Isn't it possible to use your own keyboard shortcuts in Affinity?
I for one like to use keyboard shortcuts for brushing while increasing/decreasing brushes, opacity, and softness/hardness. Ideal and heavily depending for painting of any kind. Opening panels and extra adjusting via sliders is kind of contra productive.
Adobe has a panel to adjust all this. This is kind of the first thing I do after a clean install because of it's massive time saving.
Shortcut users know what I mean...