When area selected - in export default should be Selection Area

[Helmut Hauser]

When I selected an area of my drawing that I want to export I always have to choose the options "Area: Selection Area" or "Area: Selection Only" in the export window. The default is whole document.

It would be great if, whenever something is selected, either "Area: Selection Area" or "Area: Selection Only"  would be automatically set as default .

Best regards,
Helmut 

[GarryP]

So which should it be? Selection Area or Selection Only?
The software has to use one of them so which should it be?
And what about the people who want the one which you don’t choose?
And remember, some people may want things to be as they are so they don’t have to keep selecting “Whole Document” when they simply have something selected.

[Paul Collins]

I would also like to find a resolution to this same problem.

I am just migrating from CoralDraw to Affinity Designer for my laser engraving business and have determined the best method to send the vector graphics to my Trotec laser Ruby control software is by exporting the design as an SVG file.

For my workflow 99 times out of 100 I only want to Export the "Selection Only".

I have made myself a Preset which stores many default options which is great, but for some reason does not store the chosen Area.

Am I missing something? If not how do I best request this enhancment in Affinity Designer?

Thanks in advance

Paul

[Old Bruce]

7 hours ago, Paul Collins said:

For my workflow 99 times out of 100 I only want to Export the "Selection Only".

 

Can you not use the Preset and choose that in the Export Persona? Select the layer you want to export and make a Slice out of it in the Layers pane in the Export panel. You may have to make a group if it is many layers in the Designer persona first.

[elguapo]

On 8/24/2021 at 1:06 PM, Helmut Hauser said:

It would be great if, whenever something is selected, either "Area: Selection Area" or "Area: Selection Only"  would be automatically set as default .

+1.

I agree that "Selection Only" should be default and other options in dropdown menu. So many times I have exported something quickly only to find out later it exported whole document.

Upd. Although, actually no, after "Copy as SVG" properly working, it's simple Cmd-C. Maybe Context menu with "Copy as SVG, Copy as PNG etc." will be quicker and better.

[Paul Collins]

21 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Can you not use the Preset and choose that in the Export Persona? Select the layer you want to export and make a Slice out of it in the Layers pane in the Export panel. You may have to make a group if it is many layers in the Designer persona first.

Thanks for the suggestion - I have now played around with Export Persona but this adds too much to my workflow to make it worthwhile for me.

[Paul Collins]

19 hours ago, elguapo said:

+1.

I agree that "Selection Only" should be default and other options in dropdown menu. So many times I have exported something quickly only to find out later it exported whole document.

Upd. Although, actually no, after "Copy as SVG" properly working, it's simple Cmd-C. Maybe Context menu with "Copy as SVG, Copy as PNG etc." will be quicker and better.

In my workflow I need to save the SVG file in a specific folder. The Trotec app automatically monitors the folder and imports the SVG. I have tried normal Copy / Paste between the apps which does not work. How do you "Copy as SVG"?

[PaulEC]

19 hours ago, elguapo said:

I agree that "Selection Only" should be default and other options in dropdown menu.

I think that would be a very bad idea. If you actually want the whole document and accidentally only export a selection, you are more likely to loose part of your work. If you accidentally export the whole document and only want a selection, you have more chance of going back and just exporting what you do want. IMHO it would make much more sense to have a sticky selection for users to choose which option they want as a default.

[Old Bruce]

39 minutes ago, Paul Collins said:

How do you "Copy as SVG"?

It is a preference in the General section.

[Paul Collins]

Thanks everybody for your input. I have created a feature request for the Affinity team here:

Paul

[Petar Petrenko]

On 8/24/2021 at 12:06 PM, Helmut Hauser said:

It would be great if, whenever something is selected, either "Area: Selection Area" or "Area: Selection Only"  would be automatically set as default .

Not as default, but to appear only if you have a selection, otherwise "whole document" if nothing selected.

[fde101]

I for one would definitely NOT want this as a default behavior.

[Paul Collins]

3 hours ago, NNN said:

Not as default, but to appear only if you have a selection, otherwise "whole document" if nothing selected.

My suggestion to Serif is that they either make Export Presets also able to store a default option for the chosen Area.

An alternative solution proposed is to just make the Area selection "sticky" so that it remains on the last used option.

Would either of these options cause you a problem?

[Paul Collins]

1 hour ago, fde101 said:

I for one would definitely NOT want this as a default behavior.

My suggestion to Serif is that they either make Export Presets also able to store a default option for the chosen Area.

An alternative solution proposed is to just make the Area selection "sticky" so that it remains on the last used option.

Would either of these options cause you a problem?

[fde101]

17 minutes ago, Paul Collins said:

My suggestion to Serif is that they either make Export Presets also able to store a default option for the chosen Area.

An alternative solution proposed is to just make the Area selection "sticky" so that it remains on the last used option.

Would either of these options cause you a problem?

I would prefer that it be made a user preference.  While I can recognize that some users would benefit from the behavior you are proposing, it would mess me up a bit too often and be much more of a nuisance than a benefit.  It is also not the behavior that would be expected of the application, thus violating the principle of least surprise, so it should definitely not be a default behavior - but a preference to enable the behavior for a user would be helpful to some.

[robskinn]

+1. I would love to see this. I've lost count of the amount of times I export my selection to find out that I've exported the entire page.

I personally think it's more intuitive to export the items that are selected but I understand that to many users who are used to exporting the entire page this might be frustrating. It'd be interesting to vote on it?! But to make everybody happy a simple preference pane would be great.

[PaulEC]

6 minutes ago, robskinn said:

+1. I would love to see this. I've lost count of the amount of times I export my selection to find out that I've exported the entire page.

I personally think it's more intuitive to export the items that are selected but I understand that to many users who are used to exporting the entire page this might be frustrating. It'd be interesting to vote on it?! But to make everybody happy a simple preference pane would be great.

Personally I'm happy the way it is, but I'm sure a lot of people would like it changed. Probably the best option would be to have a setting in Preferences.

[Petar Petrenko]

3 minutes ago, N.P.M. said:

When working on a document I expect the document to be exported as the main target.

In that case, do not select anything.

I agree with the author of the thread @Helmut Hauser.

[GregoryOR]

I would prefer that the 3 options (selection, selection area and document) have different keyboard shortcuts, kind of like all the different kinds of paste options.  I always use opt+shift+cmd+s to export.  I'd be happy to learn a new combination to export selection.  Since I use that option roughly 99.99% of the time, that would be the only export shortcut I would need to memorize.

[MarekJ]

Solution to this please, give us at least some option to change this default behavior. I basically never use export whole document in my work. 

[robskinn]

17 minutes ago, MarekJ said:

Solution to this please, give us at least some option to change this default behavior. I basically never use export whole document in my work. 

Hi MarekJ
I believe that this issue was resolved in one of the recent updates. Now, if you select an artboard before initiating an export, it will exclusively export that specific artboard, rather than the entire document. 

[GregoryOR]

9 hours ago, robskinn said:

Hi MarekJ
I believe that this issue was resolved in one of the recent updates. Now, if you select an artboard before initiating an export, it will exclusively export that specific artboard, rather than the entire document. 

That's slightly different.  I always use a single artboard with mutliple layers.  If a layer is selected and I select Export, it still defaults to the whole document option.