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Please excuse me if this is already on the roadmap: Zoom to selection is great as it is, except for the shortcut; it's a two handed shortcut. The 0 is all the way over there... needing the right hand to come off the mouse to get at. That's pretty ridiculous when you consider that zooming to selection is for the process of immediate editing, which is done by the mouse. So the shortcut for this must be an entirely left handed "ninja fingers" move so the user can continue working at a rapid, immediate pace without having to remind their mouse or stylus. Which brings into question the rest of the view shortcuts, and how they could be better, to the point of being the best in the world of vector design. One of the joys of using the Mac is that there's no Windows key to jar you out of context of your existing app, and the [Alt] key doesn't throw you into a different mode of operation. So the side of the thumb can easily be used to operate a pair of modifier keys without any risks to the user experience. The two easiest two operate concurrently are the [Command+Option]. Just move your left thumb to the left of the space bar, roll it onto its side, and press them both down, concurrently, with ease. The real joy of this is that it leaves your other fingers forcefully hovering over the tilde, 1, 2 and 3 keys. The 4 is a little bit more of a stretch, but still reachable, and the Tab, Q, W and E buttons are unreasonably placed for immediate access, too. So that's 6 or 8 or 10 really good shortcuts, depending on your considerations of the Tab and tilde and the stretch to the right for 4 and R. What's the most important view zooms and changes that could be here? I propose that since Command + 1,2,3,4 is view level zooms pertinent to the current centre point of the screen, that [Option+Command + 1,2,3,4] should be those same zoom levels based on the position of the currently selected object, rather than the current centre of the screen. Or vice versa. --------------------- And I'd strongly suggest a "centre the current page and zoom to actual pixels" be given a top level shortcut that's a switch, back and forth from the current view position and zoom. I suggest the tilde key, without the need for a modifier key, be this. How this works: Regardless of my current zoom and position on the page, tapping and holding the tilde key brings me to actual pixels, centred on the current "page" so that I can see the project in its current state after my most recent modification that I'm currently editing. Regardless of what I'm editing (with the obvious exception of entering text) this should hide all selection brackets, guides and other visual clutter that's not content so it's an absolute preview of the work, and be in pixel mode. Releasing the tilde key should then bring me straight back to the current tool, intact, ready to continue editing at the previous view position and zoom level. [Option + Command + Tilde] should do the same zoom to actual size, but around the current selection instead of the current document centre. Sound at all sensible and useful? Or am I stark, raving mad? // btw, change this forum subsection to "Feature Suggestions" instead of Feature Requests. It's an important difference in mindset, I think. We don't really have the right to request features, but we do have the innate right to make suggestions. And this makes it a lot clearer that the processes of designing, designing an incorporation, designing interface access and then the subsequent development considerations of any feature is fucking staggeringly involved work. And ever more so within the framework of an existing product. You're not starting from scratch, and it's not easy to even consider a new feature, let alone implement it in anyway that doesn't impact other things.

Would it be possible to select an object by dragging over any PART of that object? At present, the entire object must be completely marquee selected. This gets frustrating when the invisible bounding box is actually bigger than the objec, which is often the case with type. I've got used to partial selction in other prgoams, and it makes for more fluid working. Thanks for a great app.

In the Vector Persona, it would be REALLY useful to have a Select > Same Object Fill, Select > Same Object Stroke, etc (see attached image for reference) as well as a way to Save and Load selections....

Most programs do this (and I hate it) is that you have to select each path of a stroke or the top handle of an object to make a selection, which is super time consuming and painful. One thing I do love about Illustrator is that is you are able to make fast broad "strokes" on your artboard to select many objects at once (sometimes really close together)—as long as you got a tiny corner or path of an object, it gets selected. Please fix this!

This one is driving me crazy, particularly as AD's freehand-like selection savvyness is one of the things i really love about the app. I have this world map with african countries on one layer, the rest on another (and a third layer for text). I want to scale the whole world up, so africa fills more of the artboard, but I can't select-all, 'move' is effectively stuck as 'pan'. Is this a bug or what stupd thing am i missing. A bit urgent this one! I really don't want to resort to using ai to do something so basic. thanks video elements 1.afdesign

A few tips on this highlighting the shortcuts available in particular when using marquee select:

Adobe's Illustrator defaults to what I'd call Partial Coverage Drag Select whereby anything covered by the Drag is selected, regardless of the amount of coverage. CorelDraw defaults to what might be best called Drag Select Coverage of Whole Object to Select. One way of having both in the same app without shortcut keys is to use dragging right as the default, and dragging left as the other. So Click and drag either up or down to the right, and Whole Object coverage by the Dragged Selection Area works. Clicking and dragging to the left (either up or down) results in anything touched by the dragged out area being selected.

Hi, To remove the background around an object in a photo I can use the pen tool and draw a shape above it then use that shape as a mask. I want to use a selection made with the selection brush, turn it into a shape to save me time. (I find adjusting shape masks much more efficient than playing with selections.) Is this conversion from selection to vector shape possible in Affinity Designer? Thanks

What I'm missing is the function of making a vector from selection. Let's say you have a bitmap (black shape on white back). With the Magic Wand Tool in Fireworks you could click anywhere in the black area, it automatically selected it with marching ants, and from the context menu you could choose "make vector from selection". I need this desperately! thanks.

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. :)

In illustrator you can select something and then select everything else which has the same fill or stroke colour. This feature in illustrator is quite limited compared to CAD software. Affinity does't need anything as complicated as a CAD program but some kind of select by attributes feature would be great and it would be easy to make it better thought out than the one in illustrator. Thanks, W

Could a Save Selection be added. Maybe as a selection layer. Also could a curve to selection be added. These two functions work hand in hand for me. I am always using my curve tool to isolate parts to adjust color or add an effect. I often need to go back into the file to recolor or edit that selection later. I don't what to loose my selection once I worked so hard to isolate a particular part of the image. I would just add a curve layer and leave it at that... but I do not see a way to convert that curve into a section for later edits. As a work-around I am creating a closed curve layer and filling it as my potential selection. I use the selection brush to select my fill to get my selection back. Kind of a long way to get a simple result. ;)

I'd love to be able to "resize canvas to selected objects" or, perhaps even better, "create new from clipboard". So far, that's my only missing feature... Hopefully it's an easy feature to implement too! :) All the best, keep up the great work-- -Sunny

Is there a way to zoom to selection? In other words if I select an object, the ability to zoom in so that object fills the window. I see that in the layers palette if you double click on the item it fills the window and that's great but I'd like that ability from either a key shortcut or a right click menu paradigm. OR- sort of related to this would be if the layers palette highlighted each currently selected object automatically then a quick double click in the layers palette would work... open for suggestions on this one. I have this ability currently in illustrator (via a plugin) and it is a great time saver and workflow enhancer for sure.