Keyboard shortcut equivalent to revealing and selecting layers

[furyeffect]

I'm a long time Photoshop user and is new to Affinity Photo. I've searched everywhere and is unable to find the keyboard shortcut equivalent to this functionality(See attached image). I apologize if this has been covered in the forum.

In Photoshop, when I press [Control] and click on the artboard, a drop down menu pops open showing a hierarchical  menu revealing all the layers associated with where I placed and clicked the cursor. I find this functionality extremely useful when trying to locate my layer elements. Is there an equivalent of this in Affinity? Or is there a way I can program the keystrokes to get this? This would be a tremendous help to my workflow.

Thanks in advance.

[Dan C]

Hi @furyeffect,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

14 hours ago, furyeffect said:

In Photoshop, when I press [Control] and click on the artboard, a drop down menu pops open showing a hierarchical  menu revealing all the layers associated with where I placed and clicked the cursor. I find this functionality extremely useful when trying to locate my layer elements. Is there an equivalent of this in Affinity? Or is there a way I can program the keystrokes to get this? This would be a tremendous help to my workflow.

I can confirm this is possible within Affinity, by holding down the CTRL key and right clicking on the canvas, you will see a menu appear listing each currently selected object-

 

I hope this helps!

[furyeffect]

Thank you Dan. That's great to hear. However, I'm still having trouble getting this to work. I use a Wacom Intuous tablet and have also tried it on a Magic Mouse but no luck. [Control] with clicking gives me something different (See attached). Perhaps I don't have the correct settings for this in preferences? Or maybe I'm not "right clicking" correctly.

[Dan C]

9 minutes ago, furyeffect said:

[Control] with clicking gives me something different (See attached). Perhaps I don't have the correct settings for this in preferences? Or maybe I'm not "right clicking" correctly.

Apologies, this is a difference between macOS and Windows! Windows uses CTRL, whereas you need to hold CMD on macOS, then right click to see any selected layers in a list

Do note if you don't already have the layers selected in the layers studio, then you'll only see a menu entry for the specific layer you just 'selected' when right clicking on the canvas.

[Old Bruce]

On Mac this is a little bit convoluted.

Try having things in groups. Then select all the layers. Now hold the Control and Command keys (no right click necessary) and click on the canvas. The reason you have to have groups is because otherwise you cannot select items.

[Ron P.]

Wow... 😲 , I've been using Designer and Photo for about 5yrs and never realized this.

That's just slicker than a greased pig 😄

[furyeffect]

Thank you everyone.

I'm still at a lost. I'm aware that Windows and Mac require different keystrokes. I've tried everything – every possible keystroke combinations, as well as use a mouse – but is unable to duplicate this. Will continue to see what I'm doing wrong or perhaps not doing. Per your info, I'm on the latest Affinity Photo using the latest OS X on an M1 Mac Mini. If anyone here has used Photoshop and is on a Mac (and perhaps use a Wacom tablet) and is now using Affinity Photo, please chime in. At least, I know this functionality is doable in Affinity.

[furyeffect]

Could it be that I need to reset or program the keyboard shortcuts in Affinity Photo somehow (Although I've yet to change anything here since the install)? Can anyone confirm what their related settings are.

[MEB]

Hi @furyeffect,
Welcome to affinity Forums
This is working correctly (with a mouse at least, i still have to check with the Wacom) but there's some key modifiers conflicts going on in certain circumstances.

Please try this with the mouse first (Magic Mouse): press both ctrl and command simultaneously then click on the object to display the menu you are looking for. Make sure that no other object/layer is selected when you try it and ideally click on a group that contains some objects inside as in the video below. Can you see the menu? If not let me know.

[R C-R]

39 minutes ago, furyeffect said:

I've tried everything – every possible keystroke combinations, as well as use a mouse – but is unable to duplicate this.

Try this:

1. Open an afphoto document that has several layers. If you don't have one handy, you can use this some layers.afphoto
2. Select all its layers, for example using the Select > Select All Layers menu item.
3. With the Move Tool selected, hold down both Control & the Command key on your keyboard & click & hold anywhere within the selection bounds.

You should get a hierarchical popup menu of all the items within the selection.

[furyeffect]

Thank you everyone who've responded. Not sure what I'm still doing wrong but I cannot get this to work.

It's been a few months since I've last posted (I've been swamped with deadlines so have been using Adobe Photoshop to tackle my work). I'm still at a lost trying to duplicate this functionality in Affinity Photo. I've gone through everyone's suggestions but still cannot recreate this. I'm really hoping that at some point in time Serif / Affinity will be able to incorporate this exact functionality so I can move forward and make full use of the app. For a collage illustrator with numerous layers this would shaves off hours of work for me.

To recap, in Adobe Photoshop (with the Move Tool selected) clicking on the artboard, a drop down menu pops open showing a hierarchical  menu revealing all the layers associated with where I placed and clicked the cursor (See attached first image). Selecting the Rectangular Marquee Tool and doing the same thing will give a different menu (See second image).

 

[MEB]

Hi @furyeffect,
You didn't reply to my previous question which would help me to know how you have you system set up.
In macOS System Preferences, Mouse section Point & Click tab do you have the Secondary click option enabled?
If you have it enabled you only have to press and hold CMD and right-click an object with the mouse to get the menu you are looking for.
If you have it disabled you you have to hold down CTRL + CMD and click an object to access the same menu.
Try it with a single object (a rectangle for example) drawn on the document - you should see a menu appearing with a sigle item labelled "Rectangle".
Let me know if you still have issues.

