DavidMac

Patrick your post just crossed with mine. I just discovered this for myself. Sorry to have bothered you.

While I have you 'on the line' so to speak. It really would be much easier of Studio recognised our personal screen layouts for Photo and Designer. They must be accessible to Studio. 

My bad .......... Apologies to all ...............
Hadn't realised that Publisher had a new release version. Just installed it and all working perfectly. It's great. Although I would be much happier if Studio used my screen layouts for Photo and Designer. 
Now I have to learn publisher. I can see some happy hours ahead ............ 

My bad .......... Apologies to all ...............
Hadn't realised that Publisher had a new release version. Just installed it and all working perfectly. It's great. Although I would be much happier if Studio used my screen layouts for Photo and Designer. 
Now I have to learn publisher. I can see some happy hours ahead ............ 

Thanks Leigh. That's clear(ish).
I'd sort of guessed the Pressure which is why I was asking about Efficiency.
Efficiency sounds like one of those figures of more significance to developers than users. Probably useful if I ever have to come here trying to troubleshoot a memory problem. 

Actually Alfred not really your bad. You were almost there!

Here is what looks to be the best method:
Draw an ellipse (or other) shape with the Shape Tool.
Click Convert to Curves on context toolbar top right.
Select Pen Tool.
Click Selection in context toolbar top left.
The curve will be converted to a selection.
This method has a couple of advantages over Cmd clicking the thumbnail. Cmd clicking a thumbnail doesn't work at all on a wireframe shape with no fill or stroke and selects both inside and outside if only a stroke is present. Neither is desirable.
This method always creates a single selection to the outermost bound of the shape regardless of presence or no presence of stroke, regardless of thickness of stroke if present, regardless of filled or unfilled. So it works in all cases. For best precision and visibility you can draw a wireframe shape with no fill or stroke and a selection will still be created.
Lastly this method automatically deletes the now unneeded shape leaving just the selection.
I would love to claim credit for this method but it is in fact the official AP method outlined in the help files. Contents > Selections > Creating Pixel Selections > From Shapes
BTW the new Selection from Layer and Delete doesn't do the above. It behaves exactly the same as Cmd clicking the thumbnail. 

Thanks Alfred. That's neat and simple and solves all our problems.

AP has got better and better, especially in it's latest incarnation. More time seems to being spent on making what's there work better rather than adding more and more 'features'. It's getting quicker and more instinctive to use ............
............. but I still feel 'The bumper book of AP Workarounds" might be a best seller. 

Thanks Alfred. That's neat and simple and solves all our problems.

AP has got better and better, especially in it's latest incarnation. More time seems to being spent on making what's there work better rather than adding more and more 'features'. It's getting quicker and more instinctive to use ............
............. but I still feel 'The bumper book of AP Workarounds" might be a best seller. 

I am a bit baffled.
The attached screen shot is from AP help in beta 1.7.0.110.

I cannot find a Place Image Tool in AP - only in AD. 

Is this an item that has got into AP help by mistake? Or is it planned for AP and included in help but not yet implemented?
Or, or ............... ?? 

Hello,
 
Something I think would be really useful and save a lot of time is to move the "Studio" item from "View" to its own parent item. It would make toggling things like Characters, Assets and Symbols much quicker for those that don't have them open all the time.
 
I don't know about other people but I always felt it was not intuitive where it is.
 
Thanks,
Tim

Looks terrific. Thanks!  :)  :)

Yes. For additive compounds that is quicker. Thank you. For more complex I'll still have go the old route but that is much less common.
 
As you point out, however, I will still have to ungroup afterwards which in the case of discontiguous layers will change layer order which will then need restoring. Still pretty painful. I am amazed there appears to be no simple route for something so basic. 
 
A gentleman using Affinity
Thought selections should have addability.
But the harder he tried
The more it denied
Him this simple and basic facility.
 

I can't quite agree with the force of Orphyidian's complaint ........ but I can agree with the principle.

