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Yes, please make this a thing. It's really frustrating not being able to correctly align objects because of the extra space as shown in Wickster's examples. A permanent reset of the bounding box should absolutely be a feature for Affinity Designer.

??
Begging your pardon, Mark, but quite often my purposes for resetting a bounding box is to permanently reorient the selection to its current state. I dare say you'll have the same argument  with decades of Illustrator users, because that program's Reset Bounding Box command is used all the time and it is only permanent; it can't be "restored" to the orientation in which the object was originally created (unless, of course, you reverse the transformation(s) performed and then Reset Bounding Box again).
The "extra space" bounds which Wickster illustrates is also a stumbling block, (and I don't mean in the context of live text).
Yes, I appreciate that Affinity is able to "remember" its untransformed orientation. But it's just as common to need the object to forget its original orientation, and thereafter treat its new orientation as normal.
JET

It does affect the bounds in some way. Attached is one of the examples where it affects the bounding box of a group. To replicate it, unskew an italic text by skewing it (or create a parallelogram and then skew it to be square) and you will see that it keeps its old bounding box, even though there isn't part of the object in that space. I hope this better explains it.
 

+1
This is a frequently requested feature.
Workaround:
Arrows.afbrushes Arrows.afdesign

Arrows.mp4

It seems that when applying a gradient to the stroke of a curve, the gradient has nothing to do with the beginning and end of the curve. Rather, Designer is applying some sort of overall shape gradient and ignoring the start and end of the stroke. It is a confounding Design choice to have it setup that way. Brush width/taper honors the curve as do so many other things. So I would assume a stroke gradient would honor the curve, not some other interpreted shape.
Proper gradient progression is essential for infographics. If I can't illustrate the progression of a path using a gradient, so many options go out the window. Initially I thought this was a bug, but I was told this was by design. Honestly it makes no sense to me. When applying a gradient to a stroke on a curve, I would expect the gradient to show progression from beginning to end of the path. When applying a gradient to a layer, I would expect perhaps the behavior that I'm seeing.  
Here is an example. After creating a path, I tried to use a gradient to show progression from beginning to end of the path. I would expect white to start the curve and black to end the curve. But this is not what happens. The curve begins and ends in the middle of the screen. Designer ignores the path progression and interprets some sort of shape mask over the curve. Effectively Designer is applying some sort of overall shape gradient rather than a gradient based on the start and end of the stroke. This is useless to show progression on a complex path. I would not have been surprised if this were a gradient applied as a layer effect; but the gradient was set as the stroke on the curve itself. 
Attached you can see a screen shot of a cross country trail I was marking. You'll notice that the trail begins and ends in the middle. The gradient is applied as the stroke color. Since the beginning and end of the curve are near each other and Designer doesn't start white at the start of the curve and go to red at the end of the curve, the result is unexpected and unhelpful. 
I would very much appreciate this minor change and I'm guessing a bunch of infographic designers would as well. Any technical process illustration could benefit from having a gradient honor the curve when it is applied as a stroke to that curve.

Currently, Select Same is great. However it seeks the entire document, across artboards, everything. I typically only want to grab files in specific part of the layer/group hierarchy. The UI issue is, how does a user specify 'where' the Select Same should look? Below is an idea I had for this.
 


So, this lets a user specify the Select Same to only look in the parent of the currently held object.
>What if a red object is inside a group, then a layer, then an artboard? Does it look inside just the first level parent? I'm not too sure.
Maybe we default to artboard, since this is an explicit work area separate from other content. Groups and layers tend to be used together in one design, and Select Same's entire point is to blast through all the structure. So, maybe 'Select Same inside artboard' is a good middleground of powerful and simple.

please for the love of Spaghetti can we get this in iPad and MacOS versions of AD. please please please!

