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"Select same transparency" does not select objects with same transparency


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Hello all.
Whenever I select an object of a given transparency (as shown in the upper right Color panel, green disc on first image), and chose Select->select same ->transparency, I get all the objects in my drawing, as shown on the last image (AD 1.10.4). Either something is not intuitive or there is a bug (functionally, it is a bug). Note that in my 2nd and 3rd screenshots fill is in fact 100% opaque but the brown object sits in a 100% opaque layer whereas the third purple object is in a layer only 45% opaque -- neither correspond to the object and layer opacity of the green disc. It is not a question of fill vs. stroke transparency either, because both are different between my objects (not shown). So if it's neither fill, stroke or layer transparency, what transparency is AD considering then?

object1.png

object2.png

 

object3_layer.png

result_of_selection_from_object1.png

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1 hour ago, Pioof said:

layer 2 has opacity 45% and its object is selected too

Change the opacity of Layer 2 to 100% and change the opacity of the contained purple object to 45%. It won’t look any different, but if you then select the 100% opaque green circle you should find that ‘Select Same > Transparency’ doesn’t select the purple object.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Interesting. In the iPad version, if I select the green circle and ‘Select Same > Transparency’, the Layer containing the 45% opaque ellipse is selected but the ellipse itself isn’t (which seems like the correct behaviour).

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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49 minutes ago, Pioof said:

Is there a formal way to file it or this thread enough?

This thread will be enough, if @MEB or another moderator agrees it's a bug when they get back to it.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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18 hours ago, Alfred said:

Change the opacity of Layer 2 to 100% and change the opacity of the contained purple object to 45%. It won’t look any different, but if you then select the 100% opaque green circle you should find that ‘Select Same > Transparency’ doesn’t select the purple object.

 

17 hours ago, Pioof said:

No, it still does. But with an added box around the purple object that correlates with the (new) selection of layer2 in the layer panel.

It seems you've changed the layer 2 opacity (layers panel) to 100%, but then changed the purple ellipse to a 45% color fill (color panel) which is a different "type" (probably not the best word) of opacity setting. The purple ellipse still has a 100% layer opacity. So it's being selected with everything else that has 100% layer opacity.

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10 minutes ago, JimmyJack said:

The purple ellipse still has a 100% layer opacity.

Well spotted, @JimmyJack. I should have looked more closely at the first of @Pioof’s latest two screenshots.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Well, JimmyJack, I did that just to prove something to Alfred. Initially, my layer2 had 45% opacity (see my 3rd screenshot) and everything was selected all the same. In short, whatever opacity setting you vary, fill, stroke, layer, everything is selected, which makes no sense to me. Besides, IMHO the only sensible thing would be to select the same perceptual transparency, whether it results from a fill choice or a layer choice (but we may disagree and that).

The file is attached if you want to have fun.

test2.afdesign

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5 hours ago, Pioof said:

Well, JimmyJack, I did that just to prove something to Alfred. Initially, my layer2 had 45% opacity (see my 3rd screenshot) and everything was selected all the same. In short, whatever opacity setting you vary, fill, stroke, layer, everything is selected, which makes no sense to me. Besides, IMHO the only sensible thing would be to select the same perceptual transparency, whether it results from a fill choice or a layer choice (but we may disagree and that).

The file is attached if you want to have fun.

test2.afdesign

I'm assuming that screen shot 4 is the "selected all the same" screen grab. But, everything was not selected all the same. Layer 2 was not selected (at 45%). The object inside was, but not the layer. I'm not commenting on what should or should not happen, just explaining was is happening. Select by transparency is going solely by the layer opacity setting. And it seems consistent in doing so.

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On 3/3/2022 at 10:16 PM, Pioof said:

Nope, the selected object (green disc) belongs to a layer with 100% opacity; layer 2 has opacity 45% and its object is selected too.

Hi @Pioof,
Thanks for the file. As I explained above that command only select objects with the same layer opacity (for this purpose it doesn't matter if the layer is an object or a layer containing other objects) - only the ones with the same layer opacity will be selected (single layers or objects).
Your green disc has a colour opacity of 70% but a layer opacity of 100% thus all objects/layers with a layer opacity of 100% will be selected (even if they are placed within a layer with a different lower/opacity).

