Alfred

Hi!
 
I want to share with you this small set of pencils.
Some of these tools feature Angle (Tilt) variance but you need a tablet that support it.
Don't have so much inspiration today to add some samples, but will do it for sure later 
 
This set doesn't work on iPad because required settings are not yet there.
It will work with proper textures once the matching of iOS/Desktop version has been completed. 
 

 
Hope you'll enjoy it!
Happy sketching!
 
UPDATE
 
Just uploaded a v1.1 with these two new pieces 
 
 

 
 
Some things to know...
 
This new release works with MAS versions of Affinity range, but to have proper tilt dynamic latest Beta of AP or AD is needed.
Special thanks to Andy Somerfield for custom ramps...
DAUB Pencils.afbrushes.zip
DAUB Pencils v1.1.zip

Well... (update...)
 

 
A set of 6 simple stupid tools to vent your obsessive-compulsive disorder  :lol:
These brushes offer a ramp shaped to jitter hues and luminosity of the colour you're painting with.
Download here
 
Happy mosaic!

I'm really enjoying this beta. Tried my hand at using AD for a couple of posters for my church and was very pleased with the results (I've been using DrawPlus or PagePlus up until now). Following this success I thought I'd create something for pleasure. I created the bronze image first then changed the background to blue and used Luminance Blend and added noise to the 'Robot'. Here are a couple of jpg's of them. Feedback welcome. :)
 

For moving vertically, use Baseline Shift from the Character panel with one or more characters selected.
 
Oh yeah, with any characters highlighted, shift+alt plus the up/down arrows adjusts the baseline...

I would call that "unbitmapping"! :P

I'm also on Windows, so I'm new to this too (although I've been following the Mac discussions for a few months).
 
As I said in my earlier post, the numbers 14 and 64 are brush widths. My 'Assorted' category has 4, 8, 16 and 32 which are identified as 'Solid Brush' when I hover over them; these are followed by 8, 16 and 32 'Solid Brush with Pressure' brushes, and then 18 and 32 'Solid Brush with Pressure & Opacity' and a few natural media and photo brushes.
 
Your '14' looks like my '16' in the Solid Brush section, which suggests that you've edited it. What settings do you see when you go into the Brush Editor (either by double-clicking the brush or by right-clicking it and choosing 'Edit Brush...')?

1) It's already there, but it isn't shown by default. Please see the attached screenshot.
 
2) What would the 'Scale' value be relative to?
 
3) As far as I can see, it reappears in the same position when you reselect the object after deselecting it. You can double-click it to return it to the centre of the bounding box.
 

Thanks, Alfred! Very good news!
There's one thing, though:
 
ad 1) The icon you refer to is called "Show Rotation Centre"... what about scaling?
It makes total sense, too, to be able to scale about the centre!
Now, you can only scale about the object's bounding box corner, bbox edge, or bbox centre (holding CTRL during scaling).
 
In other words, the "Rotation Centre" should be the "Centre".
Works that way in Illustrator... (although, unfortunately, AI forgets the rotation/scale center after re-selecting - AD remembers it, yay!!).
 
 
ad 2)
About the Scale X, Scale Y parameters (in addition to Width and Height):
Those would be 1.0, 1.0 in the beginning (or 100%, 100%), relative to how the object was created initially.
If you watch the Transform panel when creating an object, you will notice that it is grayed out until you release the mouse and define the initial size - that's 100% then.
 
 
Allow me to go get a bit technical, since I also work with 3D software (3ds Max, Cinema4D, Rhino, Softimage, ...):
 
although these are 3D programs and Affinity Designer is 2D, they share one common fundamental concept of computer graphics - the Transformation Matrix, or Axis of an object, or Centre. It's a 3x3 or 4x4 grid of real numbers that stores position, rotation, scale, shear.
(I don't know your background, so apologies if I'm telling nothing new...)
 
Data-wise, an object (2D or 3D) is basically a geometry description that stores the object's points etc.
- in 3D, that's often a polygon mesh - points in 3D space plus the information how they are connected by edges, to form polygons.
- in AD, objects are lists of 2D points (Bezier, could also be the mathematically higher ranking B-Splines or NURBS) plus attributes.
 
The point's coordinates are stored relative to the object's centre then - coordinate 0,0 means, the point is at the axis/centre.
 
