pier

When is isolation mode going to be implemented?

Selecting stuff on the layer panes is a waste of time.

Working with layers is extremely tedious.

Working with groups and isolation mode is 10x faster.
 
You can edit a group in isolation mode with literally 1 double click. No need to use shortcuts, modifiers, or waste time in the layers panel.

I'm still amazed isolation mode is not in the roadmap. I've been using vector software since Corel Draw 4 (back in the 90s) and isolation mode is by far one of the most useful features ever introduced in the vector workflow.

I agree with the others. This is as essential as being able to create a group. I simply can't use Designer without this.

Hey MEB
As mentioned many times in this thread over the years, this feature is essential. It's not a nice-to-have. Designer is basically unusable for some people without being able to work properly with groups.
How many of those "million"  feature requests make the software unusable for your paying customers? This should be the number one priority on your roadmap, and it's not even there.

Working with layers is extremely tedious.

Working with groups and isolation mode is 10x faster.
 
You can edit a group in isolation mode with literally 1 double click. No need to use shortcuts, modifiers, or waste time in the layers panel.

I'm still amazed isolation mode is not in the roadmap. I've been using vector software since Corel Draw 4 (back in the 90s) and isolation mode is by far one of the most useful features ever introduced in the vector workflow.

@Mountainking that's not really isolation mode but hiding other layers.
 
At this point I have lost all faith in Designer. Even if this feature has been asked by many users, for years, it's not even in the roadmap.
 
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/842-affinity-designer-feature-roadmap/
 
Reading the roadmap thread it seems all progress in Designer is stalled. What a shame, it was a promising project.

@Mountainking that's not really isolation mode but hiding other layers.
 
At this point I have lost all faith in Designer. Even if this feature has been asked by many users, for years, it's not even in the roadmap.
 
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/842-affinity-designer-feature-roadmap/
 
Reading the roadmap thread it seems all progress in Designer is stalled. What a shame, it was a promising project.

Is this ever going to be implemented?

@Herbert123 Thanks for the detailed response and explanation.
 
 
I think that both modes are useful. In web and UI design, it is often important to see the surrounding design context when working in isolation on a particular group, so I greatly prefer "in-place" isolation mode as I described it above, editing in the same window with other objects grayed-out but still visible. I can also see the use case to edit nested objects (of a group, symbol, or embedded/smart object) in a separate window.
 
I think that both modes should be available via contextual menu. However, I use in-place isolation mode very often, and from an HCI perspective, double-click is the fastest way to go from locating an object with the pointer and entering isolation mode. Adding a keystroke or contextual menu drag only makes the action more complicated and frustrating for users who do it all the time.
 
But I understand that some users such as yourself don't appreciate having isolation mode bound to double-click, so that should be configurable via Preferences (either a simple checkbox to enable control isolation mode via double-click, or a selector to choose whether double-click controls isolation mode, some other action, or nothing at all).
 
 
That's also a cool feature, but it's very different (and to me, less useful) from the isolation mode requested in this thread. For those of us who use isolation mode often, it's important to manage a hierarchy of nested groups one level at a time. For example, I can group a few objects into a cell, and then group a few cells into a row, and then group a few rows into a table, and group a few buttons outside the table into another row, and group that row with the other table, and group that relative to some other page elements, and so on. And then I can use double-click to traverse in and out of this hierarchy, keeping sub-groups grouped and nudging or resizing their contents together. Your proposal for a way to reach deep into a hierarchy to select individual objects may also be useful at times, but I rely on the ability to manage subgroups and maintain the relative size and position of their contents, so resizing or repositioning individual objects at the bottom of the hierarchy is a much less common use case for me.

Isolation mode is very important. Layers and cmd-shift-click are poor substitutes, and frankly, the lack of isolation mode makes it difficult for me to take Affinity Designer seriously. Several design programs (Freehand, Canvas, IntelliDraw, and others) have had this since the '90s.
 
Here's how it should work:
 
1. Double-click the group to enter isolation on its objects. All other objects on the page should be redrawn with their opacity multiplied by 50%, and the corresponding rows for those objects in the Layers panel should also be drawn at 50% opacity, to indicate that those objects are not editable in the current isolation mode.
2. Select, edit, delete the objects in the isolated group, or draw new objects, which will immediately become part of the isolated group.
3. Double-click a nested group to isolate its objects.
4. Double-click outside the objects of the currently isolated group to exit ("go back") one level of isolation. After isolating a nested group, going back once should bring you back to isolating the parent group. If there is no parent group, then you exit isolation mode completely and return to editing the entire document.
 
This should be straightforward to implement with a stack of isolation mode contexts, each indicating an isolated group, in progressive order of nesting. Selection tools will need to check for membership in the current isolated group (last context added to the isolation stack). Other tools will need to create new objects within the current isolated group. The renderer will need to draw objects outside the isolated group with multiplicative 50% opacity.
 