I've attached a sample file below which may help explain what's confusing here - it contains three squares, all look exactly the same on canvas however if you select the one of the left (which have 50% opacity) and go to menu Select > Same > Transparency it may seem the app selects two squares when in fact only the first square and the Layer1 itself were selected - note the square within the Layer1 is NOT selected (check the Layers panel) only just the layer that contains it which is what has the 50% opacity applied.

select_same_transpaqrency_2.afdesign

There's no bugs here - this is by design.

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Sorry for the delay in the response.

I must be thick but for me there "layer opacity" cannot mean both "the opacity of a layer" and "the opacity of an object inside that layer". As far as I understand, but correct me if I'm wrong (at least that's how I would expect things to function), we should have, in hierarchical order:

layer opacity > object opacity > (fill color opacity, stroke color opacity)
and all contribute to the perceptual opacity of the object.

But that's just semantics. Now take your example file. Select the top left object and use "select same transparency": you'll get the top middle object selected. Now select that top middle object and apply "select same transparency". You will not get the top left object selected. In other words, A = B but B ≠ A. The problem is that both in mathematics and in common sense, "same" is symmetrical. So if it works fine by design, then your design is completely broken.

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3 hours ago, Pioof said:

Now take your example file. Select the top left object and use "select same transparency": you'll get the top middle object selected. Now select that top middle object and apply "select same transparency". You will not get the top left object selected. In other words, A = B but B ≠ A. The problem is that both in mathematics and in common sense, "same" is symmetrical. So if it works fine by design, then your design is completely broken.

If you select the top left rectangle, and look at the Layers panel, you see it has 50% actual transparency. Then Select Same Transparency gives you everything that has 50% actual transparency. It may appear (in the workspace where you see the bounding box) that it is selecting the middle rectangle, but it is not. It is selecting the Layer that contains the middle rectangle. They happen to have coincident bounding boxes, but they are different objects.

If you make that selection and look at the Layers panel, you have this, where you can see that the Rectangle within Layer1 is not selected.
image.png.7b8d199cb1f98bec75ba702f3d37928c.png

 

If you then deselect everything, and select the middle rectangle, you have selected an object with 100% actual transparency, if you examine it in the Layers panel. If you then Select Same Transparency, you get other objects with 100% actual transparency. You are not selecting items with the same apparent transparency, but the same actual transparency when you look at the object itself in the Layers panel.

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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6 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

It may appear (in the workspace where you see the bounding box) that it is selecting the middle rectangle, but it is not. It is selecting the Layer that contains the middle rectangle. They happen to have coincident bounding boxes, but they are different objects.

No. If you move around this selection, the middle object moves around. If you change the fill color to green, the middle object turns green. I don't care whether in theory the layer is selected and the object inside it is not: everything is consistent with a selection of the object.

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6 minutes ago, Pioof said:

No. If you move around this selection, the middle object moves around. If you change the fill color to green, the middle object turns green. I don't care whether in theory the layer is selected and the object inside it is not: everything is consistent with a selection of the object.

If you create a container Layer and put three different coloured rectangles in it (e.g. red, yellow, and blue) selecting the middle one and changing the fill colour to green will result in only the selected rectangle changing colour. If you select the container Layer, changing the fill colour to green will affect all three rectangles.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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50 minutes ago, Pioof said:

If you change the fill color to green, the middle object turns green.

That is because changing the Fill of a Layer layer changes the Fill of the objects it contains. 

50 minutes ago, Pioof said:

I don't care whether in theory the layer is selected and the object inside it is not:

It is not only in theory. It is an important concept to understand, and makes a difference in practice. And it explains why it did not work as you expect.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

It is an important concept to understand, and makes a difference in practice.

As far as I can see, it doesn't make any difference in practice. Please give me an example of a difference between the selection of a layer and the selection of all its constituents, apart from what is displayed in the inspector window.