Now here's the point, so please bear with me:
Basically, there are 2 ways of interactively moving/rotating/scaling an object:
 
a ) the interactive transformation only changes the matrix, keeping it 'live', and everytime the object needs to be drawn to the canvas, all of it's points are multiplied with the matrix, hence it 'jumps' into place.
Has the advantage that you can easily go back to the object's initial state, and that it is unproblematic to make 'parent/child' relationships (in AD: 'Paste Inside' -  look at the Layers).
Small disadvantage: calculations need to be done with every redraw, but with our fast computers, that doesn't matter much.
 
b ) change all the object's points by immediately 'baking' the transformation into them. The matrix will be reset to some inital state - or even no matrix at all is stored with the object (obviously, fortunately, not the case in AD).
Advantage: no calculations need to be done anymore to have the object at the desired place.
 
Now,
I suspect that AD keeps the rotation part of the matrix live, but bakes the scaling. (Cinema4D does it this way, too, in 'Modeling Mode'. In 'Animation Mode', the scaling is stored in the matrix).
 
My suggestion: this should be optional - the scaling part should be kept live, too, if the user chooses to!
Hope it's clear what I mean =}
 
 
Thanks for reading!
Best regards
Eugen

Thank you.
 
To explain for the benefit of "the guy" and to others interested in this thread:
 
1. Rectangle Tool: Draw a rectangle. In the Transform panel, enter its width and height as 1 inch.
 
2. Transform panel: Enter 45 in the Rotate field. On the page, the program is displaying a rotated bounding box, complete with user-dragable transform handles. The values displayed in the Transform panel correspond to the displayed bounding box and the widgets. So far, this is intuitive.
 
3. Click the Reset Selection Box button. On the page, the program is now displaying an unrotated bounding box, again complete with user dragable transform handles. But the values displayed in the Transform panel still correspond to the now invisible unrotated bounds. The width and height values still display "1" when clearly, the height and width of the displayed bounding box--and of the actual path--is in fact the square root of 2.
 
3. Enter .5 in the H field and tap Enter. The unrotated bounding box disappears, a skewed bounding box appears, and the value you just entered as .5 changes to .718. Moreover, it changes to .718 in both the H and W fields, when clearly the path does not measure the same in height and width. It does, in fact, measure .5 in height (as you entered), but it of course still measures 1.41 (square root of 2) in width.
 
Yes, I understand that the values displayed (.718) are the lengths of the rectangle's now-skewed axes, but this is certainly not intuitive, and not useful for most ordinary and common uses.
 
4. Click the Reset Transform Box button. Again, the expected rectangular bounding box appears around the diamond shape, but both the W and H fields still display .718. In other words, the on-page interface is displaying a live, active, editable bounding box which is clearly not square, and which clearly does not measure .718 in either its height or width. But the also live, active, and editable interface fields of the Transform panel are implying that the live, active, and editable bounding box is square.
 
Now suppose your whole purpose for clicking the Reset Transform Box was to horizontally scale the diamond shape to match the width of some other on-page object; a 2.5" column width, for example. Entering the desired width (2.5) in the field labeled W will, in fact give you that. But its width will now be reported as 1.256, regardless of whether the skewed bounding box or the un-rotated bounding box is currently displayed.
 
I certainly understand the value of a program's being able to retain (as long as it can) and provide access to the numerical dimension values of an object's transformed bounding box. Adobe Illustrator, for example, displays a rotated bounding box after a rotation is performed, but nowhere in the interface provides user access to its rotated dimensions; neither as readouts nor as inputs.
 
But Affinity is just doing the inverse by providing a bounding box "reset" feature which displays an un-rotated live bounding box while failing to display its dimension values.
 
Rotation followed by non-uniform scaling is important in technical illustration (something near and dear to my heart), and yes, I understand what is going on here. But the majority use of this program is not technical illustration.
 
The best mainstream drawing program interfaces in this matter provide user access to numerical readout and inputs for both as-drawn (un-rotated) and  as-transformed (rotated) bounds (ex; Deneba Canvas). But not in so ambiguous a manner. When doing so, the corresponding elements of what is concurrently displayed and active in the user interface needs to be consistent.
 
5. Now perform the same exercise detailed above, but not with a square, but with just any irregular path you might draw with the Pen tool. As you do so, try to discern any practical use or intuitiveness for the resulting skewed (not just rotated) bounding boxes and the numerical values labeled W and H. I dare say that in such a far more common context, the user will find this interface to be anything but intuitive, and will regard the displayed dimensions of the un-rotated bounding box to be just wrong (i.e., regarded as a bug).
 
