Gradient Tool Too Small, Cannot Detach Gradient Properties Editor

[Kim Panattoni]

Hello there,

I have been having some issues searching not only the forums but the web for this answer as well.

Attached is are two images of my monitor with Affinity Designer and with Adobe Illustrator open and with the gradient properties editor open in each. I have a 4K monitor, which of course makes everything smaller, but I need the screen real estate. I also know it is not necessarily fair to compare Designer to Illustrator, but I am looking for the Affinity solution compared to the Adobe solution.

I have a gradient that needs multiple points. In this case, around but not specifically 20. When working with the gradient editor as it currently is, being only a small drop down from the bar at the top, this is nearly impossible to achieve without some massive mouse and keyboard acrobatics. I know that in Illustrator, I have the option of resizing the gradient editor and even detaching it from the menu as shown here. I need that huge gradient editor for the gradient I am creating. I really need to have the numeric values available to me since I have to place them precisely and set specific colour values for each point, like the image of Illustrator attached. I would like to know how to detach it from the top menu bar and make it its own flyout window panel, or put it in a different spot, but either way, be able to resize it so I have a very long gradient editor on which I can place tons of colour points and navigate them with ease, and again, set precise colour values for each. If this is not possible (which I doubt, Affinity is far better than Illustrator so far) then please help me find a work around.

Thanks!

-Kim

[Kim Panattoni]

Hey everyone,

 

I did find this as an option thanks to a friend and Affinity user... and while it is a step forward, I still cannot stretch it out to make it easier to insert points. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

-Kim

 

[R C-R]

12 minutes ago, Hens said:

Maybe this will help

I think part of what the OP wants is to be able to set the position of each color stop to precise numeric values:

Quote

I really need to have the numeric values available to me since I have to place them precisely ...

I do not know of a way to do that. The closest I can get is to select each stop in turn & set it to percent value, but it is tedious & I am not sure if it rounds off to the nearest whole percent just in the display or actually on the gradient.

[Kim Panattoni]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

I think part of what the OP wants is to be able to set the position of each color stop to precise numeric values:

I do not know of a way to do that. The closest I can get is to select each stop in turn & set it to percent value, but it is tedious & I am not sure if it rounds off to the nearest whole percent just in the display or actually on the gradient.

 

R-C-R: I briefly found a submenu that say edit properties, but now I cannot find it anymore. Not sure where... But when that came up, I got the submenu that lets me put in the values and positions by number like you see in my first picture of Designer. Not sure where it went. It was a little bit bigger, and it gave me the same options that the drop down from the top bar does, in which you can change positions by number, etc.

[Kim Panattoni]

3 hours ago, Hens said:

Maybe this will help
 

It is not specifically that... it is this. This menu comes up when you click the gradient preview in the top bar. But as you can see, it allows you to set the values numerically. However, this is a very tiny window for editing a gradient. I need to find a way to pull it off of the top bar there and resize the window so that I have plenty of room to put in my points, and then precisely assign them their positions along the gradient.

[Kim Panattoni]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

I think part of what the OP wants is to be able to set the position of each color stop to precise numeric values:

I do not know of a way to do that. The closest I can get is to select each stop in turn & set it to percent value, but it is tedious & I am not sure if it rounds off to the nearest whole percent just in the display or actually on the gradient.

So if you look at this image which is the gradient editor from the menu bar at the top, you have a means to select a stop, change its position, change its midpoint, etc. This menu comes up when you click the gradient preview in the top bar. However, this is a very tiny window for editing a gradient. I need to find a way to pull it off of the top bar there and resize the window so that I have plenty of room to put in my points, and then precisely assign them their positions along the gradient. And if that is not an option, I need to find a work around. That area is just too small on my screen. You can see that in the first image I posted... but here is the gradient editor zoomed waaaay in so you can see the numeric values I am talking about.

[Kim Panattoni]

3 hours ago, R C-R said:

I think part of what the OP wants is to be able to set the position of each color stop to precise numeric values:

I do not know of a way to do that. The closest I can get is to select each stop in turn & set it to percent value, but it is tedious & I am not sure if it rounds off to the nearest whole percent just in the display or actually on the gradient.

Imagine this, but in Designer. Look at how large the gradient window is. With it that size, I can change the colour values of each point using the sliders on the left, and then the position of the points on the main gradient window.

[Kim Panattoni]

4 hours ago, Hens said:

Maybe this will help
 

Imagine this, but in Designer. Look at how large the gradient window is. With it that size, I can change the colour values of each point using the sliders on the left, and then the position of the points on the main gradient window.

