image. haakoo: I agree that “Open Curve” and “Closed Curve” are better descriptors in the Layers panel. PaulEC: At first I thought a toggle button might be a bad idea but I can’t – off the top of my head - think of a reason why. One part of me is saying “That won’t work” while another part is asking “Why won’t it work?” Maybe someone can give a good example of where it would reduce functionality.

Surely the path of an invisible curve drawn with the Pencil tool is irrelevant? It doesn’t matter if the curve is a simple straight line, or squiggles all over the page, or anything in between, the result is the same: a curve you can’t see. And if you can’t see the curve then the path it takes is irrelevant. Maybe, instead of just saying that the functionality is different or missing, if you gave a concrete example of when a user would want/need to draw an invisible curve with the Pencil tool it might help to clarify the situation. Simply saying that it should work the same as another tool – which does a different job - or that another application does it isn’t a good enough reason for me to agree that the Designer Pencil tool should do it. If you can give a good enough reason then I’d be happy to change my mind but, at the moment, I haven’t seen anything that proves that the Pencil tool should work any differently to how it currently does. So, to clarify, please: 1. Give a real-world example of when a user would want/need to draw an invisible curve with the Pencil tool, and; 2. Give some idea of how often a user would want/need to do this, and; 3. Explain why this process can't or shouldn't be done with another tool which already has the different/missing functionality.

Closing a straight line seems a bit strange to me, I wonder if that’s the correct and expected behaviour. Maybe it’s useful for something that I haven’t come across. Now I’m wondering: Should the “Close” button be disabled for a closed curve? That sounds reasonable to me. Anyway, attached are another two icons to throw into the mix. Neither is fantastic but they may give people some better ideas.

I think the Assets panel will probably do what you want from the standpoint of building up you own standard sets of ‘things’ to put in your documents. (Everyone will have their own ideas about what ‘things’ they need.) As for including a set of ready-made clip-art with the Affinity products, I don’t think that’s something which is needed these days. (E.g. Just do a web search for ‘clip-art tree’ and you will get more vector trees than you can shake the proverbial stick at.) The “Resources” section of this forum also gives people plenty of ideas for places to get quality stuff from. (Edit: haakoo just got in there before me.)

I think the “Break” button should be disabled when an ‘end node’ of an open curve is selected because there’s nothing to break, as it’s already the end of the curve. I also think that the “Close” button should be disabled when you have a straight line with only two nodes as there’s nothing to ‘close’ in a straight line.

How about something simple like this? (I won't say which is which as it should be fairly obvious.)

Designer shows you what you are drawing with the Pencil – in real-time – while you are drawing it. I don’t understand how also having an overlaid path partially- or fully-obscuring what you are drawing would be useful. I don’t see any useful information coming from where the mouse pointer has been while I am drawing something with a Pencil. I can’t do anything with the path while I am drawing so I can’t see any point in being able to see it while I am drawing. Isn’t it better to see what you are drawing rather than having something over the top of it? I just don’t see how this would be ‘better’. As per the attached image, I would prefer to see what’s on the left while I am drawing rather than the other two.

I think it might be useful if a moderator pinned a note about this to the top of the forum. It could help to stop this issue from being posted repeatedly, or as much. It doesn’t need to say much more than: “Variable fonts – such as Bahnschrift – aren’t supported yet.”, maybe with a list of well-used fonts that people can search for to get to the post itself.

I think you might be comparing two different things, which could be why you are seeing different behaviours. As I understand the situation, the Pen and Pencil are for different ways of drawing. As per Serif documentation: “The Pen Tool is used to precisely draw curves and shapes.” “With the Pencil Tool you can create a hand-drawn look by drawing freehand, variable width, lines as if you were drawing on paper.” Therefore, when you’re drawing with the Pen you normally want to see how the curve has been constructed as you draw so you can get everything exactly as you want it. On the other hand, when you draw with the Pencil, it’s like you are drawing with a real pencil/brush on real paper and in that case you will not normally want to have ‘construction artefacts’ getting in the way of the work being done. As I’ve said before, I believe the Pencil tool is exhibiting the correct and expected behaviour for what it has been designed to do.

I don’t see any reason for any kind of temporary “shadow/dotted” curve or anything like that. If the user wants to see the curve when they draw it they should make sure it has a stroke colour, and if they don’t want to see the curve when they draw it they can remove the stroke colour before they start drawing. Max N said that they couldn’t see the curve after they had deliberately told Designer that it should – in essence – not be seen. That’s not a software problem, it’s a workflow problem. If you want to see the curve make sure it has a colour, if you don’t want to see the curve - for whatever reason(s) - remove the colour. That sounds quite simple to me. Designer does – or should do – what you tell it. If you tell it not to use a colour for the stroke of a curve then, when you draw that curve, you will not see it and I don’t think anyone should be surprised by that.

Without putting a lot of thought into it, I cannot come up with a situation where I would not want to be able to see what I was drawing either. It does sound like a strange thing to want to do, but I’m no expert. However, I do think that Designer should accept what the user tells it to do, and if that means drawing something ‘invisibly’ then that’s probably what it should do. I don’t use the Pencil tool myself much so there might be some good reasons why the current behaviour is actually useful in certain cases.

This sort of thing has already been requested a few times: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/13970-ade-dimension-tool

I believe Designer is working as I would expect it to in this case. You have told it that you don't want to see the curve - you have deliberately removed the STROKE colour - so it's not showing you the curve when you are drawing it. If you want to see the curve while you're drawing it, set a stroke colour before you start drawing. You can always remove the stroke colour afterwards - it's the same amount of user interaction, just the other way round. I believe this is correct behaviour. If you want to see the FILL of the stroke while using this tool you can check the "Use Fill" checkbox on the context toolbar.