Better UI design for difference between masking and clipping layer

[dvmierlo]

The UI presentation between masking and clipping layers needs to be improved. The difference is too minor and too similar. When working with a lot of layers, this becomes even more difficult to see.

[Arceom]

I agree, we need at least the option to turn on visual aids to be able to quickly read and identify hierarchy withing the layers panel.

[Cecil]

Visually impaired, maybe just a color change for one to denote masking or clipping layer. 

[Frozen Death Knight]

I agree. It would also help changing the colour of each highlight when dragging something onto a layer. Now everything is highlighted blue, which makes it harder to see if you are clipping or masking. 

On another note, I've noticed that it is not possible to manually sort the mask layers. Some more polish there would be appreciated.

[BeauRX]

Beyond the obvious clipping vs. masking differences there is another important aspect to highlight with these layers. The masking layer indent (larger) and clipping layer indent (smaller) also have opposite order of applying multiple adjustments. Multiple masking layers are applied top-to-bottom, multiple clipping layers are applied bottom-to-top. I just learned this from the In Affinity video below.

 

[Aammppaa]

Perhaps move the tiny icon (indicating the type of layer) out of the thumbnail, and put it before the thumbnail instead.

That way the icon could be bigger, and will be more visible.

Also the icon could be shown before mouse is released to indicate what type of layer will be created if the user drops the layer right now.