For whatever reason I do find AP's interface harder to read than PS. I am using CS6 and I think it has an exemplary interface. I find the CC interface rather primitive and less comprehensible by comparison. There is no doubt in my mind that AP's interface is, by far, the most subtle and attractive but sadly, for me, it is too subtle. It lacks clarity and contrast for my less than perfect vision. It is one of the reasons that, despite my longing to love it, I find AP more tiring to use than PS. For example the simple difference between selected and unselected tools could be much clearer. Such things should not be subtle they should be instantly and effortlessly evident! Good interface should not be about subtle and beautiful - it should be, first and foremost about legibility. There has been a lot of of brouhaha about the new light interface solving this for critics such as I. I am sorry, I don't subscribe to this! I don't want a light interface, I want a clearly legible dark one!
 
Its wonderful that AP is so stylish looking, but the interface is a key element in usability and I am tempted to suggest that the design of AP's interface is one of form over function instead of form deriving from function. It gives me the impression that it was developed by designers sitting in semi darkened rooms specifically adapted for long hours in front of the screen. User life isn't like that! We have to be ready to use your app in a wide variety of less than ideal circumstances. A 'good' interface should be ready to cope with that, even if it means sacrificing elegance for brutal functionality.

The examples posted by Orphydian are pretty brutal and dry - but they are instantly and clearly readable in a way that I would find very hard to ascribe to AP's interface.

Somewhere between the two there surely must be a proper compromise ............ ?
 
I fully appreciate that we are discussing probably the single most completely subjective aspect of AP here. So my opinion is little less than that - completely subjective. But I have sincerely tried to be objective in my comments and I do genuinely believe that Serif might better serve their customers by prioritising clarity before style.

I find I definitely go through personality change when I speak French or English. I am English by birth but worked a lot in France and have for the last fourteen years lived in Brussels, Belgium. Like you I learned by ear. When speaking English I use body language less and vocabulary more - in French the reverse. This to some degree reflects the physical structure of the languages. French has less vocabulary and more intonation whereas English relies much more on play of words. But language is a mirror of the culture that created it and so I find my actual mindset changes according to which I am speaking. I have two perfectly bi-lingual French/English sons and they switch back and forth from one sentence to the next with no discernible reason or logic other than some things can be better expressed in one and some in the other. The switch however, they tell me, is completely unconscious and instinctive. Often they don't even realise they are doing it. Brussels, as the capital of Europe, established in a country that itself speaks two languages, has a multi national population representing just about every European language. It is common at a dinner part of as few as half a dozen people to have several languages batting back and forth across the table at the same time and we all take it completely for granted. I think language is the best gift we can give our children .........

How's that for off topic .......... ? 

Thanks for linking the interesting article. Interesting, but I'm not sure about its conclusions based on my personal observations on the subject.
 
I speak four languages:  English, French, Spanish and Russian, none of which I studied, but just, somehow, picked up. Spanish and Russian were my first languages. My parents were Russian and we lived in Mexico so I was immersed in both.  I picked up English when we moved to the States; I was about 12. Other than ordinary "English" classes in public school, etc.   I never studied the language per se. I was given a trip to France as a High School graduation present.  When I arrived in France I couldn't count to three in the language.  But then I met a girl.  She spoke no English whatsoever, so I learned French on the pillow, as the French would say.  My current wife of 54 years is French and perfectly bilingual with English.  At home we sometimes speak French, other times English, but it has become so automatic that I would be unable to tell you why we break into one language rather than the other, at times it has to do with the subject being discussed, at other times I really don't know.  As for having different cognitive skills and/or different manifestations of personality in one language or another I would be unable to say.  My father spoke 8 languages, so perhaps genetics enters the picture, but who knows?
 
I only wish I could pick up Affinity as easily. 

