Hatching areas of different sizes

[psheld]

Hi, I'm planning a home refurbishment and wish to show which parts of various walls are tiled. In engineering drawing terms, this is known as hatching.

I understand that Affinity Designer does not have a hatching "fill". It does have a bitmap fill however, and I thought this could be used for the purpose. However, I'm struggling to apply it consistently.

While I can save the bitmap fill as a swatch, exactly how that fill is applied is not part of the swatch. In other words, I haven't figured out a convenient way to get two distinct areas using the same swatch to look the same without lots of small fiddly tweaking.

So then I thought I would fill one rectangle and simply duplicate the shape for use elsewhere. Unfortunately, the aspect ratio and scale of the fill changes with changes to the shape. So this doesn't work either.

Any and all ideas welcome 🙂 ... I still consider myself an Affinity Designer learner, albeit a keen one!

[lacerto]

(...)

[Alfred]

If you want a vector fill, you can ‘roll your own’ by drawing a series of parallel lines, grouping them, and then clipping copies of the group to the shapes that you want to fill.

 

[psheld]

Thanks @Lagarto @Alfred.

I had a couple of really clunky ways to proceed. I think your ways are less clunky, but still not approaching ideal as I know you know!

[G13RL]

If nothing else, I use the same method as Alfred, but I created an asset with the lines, this way the fill is always the same, regardless of its orientation and it is available for other documents.

[lacerto]

(...)

[psheld]

Thanks @G13RL ... reckon that's going to be the best way for me to proceed.

Saying that, the joy of this forum is learning new things about Designer ... in this instance, @Lagarto is taking things to places I've not yet been. I know I will find time to explore 😁 .. thanks.

[Tatom]

It is incredible how Affinity Designer lags behind DrawPlus not just in features, but also in the stupidity of feature implementations.
I tried some typically used features (in DrawPlus) today in Designer, it is a complete joke. No numeric option for scaling, no FX-layer bitmap fill, no "scale/not scale with the object option... Were the original developers fired for being guilty in competency?

[Tatom]

This is how it worked in Serif DrawPlus:
 

[Dan C]

On 10/16/2021 at 9:33 PM, Tatom said:

It is incredible how Affinity Designer lags behind DrawPlus not just in features, but also in the stupidity of feature implementations.

The Affinity suite has been written from scratch for 3 platforms at once and are still in 'infancy' stages, when compared to the lifespan of the legacy 'Plus' range software, which was written for Windows only.

Drawplus was in development for around 24-25 years total, perhaps slightly longer, and during that time many developers built upon the codebase and features.

When Serif switched to the Affinity range, none of that coding could be used - as we wanted a new app that was cross platform with an 'open' filetype that could be opened in any of the apps.

This means that we had to start again, and certain features that may have taken 10 years to add to drawplus haven't yet been implemented into Affinity Designer, as it simply hasn't been in development for that long.

I can confirm:

On 10/16/2021 at 9:33 PM, Tatom said:

No numeric option for scaling

This is something we hope to add in the future.

On 10/16/2021 at 9:33 PM, Tatom said:

no FX-layer bitmap fill

This is available via the Fill Tool.

On 10/16/2021 at 9:33 PM, Tatom said:

no "scale/not scale with the object option

Assuming you're referring to FX options, this can be found here -

 

I hope this clears things up.

[Tatom]

"The Affinity suite has been written from scratch for 3 platforms at once and are still in 'infancy' stages, when compared to the lifespan of the legacy 'Plus' range software, which was written for Windows only.

Drawplus was in development for around 24-25 years total, perhaps slightly longer, and during that time many developers built upon the codebase and features.

When Serif switched to the Affinity range, none of that coding could be used - as we wanted a new app that was cross platform with an 'open' filetype that could be opened in any of the apps.

This means that we had to start again, and certain features that may have taken 10 years to add to drawplus haven't yet been implemented into Affinity Designer, as it simply hasn't been in development for that long."

We all know this and this is not an excuse, sorry. Designer was released almost 6-7 years ago.
If you have to rewrite everything from the start, you have the opportunity to fix the glitches and make better implementations than the old ones or the competition have.
You clearly missed that point.

Here is how as I (a UX/usability advisor) see this: today making any vector or bitmap editing tool does not require ANY innovation; just taking the best, most user-friendly approach on the market exists and use that method. No geniuses needed at all to make this, just hard work.
If you want a cutting edge, market leader application, you listen to experts.

