Ideagonal

I've used Word and Excel for years, so I thought I'd already been through "Table Hell." But, Publisher brings it to a new level.
I'm sorry for dropping several issues here—if any of these are covered elsewhere, please point me in the right direction.
I will not be offended if you kindly explain to me that I'm doing it wrong.
1. You CANNOT select an Existing Table thru the Text tool, or even with the Table tool—directly.
Since I'm working on a laying out a novel, my default tool (for now) is the Text tool. One would think that the software would be aware enough to know that when I click or double-click over an existing table, the cursor should shift to the Table tool (like the Move tool changes to the Text tool when double-clicked over text.)
For example, if you click on the Table with the Text tool, it just places the cursor before or after an existing table. If you double-click over the table, it highlights the box the table is in (I guess that's what it's doing—pretty useless/meaningless, IMO).
Let's try something else. First, I'll choose select the Table tool. Initially it gives me the cross-hairs to create a New Table; but when I click on my existing table, it places the cursor before or after the table (just like the Text tool). Huh? And when I double click over the table, it highlights—exactly like the Text tool!
So, to get the Table tool to actually select and apply to the table I have to
Choose the Move tool first Use the Move tool to click on the table to select it
(This shows the table as blue lines with handles; other than the handles, this mode does nothing else that I can tell). THEN choose the Table tool Table formatting appears only if you first choose the Move tool, use it to select the table, and then choosing the Table tool. If you leave out step 2, you're back to the beginning: start over at step 1.
Huh? This is nuts and very, very, VERY, frustrating.
2. Selecting other text with the Table Tool
Once in the Table tool, I can go from one table to another and it properly selects the next table.
OK. Let's say I'm done with the table for now, and I want to work on text. Since I'm still in the Table tool (it is currently active), if I click on some text, I immediately get the vertical line in the text that shows I can edit, but the Table tool is still highlighted in the tool panel. Furthermore, if I'm trying to go from that text back to a table, I have to back to step one above. So, which tool am I in? I'm going to guess it is not the Table tool...
Perhaps these are all UI problems, but they sure make using tables a huge pain.
3. Floating or Inline or ????
I have one table near the beginning of the book that is clearly floating above the text—I can hit returns in the text around it, and it doesn't move, but text appears to flow underneath it.
I have several other tables in the appendix that are clearly inline, that is, they behave like they are part of the text stream. If I hit return before them, they move down with the flow of the text. (They seem to act like they are in the style of the return character that immediately follows them—kinda like Word.)
I can't figure out how or why they are different, or how to change one kind to the other kind, or if there are still other options. Since this is intended as a layout program, it would sure be nice to understand how to control them!! At one point, I tried Text-Wrapping with the floating one, but it didn't seem to do anything...
4. Formatting Hell
I have a page in the appendix that is pretty tight—I'm trying to squeeze just one more line of text into it so that the rest of the book flows correctly. The place on the page where I could conserve some space is around three tables that contain example text. But, no matter what I try, I can't seem to control the space around the table. I have tried adjusting the "Frame Insets" at the top of the Table panel, the "Cell insets" nearer the bottom, the "paragraph format" the table appears to be in, and several other things. What seems to work on one table, won't work on the next, etc.
Very frustrating!!
I would love to be told I'm doing it wrong, and instructed on how to manipulate tables.
(BTW, for me, Affinity's "Help" is pretty much useless—it explains things that most users would be able to figure out on their own. That's why this post.)
comancheTodd

When copying and pasting a pinned object, the pinning settings are not copied and pasted, but Publisher applies the last pinning settings that were used. Would be nice is objects were copied and pasted "as is".
Sample:
- insert pinned object (1) into text, set it to "align LEFT"
- insert second pinned object (2), set it to "align RIGHT"
- now copy and paste object (1)
- result: the pasted object (1) is aligned RIGHT even though the copied object was aligned LEFT
- when pasting from the clipboard, Publisher uses the current settings from the ,pinning' panel instead of copying the objects settings.

Alt-clicking an object/layer is not useful at all, as far as I can tell. Unless I did something wrong. It seems to be for viewing only. As soon as you click anywhere, everything is shown again. So it is not possible to isolate a group and edit it without showing/interference of other objects. Wouldn't it be useful to isolate objects like Alt-click does now, but staying in this mode unless you press ESC or something similar.
Right now editing groups is cumbersame. As soon as you deselect an object you are out of the group, and have to double-click to select an object within the group again. Having multiple nested groups is quickly becoming annoying. With such an isolation mode I would always stay within the group and could directly select the objects by just clicking them. That would be some relief....!

Seriously... What is the point of isolation mode if i cannot edit the object? The moment I click onto a child object the entire piece is made visible again! Imagine the pain looking at the demo piece 'A' and wanting to look at a leaf that is in the background and partially obscured. Say i want to edit the veins but when I click on one the entire piece again obscures what I want to edit. Now I have to painstakingly make hidden all the surrounding objects which takes minutes. Again, what's the point of isolation mode again? Sigh...

