[AP: how to save a selection]

I see make layer from selection, but I don't see a way to save my actual selection itself...is there a way?

[AP: toggle between adjustment and pre-adjustment?]

Is it possible in Photo, while in an adjustment palette, to toggle between your adjustment, and what that layer looked like prior to making your adjustment?

[AP: duplicate layer?]

Ah..so it does...as in AD; I should have reached for that instinctively. Thank you, TonyB!

[AP: duplicate layer?]

Could there be a command to duplicate a layer; if it's there, I'm not seeing it.

 

thanks!

[Do you know what Adobe users are saying about AD]

yeah, not only do they taketh away, and foisteth upon, but they keep re-arranging the furniture, which is very bad UX...Changing key commands or methods, or where this or that feature is kept, or what it's named or how it works. One develops valuable, time-saving muscle memory of how to do things so that you eventually develop an "act without thinking" workflow, which ought to be the goal of any software developer.

 

Do you sit there and think about how to operate a pencil?

 

No!

 

You grab a pencil, some paper, and start drawing or writing some amazing creation.

[Why so expensive?]

I feel that what's partly at work here is a something-for-nothing mentality which has been cultivated in party, frankly, by Apple itself..Apple "throws in" all kinds of great apps, either for free or for a ridiculously low price. and they aren't just any old apps, but well-formed, well-behaved software tools that let you do amazing things. It makes sense for Apple to do this because it helps build their brand (world's most valuable company ain't too shabby) and it helps them sell computers. That is a smart, shrewd move.

 

Over my career, I've taken a chance on a lot of software tools which were, let's call them "rogue*" in the sense that they were trying to break into a market dominated by established and wealthy companies. These rogue developers try to change the game table by offering something very compelling, namely, professional results and tools, fraction of the cost.

 

I have never seen such "rogue" software as mature and well-formed right out of the starting gate as these Affinity tools are. And they aren't merely aping what the big dogs do, they are inventing new ways of approaching our art and craft, and this simply does not come out of a bottle. It takes smarts, vision, and elbow grease.

 

And I for one feel that deserves to be compensated and am happy to pay these, IMO, very modest software prices in exchange for how miraculous this software is.

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*and power TO the rogues..what's that saying that the big changes happen when a few decide to stand up and do things differently, or words to that effect. Rosa Parks, Ghandi, Mandela, to name a few.

[AP: can add/subtract selection modes be keyed with + & -?]

subject line says it all...

[How to distinguish comments about AD from APB?]

aside from somebody just flat-out saying it, how to distinguish questions and comments about AD from AP?
 

should each have their own?

[Why so expensive?]

as my wife would say of AD's price, "It's a screamin' deal!"

[An option to hide handles and bounds of objects?]

yes, that kind of toggle command would be most welcomed.  thank you for the tip about holding the Space bar, ronnyb

[Let me be done with the text tool. Please?]

yeah that could be helpful..  I was hoping for more a keyboard solution..maybe CMD-D is it.  it's weird to say, "I have to go all the way to the tool palette" as though I were walking to Calcutta in bare feet, but it's true; when you're in the Zone, going to the tool palette un-necessarily seems like a tortuous chore..

 

;-)

 

edit: just tried cmd-d.  works beautifully!

[Let me be done with the text tool. Please?]

When I am done with the text tool, there seems no easy way to turn it off, or allow me to choose the next tool I want, often the black arrow.

 

You'd think pressing esc would do it, but it takes no fewer than half a dozen pressings of esc to get free of that text tool. You think you've turned it off, then you hit the V key and whammo! the text tool is back in action, ready to insert characters!

 

We need to be able to end it when we're done with text.

 

Is there a way, once and for all, to dismiss the text tool when we're done, and get on with it?

 

thank you!

 

vcat

[An option to hide handles and bounds of objects?]

Could there be an option to hide control handles and the bounding box of a selected object? the benefit would be while adjusting color, shading, etcs..some times it's hard to see what's going on with the handles and bounding boxes visible.. sometimes  you just don't want to see it, sometimes they actually obscure the object being worked on.

 

thank you

[why are new objects put into locked layer groups?]

If instead we just refused to create the object at all, with a message explaining why, you would then have to go to the Layers tab and select a different layer anyway. This might be better than what we have now, clearer and less error-prone, but it will also be intrusive and annoying, and the effect will be to teach you to deselect layers as soon as you lock them.

To me, that sounds like something that would both satisfy the convention you've built for AD, and help users to understand what is going on. Probably in a short time, Users would "get it" that they need to make a new layer after locking a layer group; that warning would helpfully be there in case the user forgot what to do.

 

Thank you for being receptive to our comments.

[why are new objects put into locked layer groups?]

@MEB

Thank you for the good explanation of the idea behind the lock later behavior. It now makes sense to me, however it still gets in the way of May work flow to have object ending up in locked layers. So I would really like your idea of a preference option to disallow objects ending up in locked layers, as you suggest.

 

I vote for this option, too.

 

pmeinertz says it well in that it gets in the way of my work flow to have to stop, puzzle out what happened, find my "missing" object, separate it out from a locked layer I thought was unavailable for new objects, make a new layer, paste my object, then try to regain momentum and flow. This current process I find unsettling and disruptive.

 

Upon re-reading the comments, it's clear that the behavior under discussion is known and deliberate in the sense that AD is written to behave this way.

 

So, no need for me to make a clip; it would merely show what we all know is happening, unlike a bug which happens sporadically and only for some.

 

I feel that while each software application may have its own way of doing this or that, there are some conventions which obtain across applications, and I would request that the developers weigh this in when deciding how their brand of locked layers behave.

 

Cheers,

 

vcat

[why are new objects put into locked layer groups?]

