V Silly

I am building guitars and need to draw outlines of shapes from which to create templates. The problem I am having is that the drawing tools are not at all intuitive for me. They don't do what I expect when I go to add points move points edit points etc. Affinity products do not seem at all intuitive to me coming from Adobe products. I just tried a program called Amadine after some hunting around following my first post. On the first try I was able to easily draw and edit shapes, so this may be the solution for me. I realize I have extremely low patience for the learning curve. Since I use the program only occasionally, anything I learn is long forgotten by the next time I need to draw a template. Thanks to everyone for your answers, I do appreciate your attempts to help :-)

Thank you for the encouraging words. I was hoping to find something where tool behaviors are very similar to illustrator so I could just jump right in. I do not have time or patience for taking a class considering the limited amount of use I put the program too. If I can't find anything that's an easy transition I will just forgo the computer and draw on paper but it would be nice to have a digital record of the designs.

I use vector drawing very occasionally to draw simple shapes as black and white line art. I used illustrator for 20 years. Every time I pull up Affinity Designer I am unable to execute even the most simple shapes. I watch and re-watch the tutorials and they don't help. I have so far been unable to find a simple application with commands and functions similar to the Adobe pen tool and path editing commands. Wondering if anyone here knows of a simple Mac program that would be an easier transition for an illustrator user?

Right color swap in the character panel seems to affect directly behind type only and does not change the color of the text box. The only way I have found to do this so far is to set the rectangle color prior to turning it into a text box.

I was actually trying to remove an unwanted background color, so I don't think an additional rectangle underneath would help in that case..

Well I found a workaround, I made a new rectangle and made sure the background color was transparent before turning it into a text box. So I guess I'm under control here although I still don't know how to change the color of an existing text box background. Thank you

I am in affinity designer. I went to studio menu but I do not see a selection for text frame. Thanks!

I created a text box and for some reason it came in by default with a gray background color. Using the color picker only seems to change text color. I found an old post that said go to the Character panel (menu Text ▹ Show Character, Background box) to change the color but I have been unable to find the character panel. I am unable to find a menu of the available tool panels. I expected them to be under the window menu but there is nothing under there. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thank you

Thank you, took another look and found them!

Hello folks, trying to export to another file format and the only option I am getting is PNG. Not sure why, when looking up file formats there is a long list a file types that affinity designer can export. The file I am trying to export is a very simple block type logo that I have converted to curves. Is it possible something about my file is making it incompatible with the export function? Thank you

I've almost got it but I'm a bit confused. I got the measurement to display, but then the next time it would not work. Do I need to have a particular tool selected in order for this to work? Do I need to select entire object or just part of the object? I was trying to measure the distance between two endpoints. One time I did it I got square boxes that lined up and showed me the measurement I was looking till four. Just tried it again with the same file and now I am not getting any measurements to show using the command key same as before ... thanks very much for the tips it's really helpful

So if what I really wanted was to change the size of the page I need to do it in document setup? Is the art board feature for a multi page document? Also is there a ruler tool to make measurements within the program? I have only found the eyedropper tool… Thank you

Here's one more thing that's baffling me. I redrew the art board and I can't seem to get out of art board mode. It says the word art board in the upper left corner and even when I select other tools it still seems to be in art board mode. ???

Yay so easy! Maybe I'll get the hang of this yet :-)

That was helpful, my confusion came from choosing close curves instead of join curves. So now I have joined the shapes, and I would like to remove the extra nodes which are selected in the screenshot below. In illustrator you would use the pen tool with the minus symbol to delete nodes from the path. How does this work in affinity designer? Thank you

Thank you very much for the pointer

Here is an example below of an issue. I have 2 separate shapes and I would like to join the path where the two different nodes are selected. I have not been able to figure out how to make the 2 paths join.

Hello folks, Long time illustrator user and trying to figure out how to use the pen tool and other drawing tools in affinity designer. Couple of questions from my last attempt at drawing some simple shapes. 1–how do I use the reflect tool to make a copy from one side of the drawing to the other side of the drawing so that it becomes a symmetrical object? I was not able to figure out how to make the reflect tool copy. I had to copy, paste on top, reflect and then move into position. Whereas in illustrator I was able to make a copy with the chosen center point and it was all one simple step. 2 –I was not able to find a smooth tool. There were some slight bumps on my line art and I could not find the smooth tool or figure out how to fix the bump by editing the nodes. I was not able to find a way to drag a handle out of an existing point. I also was not able to find a way to join nodes. Thanks in advance for your help, this forum is excellent. Best regards

Thanks guys, I was using illustrator for 20 years so I keep trying to do things the way I used to do them in illustrator. In illustrator you can use the white or black arrow to drag from a point and the center is a draggable point. So I had been used to centering objects by dragging the center points together. I can see that this program has a different ways of working that I will need to learn. Seems to be better and some ways. Thanks again

Thanks to reglico, that is a great solution. I think I've got it now, really appreciate the input. :-)

OK this time I got it to work but I'm not sure why. The difference being that I added a guide horizontally and vertically through the center of the page. Now command J places the new rotated line where it is supposed to go. Is it necessary to create guides in the center of the page in order to get the centerpoint of the page to be recognized by the command?

Thank you this was very helpful. Is there a way to drag an object from its centerpoint? I tried it with the black arrow and it moved the centerpoint. The white arrow transforms the object.

Thanks everyone for all the answers. What I'm after is lines radiating around a centerpoint. The answer from firstdefense is most aligned with what I am looking for however I am not finding that the command J is working as expected. The first command J works as expected but the second command J puts the new line in unexpected locations and seems to put them in a different place every time I try. I keep re-selecting the centerpoint symbol in the toolbar and the centerpoint in the transform panel but it still does not rotate the line from the centerpoint. Not sure why. Thanks everybody for your input.

Hello again, I have a circle and I need to divide it up into eight equal pie shaped pieces. I drew a centerline, I copied and pasted the centerline and then rotated it by 45° in the transform palette. What I would like to be able to do is then repeat that action multiple times to create a line that has moved 45° from the previous line to complete the shape. However in the transform palette I do not see a way to move a shape 45° from the second shape. Seems to want me to enter in a degree value for the new line for its position in the circle rather than just being able to move the last line by another 45°. I guess this will work but means I have to do some math. LOL was hoping it would be easier.

Hello folks, I would like to know whether it is possible to have grids centered on the page rather than starting on the left or right. I looked in grid manager and I did not see anything relating to position of the grids on the page. Same question for the rulers, it would be great if I could have the zero point on the rulers be in the center of the page rather than the left or right. I would also like to know how to convert guides to artwork. For example if I drag guides out from the horizontal and vertical rulers to show the centerpoint and I want those lines to be printing lines, how do I convert them from just a guide into visible art? Also when I have selected all artwork and moved it, the guides stay behind and do not move with the artwork. Is this not the best way to create a horizontal and vertical centerline? Thanks for answering these questions, it can be time-consuming to hunt in the tutorials for the answer to a specific issue so I do appreciate the replies available here. Best regards