Batch actions on Designer. How to do this the best way?

[albertkinng]

Friends,

I'm using Affinity Designer 1.10.4 on a Mac Mini running Big Sur 11.6 and a client send me lots of icons to fix line width and size. When I open the file, I have 3 art boards full of icons. I'm trying to do the easy parts first and then  go to the complex ones. In my mind set, all icons at a same height and width is a matter of selecting all and apply the correct size, right? I mean you can do that practically on any design app out there (Inkscape, Acorn, Vectornator, Pixelmator, Illustrator and many others) How can I do this in Designer?? I tried all the things that come to my mind with no success at all. Do I need to create a macro? Using a third party app like Keyboard Maestro? Any help or solution will be greatly appreciated to it.

[Old Bruce]

13 minutes ago, albertkinng said:

In my mind set, all icons at a same height and width is a matter of selecting all and apply the correct size, right?

Seems logical and I too looked for this. Looked and didn't find any way.

Then there was the added Transform Objects Separately item on the Context toolbar. This will change the items proportionately. Meaning you can't make objects all 1cm x 2cm unless they start out the same size 5cm x 5 cm is fine but some at 4cm 4cm and some at 3cm x 3cm won't give you all at 5 x 5

[albertkinng]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

Seems logical and I too looked for this. Looked and didn't find any way.

Then there was the added Transform Objects Separately item on the Context toolbar. This will change the items proportionately. Meaning you can't make objects all 1cm x 2cm unless they start out the same size 5cm x 5 cm is fine but some at 4cm 4cm and some at 3cm x 3cm won't give you all at 5 x 5

You need Royalty Treatment by Serif Company, Sir. Standing ovation for you.

[albertkinng]

@Old Bruce do you know how to select multiple items in export persona? I'm trying to select the 500 x 500 area but it seems I can't have it with transparency. The PNG have a white background.

[Old Bruce]

18 hours ago, albertkinng said:

@Old Bruce do you know how to select multiple items in export persona? I'm trying to select the 500 x 500 area but it seems I can't have it with transparency. The PNG have a white background.

I honestly don't know what you mean by 500 x 500 area.

You may want to use the Layers panel to make slices of the items/icons/things. If they are grouped it is a matter of selecting the group and then making a slice out of that.

[albertkinng]

What I meant was exporting all icons individually at a size of 500px x 500px each. This is what I did.

1. I create a square with the size for export, lock it and send it to the back of the page. 
 

2. Inside export persona I used the squares to create the slices one by one in the same page. 
 

3. save the Affinity designer doc as a template so the slices are also part of the doc. So now I can copy paste all icons and all of them will fit the pixel size space I create to export them. 
 

it was a very tedious work and took a long time to achieve. I think they need to fix the export Persona and let us copy paste the slices selection so we can do more and faster. Idk something like let us select all items and tweak the size of the slice and stuff like that. Anyway I delivered the icons and client is happy. Thanks a lot you help me to achieved this faster than I thought.

[Old Bruce]

There may well be a better quicker easier method but without seeing how the Designer document is made I cannot offer any meaningful advice. Your method may be the best method for that particular file.

Keep in mind how to make exports easier when you start a project. Would individual Artboards help? Should you Group items with a 500 x 500 'frame'?

[albertkinng]

4 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

There may well be a better quicker easier method but without seeing how the Designer document is made I cannot offer any meaningful advice. Your method may be the best method for that particular file.

Keep in mind how to make exports easier when you start a project. Would individual Artboards help? Should you Group items with a 500 x 500 'frame'?

project here: https://d.pr/f/jIdqRP

[Wosven]

13 hours ago, albertkinng said:

What I meant was exporting all icons individually at a size of 500px x 500px each. This is what I did.

1. I create a square with the size for export, lock it and send it to the back of the page. 

1. Create the needed number of square, tag them with a same colour and a stroke, space them as needed and put them below everything

2. Duplicate the document, and keep only the part with the icons and squares, delete all the other artboards and content, ungroup the objects and get them out of any Layer, before deleting the Layer.

3. And that's where the lack of "redo" or other iteration through selected objects is really missing in the apps:
use the Artboard tool,set it on "selection", and select one by one each square, and click on the button "Add an artboard" (don't use the "convert to artboard" option in the menu, since it won't add the objects above inside the artboard).

4.Select all the squares (similar tag colour), and set the stroke to 0 and no colour (or delete them)

5. Use the export persona

 

Being able to duplicate some slices would have been another good method if it exists... since we can select different ones and align them (but not resize them once selected ).