lepr

Enable Transparent Background in the Colour tab of Document Setup to get a checkered background. (Also, an Artboard needs to have no opaque fill or the checkerboard will still be hidden.)

If the selected masked object is a Group (or Layer), an Export Selection Only is as large as the entire Group. If the selected masked object is not a Group (or Layer), an Export Selection Only is just large enough to contain the masked region of the object. That difference seems illogical to me, and I think the export should be the size of just the masked region in both cases. In other words, the output of Export Selection Only of a masked Group (or Layer) is wrong currently, in my opinion.

Yes, clearly there's more similarity between Smart Objects and Affinity embedded/linked documents than there is between Smart Objects and Affinity Image objects or between Smart Objects and Affinity Pixel objects.

The problem you refer to no longer exists in v2: now the user can freely nest and access objects within mask-nested objects to an arbitrary depth. However, there are bugs in the rendering of nested objects, which may or may not affect your particular work.

A Smart Object is like an embedded or linked document (Affinity document or PDF) in an Affinity document, rather than the less functional embedded or linked Image object, since a SO can contain multiple layers and it can be opened for editing by double-clicking its thumbnail in the Layers panel.

Double-clicking the thumbnail of an Image object makes the view zoom so that the object almost fills the view. The user cannot access the content of an Image object.

Exactly. To make object B become a mask for object A, drop object B on the thumbnail of A instead of the name of A.

I attached the Affinity document as well as a screenshot. Did you explore the document?

Yes, I've seen a Group bounding rectangle's top-left corner wrongly be at (0, 0) when an Adjustment is a member of the Group. Notice that the example I posted has the Exposure Adjustment mask-nested in the Group, although it also would have worked as a member of the Group.

If rasterisation in an export is acceptable, then an Adjustment can be applied to the objects in a Group. For example an Exposure Adjustment with a mask to give it shape can produce an effect like a cast shadow. Here's a simple example with an editable vector mask on the Exposure Adjustment: Cast shadow.afdesign

The new Shape Builder Tool is ideal for jobs like this. select all the objects (cmd+A) activate Shape Builder Tool (S) use the minus button in context toolbar to choose delete mode click on each of the unwanted triangular regions

Does the presently available suppress-snapping functionality via opt/alt key mess up the Gradient Tool? If yes, then what additional harm would come from allowing invert-snapping via opt/alt key? If no, then what new harm would come from allowing invert-snapping via opt/alt key?

The copy functionality versus the suppression of snapping functionality depends on whether the opt/alt key is depressed before starting to click-drag or after starting to click-drag. The copying functionality of the key is independent of whether snapping is on or off. A little rational thinking should let you see that allowing opt/alt key to invert snapping instead of just suppressing snapping would change no other functionality of the key that the apps currently have. For example, the currently available suppression of snapping functionality doesn't affect the picking of colours while using a brush, and so, logically, there is no reason that inversion of snapping would affect the picking of colours whilst using a brush.

Workaround: use Document Setup to scale that document to 2 pixels wide, do the subtraction, and then scale the document back to 33 inches wide. (Different documents require scaling to different temporary sizes.)

I already wrote the following to you about an hour ago, but in case you missed it "Document Palettes (if any in the document) are always in a group at top of palettes list, followed by a group of Application Palettes, and then, on macOS but not Windows, a group of System Palettes. When a new document is initialised with a default palette, the default palette is instantiated as a Document Palette, and therefore it can be found at top of the palettes list." I'm tired of discussing this subject with you, R C-R. I've been unable to describe and explain things, apparently, and it's time to move on.

I was talking about the list of palettes, not the list of swatches inside a palette, of course. Document Palettes (if any in the document) are always in a group at top of palettes list, followed by a group of Application Palettes, and then, on macOS but not Windows, a group of System Palettes. When a new document is initialised with a default palette, the default palette is instantiated as a Document Palette, and therefore it can be found at top of the palettes list.

It will be at the top of the list, though, so it is a trivial matter to locate and select it.

Yes. That's the whole point of the default palette functionality.

That's not true. A default palette definitely can be created from an existing Document Palette (in Affinity apps on macOS at least).

Sorry, but helping you understand this is clearly beyond my capabilities. As Dirty Harry said, "A man's got to know his limitations."

Your predefined palettes in the list in the Swatches panel will be either Application Palettes or macOS System Palettes if you have never set a default palette. Your predefined palettes cannot be Document Palettes if you have never set a default palette. The default palette system concerns Document Pallets - I think that was made clear ages ago in this thread.

'Add Document Palette' is supposed to create a new empty Document Palette, so that is working correctly for you. Back to the subject of the discussion: after I set a default Document Palette for RGB/8, any new RGB/8 document I create has my pre-defined default Document Palette in the list of available pallets in the Swatches panel. Edit: This has already been visually demonstrated by @lacerto

Strange. It works for me in AD 2.0.3 on macOS 12.6.2.

A default pre-populated Document Palette for new documents of a given colour format, such as RGBA/8. Unless you set such a default palette for a particular colour format, new documents of that colour format will have no Document Palette.

Does that make any difference on Windows? On Mac, the app's last used palette (or the first Application Palette in the list when the app has only just launched) is selected when a new document is initialised from either a template or an app document preset.