[Anti-aliasing: don’t treat guides like art]

Simply put, it’s great to anti-alias artwork, but please don’t anti-alias UI elements such as selections, handles, and guides.

I’ve attached an illustration that shows why anti-aliasing selection guides can lead to difficulty when it comes to precision alignment. Affinity Designer anti-aliases everything equally (with the sole exception of ruler guides), so handles and shape edges end up looking blurry. As a result, you have to zoom in to make sure things are where you think they are. In contrast, Illustrator (Photoshop, too) always renders guides and handles to the pixel, and aggressively snaps things into place, so you can always see (and feel) exactly where everything is.

I think pictures speak louder than words, so let me know if the attached image doesn’t make my case.

(Note that I’m not talking about styled borders or strokes. I’m talking about the blue “active selection” indicators. You never want those to be anti-aliased, for the same reason you don’t want the ticks on rulers to be anti-aliased. They should be rendered at screen resolution, to the pixel grid of your working view.)

[Snap hints]

Maybe I have different expectations for snapping behavior, but what I find missing is that little “catch” when, say, the side of one rectangle meets the side of another rectangle. I’ve turned on every conceivable snapping option (is that part of the problem?), yet when I drag a rectangle, it just passes by the other one as if it weren’t there. If I take the time to pause then I do see fuzzy (anti-aliased!) colored lines appear, but they’re often “off” by a few pixels due to their inherent blurriness (yes, operating at 100% magnification), and there is no physical snap that assures me that two edges are truly coincident.

Am I missing something, or is physical (magnetized) snapping still to come?

[Import Palette… - importing .ase and .aco files]

When I import swatches using the “Import Palette…” item, I should be able to select palettes saved from Photoshop (ACO – Adobe Photoshop Color Swatch File) or Illustrator (ASE – Adobe Swatch Exchange File).

 

Are there foreign palette formats that AD can import? Maybe that information should be in the Open dialog box… or somewhere. (The Help Center doesn’t seem to do anything. I can search for a topic like “palette,” but can’t expand the results, so maybe the AD entries are just stubs?)

[Option-click to select entire shape?]

I can't figure out how to select an entire shape with a single click. I'll explain...

 

Say I type the letter "e" and convert it to curves. Now I want to select just the hole, but I don't want to have to zoom in and select every node that defines it. How can I click once to select the entire hole?

 

Photoshop and Illustrator both allow me to use the Direct Selection tool (analogous to AD's Node tool), and Option-click to immediately select any shape by clicking anywhere on its outline.

 

In AD I must double-click the shape to go into edit mode (sorry if I'm using the wrong terminology), but clicking anywhere on a shape's outline -- trying all key modifiers -- just adds a new node. I can't figure out how to actually select the entire thing at once. The good news is that, since you're not presently using the key modifiers, bringing this behavior over to AD shouldn't conflict with anything. :)

[Request key modifier: Spacebar-drag = move a shape while drawing it]

This is a common use case:

 

- I select a shape from the palette

- I click and drag to draw my shape on the canvas

- I realize I didn't start at the right spot, but I don't want to have to start from the beginning

 

At this point Adobe apps allow me to hit the spacebar, which causes any further dragging to reposition the existing shape (at its current size) as I drag. When I lift up the spacebar, I can continue sizing my shape from its new origin.

 

For reference:
http://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/default-keyboard-shortcuts.html
 

It's a seemingly minor function, but very useful, and notable in its absence here.

(AD's existing Control-drag is interesting, but not the same.)

[Lines inside shape?]

I'm not sure this workaround fully addresses the issue. There is a difference between strokes and lines (to use AD's own parlance). A line is mathematical geometry -- I can convert (aka "Expand") it to a shape at any time. However, a stroke is just a visual effect that can't be expanded.

So, while I can indeed adjust the alignment of a stroke effect in AD, I'd still like to be able to adjust caps, corners, *and* alignment -- all three -- with regard to outlines. Photoshop is the closest comparison, since it, too, has both stroke types (and they're both confusingly called "stroke"!), and the alignment can be adjusted for both kinds of stroke.

It's important to be able to adjust the alignment of either type.

Hope I explained that clearly. It makes sense in my head. ;)