Organize layers with folders

[Bad_Wolf]

Hi all,

Please, can I create a feature request for adding folders to the Layers panel. In this way we can create folders and organize the layers in a much cleaner way.

Thank you.

Chris

 

[walt.farrell]

How would Folders work differently from  layers of type Layer?

[Pšenda]

... or Group? 

[Bad_Wolf]

A folder will have a visual representation like in Windows Explorer. You can drag other layers or groups in it, without changing their position. This is just a way of organization which doesn't influence the order in which a layer is positioned. It doesn't matter about the position about the layer.

I think this is just personal preference of organizing layers. Maybe the lack of folder organisation can contribute to better layer organisation.

Is it possible to give me some suggestions how to organise layers? I will appreciate your input.

Thank you for your responses.

Chris

 

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Bad_Wolf said:

A folder will have a visual representation like in Windows Explorer. You can drag other layers or groups in it, without changing their position. This is just a way of organization which doesn't influence the order in which a layer is positioned.

Sorry, but I do not understand how that could work. How would the application know the relationship between the layers ("z order") except hierarchically within the layer stack as we have now? If you dragged other layers or groups into a folder it would change their order with respect to layers outside the folder, and change the overall image composition.

[Pšenda]

... I also don't understand the concept of folders, especially that they have no relation to the position, 

3 hours ago, Bad_Wolf said:

without changing their position

because a folders as visual representation

3 hours ago, Bad_Wolf said:

A folder will have a visual representation like in Windows Explorer.

directly related to the location/position of the files.

P.S. The Groups correspond exactly to my idea of the meaning and significance of the Folders (file groups).
Therefore, the group icon can be the same as the folder icon.

[Guest]

Please, please, please DO NOT muddle the already overloaded model of layers and artboards in Affinity apps with folders. I get that you want someway to better organise layers and groups, but folders forces another totally unrelated mental model on a context where it will likely only create more confusion. We all have ideas about how 'folders' should work from the real world, our OSes, other apps, cloud drives, etc. and each of them works in a slightly different way (with 'tags' increasingly becoming the new way to 'folder'; Notion, Ulysses, Keep, etc. ). I'd much rather have Affinity come up with a better way to organise and group layers and artboards that works with their existing concepts, rather than imposing another, borrowed mental model and applying it on top.

It may seem like semantics, but 'folders' come with LOTS of baggage, and I suspect the existing 'groups' feature already does a lot of what you're looking for.

[Bad_Wolf]

Thank you all for your replies which are very helpfull finding out that I am wrong interpreting my own idea. Really, I was thinking way too far. Please, forgive me my stupidity.

What I do is objects who belong to each other, place them on the same "container" layer. When I started with Affinity Designer back in 2016 (when it became available for Windows), if I had lets say 200 objects, I also had 200 layers. As long as my drawing was small, this was ideal. However, when my drawings were much more complicated, believe me it truly became a mess and finding something was a nightmare.

Then I learned I could group objects on one layer, which made my drawings much cleaner and less complex. That is what I am doing for years now.

After Walt asked me how could that work, I thought about it and now honestly, I do not know it either. Reading the replies of Psenda and Bryan Rieger, I can only say that I agree with the three of you.

So if anybody of the Affinity team read this feature request, please ignore it. I just ran past myself and felt off the cliff.

Thank you all for your replies, which I appreciate so much.

Wish you all a very nice day.

Chris

 

[LWC]

Honestly, suggestion seems interesting.

We had that in Fireworks and it was really useful. Group z-order had priority over layer z-order. It's just a way to organise layers in Layers Window.