[Kim Panattoni]

How about this, everyone:

In this image you see an ellipse and a gradient map adjustment layer. The ellipse is a solid colour. The gradient adjustment layer has a very precise gradient map. However, I cannot find a way to tell Designer that I wish to have the gradient from the layer applied to the ellipse. 

The reason I went this route is because when I edit the gradient adjustment layer, I have very fine control of the gradient points, positions, and colours in a larger window that I can see and have all of the controls at my fingertips. This is the sort of window I have been asking about, but the problem is that it only exists as an adjustment layer and cannot be applied to the ellipse as if it were a colour swatch. What do I do in order to apply the gradient to the ellipse and in such a way that the scale of the gradient starts at one side of the ellipse and the end of the gradient stops at the opposite end?

[JimmyJack]

Hi @Kim Panattoni, the Gradient Map is  mapping it's colors to the L values of what it's assigned to.
So if you want to use the Gradient Map Adjustment as a color fill (in order to utilize the larger info dialog) you must first assign a simple two point black to white gradient as the fill to (in this case) the circle first. Then the colors of the gradient map will appear like a fill gradient.

Oh, and btw, if you type in 37.03% in the position dialog box (in both types of gradients) that is what you'll get in reality. It's not rounding to a whole number like you see.

[Kim Panattoni]

31 minutes ago, JimmyJack said:

Hi @Kim Panattoni, the Gradient Map is  mapping it's colors to the L values of what it's assigned to.
So if you want to use the Gradient Map Adjustment as a color fill (in order to utilize the larger info dialog) you must first assign a simple two point black to white gradient as the fill to (in this case) the circle first. Then the colors of the gradient map will appear like a fill gradient.

Oh, and btw, if you type in 37.03% in the position dialog box (in both types of gradients) that is what you'll get in reality. It's not rounding to a whole number like you see.

This is not a mapping question. This is a question of how to make the gradient editing window bigger, or detach it and make it bigger.

[Kim Panattoni]

5 hours ago, R C-R said:

I think part of what the OP wants is to be able to set the position of each color stop to precise numeric values:

I do not know of a way to do that. The closest I can get is to select each stop in turn & set it to percent value, but it is tedious & I am not sure if it rounds off to the nearest whole percent just in the display or actually on the gradient.

I cannot words for garbage... please forgive me. This is not a mapping question. This is a question of how to make the gradient editing window bigger, or detach it and make it bigger.

[JimmyJack]

35 minutes ago, Kim Panattoni said:

I cannot words for garbage... please forgive me. This is not a mapping question. This is a question of how to make the gradient editing window bigger, or detach it and make it bigger.

Yes, I understand. There is no way to do that. 

BUT......

1 hour ago, Kim Panattoni said:

In this image you see an ellipse and a gradient map adjustment layer. The ellipse is a solid colour. The gradient adjustment layer has a very precise gradient map. However, I cannot find a way to tell Designer that I wish to have the gradient from the layer applied to the ellipse. 

This is what I was answering. If you follow the advice you can do the above and, at least, use the slightly larger gradient map window to control a fill.

[NotMyFault]

For very complex gradients, it could be faster to export a shape with gradient as SVG, and edit the SVG file to add more stops manually with a text editor.

The syntax is human-readable and quite easy.

When finished, import the svg and save the gradient as swatch.

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd">
<svg width="100%" height="100%" viewBox="0 0 1280 1024" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xml:space="preserve" xmlns:serif="http://www.serif.com/" style="fill-rule:evenodd;clip-rule:evenodd;stroke-linejoin:round;stroke-miterlimit:2;">
    <rect x="0" y="0" width="1280" height="1024" style="fill:url(#_Linear1);"/>
    <defs>
        <linearGradient id="_Linear1" x1="0" y1="0" x2="1" y2="0" gradientUnits="userSpaceOnUse" gradientTransform="matrix(1280,0,0,1280,0,411.851)">
        <stop offset="0" style="stop-color:rgb(235,235,235);stop-opacity:1"/>
        <stop offset="0.25" style="stop-color:rgb(98,98,255);stop-opacity:1"/>
        <stop offset="0.5" style="stop-color:rgb(118,118,118);stop-opacity:1"/>
        <stop offset="0.75" style="stop-color:rgb(118,0,0);stop-opacity:1"/>
        <stop offset="1" style="stop-color:black;stop-opacity:1"/>
    </linearGradient>
    </defs>
</svg>
 

[walt.farrell]

10 hours ago, Kim Panattoni said:

So if you look at this image which is the gradient editor from the menu bar at the top, you have a means to select a stop, change its position, change its midpoint,

Following on from the demo that @Hens provided, you can also change a stop's position and midpoint, or add/delete stops, directly from the gradient shown on the object itself in the workspace, which you can zoom.