[Dazmondo77]

As R C-R said above:

On 3/11/2022 at 11:06 PM, R C-R said:

With the Move Tool selected, hold down both Control & the Command key on your keyboard & click & hold anywhere within the selection bounds.

I find this to be the easiest option when using a wacom or other stylus and graphics tablet, hold CTRL and CMD and tap the stylus on the artwork, no need to click. the most important part is that you have the move tool (v) selected - I still use the regular cmd and right click with the magic mouse, both options have always worked great for me - as long as you have the move tool selected - also works great for digging into the layers of a mask made of multiple elements 

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, Dazmondo77 said:

I find this to be the easiest option when using a wacom or other stylus and graphics tablet, hold CTRL and CMD and tap the stylus on the artwork, no need to click.

Isn't tapping the stylus on the tablet the equivalent of clicking a mouse button? (Just asking, since I do not have a graphics tablet to use with my Mac.)

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

Isn't tapping the stylus on the tablet the equivalent of clicking a mouse button?

Yes.

[furyeffect]

@MEB,

I've done as you instructed but not getting what is shown in the video. I've also selected "Secondary click" in Mouse setting and tried again in both Photoshop and Affinity Photo but nothing seemed to change. Affinity Photo will select a layer if I use "option" click but it'll give me only one layer at a time (and not a menu with layers) and often it will broadly select a layer and not a specific layer that the cursor is on.

It's interesting to note that just about all the keystroke shortcuts that I normally use in Photoshop translate well over to Affinity Photo except this one functionality that I really need. I haven't gone through everything but has used enough Affinity Photo to tell me that it's comparable to Photoshop.

Thank you.

 

[Old Bruce]

I find that on the Mac with the Wacom Tablet I just need to have a group selected first then I will hold down the Command and Control keys and tap again. The menu pops up.  If there are only single layers then all of them need to be selected for this to work.

[furyeffect]

@Dazmondo77 @R C-R

Selecting the Move tool and holding down CTRL and CMD (after going to Menu > Select All Layers) does give me a hierarchical  menu with layers. BUT IT DOESN'T LOOK TO BE THE SAME functionality I'm looking for. This gives me all the layers that are in the document but doesn't give me a selection of pertinent layers that I'm looking for.

I'm looking to recreate the same Photoshop keystroke and click (which is holding down CONTROL then click on a layer element). If holding down CTRL and CMD then click then I'm okay with it also.

Thank you.

[R C-R]

13 minutes ago, furyeffect said:

This gives me all the layers that are in the document but doesn't give me a selection of pertinent layers that I'm looking for.

If you select all layers first then of course you get a hierarchal menu of all the layers in the document. What else would you expect?

Try instead what @Old Bruce suggested. Do you then get a hierarchical menu of only the items in that group?

Put another way, what exactly do you mean by pertinent layers & how are you telling the app to show just them?

[furyeffect]

I'm sorry if I'm not explaining clearly.

Often a Photoshop document of mine will have dozens of layers, some are grouped in folders or subfolders while others may not be. So when I'm working with that file, I want to quickly weed through these layers to find a specific element, be it a graphic, a texture, an image, etc. In Photoshop for years, (with the Move tool selected on a Mac and using a Wacom pen and tablet – using the mouse does exactly the same too. I simply hold down CONTROL and click...no need to right click or anything) I simply hold down the CONTROL key and click over an area on the document, a menu appears giving me only the layers in that area (I don't need or want all the layers in the entire document, only layers that have elements stacked on top of each other specific to where I clicked on the canvas). I then move my cursor down the popup menu and select that element.

I think I may need to modify or change settings under Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts > Select but I haven't found where to make them.

I appreciate your time. Thanks again.

I've tried @Old Bruce's suggestion but can't reproduce the same results. But I also don't want to have to select a layer then use the keystrokes. The method I'm trying to resolve makes that obsolete since my aim is to quickly find the element and not have to go to the LAYERs menu each time I want to find an element.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, furyeffect said:

I simply hold down CONTROL and click...no need to right click or anything) I simply hold down the CONTROL key and click over an area on the document, a menu appears giving me only the layers in that area (I don't need or want all the layers in the entire document, only layers that have elements stacked on top of each other specific to where I clicked on the canvas). I then move my cursor down the popup menu and select that element.

On my Mac I just have to hold down CMD (not CTRL) when clicking with my mouse on some area of the document where layers are present to get a hierarchal list of all the layers in that area. The list is presented in a hierarchal format because there could be hundreds of items stacked in that one area. So for example, I might get something like this if I CMD-click on the Mouth group:

If I had a design with 50 teeth curve objects in the bottom of the mouth group, I would get 50 items with that item selected. 

[furyeffect]

Holding down CMD in Affinity Photo does not give me this list. This is why it's so frustrating. More and more I believe my Affinity Photo preferences are set differently somehow (Although I haven't changed any settings since installing the program) which is the reason why I can't recreate yours and others suggestions. Perhaps you can send me some screen shots of your Keyboard Shortcuts under Preferences so I can analyze them.

[Old Bruce]

23 minutes ago, furyeffect said:

Holding down CMD in Affinity Photo does not give me this list

Hold down Command and Control then click.

[R C-R]

48 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Hold down Command and Control then click.

On my Mac, using a mouse I can hold down CMD & Right-Click to get the popup menu, or hold down both CMD & CTRL & then left click to get it.

@furyeffect, maybe try it with this mouth.afphoto example & see if either of those work for you. If not, maybe a screenshot showing the layers panel & what shows in the workspace would help us understand why it is not working for you.

[Sonzuna]

Hey Furryeffect, have you found a solution? - I have the same issue & tried all the above.