Stokestack

By default, when you select multiple objects, the dimensions in the Transform panel don't reflect the size of the objects; they reflect the size of the bounding box needed to enclose all of them on the canvas. I can't imagine why you'd want to type in numeric values for the dimensions of an arbitrary bounding box instead of the objects you've selected. The box is not a "thing" to be resized; it does not exist in the project. There's no preference to change this odd behavior. But it turns out that there's a cryptic button whose ToolTip says, misleadingly, "Transform objects separately." Well, if I wanted to transform them separately, I wouldn't have selected them all at once, would I? But even if you accidentally discover this button and press it, the Transform panel is still uninformative and defective. It's also inconsistent with other UI in Designer itself. Other applications have solved this situation for years in a simple and intuitive manner. Illustration attached. DesignerMultiSelectProb.mov

Thanks for your reply. I do often want to make sure objects match, or change numerous items' sizes exactly when I find that I need to reallocate real estate in my design. I suspect that it's a pretty common situation, which Designer makes a pain in several ways. And really, it doesn't even work reliably or consistently. This problem has long been solved in other applications. Here's an illustration of the issue. DesignerMultiSelectProb.mov

So if you have four objects scattered around the canvas that you want to be the same size, you often accomplish that by typing a new dimension value for the bounding box that surrounds them all? And you contend that this is more common than wanting to select a bunch of objects and make sure they're the same size by directly entering the size for each one all at once? I'm interested in what kind of illustration makes that workflow so important.

You seem to be talking about resizing with handles, not by typing a numeric value for an edge of the all-encompassing bounding box. No?

What information are you worried about losing?

Nobody proposed getting rid of that information. Currently it doesn't show you information about the objects you selected; it shows you misleading information, about the last one you happened to click. You select several objects on different parts of the canvas and resize them by typing new dimensions for the bounding box around all of them? I'm legitimately interested in hearing why this is such a common use case for you.

Really? You do that by typing numbers into the Transform panel?

I don't think the current functionality makes sense. There's a straightforward approach that does. If you're clicking around on the canvas, selecting a bunch of objects that you want to change the size of, why does the Transform panel show the dimensions of the bounding box that surrounds the whole collection of objects? That's not a "thing" to be resized. If the objects were grouped, then they would be a thing and that thing would have dimensions. Therefore, grouped vs. ungrouped should determine what's displayed in the transform panel. When multiple ungrouped objects are selected, the Transform panel (and any other) should show an empty field (or "-") wherever the objects' properties differ. This is standard practice in software, which allows the user to enter a value and have it applied to all of the objects. When you see a blank field, it tells you in an instant that the objects don't match in size (or color, or font...), which is useful information that helps you detect mistakes or oversights in your work.

Thanks for that reference. Done.

Nope. They're disparate objects that are all selected. The current default scaling method pretends that there's some significance to the size of the bounding box needed to enclose them all, which is a groundless assumption. An arbitrary region on the canvas across which objects are scattered is not a "thing" to be resized. Its dimensions are typically meaningless. If they were grouped, that group would have dimensions. The same thing every other application shows when you select objects with differing values for a property: a blank field, into which you're free to type something in order to apply the value to all selected items. This tells you in an instant that the objects aren't the same size (or color, or font...), which is useful information. But of course, Designer doesn't do that; if you have the "transform objects separately" button on, it shows the dimensions of the last thing you clicked. I considered whether this was useful, but it doesn't appear to be: You can't make the other objects the same size as the last one you clicked by re-entering the displayed dimensions.

Thanks for the replies. I didn't realize there was a statute of limitations on encountering behavior in an app and bringing it up. It actually is surprising that I didn't encounter this before. I wouldn't, especially since I was trying to do the opposite. The terminology used in the UI here doesn't even make sense. What's more likely: that the user, when selecting independent objects, wants to adjust their characteristics... or that he wants to adjust the characteristics of the bounding box that just happens to be necessary to encompass them all on the canvas? It would make perfect sense to show the overall dimensions of the group of objects if they were grouped. But they're not.

