Gradient with global colour

[jki]

Hello everybody,
I'm trying to control a gradient fill as described in the feature overview as possible using global colors.
So far I have not found a way to do this.
Can someone help here?

Copy from Technical Specification page:

Global Colours
Update objects when their base colour changes
Tint levels are retained when base colour updates
Use as solid colours or in gradients

[Lee D]

Create your Spot colours first as a Document palette will be created. Using the Gradient Tool, apply the gradient, now click the gradient colour example on the Context toolbar. On the Gradient panel, click one of the colour nodes of the gradient and then click the Colour preview. Switch the dropdown menu to Swatches and then select the Document palette on the other dropdown menu.

[Jens Schmidt]

This does not work as intended.

[Lorox]

Why doesn't this work??? Obviously it is not possible to edit a gradient fill swatch once it's been added to – say – a document palette because by ”Edit Fill“ you can just access a single solid colour (via slider, wheel or swatches) whereas a gradient is obviously/necessarily made up of at least two solid colours! The fact that this specific swatch is actually a gradient is totally ignored by the app when you choose "Edit Fill".

This – unfortunately – means that a gradient fill swatch can never be a global swatch, even if it's been originally been created using global colours as stops within the gradient.

Now: you CAN actually edit the global colours which make up the gradient in question and the gradient will change accordingly with any OBJECT it has been applied to formerly BUT the swatch of that original gradient (edited now via its defining colous having been edited) will NOT change in the palette. So you can't quickly apply the updated gradient to another object – you don't have a new/edited gradient swatch in the palette but the old/original one will persist.

I don't remember having any of these annoying difficulties in InDesign or Illustrator and it sort of hurts me when my new favourite apps behave so strangely...

[loukash]

3 hours ago, Lorox said:

Obviously it is not possible to edit a gradient fill swatch once it's been added to – say – a document palette

It's a bit of a counterintuitive workaround, but:

1. select the gradient swatch
2. Node tool
3. edit your gradient in the context toolbar
4. add edited gradient as a new swatch
5. in Designer (use File > Edit in Designer if you're in another app): Select > Select Same > Fill Color
6. apply the new gradient to all selected objects

3 hours ago, Lorox said:

a gradient fill swatch can never be a global swatch

That's definitely an omission.

3 hours ago, Lorox said:

I don't remember having any of these annoying difficulties in InDesign or Illustrator

But I do remember having many other "annoying difficulties" that I don't have now. ;)
And checking out the Gradient tool in InDesign CS5.5 as we speak, there are quite some odd quirks as well.

That said, it should be definitely easier and more straightforward to edit gradient swatches in Affinity.

[Lorox]

1 hour ago, loukash said:

• select the gradient swatch
• Node tool
• edit your gradient in the context toolbar
• add edited gradient as a new swatch
• in Designer (use File > Edit in Designer if you're in another app): Select > Select Same > Fill Color
• apply the new gradient to all selected objects

Yeah, obviously selecting the Node Tool serves the purpose as well (as does selecting Rectangle, Circle (or whatever) or the Pen Tool).

And well, after editing you have to save a new gradient swatch as you haven't actually been editing the old one. Accordingly there's no automatic change in objects having the old one assigned unless they have been selected first (which in complex illustrations may be quite a cumbersome task...).

And yes, it wasn't all perfect with AI and ID (and I generally do love working in Designer, Photo and Publisher), but especially in terms of ergonomics the guys at Adobe got a lot of things right over the years.
Speaking of this it strikes me every time as quite annoying in the Affinity Apps when I have to use the context menu e.g. only to just rename a colour swatch or a palette. Why can't we just double click on the name like we can (and always could) in the Layers Palette? This is so inconsistent in terms of UI and really deserves to be changed. Often it's in the small things, what makes you really comfortable using this or that app. Another example: I think that Inkscape has – its several known shortcomings set aside – a lot of really interesting features for a vector graphics app but the UI – to me at least – is some kind of an "ubercomplex" nightmare and accordingly I tend to avoid using it if I don't necessarily have to (e.g. for image tracing as Designer still hasn't got that feature).

[loukash]

39 minutes ago, Lorox said:

in terms of ergonomics the guys at Adobe got a lot of things right over the years.

I'd beg to differ. :P
I still haven't fully recovered since the Schmadobe crooks took my beloved Freehand from me.
In other words, I wouldn't have used AI until present day if I hadn't to, but it would have had somewhat sucked having to run Freehand 9 in the Classic environment on my antique PowerMac G4 466 MHz in 2021… (for the record, I have actually booted that old beast a few months ago and it still works!)

[loukash]

48 minutes ago, Lorox said:

it strikes me every time as quite annoying in the Affinity Apps when I have to use the context menu e.g. only to just rename a colour swatch or a palette.

Yup, one of those many UI inconsistencies where you literally have to face palm, asking yourself what the Serif staff has been smoking.

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, loukash said:

• select the gradient swatch
• Node tool
• edit your gradient in the context toolbar

Quite strange that editing an existing gradient swatch does neither work via the Swatches Panel nor the Color Panel and also not with the Fill Tool selected, which, in my impression, is meant to be specialised on gradients – but instead needs the Node Tool or one of the Shape Tools if no object is selected + requires to create a new swatch instead editing the currently selected.