Unity3D did it when they started; I asked for a feature, I made my points and they had it in the app in 3 weeks.
Lumion3D did it: they made a completely different approach and made from Quest they step forward to Lumion, which leads the market of real-time 3D visualization since they entered to that market.
I wrote mails, posts for Serif offering help. No results.

- So you were able to release Affinity Photo without direct alpha access for texture packing (and yeah, I know your so-called 'solution' and that sucks completely with an extremely stupidly over-complicated workflow - mentioned by many everywhere).
- You were able to release Designer with extremely terrible UX/UI (I will get back to that later).
- You removed the roadmap (having 'pages' were promised for Designer when it came out first).

I bought all of the Affinity products to support you, but still use all the former product line, because the current one after years is not there (to replace the old ones).
I have 3 friends bought your products and they still don't use it for anything and who are still Adobe users. Because they had the hope, just lost it.

You don't listen to your customers.

[Dan C]

I'm sorry to hear you feel this way - I'm simply part of the Technical Support team, I make no decisions when it comes to development of the Affinity suite.

However I do my best to pass all feedback through to our development team and log improvements with them as required.

I'll be sure to pass this feedback through to the relevant teams and I hope we're able to change these perceptions in the future.

EDIT - Should you have further feedback, I recommend posting this in the following section of our forums, as it does not belong in a 'Questions' thread -

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/52-feature-requests-suggestions/

Many thanks.

[Tatom]

''No numeric option for scaling'
This is something we hope to add in the future. '

The whole concept of bitmap fill tool is flawed in many levels in Designer. Numeric option will be great, but it has nothing to do with that.

''no FX-layer bitmap fill'
This is available via the Fill Tool.'

I know. From UX aspect it is a typical mistake the way it works and the way it is implemented.

'Assuming you're referring to FX options, this can be found here -'

And why it is there? How this panel in any way related to the bitmap fills in the current implementation?
it is like keeping toilet paper roll in the garage instead of the bathroom near the toilet

.
 

[Tatom]

And another thing:

Scale with object affects all of the FX layers.
There was no one in the team who thought that it would be great to have the selection which FX-elements should be scaled and which is not?

Because - as an example - I want to keep the outline size or the shadow the same to match the overall design with its values, but I just want to make some design elements smaller?

This is when I say that UX is critical, thinking forward is critical, etc.

I think this is the 4th time I get the response you gave to me. Thanks for it, but to be honest, I don't trust in it at all (no offense).
And what makes me upset, that you HAD and HAVE the chance to make a real competitor for Adobe (if it is a goal) or you have the chance to make everything incredibly competitive (not just in price). But - as I saw in the case of many-many products - there are companies who listen and there are companies where CTOs think they 'know better'. Well, most of the cases they don't. That is why Adobe rules the 2D illustration world, while almost nobody likes them.

I would be able to make 'into to smallest details' UX how a tool should work to have a better product, even workaround for things are messed up from the beginning, but here is the thing: I did it many times and it is time-consuming and typically goes to a 'midwit' who has no idea about UX, because 'she/he knows things better'. While clearly does not, as the examples illustrate it.

[psheld]

May I offer some feedback @Tatom, although I recognize you haven't explicitly invited any!

Anyone who interacts with a system of any kind has a right to reflect on how it could be better by any definition of the word. Such freedom of thought is closely followed by freedom of speech ... share the idea / the observation / the question!

Depending on the context, the communication may warrant excitement, or perhaps disappointment, but regardless, we all communicate ultimately with the hope that we might make some small difference in the world.

You have expertise and experience that any system designer will hope to cherish, but the potential influence of your feedback here is, I think, tarnished by its inference that you want perfection and you want it now. That is an unrealistic expectation of any system design team, as much as I'm certain the Affinity product team would love to achieve as much. They, like you and me in our day jobs, always have a long to-do list. We all have to make decisions about priorities. We all have resource constraints. That's just life.

Yet give them some love in the process and perhaps your ideas / observations / questions will get lifted, and so too your agency in the world.

Best wishes.

[Tatom]

Well, let me to explain a little bit my attitude toward the world and its 'products', as it is so not Affinity-specific, that I'm considering to release a blog/podcats how to mess things up through product development without the proper skillset to understand how thing should work well. Not perfectly, just 'well' enough to fulfill the expectations of a paying customer or someone who has some expectations for his/her money.

In the last few years (decades?) I see a complete decrease in quality management in product development. Not just apps, also physical products are affected. It is independent from the price of the product, it is an overall issue.

