Aff colour handling and bullet lists worst ever.

[SamSteele]

I hate to complain but until Affinity "fixes" its absurdly weird colour system, the suite will remain second best compared to Adobe. The Bullet List maker is a total cock-up, too. They are both so irrational that I can't even explain what's wrong with them. Adobe has Aff beaten in this regard, hands down.

[GarryP]

If you can explain what you mean by “absurdly weird colour system” then someone might be able to help you with it.

As far as I know there isn’t a “Bullet List maker”, as such, so I’m not sure what you are having trouble with.
If you can explain what you are trying to do – not how you are trying to do it – then someone should be able to help further.

P.S. These are very different areas so it's probably best if you split your queries into two separate threads, otherwise the answers will intermingled and confusing.

[SamSteele]

Publisher:

■ Using text frame, try to put a block of colour behind a block of text by selecting an existing colour in your document. You don't know when it will colour the frame or colour the type.

■ Try creating a custom colour palette.

■ Custom colours register the CMYK values but NOT the opacity value. You can set the colour value for a text frame but the opacity value is only a guess determined by the position of a slider, not an value box. 

■ Create a document palette from the colours in your document. The colours are named "DocFileName 01", -02, -03, etc. No CMYK values if you hover over the small swatches so you cant discriminate small colour differences. Only colours you intentionally put in the palette have CMYK values.

■ Try creating an automated bulleted list with square bullets and changing the width of the tab space. There is a Bullet List maker/customizer. See if you can find it.

[GarryP]

1. I don’t know what you mean by a “block” of colour or a “block” of text. At the top of my attached image I have given three examples, but that’s probably not an exhaustive collection. Can you be more specific about what you are trying to do? Also, simply selecting a colour doesn’t always also apply that colour, different things work different ways. Can you tell us what it is you are trying to do?

2. What sort of “custom colour palette” are you trying to create? There are Application Palettes and Document Palettes and, as far as I know, they are working fine for me. What are you trying to do?

3. I don’t use CMYK so I can’t comment on that, but maybe someone else can.

4. Again, I don’t use CMYK so someone else might look into that.

5. If, by “an automated bulleted list” or “Bullet List maker”, you mean applying “Bullet and Numbering” formatting then that works fine for me, including changing the tab stop value, see bottom of attached image. If you mean something else then why not just tell me where it is rather than assuming that I want to play “find the function”?

[SamSteele]

8 hours ago, GarryP said:

1. I don’t know what you mean by a “block” of colour or a “block” of text. At the top of my attached image I have given three examples, but that’s probably not an exhaustive collection. Can you be more specific about what you are trying to do? Also, simply selecting a colour doesn’t always also apply that colour, different things work different ways. Can you tell us what it is you are trying to do?

2. What sort of “custom colour palette” are you trying to create? There are Application Palettes and Document Palettes and, as far as I know, they are working fine for me. What are you trying to do?

3. I don’t use CMYK so I can’t comment on that, but maybe someone else can.

4. Again, I don’t use CMYK so someone else might look into that.

5. If, by “an automated bulleted list” or “Bullet List maker”, you mean applying “Bullet and Numbering” formatting then that works fine for me, including changing the tab stop value, see bottom of attached image. If you mean something else then why not just tell me where it is rather than assuming that I want to play “find the function”?

Thank you for trying to be helpful Gary, but we are on different wavelengths here. I didn't say I couldn't do it, I was complaining that it was awkward and convoluted to do, when it worked. And there are things it doesn't do that one would expect it would/could.

• A "block of text" is common terminology.

•  A custom palette is a selection of colours of my own making with my own name. I can do it—it's awkward. But it's NOT the Application Palettes and Document Palettes.

• Opacity applies to any colour system.

• CMYK or RGB, doesn't matter—same problem.

• You managed to put in a square bullet. Good. I found it really awkward (there's that word again).

You have inadvertently highlighted a another problem with the Affinity Suite: Strange nomenclature (names for things). Examples: Character "Background" (normally called "Highlighting", Paragraph "Decoration" (I thought decorations were "fists", banners, borders, fleurons, etc.) and Text Frame "Fill". Three names for the same thing, but the strangest of these is "Decoration" and way down at the bottom of the paragraph tab where you would never expect to find it.

Thanks again for trying Gary. Let it go for now. 🎶⬅️ decoration

[loukash]

4 hours ago, SamSteele said:

I was complaining that it was awkward and convoluted to do, when it worked. And there are things it doesn't do that one would expect it would/could.

Many things will remain "awkward" and they won't do things "that one would expect" for as long as you remain stuck in the "Adobe Universe Mindset".
Trust me, been there done that. It takes time to let loose after almost two decades…

That said, some things are awkward nonetheless. There's still plenty of room for the Anti-Awkwardness Serif Task Force™ to take action.
Like, for example:

On 3/1/2021 at 6:23 PM, SamSteele said:

the opacity value is only a guess determined by the position of a slider, not an value box. 

Yep, that's what I'd call awkwardly bad UI design.

On 3/1/2021 at 6:23 PM, SamSteele said:

Create a document palette from the colours in your document. The colours are named "DocFileName 01", -02, -03, etc. No CMYK values if you hover over the small swatches so you cant discriminate small colour differences. Only colours you intentionally put in the palette have CMYK values.

Yep, another good example of a bad example.

But:

4 hours ago, SamSteele said:

Three names for

… three totally different things. Even though sometimes you could achieve exactly the same results. Those three things can do things which InDesign CS5.5 can't.

4 hours ago, SamSteele said:

"Decoration" and way down at the bottom of the paragraph tab where you would never expect to find it.

Where were you expecting to find it then?
It's a paragraph function so this is surely where I would have expected to find it if I would have expected to find it in the first place which I wasn't but instead I stumbled upon it rather accidentally and was pleasantly surprised by what this thing can do…

[SamSteele]

2 hours ago, loukash said:

...

… three totally different things. Even though sometimes you could achieve exactly the same results. Those three things can do things which InDesign CS5.5 can't.

Where were you expecting to find it then?
It's a paragraph function so this is surely where I would have expected to find it if I would have expected to find it in the first place which I wasn't but instead I stumbled upon it rather accidentally and was pleasantly surprised by what this thing can do…

What I wrote was "Three names for the same thing" Actually Indesign could do a whole paragraph underline, last time I used it (more than 5 years ago). Have been weaned off InD and using Publisher for 3 years. Also,  the Affinity paragraph highlighter (an underline on steroids) is NOT a decoration.

This is a decoration .