Related

A lack of a roadmap (before anyone asks, I know why it was removed) or a priority list (what I’d prefer) does not give clear communication to anyone on the outside looking in. There’s no reasoning as to why certain features are/aren’t made, what milestones to get to certain features, why development seems slow, etc. There’s a lot of “We’re listening!” but not a lot of “Here’s what we’re up to/no longer up to and why.” So much of communication is just about being transparent.
I don’t care if they veto some popular request so long as we’re not left guessing as to why. And without a central place to discuss this (like a roadmap of sorts – you don’t even need to give out dates!) the same requests are going to keep popping up. 

Adobe used to sell perpetual student licenses: I paid $600 for the student version of the design bundle CS4, and that was acceptable for commercial work. But I noticed something odd: the new versions from then on didn't add much new features. Maybe one good new feature in Photoshop per year, and that's fine because most of it is backwards compatible. But InDesign would totally break compatibility. Illustrator too, if you actually use one of the major features every release.
Fact is if you made something in InDesign years ago and your business switched to a continual license, you will no longer be able to use the perpetual software anymore. Something you totally got incorrect, Adobe is forcing people into subscribing to software that used to be sold for a one-time fee. And do the programs work better? No. 90% of what I use in Photoshop and Illustrator I can get in Affinity, and most of the stuff I love about Affinity, Photoshop and Illustrator were never and will never be able to do. Adobe is grandfathered in from decades of being an industry leader, but at this very moment they aren't leading. I updated Photoshop and lost features, how are they still in the lead? Only because everyone uses them. Only because InDesign files totally break compatibility with older versions, even within the CC suite. Adobe was a leader with perpetual software for years without issue, now all of a sudden you're telling me there will be issues with perpetual software. WOW. FYI, I purchased Affinity a year ago, the whole suite for $75, and I'm still getting free updates without issue. Adobe would never.
The problem is everyone considers Adobe the default, and it shouldn't be that way. CS6 brought content aware fill nearly a decade ago: that was the last major improvement to Photoshop. A free plugin for GIMP. Now their best new feature is neural filters, inferior to Affinity in every way. The only other changes beyond that were decrements, some of which brought the program to a screeching halt. Adobe plateaued in an industry that is continuing to tower over their shoulders. Respect should be given to those who earn it, and Adobe 100% totally lost mine. If Affinity gets support for actions, plugins, and fixes a few of the workflow issues, they absolutely will destroy Adobe. Like I said, professionally, I don't really need much. Professionals need Adobe mainly because other professionals use Adobe. Not because the program is totally superior. The Adobe house is falling. Once Affinity's few issues are fixed, designers will realize they need to get out of the sinking house and get a new one. I wouldn't mind paying $200 per program if it can totally replace Adobe. It does 90% what we need it to do. But that remaining 10% is the problem. Affinity is not there yet, but I really want them to be. My side business is 100% Affinity and it's been a really good experience.

Hello forum,
Just purchased the product and overall it is excellent. That said, it is missing a genuinely needed option within cropping. This being the ability to lock/align the cropping tool to the center of the image so that when you click and drag from the left; the right also crops to the same amount, and like wise from top to bottom. Most importantly to me is the need to crop from a corner and for all other points to move the same amount (whilst being locked at the center) framing the image equally and effectively.
I believe although do not fully remember that to do something similar in the overly priced competitor of affinity photo is by holding down alt (or maybe it was shift, but not both together) whilst cropping.
For now i am manually center cropping by adding/taking away the x and y value to achive an equal border.
Thanks

I would like the option to have the light ui on my iPad AD. If this is a redundant ask then please close.  I searched and did not find any requests for this—which makes me fear my request puts me in the minority (or my search skills are rusty)