Sadly there is no cylindrical distort filter so mesh as detailed above is the only option. Pity because it's rather fiddly and tedious. I find this strange because there is a spherical warp filter and a cylindrical warp is the same geometry applied to a single axis. I put in a feature request long ago to have this added to the spherical warp filter. No idea if anyone has taken it seriously. From a totally ignorant armchair view I can't believe it would be hard to code. Keeping my fingers crossed for next release.

Some might say the German is more appropriate ..........  :rolleyes:

Some might say the German is more appropriate ..........  :rolleyes:

Personally, I pay almost no attention to the style of tool & toolbar icons. All i care about is if they are easy to tell apart, easy to associate with their purpose, & are not so overwhelming or garish that they become a distraction. I much prefer "traditional" icons that meet those criteria (like the hand, pointer, & paint bucket) over "reinvented" ones that someone else has decided look more stylish, modern, or trendy.
 
I believe form should follow function, not fashion, particularly in apps targeting professional markets.

Yes. Very good point. I have allowed myself to be seduced into the wrong argument. I have no problems with the icons. I really don't care if they are stylish, or modern or old fashioned. To this extent I agree with Nezumi that we should be using the app and not agonising over the stylishness or otherwise of its icons.
 
But I do care deeply whether those icons are legible, whether they tell me instantly and effortlessly what I am selecting and using, or whether I am struggling to read them. In this respect it not the icons as such that give me difficulty, but the low contrast of the interface of which they are part. They are, to me personally, not as nearly clear as they could be. This is not their intrinsic design,. It is their implementation within the general UI which to me lacks clarity. To my mind the key reason for this is poor contrast. When I work at night in darker ambient light this is not a problem. But when I have to work in brighter ambient circumstances (especially on the move with my laptop) then I have real problems with legibility.
 
'Nuff said .......  ;)

So far I have done a few photo corrections and basic extract, cut and paste in AFP and was sufficiently impressed to decide to invest some time and effort into trying to learn AFP to a usable standard.
 
This is my first attempt to produce an image entirely in AFP. I can't pretend it wasn't very frustrating at times. One of AFP's most amazing features, the way it stacks and nests layers, masks, adjustments, is very powerful and subtle, but it's also the most difficult to get your head around. You have to forget anything you learned elsewhere and learn a quite different approach and philosophy.  :unsure:
 
This simple image contains no photographic elements at all. It is 'painted' entirely in AFP using pen, brush, Layer FX, and some noise. That's it. Just the very basics. Given that my next best passion after photo manipulation and creation is my kitchen and cooking, I thought a foodie subject would be appropriate. I broke an egg into a non stick pan put it beside my monitor and created the image from life just as one would a traditional still life painting. This is very unusual for me as I normally work photographically, but it seemed a good way to get to grips with some of the tools.
 
Can't pretend to be entirely happy but no one should be ashamed of first attempts, that's how we learn ............ and I learned a LOT by doing this.  :)
 
I shall definitely be persevering further.
 
David Mac

Difficulty is it's very hard to see what's going with AF macros as there is no real way to debug. The history palette shows only the macro name and not the steps, and the macro recorder/player has no single step debug function. I love the way the AF macro recorder can handle Dialogues but in other respects (no multiple layer select, no functional cut, copy, paste, and numerous other basic steps) it still has a way to go. Lets hope this is one of the major improvements in the next release.

Difficulty is it's very hard to see what's going with AF macros as there is no real way to debug. The history palette shows only the macro name and not the steps, and the macro recorder/player has no single step debug function. I love the way the AF macro recorder can handle Dialogues but in other respects (no multiple layer select, no functional cut, copy, paste, and numerous other basic steps) it still has a way to go. Lets hope this is one of the major improvements in the next release.

I not very good at macros yet but, if you want to add steps at the beginning, couldn't you write a tiny macro which performs those steps and then calls the original macro?
 
Not sure if you can do that but it seems worth a try?

 

I not very good at macros yet but, if you want to add steps at the beginning, couldn't you write a tiny macro which performs those steps and then calls the original macro?
 
Not sure if you can do that but it seems worth a try?