It's important to note that isolation mode should have no effect on the layer or object metadata that gets saved on the document. It should not actually lock or unlock other layers or objects, nor change their actual opacity. It is merely an edit mode that isolates operations to the objects of the isolated group.
 
Several of the features added in 1.5 are superfluous compared to isolation mode as described here. Isolation mode should now become a top priority.

When is isolation mode going to be implemented?

Selecting stuff on the layer panes is a waste of time.

Hi JevoUK,
It depends on the shape. For example, in your post #12 you used an icon composed by two flat shapes and in that case it works if you use Divide. But if instead of a "filled" circle you had an outlined one (an expanded stroke), the Divide operation will break it in two circles, instead of keeping it as a "line". Check the file below:
 
icon.afdesign
 
- Select the compound shape, copy it and convert it to curves. Check the result.
- Then do another copy of the original, and go to menu Layer ▹ Geometry ▹ Divide. Check the result.
As you can see the Divide operation breaks the original geometry in its basic elements, while converting it to paths from a compound shape keep the "original" geometry intact.

Any chance there's been an update/fix on guides moving with their assigned artboard? My UI work is quite hampered at the moment from that still. :(

I just discovered that to edit a text object inside a group you have to actually open such group (and nested groups).

For me this makes AD unusable for making UI/Websites. The time and clicks wasted on opening groups and nested groups to edit a simple text is ridiculous. You should be able to press T for the text tool, and click on any text object to edit it.
 
I don't want to sound harsh but I don't understand how you guys can be working on bigger fancy features without having the basics like this (or the eye dropper tool) covered.

I absolutely concur with your quick assessment of AD…
 
I've said as much many times in the forums: while AD probably satisfies a huge crowd of digital vector illustrators, it's still not up to spec for designers, which is a bit ironic since that means Illustrator is the best tool for graphic design, and Designer the best tool for illustration.
 
Selection and object manipulation is, obviously, a big part of that.
 
For instance: for all its smartness in snapping, I just wanted to be able to choose *which* nodes to drag from (I always have to select them manually, or by pressing Command+A with the Node tool or some other drag-to-select shenanigans, whereas in Ai I only have to select an object with the Selection tool, press Command – and that only if I wish to drag from a corner which coincides with the resizing handle –, pick a node and drag it to the node to which I want to snap it) and forgo smart snapping entirely. Most of the time I know exactly what I want to achieve, but sometimes I either have to resort to convoluted shortcuts or to rely on an impossible and useless “smartness” (especially in documents with lots of nodes). In fact, I think the best possible snapping behaviour, sometimes (especially for very complex artwork with lots of nodes), would be the old Smart Guides from Illustrator CS3, which only spawned after touching a particular node and gave a much finer, more manual control of snapping operations. Ai CS4 got a bit to “smart” about snapping and actually made Smart Guides harder to use, since they will spawn to whichever nodes are visible on the screen.
 
The same goes for the “dragging with preview” instead of “dragging outlines” (you know, like the difference between the window dragging behaviour of OS X and that of Mac OS Classic); since that can actually be useful when duplicating by dragging (which is another behaviour that irks me; undoing just reverts the dragging operation and leaves a duplicate in place… why??), because it serves as, you know, a more useable preview that could very well be a toggleable behaviour right in the largely unpopulated Control bar…
 
For all these little nags, though, there are a lot of revolutionary concepts and nifty tools, as you said. But those are the kind that Serif should guard from their competitors while they tick all the other boxes because, on that note…
 
 
In fact, while I do agree that most of Serif's choices have been sound, I think you've got it backwards when it comes to priorities, sorry. :\ I've installed some CC apps recently (I know… I can neither confirm nor deny that I've subscribed to CC, and only installed those because I applied for a job in a professional design school and was afraid of falling behind), gave a quick look to Illustrator CC just now and was a bit dismayed to see that Adobe already copied AD's Corner tool, and even managed to integrate it nicely and intuitively into the Direct Selection tool…
 
Their approach is a bit different, however: the original vertex becomes invisible – though it is restorable, but then you lose the corner radius – and the newly-created nodes are actually selectable and snappable, whereas in AD it's the exact opposite. Also, in Ai like in AD, you can adjust corners in concert or individually, but you can also do both in succession (as in adjusting an individual corner first and after that readjusting all corners equally from their current standing), whereas if you try to do that in AD, the Corner tool will reset any individual corner settings and readjust them equally from scratch. If AD is to regain gain the [absolute] functional high ground as far as this particular tool is concerned [Edit: Actually, it still has the functional high ground in one regard: Corners edited in Affinity are always persistent and editable until converted to curves regardless of which object they were added to, whereas in Ai, they are only persistent in rounded rectangles, so, kudos to Serif and a big fat booh to Adobe; the latter fail even at implementing copied features properly :rolleyes: ], it will already have both to match the ability to set corners both individually and in concert without resets *and* allow both vertices and new nodes to be selectable and snappable… and that brings us again to the basics of node selection, snapping, live rendering vs. outline previews, etc.
 
