jstnhllmn

Easiest way is to have the text caret in the text you want to change and hit the Revert defaults button on the toolbar.

Also check to see if you have a paragraph style with a highlight colour assigned.

Hi jstnhllmn,

Unfortunately this is a known issue with development. However if you go into Preferences > Performance and change your Display to OpenGL (Basic) you should find the grid displays correctly. I will get your comments passed on to development however.

Rattled a tutorial off for you...
 

Below is an attempt at a portion of the Texturelabs.com tutorial using Affinity Photo.
The other portions of the video are less difficult to follow using Affinity Photo. 
 
https://recordit.co/IKd1T5aKsv
 
The next video link is how to isolate the Sprayed Text effect on an transparent background.
 
https://recordit.co/Cea3VUGtS4
 
The Live Filter > Diffuse effect can be applied again on the Sprayed Text Effect layer. 
 

Multiplication can at least be achieved by repeated addition! In a similar vein, the ‘power duplicate’ feature isn’t strictly necessary since we could (very tediously) achieve the same end result through a series of manual steps. By contrast, a Blend Tool is indispensable for dealing with all but the most trivial cases of morphing between different shapes as shown in the original post.

Vectorstyler is still in beta and while it's not perfect, it's already got a blend tool, text and object warp, well-functioning boolean operations, 100% vector brushes, a blob tool, vector erase tool, print color separations, etc. I found out the "team" developing Vectorstyler is one person! Not a full team. Edits and improvements have been added quickly, beta testers have been acknowledged, listened to and trusted. I understand the wuhan flu affected productivity, but this was a slow pace long before the virus affected team projects.
The contour tool in 1.9 was first revealed as a teaser back in 2019 on an Affinity staff twitter page. It did not get added until a year and a half later. Vital tools like I listed above found in VS, STILL have not found their way into Designer. Whether true or not, the perception of Designer is that it's been neglected by the Serif team.

Is this program dead? Promises and prospects for too many of the features that I need have disappeared along along with the road map they were printed on.
If development of the program is dead, Serif should be straight with its customers and advise that those who need long-promised improvements ought to seek them elsewhere. 
I'd rather bite the bullet and learn how to do what is currently possible in Adobe than wait any longer for this pot to boil. 

With respect Xzenor, I believe that ten pages of mounting frustration in this forum hosted by Affinity is mind boggling if the company were to claim ignorance. Not least to mention being aware of one's market. Then to hear that it was available in past versions(DrawPlus)! Ignorance or intention which is it? Again I do appreciate your pointing out the axed features.

This can be done with CSS, in a browser.
But not in a vector based native app with many, many years of development.
I'm not dissing anyone at all, I very much like Designer.
But I wonder what the holdup is?

+1 on this feature request!

This is borderline ridiculous, another year is going to pass without such a basic feature like this being implemented. Very frustrating!

Another day, another frustrated wish for just grabbing those pesky corners and tweaking - VS to the rescue - I'm really really hoping the Affinity boffins have something up their sleeves to match this: 
Screen_Grab_2020-12-02_at_10_07_09.mov

After the roadmap got buried, It set my mind aflight with all kinds of rammell - maybe the whole engine needs re-writing from scratch in order to simply drag the corner node of a group of vector objects? - maybe the capability is all in place, it just needs switching on once the comedy value has died down and the Affinity gods have done laughing? - maybe "professional" designers and Illustrators dont need this capability has it's just cheating? 

So in conclusion... if you need perspective tools or want to discuss alternatives for this, Serif Software, the Affinity Suite or forums.affinity.serif.com is no help. All we have is people wasting time waiting or debating and nothing results from this besides hurt feelings and people using workarounds for years and years.
What did you expect from this thread? Serif is not contributing and Serif is not delivering these features either. Of course the debate will circle around what is possible and in the horizon. We cant debate a fools hope forever here... People need solutions. Not threads only with contributions from loyalists.
If you find it frustrating that customers voice their frustrations and look elsewhere, don't blame THEM. Just hope they won't vote with their feet when you loyalists try to silence them - same goes for potential costumers. The debate here will disappear when the features appear.

Lack of basic tools for an extended period undermines the faith of many who bought in to support Affinity Designer. It was my hope that by purchasing Affinity Designer I was helping contribute to a worthy option to AI. I've had to hold back on running more current MAC OS, because my aging copy of CS6 Illustrator still has many basic tools AD does not. Not to mention the time invested in getting up to speed on software that seems lacking.Then there are the hassles of working on a machine with outdated OS and unsupported security issues. If the future bares no fruit in the way of the missing basic tools many users may choose a different set of software & hardware solutions. An old 2007 Mac Pro cheese grater running 10.6, and a late 2012 mini running 10.12 has been quaint, but how long? I would happily purchase a fully equipped version of Affinity Designer 2.0 in the NEAR future. This would allow me to update my OS and let go of AI.

LOL. So you believe it is just about the order of the bricks?
Seriously, apologists. Let Serif do the explaining - you guys always forget (or do not understand) business priorities and (long term) strategy. FX how to keep you in the fold for years.
As an "IT person" you should understand the regime you are working under - and why that regime really makes decision and priorities. Technical requirements and architecture are rarely dictating much. More often you build the architecture to support the business priorities. And improvise. 

The Freeform gradient is a 100 times more useful than the tired old Mesh gradient. The mesh is complicated as hell to use and ends up just creating a jumbled mess of points and lines.
I mean just look at how much easier the points and lines are to work with in a freeform versus an old style mesh. This is the way this feature should be implemented, traditional mesh is outdated. I'm definitely no Adobe fan, but they really knocked it out of the park with this new feature. I will never use a mesh again (not that i do very often anway, but still)....
Freeform is what should be in AD, if there's working code that exists for the old style mesh, just throw it in the bin! haha!

No, it’s not easier. It’s just more work.
VS is responsive to user requests. Serif is not.

The staff have made it clear in several different topics that they will no longer provide ETA’s for any new features … but a mesh warp/distort tool is on the old Affinity Designer feature roadmap.

Yes, that is exactly my point. The original thread about free transform tools is years old. Serif is not responsive to their user community.

Adding myself to the list of people waiting for this feature.

Side note - I give VectorStyler beta a try based on a few comments on this thread and WOW! Some of the tools in there are incredibly smooth, especially for a beta version. Liquefy brush, eraser, not to mention all of the distortion and warping one could want... all vector! Their general UI pales a bit by comparison to Affinity, but the Affinity dev's should definitely take a look at all of these options.  

+1 for each of the following on desktop (& iPad):
Free Transform + Envelope Distort + Perspective Distort for objects, editable text (and possibly groups). These are my biggest gripes with Designer and I'm beyond shocked after all these years we still don't have them. They are staples in typography and design and, sadly, keep users from being able to have a smooth Affinity workflow. I count myself among those looking to cut the Adobe chord and I believe this would go a very long way to allow that to happen for countless users.
I understand the reason why there's a lack of a road map now, but it would be beneficial to know that these basic tools are on the radar for release, (sooner rather than later).
(While we're adding to the wishlist, Elastic Warp, Bend and Mesh Gradient would be great too. But lets get the basics implemented.)
As much as I love Affinity Designer, I can't see myself going to 2.0 if these basic tools aren't implemented. I don't think I'm the only one.

This feature will arrive the day after we get cold fusion and puppies that don't poop.

This feature will arrive the day after we get cold fusion and puppies that don't poop.