Frozen Death Knight

@DylanGG It is a bug. The last build had ctrl+alt+L click drag work as well and V1 and 2.0 work the same way. Only this build does not work that way.

This tool is pretty neat. Looking forward to when it supports filling open gaps as well for line art that is built around having them. Also, once Affinity has a raster-to-vector workflow, we should then be able to vector fill even raster artwork. Tons of potential.

Works great. Thanks, @Ash and Co.!

Same thing on my end. Pressing ctrl+alt+L click drag only affects Hardness, but I can change both when holding down ctrl+shift+alt+L click drag, which was possible before as well.

Looking good! Question, how will we be able to access the API for different operators inside of Affinity? One thing I always appreciated when using Blender and Maya is that every action taken is actually recorded as a coding command. I.e. changing the position of an object, using modifiers, etc. get recorded in a timeline and you can also right click any button, slider, etc. to copy the code to run that operator. Would really help open up the API to casual coders if we can very clearly see what code we need to do specific stuff. Also, will switching modes be supported as well? For instance, let's say I am doing something in Designer/Designer Persona and I wish to access Photo/Photo Persona for specific operators, will I be able to program it so Affinity opens up what I need to access it if I own the necessary software? Would be cool as well if we could create new operators that can be put into the current UI and even make shortcuts for them in all the accessible menus. I happen to know a guy who wishes to get started on a basic animation timeline for Affinity once there is a scripting API established. Will that be possible too?

With some further testing, I noticed that Pressure makes arrowheads invisible regardless of mode sometimes. I had to reset the Pressure profile just to make it work again. Invisible Arrowheads with Pressure applied.afpub Changing Pressure affects the size of the arrows while using Dashed Line Style at the same time, so having tapered off line thickness at each end can make the arrows look invisible when using dashed lines.

Glad to see that this old bug has been dealt with with the new dashed lines. Switching Styles no longer makes dashed lines invisible just because it has Pressure applied in another Style mode. Speaking of Pressure, any chance that Affinity could support dashed lines with different line thickness applied on a vector line?

Really glad that the drag controls were added for each value. Much more intuitive and comfortable than before.

I am of the opinion that I preferred the menu since it compiles everything in one place without going into the top menus, but I can see why adding the instant mask button was done. A modifier key to enable the menu again would be a nice middle ground, or alternatively add a new icon next to it to activate the menu. Would take up a bit of extra space, but it's worth considering at least.

Fantastic! Works great. Thanks a bunch!

I just tried using the Groups option on Vector Layers and found out that it is not possible to select them. Personally I see these types of containers as another form of grouping, so to me they should behave the same as Group Layers when using this Move Tool functionality.

I tend to mix vectors with raster nowadays, so I sit in Publisher most of the time until I need to use Photo. I use vectors to mask and lay out the base colours and raster for basically anything else. This drawing was all done using Photo.

How much of a performance dip are we talking about, you think? Really cool of you to be working on this.

Not really. We already have a recent brushes feature in the Layers panel. The two things I desire from brush management most of all is subcategories for brushes and an R click menu accessible from all brush tools. This however is related to jumping from brush to brush, regardless of where they are placed, and I want the option to disable it or parts of it.

Thanks!

After trying the new Brushes panel some more, there is one new feature that kind of bothers me. Switching tools now automatically shows the selected brush on the list, even other brush categories, which is fine most of the time. Other times however when I am using shortcuts and wish to select a specific brush that I already have visible (i.e. Smudge Tool, Blur Tool, etc.), I switch to a completely different list because that is the one that was selected for that tool. Personally I would like it if there was an option to turn off the auto-find brush selection feature so it works like how it used to, at least when it comes to switching between categories. To me I find it disorienting switching to new categories automatically for certain projects, so being able to choose functionality would be much appreciated.

That's great! Reminds me of a limitation that may be related to this as well. When you attempt to link the colour of a vector with the colour of text, you instead fill the text background as well. Perhaps allowing each to be linked with each other could help with allowing text to be filled with this tool as well?

This feature is really nice, thank you. Makes it easier to search for specific layers across your entire project when using ctrl+R click with the Move Tool. Would be cool if ctrl+R click to search and select specific layers with these new settings would work for other tools as well such as the Brush Tool, Eraser Tool, etc. Really the only missing puzzle piece for me in regards to selecting the right layers while painting on the fly.

I just had a thought about a feature that could be ported over from the Move Tool; double clicking an edge will resize the edge to match the length of the two sides adjacent to it, thus creating a square crop. Could be handy if you already have the metrics you want for a square and want to quickly get the correct shape without affecting the corner positioning on the opposite side.

@EmT

With some further testing of my theory, I seem to have been proven correct. Even with a regular mouse I could replicate the issue by L click dragging another brush. It always highlights it, but the selection aspect is broken. After some additional thoughts I think it would be nice if there was a lock position feature for the Brushes panel to avoid these kinds of selection flicking from occurring along with fixing the selection not syncing with the highlighting.

I have noticed that sometimes when you select a brush with a tablet after having painted on the canvas that the brush selection does not properly register on the first try. In this example you can see me paint a bit while using brushes that are assigned to a specific tool, but despite showing the new brush being highlighted in the Brushes panel, the Brush Tool has not been selected as well. It has nothing to do with the brushes having an assigned tool, but it is to help make the issue more apparent. While working for long sessions this bug can get pretty annoying since you waste clicks having to click once more to make the brush selection work. One theory I have is that I am accidentally L click dragging briefly because of my hand moving around a bit while hovering over the brush, which makes it not register as me selecting it. I think if that's the case that a solution to this is to make L click dragging actually confirm the brush selection, since needing to be very precise with every click leads to hiccups like these.

I found a visual bug where alt+L click dragging the selected brush to duplicate it makes the selection square and recording icon duplicate alongside it.

Another thing I think could be improved is the editing window for brushes. The new Update Brush operator should be present in this window, since it already has Reset and Duplicate built into it. I also think that renaming of brushes should be possible in this window with the name being at the top of the General tab. I also think that having the brush preview in the editing window with the red dot in the corner could help with determining if you have edited that brush. Perhaps even go so far as to make the blue sliders and highlights turn red if you have changed a parameter, which could make the editing window even more clear with what specific settings you have actually changed.

The nozzle previews while toggling the list do not match. Here are the nozzles as just preview icons: Here are the nozzles when in a list: Notice how they have nearly invisible previews while the non-list versions in the newly updated Beta have a much clearer view of the basic shape of the nozzles without additional settings on top of it.