Enhancements for "sexy" Workflow - Hoping to see more in ver. 2!

[Dave Vector]

I wanted to thank the Serif team for adding what I called "Select Object by Trait..." (listed as #6 in last year's post) to Affinity Designer 1.9.

It definitely helps speed up the workflow.  I certainly appreciate the added functionality; great job!!! 

 

Hopefully we can see a few more of these remaining 8 features.  I listed them here again and would love to hear people's thoughts on them. 

Most of these suggestions can span all the affinity desktop products, but some are Designer specific:

 

1.      Organize Assets, Swatches, Brushes, Style Libraries with an edit mode, using an interface like the the "Presets Manager" in Shapes, to allow for re-arranging, renaming, moving between categories.

2.       Stoke Pressure Profiles can be saved on an application level. Organize and manage, with an interface like the "Presets Manager" in Shapes.  It’s all about efficiency, and not having to reinvent the wheel (stroke!) every time.

 

3.       Layers Panel – Select objects and groups and rename them with a multi-rename tool.  Instantly get organized so you and even other people can understand the layer groups and objects in your Affinity document.  Interface would allow the user to add a numerical counter as a prefix or suffix when renaming.  Handy before using Export Persona to create some basic naming conventions.

 

4.       Sort Layer Groups or artboards in the Layers Panel alphabetically, ascending, descending.  Yes, it will change the arrangement order, but properly organized groups can make complex file layers much easier to navigate. Handy for PDF Exporting where the order of pages depends upon the artboard order.

5.       Save selection sets that can select items spanning multiple artboards and also within groups. Often similar objects need to be adjusted or moved, but they are on multiple artboards or nested in other functional groups.  This can quickly solve that problem.

 

6.       Select by object trait (stroke color, stroke thickness, fill colour).  A handy way to quickly select and adjust objects with similar properties.  Otherwise selecting these can be a nightmare in complicated projects.  YAY! THANKS FOR ADDING THIS AND MORE!

 

7.       Select and replace non global identical colours. Does your client want all the red elements blue?  What would they look like in teal or taupe?  Play rapidly to your heart’s content.

 

8.       Search Assets Panel ACROSS BOTH categories and subcategories, results displayed as filtered choices.  Do you have multiple categories/libraries and need to find the right icon fast?  This can save you time.  Currently a search has to be made within each asset category, which can take some time if you have multiple asset categories.

 

 9.      Handy Show Grid checkbox in Isometric Studio Panel.  True, you can use a keyboard shortcut, but it would be nice if this button was upfront.  Handy when you are working in Isometric view you have to turn on and off the grid to see the artwork uncluttered.  Chances are you have the panel open to constantly switch planes anyways…

I hope this helps to add votes for the unsexy underdog features. 😊

 

[prophet]

I think your #5 can possibly be addressed by the "Select By Tag" part of the new "Select By…" function. In your example, tag all atomic number layers with a color and then you can select them all at the same time.

[Dave Vector]

@prophet Indeed! Colour tags give you 7 "selection sets".  I would wish for more, either with named sets or more colours.