I got tired related to this. I got tired to find (almost impossible to find the responsible person) and illustrate a problem for a manufacturer what would cost 0,001% of the final price and would double the lifetime of something; I got tired the endless debates with FOSS developers without any production experience who all think they could make a better solution for a problem then industry-leader apps. One from thousands could implement a better one, the others miserably fail in many levels (midwits).

So I don't except anyone to be the one from the thousands. That one will write history (as Unity did, as ACT3D did, as many-many startups did).
I want the average guy who knows his profession; takes a pen, checks the knowledge of all the competitors, writes down the functions, features, checks their implementations, how that implementations fits to the inner logic of the usage of that specific application and how it could be compared to the strongest competitor's solution (because it is a basic rule for UX: don't mess with things people are used to use in a specific way if you are not a UX genius. If you are, you can.

So no rocket-scientist needed here, just hard work before writing a single line of code.
- Planning 'for the past' (including all known and useful features at the past from own and other products)
- Planning 'for the present' (including all known - often experimental - features from this day)
- Planning 'for the future' (to make a massive foundation to be able to add features easily with some educated guessing about upcoming future functions/features the customer needs)

Serif is almost as old as Adobe; before Affinity product line it was almost unknown on the market, while Adobe became industry leader and defeated its 'enemies' on the market with ease (like Quark), etc.

Think about this. During this timeline small - in some cases 1-man - developers became industry leaders in their area and big company-financed products failed miserably.
Just being concrete with an example: Corona renderer started as a one-man development, but it's writer was so geniously smart that when I saw his pre-prealpha version like 10 or more years ago I said: this guy will make it. He did.

During this time nVidia developed Iray and abandoned it, because they were not geniuses (not to mention dozens of other companies who failed with much more resources).

So I understand the limitations of the resources, but the limitations should force the developers to build something to versatile (to modify/implement, etc.) and to make a function work as it should. In the most of the cases on the projects I see there is no resource-problem. There is a 'seeing-the-big-picture' problem and the lack of wish/knowledge-problem. Not in the case of daily work, in the case of planning state. A coder will code something by the wish of his boss.

 

[Tatom]

2 hours ago, Dan C said:

I'm sorry to hear you feel this way - I'm simply part of the Technical Support team, I make no decisions when it comes to development of the Affinity suite.

However I do my best to pass all feedback through to our development team and log improvements with them as required.

I'll be sure to pass this feedback through to the relevant teams and I hope we're able to change these perceptions in the future.

EDIT - Should you have further feedback, I recommend posting this in the following section of our forums, as it does not belong in a 'Questions' thread -

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/52-feature-requests-suggestions/

Many thanks.

Here is the problem. 3rd question, Nth ask for public roadmap, no listening for the users/customers, still no joy.
 

[Dan C]

5 minutes ago, Tatom said:

Here is the problem. 3rd question, Nth ask for public roadmap, no listening for the users/customers, still no joy.

A colleague of mine has previously covered this decision here - 

We're still in discussions internally for what may be best going forward in terms of keeping our users up to date with our current hopes & plans for the apps.

As of yet we have not made a decision as to how best share this information, but it does not mean we are not aware that our users are hoping for more transparency and we hope to provide this.

 

As previously requested if you have any further feedback regarding the Affinity app, please keep this to the Feedback section of the forums, linked above.

Many thanks once again.

[Tatom]

Well, we heard this earlier.
It is a post from 2020, more than a year ago. Pretty long discussion without result, women carry and give birth to a baby in less time.

'Hope, hope, hope'.

It is not a church, it is a product development roadmap request, what could be answered with yes or no.
If the answer was no, then accept the criticism related to it.

No offense, but this is simple ridiculous. I swear to God I'm trying not to be sarcastic as much I am and I know it is not your responsibility (and I don't want to put on you), but this is the typical example how not to make things/run a company related product development.

[Alfred]

3 hours ago, Tatom said:

I think this is the 4th time I get the response you gave to me. Thanks for it, but to be honest, I don't trust in it at all (no offense).

 

6 minutes ago, Tatom said:

No offense, but this is simple ridiculous.

You state that you don’t trust the response you get from a member of Serif staff, and you denounce Serif’s stance on public roadmaps as “ridiculous”, but you claim not to be trying to offend anyone? If I may say so, your understanding of the word “offense” seems rather peculiar.

[Tatom]

Declaring a fact is not an offense.
I used the "no offense" term to declare that it is not 'personal', it is not claiming to 'hurt' feelings.
Facts are facts, even if someone dislikes them.
Of course I know that in our brave new snowflake world everything could be an offense and everyone could be offended by things, that is why I carefully used 'no offense'.
It is not personal. Just pointing on a problem in the process.