Anyway, that is not the key problem of this thread. The key problem is that "same" is supposed to be a symmetrical concept. If A is the same as B, then B should be the same as A. In the current implementation, it is not. I'm not asking why it is not, I think I begin to understand why AD works in that convoluted way, I'm just saying this is a stupid choice and a stupid implementation that breaks one the most basic assumptions a standard user holds. When your software does not behave as 99% people instinctively believes it should, you are obviously free to go on thinking they are uneducated and need to read the doc. Or you can change that behavior to make it intuitive. As far as I'm concerned, I see no value in the current implementation of "same transparency" and would never use it, if ever I adopted AD as a professional tool.

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1 hour ago, Pioof said:

Please give me an example of a difference between the selection of a layer and the selection of all its constituents...

Layer selected: 786387427_Layerselected.jpg.d363ce43dd498d01e7b97f7335c0716a.jpg  vs. its contents selected: 340296219_Contentsselected.jpg.1b91487e9bf4a576dbba41efc18ec5a9.jpg

Very different things; thus not at all the same.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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8 hours ago, Pioof said:

The key problem is that "same" is supposed to be a symmetrical concept. If A is the same as B, then B should be the same as A. In the current implementation, it is not.

It is the same, and symmetrical. But you must consider what is being selected. Two important points:

  1. You need to understand the difference between selecting the container (the Layer, with a capital L, layer) vs the objects contained in the container.
  2. This is selecting absolute transparency/opacity, as shown when you highlight that exact layer (with a small L) in the Layers panel. It is not showing apparent transparency. That is part of what @MEB's sample file shows.

    If you have an separate object with 50% opacity, and an object with 100% opacity but inside a Layer with 50% opacity they look the same on the screen. Their apparent transparency is the same. But the absolute opacity of each object different (one is 50, one is 100), and so Select Same Transparency treats them differently.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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14 hours ago, Pioof said:

Please give me an example of a difference between the selection of a layer and the selection of all its constituents, apart from what is displayed in the inspector window.

Are you requesting us to not use the Layers pane to make selections?

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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17 hours ago, Pioof said:

As far as I can see, it doesn't make any difference in practice. Please give me an example of a difference between the selection of a layer and the selection of all its constituents, apart from what is displayed in the inspector window.

Hi Pioof,
Open the attached document. There's an outer shadow FX (with the exact same settings) applied to both squares: one directly to the square object and the other indirectly through a Layer. Increase their size/scale in the canvas considerably dragging the corner handles then check/compare how the shadows dimensions behave for both - they do not match. The FX applied through the Layer doesn't affect the shadow size of the square object inside it. Layer structure/content sets the context for some of the behaviours/funcionality implemented in the app.

difference.afdesign

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16 hours ago, Pioof said:

Please give me an example of a difference between the selection of a layer and the selection of all its constituents, apart from what is displayed in the inspector window.

Consider this screenshot, with the Layer selected (as shown in the Layers panel), but none of its children selected:

image.png.3f12e3b79319e2ca44c93f7cfa18023a.png

Compare that with this one, where the pink rectangle is selected:

image.png.dcd1b64ef32154f2d6e0a2f649a445b8.png

On the workspace, they look identical. You can only tell the difference when looking at the Layers panel.

For a difference, as you requested: In the first one, if you assign a Fill color in the Context Toolbar it is applied to all 3 rectangles. In the second one, if you assign a Fill color, it is assigned only to the pink rectangle.

But note that selecting the Layer does not select all its constituents. In the first screenshot, only the Layer is selected. In the seconed, only the pink rectangle. In this next one, all 3 children are selected:

image.png.d275874201cb6b705d56f1aec759d560.png

In the workspace all 3 look identical; only in the Layers panel can you see what is really happening.

Now consider the action of pressing the Delete key to see another difference that you can only predict by looking at the Layers panel:

  1. In screenshot 1, everything will be deleted.
  2. In screenshot 2, only the pink rectangle will be deleted.
  3. In 3, the children will be deleted, but the Layer will remain.
     

layer-rectangle-test.afdesign

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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