A new update to fix functional errors and problems.
But unfortunately, functional errors and problems that have been reported in the forum for more than a year have still not been corrected.
The best example is the incorrect calculations with the Divide function from Geometry, when you want to divide several superimposed shapes (especially more curved shapes). And if the shapes have additional strokes, these are separated from the shapes and become their own elements, which even with too many overlays become individual fragments of a contour.
Desktop 2021.08.29 - 16.58.45.01.mp4

iPads do not have any UI that is used to surface features of the tools you’re using, unlike the bottom bar that surfaces commands on desktop. AD is powerful but many users could miss features without better surfacing by the UI. For example, I know I can do shear transforms on objects with my iPad but it is incredibly difficult to figure out how. In contrast, shear transforms are very easy to figure out on desktop largely because there are tooltips which tell you how. Additionally, holding the ? does nothing to help clarify what the small buttons on the bottom toolbars do.
A different but related topic, concerning the lack of tool descriptions on iPad:
 
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/62451-ipad-description-of-all-tools/&do=findComment&comment=602824

The split view mode element is not part of the document, and should be able to be interacted with (dragged) by touch. Since i have TfGO enabled, I want my fingers to be the main form of interaction with the UI, and my Pencil to be the main form of interaction with the content. The issue here is that 1. The UI overlaps with the content, and 2. I don't want my Pencil to be used for adjusting UI, especially not while it overlaps with content.
Simple sketch document for reference. Now imagine doing the same interaction with a complex file.

When text is converted to curves, each letter becomes an unnamed layer. 
I would prefer to have the layers named from the converted letter for being more easily identified.
If there are reasons to let the layers unnamed, there should be an option (checkbox, submenu) to choose whether to name the new layers.
At least for english letters this should be easy, but could be equally easy for all letters as unicode characters (if there is a character in the UI font).
And the layer names could be even more detailed, which might be useful especially for non english character and ligatures and punctuation characters, maybe as another option, f. i. like "A (65) (U+0041) Latin Capital letter A" or at least like "A - Latin Capital letter A". The Unicode character names might be the simplest (and probably best) way for good names (except latin characters which can be easily read when seen as UI font).

I don't know about you, but I find it necessary/must to add the indication right before each box. If that makes the user's life much easier then why not adding them!

As well as rotations. For example, in some cases this will save hours of work.
 

So if in this sense the scaling behavior is similar to the Illustrator behavior, then this is a pretty strong argument that the Affinity behavior is not wrong, obscure, preposterous, etc. 
But of course, that in no way invalidates the usefulness of adding an additional feature that allows setting each selected item's width and/or height to the same value.
Maybe this could be implemented in the UI by adding a "Scale" checkbox or button to the context toolbar in addition to the Transform Objects Separately button? I think I would rather see it there than in the Transform panel. What do you think?

Hi.  
First off, I love your Photo/Designer/Publisher studio platform. It really is awesome, but it needs some simple tweaks so that I am not interrupted in my workflow.
I have been wanting (and expecting) some updates.  I need user definable preferences.  Here I am, I have around 80 comic characters to get ready in Designer for Publisher, and I only want to save the selected area (not the 8.5" x 11" document).  I run Photo to crop because I don't think the crop tool is working in Designer.  It says there is a new version, I download and install it.  I was running 1.9.2 Photo, Designer & Publisher. Now I have 1.10 Photo and I cannot "Edit in Photo" as usual probably because they aren't the same version?  
So, I have already started this project and I have 20 SVG cartoon characters loaded in Designer.  I work around it and export the selected area (the illustration layer) to SVG (even though I would rather have the right sized  AFDesigner file).  But every single time I have to change the Export drop-down from "Whole Document" to "Selected Area", over and over again.  I look at this screen and wonder why?  If I last saved it with Selected Area, and I am doing this 80 times, why is it always showing "Whole Document" selected in Export?
If I could select that "Selected Area" was always selected for these big mineal, labor intensive jobs, that would save me a lot of wasted time. And it's just me here, I have no employees, so I have to do the crappy work, too.
This is not the only one, either.  In Photoshop I was always resizing stuff down for the web. If I wanted to keep the same aspect ratio, I am resizing the image.  If I need to crop strange parts off (I do this a whole heckuva lot) like fingertips in front of the lense or the nix the tree-line on a nice sky or sunset, I will resize the canvas according to the pixel number of the guide I use to measure exactly where those pixels are gone (no, I do not want to paint, smudge, clone or heal anything, I do this quickly all the time and need to I am simply giving a simple example).  So I enter the right size of the edge I want to eliminate in the box in the resize canvas, and the stupid chain link isn't clicked and I have to reset everything, disturbing my workflow.
If I can set whether or not the image resize and the canvas resize do or do not scale the image in a preferences file, when I am doing 80 different photos I don't get upset because it doesn't work how I believe it should.
Don't get me wrong, you guys have great products, much, much better than Photoshop, for sure, light years ahead of indesign (what a damn mess).  But I need to work a little faster and each cartoon character line drawing is a different size, each photo can maintain the aspect ratio I need in Publisher with a picture frame, I am just cutting out garbage.  I have 80 things to do, and each different, so even a bulk action won't help (although I want to be able to script stuff, too, that's not my repeat issue.
Each line illustration, whether character, cartoon or font is different, it has to be, and I need a much better work flow.  There are so many preferences I want to edit and can't, that if I could set them, then I would not run into a brick wall in my work flow and wonder why, I would just be able to continue and save.  
I have lots of things about your suite I want to suggest, but as I have another 40 of 80 line drawn illustrated characters to straighten out before I can even use them in Publisher, I have a lot to do...  I'll tell you about it when I run into it next time.
More robust Prefs, PLEASE!