Consider:
The UI is labeling the dimension fields as "W" and "H" (width and height). The feature is labeled Reset Transform Box and the associated palette is labeled the Transform panel, implying a correlation which does not exist with what is actually displayed when the feature is invoked. The feature is named Reset Transform Box, which implies doing just that--"re-zeroing" the object's transformation information to its current orientation (as similar features do in other programs, and as is expected behavior for most common uses). But it merely temporarily rotates the on-page transform handles and doesn't reset anything, and doesn't even temporarily shift the still live, active, and editable value fields correspondingly.  
The value fields should reflect the actual width and height of the "reset" Transform Box when it is active and displayed. And convenient and intuitive provision should be made for actually resetting an object's current transformation to zero.
 
JET

Only just found this forum from Windows Beta. Making the most of it and clearing a backlog! :)
 
Please add TEXT FLOW.
I know (from Beta posts) that it's seen as a Publisher feature - all I can say is that in 20 years I've needed it as much in Graphics documents (CorelDraw) as in DTP (InDesign).

That's not what I was hoping to hear, Mark, but thanks for confirming my suspicions! :(

For a better usability, please change at least the light colour of the search text (or/and of the top right search field) and change the colour or add a symbol like  for iOS or macOS contents. Could be done in less than 0.125 cat minutes.

Mark Ingram's original post to this thread lists two known issues:
 

I fully agree with you Matt, as I will never do Facebook, for every reason that you can think of. But as I do not have an online presence, apart from this forum of course; Pinterest seems like a least worst option. Compared to Deviantart.com, it does seem like a sell out.
So compromises aside, I'll consider you a honorary follower.
 
peter
 
I'm now on STRAVA.com

If I used Pinterest, I'd follow you too - I just have a 'thing' about sites that badger me to join! If it let me just browse and do whatever I felt like in a non-intrusive way, I'd probably enjoy it and join up, but the fact that it nags me to sign up/login at every single page makes me angry enough that I'm determined to not join up, even though I want to! I'm sure there's a saying about this including the words 'nose', 'spite' and 'face'... ;)

It would be nice if the user's choice stuck until explicitly changed.

Hi,
AD for Windows: it would be very nice to add "View PDF after exporting" in "Export > PDF" dialog box to see the result immediately and to be informed when exporting is finished.

I disagree. Because a good application works well when has a clear mission. 
Do you want to draw, edit, apply effects (some good effects) an so on? AD
Do you want to create or edit a bitmap image? AF
Do you want to publish complex documents? AP
 
Do not try to catch all in one app. That is a wrong way. Because one app can not do all well. Imagine the User interface, the windows, and all the panes you can put in one app. And could we talk about updates of a monster app?
 
Indeed, you can go wrong with just an app that tries to do well in one area. Illustrator, for example is tremendously confusing. A lot of panels, so many panels that do a lot of things. Affinity Designer can do the same things faster and simpler than Illustrator. The routines and options are simpler and clever.
 
Is like eat food. You need spoon for soup. And a knife to cut bread. You can not eat soup with a knife... Er well, you can do, but the results are not practical and desirable.
 
I have been involved in DTP since 1983. Do you know about Common Ground, xRes, Canvas? One app that can do all sort of things usually do not work well in any area.

They're allowing you to go on a week's holiday?? :o

I agree absolutely. Usability is important. There's a button to remove rotation, so why not one to remove crops?
 
Edit: The reset rotation (box) button doesn't do what I thought, but just resets a rotated object's rotation back to zero degrees. 

Yes, I absolutely understand the nature and behaviour of this crop tool. But you seem to be unconcerned about ease of use. You provide a tool which can easily define and manipulate a crop, but which is unable to simply remove that crop. I don't think it should be necessary to go into the layers panel to do that.

I completely agree. I have to set my laptop screen to exactly the correct angle if I'm to have any hope of seeing which tool is currently highlighted (or perhaps that should be 'lowlighted'). It would be great to have the simple 'Invert' option that Julian23 suggested earlier in this thread.

The only way that I can get enough contrast in the UI toolbar to actually see which tool icon is selected is to turn UI Gamma all the way up in Affinity Preferences AND to turn Brightness all the way up in System Preferences.  Black on dark gray is not the best choice for visibility.  

Using the Vector Crop tool is fine, but how do I remove the crop?

I'm using the Fill tool to apply a radial fill to an object.  When I first select Radial as the fill type, the gradient line is displayed anchored to the centre of the object.
 
If I drag the centre node away to a new position, is there a way to snap it back to the centre point again?  I tried double-clicking the node, which seemed intuitive, but nothing happened.  I can't see a way to have the object's centre displayed either.
 
I know there's always the Undo option, but I may have made other changes.  I just want to be able to quickly attach the node to the object's centre.  How is that done?