Keep pen tool settings?

[Tokamak]

I'm using Affinity Designer in Windows.

Is there a way to have it remember my pen settings from shape to shape? 

To make sure I'm clear, here is my workflow at present. I want to make a number of shapes with the pen tool. Each should have white fill and no stroke.

I select the pen tool, draw some points, and hit escape to finish. Designer default to no fill and no stroke

Then I go to the "fill" option in the upper left corner of the screen, select white fill.

I use the pen tool to draw more points of a new shape.

Designer defaults back to no fill, no stroke, the moment I start a new shape, so after finishing that shape and hitting escape, I have to go back up and select white fill.

Rinse, repeat.

I haven't found any way to set white fill (or anything else) and have it stay as my default. Any time I make a new shape it reverts back to no fill, no stroke.

 

Is there something I'm missing, or is this just a limitation of the software?

[David in Яuislip]

Yep. In Photo I would draw a simple shape, set fill to white, stroke colour, width, other options as required then

Edit/ Defaults/ Sychronise from Selection - this will maintain those parameters for the session

Or to make them permanent

Edit/ Defaults/ Save - for all future work

It's similar for Designer as described here https://affinity.help/designer/English.lproj/index.html

[Alfred]

4 hours ago, David in Яuislip said:

as described here https://affinity.help/designer/English.lproj/index.html

Or rather, here: https://affinity.help/designer/English.lproj/pages/ObjectControl/objectDefaults.html

[David in Яuislip]

8 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Or rather, here: https://affinity.help/designer/English.lproj/pages/ObjectControl/objectDefaults.html

Good spot

[Alfred]

24 minutes ago, David in Яuislip said:

Good spot

[David in Яuislip]

6 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Stop it 🙂

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, David in Яuislip said:

Stop it 🙂

Are you trying to muzzle @Alfred?

[David in Яuislip]

7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Are you trying to muzzle @Alfred?

I don't think there is much chance of that

How do you do those blue boxes????

[Alfred]

Just now, David in Яuislip said:

How do you do those blue boxes????

Type an amphora (or asperand, or ampersat, if you prefer) followed by the first few letters of a username to see a dropdown list, and then click or tap on the one you want. For example, typing david i currently results in my being offered a choice between ‘David in Яuislip’ and two others. 

[David in Яuislip]

@Alfred Hey hey, thanks for that

[Tokamak]

21 hours ago, David in Яuislip said:

Yep. In Photo I would draw a simple shape, set fill to white, stroke colour, width, other options as required then

Edit/ Defaults/ Sychronise from Selection - this will maintain those parameters for the session

Or to make them permanent

Edit/ Defaults/ Save - for all future work

It's similar for Designer as described here https://affinity.help/designer/English.lproj/index.html

Thank you so much!

[Tokamak]

Sorry it took me so long to get back.

That does not seem to have the desirable effect. I have:

* made a shape with the pen tool

* set the fill and stroke settings I want

* kept that shape selected with the pen tool active

* gone to Edit->Defaults->Synchronize From Selection

Then when I start a new shape with the pen tool, it reverts back to no fill, no stroke, just like it always has.

[David in Яuislip]

7 hours ago, Tokamak said:

That does not seem to have the desirable effect. I have:

Weird. I have just done this again. The stroke colour and width are remembered but, on creating the second node, the colour swatch changes to white with diagonal red, ie no fill

Aha, there is another option on the right, I don't remember this before 1.8.5

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, David in Яuislip said:

Aha, there is another option on the right, I don't remember this before 1.8.5

Which particular option don’t you remember having seen before?

[David in Яuislip]

1 minute ago, Alfred said:

Which particular option don’t you remember having seen before?

The Use Fill checkbox

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, David in Яuislip said:

The Use Fill checkbox

Thanks, David. I wondered whether that was the one! That option simply causes the fill to be applied as you draw, which is especially useful if the curve has no stroke.

[Tokamak]

21 hours ago, David in Яuislip said:

Weird. I have just done this again. The stroke colour and width are remembered but, on creating the second node, the colour swatch changes to white with diagonal red, ie no fill

Aha, there is another option on the right, I don't remember this before 1.8.5

Hmm... so far that seems to be doing the trick, as far as I can tell. Thanks!

[Tokamak]

Now it's doing it again. Even when I get the pen settings the way I want them, and use Edit -> Defaults -> Synchronize from Selection, the pen tool keeps reverting back to no stroke no fill.

The weirdest part about it is that if I watch the stroke/fill settings UI element, they stay the way I set them when I start to use the pen, and it's only when I make the second point of the pen object that the settings revert back.

So right now I'm finding that trying to keep my stroke/fill settings from resetting is working some times and not others, and I cannot figure out what I could possibly be doing differently. The last time it switched from behaving as expected to resetting every time I had the pen tool selected, and was making closed shapes. I made 2 or 3 before, without me changing anything about what I was doing, the settings started reverting with every new object.

I'm kind of tearing my hair out here.

[Aleksandar Kovač]

Exactly the same problem here but manifested in Designer persona in AP while AD seems unaffected.

Lament: Why oh why this granular chaos? I love Affinity like an old, very smart, slightly unreliable friend, but come on, friend. Brush your teeth, comb your hair, take a good shower, clean up your act... Increasingly I find myself creating demanding vectors for illustration in Rhinoceros 3D and finishing them in Designer. There. I came out. Effortless view handling, reliability, precision, command line, procedural creation...

[Aleksandar Kovač]

Spoke too soon. Started getting the same issue in AD. On Mac.

[thomasmoulson]

I’m having this exact same problem - seems silly, it should be default if anything that it uses your last preference of stroke size etc, not the other way round and keep reverting to default.. anyhow, synchronise defaults from selection is not working for me.. I want a certain brush stroke and a certain width but each new pencil stroke is reverting to default.. unusable!

[Aleksandar Kovač]

Yes, still like this.

[bobwal]

Did anyone ever figure this out? I'm experiencing it now, pretty frustrating. I set the fill and stroke then draw two points and my fill and stroke changes.

[chrispysaid]

Quote

Did anyone ever figure this out? I'm experiencing it now, pretty frustrating. I set the fill and stroke then draw two points and my fill and stroke changes.

Yes, someone posted the solution above. With the pen tool selected, on the right-most side of the tool ribbon at the top of the page there's a Use Fill checkbox that you have to check. Doing this will use the fill from the most recently selected object by default instead of a 1 pt black stroke and no fill.

[Olidoesaffinity]

This doesn't work with a selected brush style.