I have always wondered why we have Invert Pixel Selection instead of Inverse Selection command under the select menu in Designer Persona. Unless I am missing something, what is the significance of the marching ants marquee that automatically appears around the page borders whenever I initiate Invert Pixel Selection in the Designer Persona?
IMHO the Invert Pixel Selection command should be confined only to the Pixel Persona where it has great relevance. There is need for Affinity to introduce a practical Inverse Selection command in Designer Persona like the one in Illustrator.

I agree too. Everytime I switch from Adobe or any other app, I find this to be little big annoyance.
Perfectly explained. Please don't change long accepted established cross-apps behaviours.

in the keyboard shortcut editor, 'zoom toggle' is notably absent from the list of editable shortcuts. i would absolutely LOVE it if i could change this to 1. CMD and then 2. +spacebar (in that specific order).
disclaimer: i have decades of photoshop muscle memory.
general fact: control, option, and command are nearly universally modifier keys, meant to be used first in a two-key combo.
affinity's use of spacebar first, then command to zoom into my document is the only software i've personally run across that reverses this concept. i use the zoom shortcut every 30 seconds in the type of work i do, sometimes even more. i play the desktop keyboard the way a guitarist plays a blazing metal solo when i'm designing or illustrating. now, i know there's a lot of Affinity crossover with photoshop's tools and shortcuts, so it would almost be better for me to have a different zoom shortcut entirely to get it further away from my aforementioned muscle memory.
because of this one specific, seemingly 'petty' issue i have with affinity products, i've basically given up on using them for any serious work on desktop. i get much more use out of the iPad versions because zoom is logically replaced by a gesture.
I see other posts on various sites bringing up this issue, and the claims are that this request has been submitted to affinity for years now, probably since v1. i'd be so incredibly appreciative if this was seriously considered and implemented.
thank you for reading and namaste!

Allow me to be obnoxious and throw in a suggestion based on another tool that has a jewel for its logo (*cough*), but one thing I would love to see added in Designer 1.5 is adding or allowing for a shortcut for renaming the current layer. I've found that to be a tremendous speed boost. Or am I missing a way to do this already?
 
Another borrowed idea (from Ps as well) that would add to a speedier workflow would be adding a layer search/sort option and perhaps auto-moving/expanding of layers while making selections (obviously requiring some kind of drill-down).

I know to some this may seem to be going too deep, but one feature that would be tremendously helpful in Affinity Designer for UI work is the ability to rename multiple layers or find and replace in a selection of multiple layers. When creating a lot of different similar layers, it's great to make a selection and be able to add or change a folder prefix, for instance. Adding the ability to create a shortcut for renaming a current layer also helps make things just a bit faster in heavy workflows. I use these in plugin form elsewhere and it saves tons of time.

Read that you were working on more/ changeable shortcuts. Nice!  :)
 
I think shortcuts and the ability to change them have a big influence on your overall software experience.
The less you have to navigate to menus and panels, the faster you can draw.
 
What I think would benefit the Affinity Designer experience:
 
Adjustable shortcuts
Save your under your own name and be able to change them all.
  Shortcuts for everything
I understand that the developers might not want to add a shortcut to every program "action", but as a user if there is something that I do a lot in my illustrating process, I want to reach it superfast through a shortcut. If it's under a dropdown, menu or even submenu that takes too much time. I want to shorten that time. The "everything" part is about the clickable icons and sliders that don't have a (default) shortcut. (New layer, lock layer, increase line width) Giving the user the freedom to edit those.
  Changing the location of your shortcut file. So you can put it in your Dropbox, or on a part of your Mac you wont format when doing a clean install. It could be a window during install like the one asking where it can install. "Where would you like us to save your keyboard shortcuts (for easy backup if you do a clean install later)"
  Default shortcut sets
Based on different other (vector) software. This would make it easier for a person coming from Adobe illustrator, Coreldraw, Sketch or Manga Studio to jump in and use the shortcuts he's been using for years. I imagine a window after first start asking the user: If you tell us which software you used most before finding Affinity Designer, we will make sure (most of) the shortcuts are in the same place.

Kind of like the browsers do after install, trying to get your bookmarks and stuff from other browsers to increase the chance you never go back to your old browser.  ;) 
  Live editing
Being able to edit the shortcut of an icon by (cmd?) clicking on it and having it open a small window with the current (if there is one) short cut and the option to add your new one. Now there are just too many steps to edit a shortcut. 1. Remember what the function is called (i.e lock layer / increase line width) 2. Find the shortcuts menu. 3 Search for the function. 4. Edit it. 5. Save it. 6. Close the shortcuts menu. Being able to do that on the fly could reduce the actions by half. I think shortcuts with the options stated above would translate to (super) speed & focus.
Compare it to wanting the interface to be as calm and subtle as possible so you "see" it less and focus on your drawing.
Being able to add a shortcut to everything allows you use the interface less and focus even more.