So, you can already see the effects of the lurking I was talking about. It kind of saddens me to be right, sometimes, but I'm dead sure that if it wasn't for Affinity (or for a huuuuge coincidence, but, like Obi Wan Kenobi, I don't believe in such things :P ), the CC crowd wouldn't have gotten this nicety to play with. If I were on Serif's team, I would seriously reconsider that “novel feature” strategy (especially those “easier” to implement) and prioritize basic feature/UX parity and cross-platform compatibility ASAP, lest Adobe sucks out all reasons to switch for people who aren't that pissed at them, because the fact of the matter is that AD is already *almost* good enough to compete on a level field, nab a lot of Windows users right now (from Adobe, from Corel, from Quark very soon and don't forget about the Plus crowd…) and set itself as a new, true standard even while missing some advanced features (like, say, 3D… I've used those in Illustrator a few times, but they are super clunky and feel kind of grafted on hastily on an obviously 2D engine, so if I ever have to do 3D stuff again I'll probably resort to a full-blown 3D package instead) or not having that many *unique* features (I mean… They have already proven to be very creative and technically proficient, so their promise alone of new features atop a modern base would already be more credible than Adobe's vague and false intentions of providing “constant updates”).
 
Affinity has a faster, slicker, more modern engine under the hood, and that is already impressive and extremely difficult to replicate without breaking compatibility with older file formats. We all know that Adobe is lazy and won't bother with that unless outright forced to… And many of their users are lazy and conservative, too; they won't bother to switch (and convert huge numbers of files in the process) if the only thing they gain is a bit more performance, a better UI and better interoperability (something which even Adobe may get right one day). That's why I think that throwing new tools out there for the competition to copy, before reaching basic feature-parity and being able to compete on a level field, could be suicidal in the medium term. :(
 
I am so very sorry about insisting on the urgency of a Windows port; I am constantly reminded of my early years of Mac evangelism back in 2004, when I tried to convince people who absolutely didn't have the financial means to buy or interest in Macs, out of sheer survival instinct (and belief that it was a superior choice software-wise, obviously, though the hardware was severely underperforming at times because of the discrepancies between PowerPC and x86, especially during the great wait for the PowerBook G5 that never came, and that kind of made me a bit of an “embarassed evangelist”). The turning point was, indeed, the switch to Intel… Many in the community cried foul before, during and after the switch, because the Mac would cease to be as “unique” and “exclusive” as it used to, but the fact is that Apple managed to make that transition without much fuss or loss of users (whichever users defected were largely offset by switchers, but I'm willing to bet not many went to the PC camp… Since Macs became more affordable and powerful, why would they?), and the rest is history.
 
I, for one, eventually ceased actively evangelizing people or fearing for the future of the platform; after the switch, from 2006 to 2012 (and beyond, but I'm just recounting my experience as a Machead and, later, during a two-year stint as the Mac room monitor at my Faculty), my colleagues actually came to me, at first, to ask whether it was a good idea to buy a Mac, then they had already decided on buying one and asked which model was the best for them, then they had already decided on which model but just wanted to check first with me, and finally they started showing up unannounced, at first trickling in and then in droves, at the Mac room with brand new Macs, asking me for software and technical advice. Now *that's* what I call a transition…
 
I know that considering a Windows port of Affinity as Serif's “Intel switch” moment is a bit of an exaggeration and would entail a bigger investment relatively (since it wouldn't be a transition, but a new commitment adding to the current one, and done by a much smaller company, mind you), but it would have an equivalent effect, Mac userbase's opinions be damned (I know that I'm referring to almost everyone in this forum, and I'm sorry for being this blunt, but business strategy is just like that and facts are facts… And it also think that whoever is afraid of some terrible fragmentation, UI/UX inconsistencies or an unacceptable slowing down in development because of a Windows port/branch is not giving Serif enough credit, IMHO).
 
I certainly feel the exact same way now as I did in 2004: going up against the 800lb gorilla, trying to stir up a grassroots movement without really having yet a leg to stand on (but with a firm conviction nonetheless that I'm doing the right thing), and think we would all gain from being more than an underground niche; for starters, we would never get strange looks from someone if we sent them .af* files without checking or if we put them on identity packages, press kits, etc. (we don't even think of doing that currently, now, do we?) and could do last-minute tweaks at the printing shop without lugging our MacBooks around. And, above all, we would definitely stop being afraid of seeing our suite of choice losing out features and users to you-know-what-company (sure, there would be copying and switching between both sides, like with Apple and Microsoft, but the status quo would be much better for everyone here).
 