 

[R C-R]

13 hours ago, JimmyJack said:

Oh, and btw, if you type in 37.03% in the position dialog box (in both types of gradients) that is what you'll get in reality. It's not rounding to a whole number like you see.

OK, but imagine that for example you need to set & later edit stops at 37.03%, 37.10%, & 37.13%. I think it would be very difficult to know which of these closely spaced stops you had selected in the narrow gradient properties window, so you would have to zoom very far in on the object in the document window, far enough to see each individual stop, select the one you wanted, & then edit it in the properties window.

[JimmyJack]

4 hours ago, R C-R said:

so you would have to zoom very far in on the object in the document window, far enough to see each individual stop, select the one you wanted, & then edit it in the properties window.

Sadly we don't even have that ability. Selecting a color stop on canvas does not select the corresponding stop in the gradient panel. Craziness 🙄.

As for 37.03%, 37.10%, & 37.13%: I don't think any reasonably sized panel would accommodate being able to pick out each node individually. Perhaps the gradient in the panel itself could be zoomable!
My decimal point example was just to let the OP know that those kinds of values are at least possible, it's just not displayed. There is, however, plenty of room in the input dialog for a decimal if needed (... or two. I can't really imagine the need for anything finer. I can see maybe 10ths, but 100ths is getting pretty nutty. We're designers/artists, not smoothing the mirror on the Hubble telescope (don't get me started on Million x zoom 😂🤦‍♂️). But, I guess, It could be a user option.... like a bunch of the other inputs.
Another way to select crammed together (or for that matter ANY) color stop  would be to give us the ability to step through the string by hitting the bracket keys.... that's already the way it works for nodes on curves now. How hard could that be?

At the very least @Kim Panattoni is absolutely correct imho. The panel is way too small.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, JimmyJack said:

As for 37.03%, 37.10%, & 37.13%: I don't think any reasonably sized panel would accommodate being able to pick out each node individually. Perhaps the gradient in the panel itself could be zoomable!

I think it would help if there were 'next' & 'last' buttons somewhere to step through the stops.

[Wosven]

I don't know what type of gradients you need, but I had fun doing this page that can produce simple SVG with linear of radial gradients.

The stops are equaly distanced, and you can only create stops, modify their color, of create them from a list of colors in hexadecimal values (#ffffff). Once exported to SVG, it's easy to open in AD to save as gradient (after resizing the gradient, since it's always larger than the CSS one...)

SVG_gradient_editor_v5.zip

 

SVG_gradient_editor.zip

[JimmyJack]

@Wosven thank you! Much appreciated. Glad you had fun.

 

 

 

[Kim Panattoni]

6 hours ago, JimmyJack said:

Sadly we don't even have that ability. Selecting a color stop on canvas does not select the corresponding stop in the gradient panel. Craziness 🙄.

As for 37.03%, 37.10%, & 37.13%: I don't think any reasonably sized panel would accommodate being able to pick out each node individually. Perhaps the gradient in the panel itself could be zoomable!
My decimal point example was just to let the OP know that those kinds of values are at least possible, it's just not displayed. There is, however, plenty of room in the input dialog for a decimal if needed (... or two. I can't really imagine the need for anything finer. I can see maybe 10ths, but 100ths is getting pretty nutty. We're designers/artists, not smoothing the mirror on the Hubble telescope (don't get me started on Million x zoom 😂🤦‍♂️). But, I guess, It could be a user option.... like a bunch of the other inputs.
Another way to select crammed together (or for that matter ANY) color stop  would be to give us the ability to step through the string by hitting the bracket keys.... that's already the way it works for nodes on curves now. How hard could that be?

At the very least @Kim Panattoni is absolutely correct imho. The panel is way too small.

I just find it odd that there is no way to get around it. When you add a gradient layer mask, it pops up a gradient editor that is huge compared to the one docked in the menu bar. It floats next to the layers panel. I was hoping to find a way to use it to create and manage the gradient on a layer, but have yet to find one. As you said, it is just too small. I have had gradients in Adobe apps that were over 20 shades. I wonder, is this something to post in the feature requests area of the forums?

[Kim Panattoni]

3 hours ago, Wosven said:

I don't know what type of gradients you need, but I had fun doing this page that can produce simple SVG with linear of radial gradients.