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

A lack of a roadmap (before anyone asks, I know why it was removed) or a priority list (what I’d prefer) does not give clear communication to anyone on the outside looking in. There’s no reasoning as to why certain features are/aren’t made, what milestones to get to certain features, why development seems slow, etc. There’s a lot of “We’re listening!” but not a lot of “Here’s what we’re up to/no longer up to and why.” So much of communication is just about being transparent.
I don’t care if they veto some popular request so long as we’re not left guessing as to why. And without a central place to discuss this (like a roadmap of sorts – you don’t even need to give out dates!) the same requests are going to keep popping up. 

Exactly. But since making the most money possible is also something most professionals strive for, finding alternatives for Illustrator is a question often being asked. And for most of them, AD in its current state is not an alternative. That's what I meant.  
BTW, I'm in the same boat as you, still using (dated) versions of Corel's and Adobe's apps, which I have bought a permanent licence for (permanent -> as long as my system/OS will allow me to use them, of course). I honestly wish I could do everything in affinity apps for my work as I like their "look & feel", but I can't. Or sometimes I don't want to as it'd require time intensive workarounds.
And the vast majority of those don't make their living with any of those artworks, I guess. So, irrelevant for this discussion about working professional in the meaning of "making you living with the work". Furthermore, I wonder, how many of those examples, who actually make their living with it, have made use of vector distortion, warp, blend or vector brushes in their works. In this case, you just confirmed my point. As creating the same in AD would take a lot longer, hence isn't optimal at all. 
In my eyes, Serif needs to decide where it wants to go with designer. Surpassing Adobe is almost impossible unless you invest millions (we had that discussion somewhere else in these fora already). So, they seem to target at the ethusiastic hobbyists and the "artsy" sectors of vector design. Unfortunately, there's a lot of competition in this sector en par with Affinity's price levels and most of the time surpassing Affinity's apps in fuctions and features.
 

I 'm not sure it's "nannying" to provide a simple indication next to these boxes in the same way as in the Transform tab. Maybe, for consistency, those should be removed!
 
Bluntly this is just being silly, it's not about which way x and y (or H and W) go, it's about which of two boxes to put the information in. Yes you can easily work it out, but it just makes life a little easier for some of us, and I really can't see what harm it would do anyone else.

For panning for example it would much more efficient if the panning action doesn't stop at the screen / scene borders. It should continue and the mouse cursor jumps to the opposite side. This technique could be used on certain different aspects inside designer.