Absolutely no tension here @VectorCat. Don't get me wrong ;)

I'm just trying to explain how it works and showing that some actions are more simple than what you are describing. I'm a user too!

Maybe i'm not seeing where the problem is. In any case i personally see this as a healthy discussion and i believe we can all keep it that way.

If you think that a clip will help to show your issues, go ahead and post it. 

If somehow my previous post sounded harsh or anything, i apologize, it wasn't my intention.

 

I think that's what it is..a combination of perhaps some of us not understanding the rationale behind the behavior, and a not understanding of why that behavior is problematic, at least for some of us.

 

I'll try to get what I hope will be a helpful screen clip this evening to show what my issue is, with some narration describing why I find it problematic.

 

Cheers!

 

vcat

[why are new objects put into locked layer groups?]

It feels like tensions are rising over this subject, and I don't feel that anyone intends that to happen.

 

I don't think anybody is beating up on AD; merely citing some problematic behavior.  maybe it would help if I took a screen movie of what I myself consider to be problematic behavior, and we can then discuss what that movie shows?

 

Sound good?

 

I think that what we users are after is a "model" of doing things which makes sense to us, and lets us develop "flow" in our work.

[why are new objects put into locked layer groups?]

I do get what you mean. I really bothers me too the Layer lock thing where new objects place themself in a locked layer.

For me a locked layer is a locked layer, no changes at all should be possible.

 

yeah. things that are in a locked area should be off-limits to our touch until said locked area is un-locked.  None of this quasi-locked bidness.

 

Either locked or not locked.

[why are new objects put into locked layer groups?]

if you need something like a video screen grab, I might could serve one up to you, but the behavior, tho puzzling, is as I described it. I will be working with/manipulating items on unlocked layers, then moments later, no amount of (edit: direct) clicking will activate those objects again. (edit: I must click on the item in the layer palette).

 

Let me know if a video grab is required.

[why are new objects put into locked layer groups?]

and for the record, when I post here more often, it isn't because I'm having a bad hair day, it's because I'm using AD hot n heavy and noticing things.

 

peace.

[why are new objects put into locked layer groups?]

In general, I am encountering a lot of illogic when it comes to where things land and whether I can and can not click on them to interact with them.

 

Major neck pain when my day is characterized by futile and incessant clicking. Can something be done about this? At least can there please be an explanation of the current rationale so that we can deal with/avoid it?

 

Is it about whether I've clicked on a layer group or not? is this trying to help me? Could it be less helpful and less insistent?  Why can I direct-click on some things, yet not on others?

 

This is a very pointy rock in the shoe, for me..can't speak for others. Very pointy. Like a cinder, with sharp spikey bits.

 

;-)

[how to resize an image inside its box?]

is there a way to scale an image inside it's box? 

[why are new objects put into locked layer groups?]

maybe I'm old-school but I view "locked" as meaning, "You can't alter this."

 

I am constantly getting stung by finishing with a layer group, locking it, creating a new object, then trying to move or change it, and unable to!!

 

kind of screwy to allow the new object to be created on a locked layer, and then to have that newly-created object be locked!

 

I see no logic or benefit to this....is there one/some?

[Choosing the right computer for Affinity Designer]

Maybe it's good to know for someone on that topic:

I run AD on my late 2008 MacBook Pro with 2,93 GHz, 8 GB RAM and a SSD with the integrated nvidia Geforce 9600 on Yosemite.

It runs smooth and very well - I only detect glitches and jerks when I have a very complex file or with large pixelpics inside.

So everything about that should run very good :)

 

Also I use a 2011 iMac with 16 GB of RAM and a SSD - and that's nearly perfect.

 

I'd have to say that my experience with AD is just about perfect, too.  It's hard to judge because A) so many established software tools are pretty weird; they lower the bar and B) AD was so well-behaved out of the gate, and the fit and finish of AD is so polished, I have to assume the devs truly know what they're doing and that things will only get better.

 

You know..it wasn't a pile of half-done casserole chuffed off onto hungry Mac users desperate for anything. AD has to my eye been best-of-breed software from square one.

[Choosing the right computer for Affinity Designer]

Definitely not yet, @VectorCat, but it's a matter of time... if the rumors of the iPad Pro with a 12"-13" retina screen and built-in iOS stylus support pan out, I'd say within 3 years we'll see a lot of truly professional level apps which can but don't need to integrate with desktop apps... But i hear ya, right now, it's definitely not a viable option for most types of workflows. Heck, who wants to look at a 9" display for 8 hours a day?! But a 13" display, now that's totally different...!! (sarcasm)

ronnyb;

 

Can you or any other tablet owners/users talk speak to what extent the tablets are now "real" computers capable of doing real work?

 

So, you mention 64-bit processing in the latest iPads, and I get how limiting/frustrating the small screen size would be, but in terms of doing illustration...there's iDraw, and Pixelmator, and we truly hope AD will soon be there.

 

Then there's I believe a certain amount of video editing, maybe iMovie for iPad..

 

And code authoring/IDE... I assume there's some kind of code editing that can be done, and if not a native app, one could use something like Nitrous.io, tho I find that frustrating on a real computer; too much nitrous "chrome" and not enough space for the actual code area.

 

Then finally FTP software...surely there must be something for tablets.

 

Are the tablet virtual keyboards too "toy" for real work? Are they too basic, such as alpha-numeric, but incomplete in other characters needed? Ability to format text?

 

I have a friend who says he could do front-end development and illustration on his iPad no problem. He's a very good illustrator, but I'm not convinced that his front-end skills are far enough along to testify about the iPad as a serious dev platform.

 

Thanks for any views on this....

 

vcat