The stops are equaly distanced, and you can only create stops, modify their color, of create them from a list of colors in hexadecimal values (#ffffff). Once exported to SVG, it's easy to open in AD to save as gradient (after resizing the gradient, since it's always larger than the CSS one...)

That is pretty cool, and those gradients are indeed fascinating. As to Designer, I just find it odd that there is no way to get around it. When you add a gradient layer mask, it pops up a gradient editor that is huge compared to the one docked in the menu bar. It floats next to the layers panel. I was hoping to find a way to use it to create and manage the gradient on a layer, but have yet to find one. Still it remains that the gradient editor is just too small. I have had gradients in Adobe apps that were over 20 shades As is shown in my post above, you can see that a gradient editor is capable of being detached/undocked/whatever the term is for Designer. I wonder, is this something to post in the feature requests area of the forums?

[Kim Panattoni]

17 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

For very complex gradients, it could be faster to export a shape with gradient as SVG, and edit the SVG file to add more stops manually with a text editor.

The syntax is human-readable and quite easy.

When finished, import the svg and save the gradient as swatch.

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd">
<svg width="100%" height="100%" viewBox="0 0 1280 1024" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xml:space="preserve" xmlns:serif="http://www.serif.com/" style="fill-rule:evenodd;clip-rule:evenodd;stroke-linejoin:round;stroke-miterlimit:2;">
    <rect x="0" y="0" width="1280" height="1024" style="fill:url(#_Linear1);"/>
    <defs>
        <linearGradient id="_Linear1" x1="0" y1="0" x2="1" y2="0" gradientUnits="userSpaceOnUse" gradientTransform="matrix(1280,0,0,1280,0,411.851)">
        <stop offset="0" style="stop-color:rgb(235,235,235);stop-opacity:1"/>
        <stop offset="0.25" style="stop-color:rgb(98,98,255);stop-opacity:1"/>
        <stop offset="0.5" style="stop-color:rgb(118,118,118);stop-opacity:1"/>
        <stop offset="0.75" style="stop-color:rgb(118,0,0);stop-opacity:1"/>
        <stop offset="1" style="stop-color:black;stop-opacity:1"/>
    </linearGradient>
    </defs>
</svg>
 

Aiya... While it is pretty cool that this can be done, it is indeed confusing for me. I need the interactive GUI interface in which I can not only place my points, but change the midpoints, edit colour values, and see it applied as I do it. Code and code syntax are just not my bag of salsa.  As to Designer, I just find it odd that there is no way to get around it. When you add a gradient layer mask, it pops up a gradient editor that is huge compared to the one docked in the menu bar. It floats next to the layers panel. I was hoping to find a way to use it to create and manage the gradient on a layer, but have yet to find one. Still it remains that the gradient editor is just too small. I have had gradients in Adobe apps that were over 20 shades As is shown in my post above, you can see that in Illustrator, a gradient editor is capable of being detached/undocked/whatever the term is for Designer. I wonder, is this something to post in the feature requests area of the forums?

[JimmyJack]

13 minutes ago, Kim Panattoni said:

I just find it odd that there is no way to get around it. When you add a gradient layer mask, it pops up a gradient editor that is huge compared to the one docked in the menu bar. It floats next to the layers panel. I was hoping to find a way to use it to create and manage the gradient on a layer, but have yet to find one.

You CAN use the Gradient Map to drive a fill. Follow the instructions I gave in my first post 🙂.

[Kim Panattoni]

14 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Following on from the demo that @Hens provided, you can also change a stop's position and midpoint, or add/delete stops, directly from the gradient shown on the object itself in the workspace, which you can zoom.

 

I have used the colour panel in the same fashion that @Hans demos, and I have added points and midpoints in the same fashion. What I am asking of Affinity is for a larger gradient editor window that can be undocked/detached from the menu bar into its own the same way that the colours panel is, so that while editing the gradient, the numeric position of each point can be entered as it can in the editor on the top bar. I was telling a few of the others here I just find it odd that there is no way to get around it. When you add a gradient layer mask, it pops up a gradient editor that is huge compared to the one docked in the menu bar. It floats next to the layers panel. I was hoping to find a way to use it to create and manage the gradient on a layer, but have yet to find one. Still it remains that the gradient editor is just too small. I have had gradients in Adobe apps that were over 20 shades As is shown in my post above, you can see that a gradient editor is capable of being detached/undocked/whatever the term is for Designer. I wonder, is this something to post in the feature requests area of the forums?