By the way, for those Mac users afraid of losing that warm fuzzy feeling of exclusivity, Serif could maybe restrict synchronization between the desktop and iOS versions of Affinity to the Mac (maybe using iCloud Drive? I mean, who here doesn't fully expect that kind of feature from Affinity for iOS?). PCs, of course, wouldn't pose a challenge, since the Surface Pro and other tablet-like PCs run the full version of Windows anyway… And, quite frankly, very elaborate cross-platform cloud solutions and collaboration schemes wouldn't really be necessary for the time being (in fact, apart from TypeKit, I don't really think they are all that useful, and are mostly just “features” hyped by Adobe as being the best invention since sliced bread… not); I don't think that Serif will be aiming at the ultra-high-end market of large corporations with tens or hundreds of seats for the foreseeable future, and that's just fine the way it is. Schools, maybe, because they are an instrumental market in attracting new users, but those are not hugely collaborative environments (except for smaller groups, of course), and computer laboratories are usually standardized on one platform and sometimes even on one model/brand/supplier anyway.

AD is my main app for illustration. But a lot of things can't be done today. My AI is always opened for specific tasks : spirals, gradient with shapes, offset with shapes, all the deformation tools (twirl, twist, bend, etc).
 
Many little things are missing : In AI, when you move a point of a shape, we can see the old shape until we release the mouse button. It's very handy when you must follow a line who is not horizontal or vertical. IN AD, we are blind.
We can't align points in horizontal or vertical just by typing 0 in Transform menu.
The center point works only with rotation, not with scale or mirror. It's a great lack.
 
What I hate in AD : selecting objects is not effective enough. It's my main waste of time.
Why Deselect (cmd D) doesn't work ?
 
I would like to see in the scene manager (layers) the same functions we can find in cinema4d (duplicate with CMD, search by name, open/close hierarchies, solo, objects visibility, etc).
 
What I love in AD : fx, adjustments, masks, corner tool, donut tool, square star tool, ultra speedy registrations, beautiful anti aliasing, elegant GUI.

+1

We need a proper eye dropper tool. The little eye dropper from the colour panel is quite rudimentary and limited.

Hey

I've been trying Designer and while it is very promising I think it lacks some fundamental features before it can be used in battle. I know some of these are coming in the future, but others are not.

Being able to use the space outside of the artboard
This is a huge deal. No artist or designer ever works in a confined space. We need to try things, compare, or maybe save some little thing for later.

Multiple artboards
This might not be a big deal for an illustrator, but it is for a designer (paper, UX, etc). Rarely projects span 1 single layout, and having all layouts on the same document is a big productivity boost because it allows to move and copy elements between pages. Of course this also comes handy when exporting multipage PDFs or printing, but it's not the main reason IMO.

Rotate workspace
Photoshop does this, but Illustrator does not. It's an essential feature for people that learned to draw on paper (like myself). Manga studio, Sketchbook, or Procreate which are the most used illustration apps also do this.

Shaper builder tool
While this is not an essential tool it has changed my vector workflow for the best since Adobe introduced it 2 or 3 years ago. It would be great to have something similar in Designer. This is it.
 
Eraser vector brush
Again, this is not essential, but it's a nice feature to shape objects with the tablet using pressure sensitivity.

And that's it. With Affinity Photo and Designer I can see myself moving away from Adobe for all my individual projects, and maybe some of my collaborative projects.

Good job guys

Hey

I've been trying Designer and while it is very promising I think it lacks some fundamental features before it can be used in battle. I know some of these are coming in the future, but others are not.

Being able to use the space outside of the artboard
This is a huge deal. No artist or designer ever works in a confined space. We need to try things, compare, or maybe save some little thing for later.

Multiple artboards
This might not be a big deal for an illustrator, but it is for a designer (paper, UX, etc). Rarely projects span 1 single layout, and having all layouts on the same document is a big productivity boost because it allows to move and copy elements between pages. Of course this also comes handy when exporting multipage PDFs or printing, but it's not the main reason IMO.

Rotate workspace
Photoshop does this, but Illustrator does not. It's an essential feature for people that learned to draw on paper (like myself). Manga studio, Sketchbook, or Procreate which are the most used illustration apps also do this.

Shaper builder tool
While this is not an essential tool it has changed my vector workflow for the best since Adobe introduced it 2 or 3 years ago. It would be great to have something similar in Designer. This is it.
 
Eraser vector brush
Again, this is not essential, but it's a nice feature to shape objects with the tablet using pressure sensitivity.

And that's it. With Affinity Photo and Designer I can see myself moving away from Adobe for all my individual projects, and maybe some of my collaborative projects.

Good job guys