Thanks, but I don't see this anywhere. Oh wait... now that I've rolled over and waited for the ToolTip on every cryptic icon... here's the "transform objects separately" one. Why on earth would anyone guess that this option exists, and then start hovering over every widget on the screen looking for it? And why would I want this to be an option rather than the default? How many times do you want to select objects on the canvas and get a useless set of dimensions in the Transform pane and alter them? I want to set the dimensions of the objects, not of an arbitrary bounding box.

Anyone else want to re-state the problem?

I have two similar objects and wanted to resize them both (they are already the same size). But when you select two objects, the dimensions in the Transform panel don't reflect the size of the objects; they reflect the size of the bounding box that encloses them. I don't expect or want that behavior. What is the expected procedure to resize multiple objects? Thanks. Screen Recording 2021-08-14 at 2.40.13 PM.mov

Wow, THREE YEARS now? And yet people regurgitated the same incorrect workarounds and "explanations" just a few months ago when I posted about the same problem. The application is seriously defective, people. There's no excuse for this behavior.

One of the problems here is the misuse of a tabbed dialog. Tabs are for organizing different properties of a selected item, or for grouping settings into categories (like system preferences). They're not for choosing mutually exclusive options. It was even worse when there was a Fill tab called "None," which bafflingly had color swatches on it. I don't know why Affinity clings to this design. Another problem here is the failure to indicate what most of the settings on the gradient tab refer to: a "stop." And if there's no stop selected, all of those controls should be greyed out. These are UI conventions that go back decades, for good reason: They inform the user of what he needs to do, or at least that there's something he needs to do. This is not that hard a problem to solve. The fill type should be selected from a list of options, not presented as a bunch of tabs that are all available at once. Here's a suggested design.

I'll try it on my desktop computer when I get back to it, but I'm pretty sure it behaves exactly the same way. So that's two Macs (a first-gen 5K iMac and a much more recent MBP). But the fact remains that there's no Apply button to actually apply the fill. If the presented fill is already what you want and you don't need to alter anything, there's no way to say "OK, do it." That is a glaring UI-design problem.

Sure... if you want a broken Fill dialog.

I didn't want to change any values.

I didn't need to; the presented gradient (black to white) was what I wanted.

Thanks for the reply. It didn't do anything to the selected object, so I don't know what this means. Apparently not, because the color well is enabled and has an effect. I really wish Affinity would clean the Fill UI up.

Thanks for your reply and effort. Nope, no custom mouse driver or settings. I just tried it with my trackpad on my laptop and the problem occurs every time.

The gradient UI is still broken in Designer, and probably Photo too. Problem 1: It often takes numerous clicks on the Fill well to invoke the Fill panel. Problem 2: There's no way to actually apply the gradient. Let's say you want to apply a black-to-white linear gradient, which happens to be the default when you select Gradient. Well... there's no way to apply it. There's no Apply button. When you close the dialog, the object's fill remains unchanged. Problem 3: If you go to Gradient and select a color in the (perplexingly solo) color well, the fill does change... once. Any subsequent color adjustments do nothing. Screen grabs attached. The Fill panel has been dysfunctional since day 1, which is inexcusable. Fills are a fundamental feature of an application like this. This is Designer 1.9.3 under Mac OS 11.5. gradientNoApply.mov gradientBroken.mov

Thanks, but I don't think the canvas was bigger than the biggest layer (so I couldn't have clicked a no-layer area). Also I wasn't drawing a shape. I had just added some text, however. I'll try to figure out how this is happening. It doesn't seem like a condition that should even be allowed.

I'm continually finding that things don't work in Photo because no layer is selected. It happens pretty much every time I use Photo. Just now I added some text to an illustration; for my next action, I found that nothing happened because no layer was selected. It's doubly annoying because I don't know how this state arises, because by the time you're aware of it it's too late; and I don't like filing bug reports without steps to reproduce. But a related problem (and this is rampant in Affinity apps) is that much (most?) of the UI remains enabled despite being inapplicable (because there's no appropriate selection). Then you're left wondering why whatever you did had no effect.