Selection/move tool behaviour

[jasd]

I'm new to Affinity but I have been using Designer intensively for the last two weeks, so I am getting the hang of it. However a problem I experienced from the start, is now getting worse: I cannot make the Selector/Move Tool select anything unless I'm in Outline View, and then it's still very uncertain. Which is clearly absurd. Not to be able to select an object on screen is maddening particularly if you have multiple layers - which I cannot imagine not having since the software makes a new layer out of every object (which is also very irritating at times).

And I cannot even scroll through the layers using my arrow keys, which is equally maddening.

Honestly, it's enough to make me want to go back to Adobe Illustrator (which I had been using for about 25 years) for all it's faults.

Please fix this before I go insane!

It may be useful to know that I am working on an iMac running MacOS 11.2.3 Big Sur.

[jasd]

Ah ha! I may have found the answer myself.

It seems (so far), that this "bug" only happens when working on .pdf files imported from Adobe Illustrator. Which is fair enough, I suppose. When I create a new document the problem goes away, and the Selection/Move Tool behaves as it should.

Having said that, it would still be very handy if we could scroll through the Layers Menu using the arrow keys

[loukash]

1 hour ago, jasd said:

only happens when working on .pdf files

PDFs may contain a lot of nested clipping paths, groups, etc.
Make sure to keep the Layers panel open to keep track of the document's "vertical hierarchy".
Often a lot of "cleanup" is necessary if you want to use a PDF as a starting point for your design.

[Sean P]

Hi jasd,
As loukash says it might well be your file contains a lot of groups, layers or nested objects, however without the actual document that is causing you issues we cannot say for sure.

[jasd]

Thanks loukash and Sean P, I've realized that trying to work on imported pdfs is not a good idea, for all the reasons you cite - for example, several items of text appeared with the outline of the whole word on one layer and the fill of each letter as a separate layer!

I mean - that way madness lies. But it still doesn't really explain why the tool box doesn't work. If I switched to Outline mode, I could select things (fairly) easily but I could select nothing if I was in Vector mode.

I'm sorry, but that is just weird.

But, since I don't expect to be working again on recovered Adobe files, I expect my main issue here will no longer arise. So thank you both for you advice.

However, if either of you have access to any developers, please could you ask them to enable me to scroll through the layers menu with my arrow keys? and please could you ask them to allow me to merge layers like I can in Photo?

[loukash]

1 hour ago, jasd said:

to scroll through the layers menu

Select menu > Select Next/Previous > assign your favorite keyboard shortcuts to those commands
Works only within a single hierarchy level. That's not always a bad thing, though.

1 hour ago, jasd said:

it still doesn't really explain why the tool box doesn't work

If these are compound objects as is often the case in PDFs, the Move/Node tools will only select the parent compound layer. That's "by design", as the "affinologists" would say. To select its children (if any), double-click the part you want to select, or use the Layers panel.

In that sense and as already noted, my Layers panel is always open, so that I have always control about the document vertical structure. That was already the case how I used to work in Illustrator. And much like in Illustrator, each Affinity object is de facto a layer.

Enabling Auto-Scroll in the Layers panel's "hamburger" menu also helps.

[jasd]

Thanks Loukash. Alas (at least on the document I was having all that trouble with)  the tool doesn't select anything no matter how simple, unless I'm in Outline Mode, and the nnotrelably.

So, I have ditched the document and started from scratch in a fresh new document and all is working fine.

I take the point about layers, but it would be nice to merge them if required. There are times when it might be very useful.

I'll check out the assign keyboard shortcut in due course, but, meanwhile, your suggestion to look in the Preferences meant I found the "CAnvas Rotation" toggle switch which is great because it was driving me crazy! Now I have turned it off all is peace and light again.

I was sure all these problems were just my inexperience - the software itself is proving superb: I'm loving all the things I wished for years that Illustrator could do but didn't, but which Designer can do and does.

Thanks for all your help, JasD

[MEB]

Hi @jasd,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
To  deal with/select objects contained within other objects, groups etc press and hold cmd and click over the object you want to select on canvas to bypass/ignore the layer's hierarchy and pick the object directly.
Alternatively you can also double-click an object on a group or clipped on another object for example to select it - the first click selects the group, the second selects the object. To select other objects within the same group a single click is enough since you are already inside the group or clipping object.

Additionally, you can also press and hold alt to cycle through several overlapping objects until you get/pick the one you want to select.

To merge (compound paths) and separate vector objects, go to menu Layer > Geometry > Merge Curves /Separate Curves.

[loukash]

1 hour ago, jasd said:

the tool doesn't select anything no matter how simple

I remember having had similar issues as well though. Usually quitting the app and reopening the document would fix it for good. Until it happens a week or two later elsewhere, that is. An app interface glitch…