How to change 'set global opacity' keybindings in Affinity Publisher (Windows)

[Louisk]

Hi there,

By default in Affinity Publisher on windows the keybindings for 'set global opacity' are set to the number keys 0-9.

I've never used the global opacity - but sometimes unintentionally I've caught a number key by mistake unknowingly.

This is massively dangerous. If I have ever while working in a document hit a number key without realising it while something is selected, not only will that thing have its opacity changed which I don't want, if text is selected this will cause Publisher to raster that text on export for my projects.

But, the keybindings don't seem possible to change. Apart from this critical issue, I'd love to be able to bind 0-9 to something useful to me!

The above flaw very nearly caused a horrible printing issue in the main print run of my self-published book - I know to look out for it now and I go manually from page to page after every export checking for rasterised text, in a 160+ page book. 

Am I missing something?

Thanks!

[walt.farrell]

There is no way to change that keybinding in the Affinity applications. The keys will either change layer opacity, or brush opacity, depending on context.

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

There is no way to change that keybinding in the Affinity applications.

This is in part because unlike regular key bindings, they offer shortcuts for the full range of opacities in 1% steps. That is done by waiting briefly after one of the number keys is pressed to see if another one is pressed. If it is, then the second one becomes the second digit in the percent. So for example, pressing 1 immediately followed by pressing 2 sets opacity to 12%.

It's a clever idea in theory but in practice I think many of us, myself included, would prefer some way to disable it because it is too easy to hit a number key by accident.

[Stephen Babb]

This needs to be disabled. It is dangerous for pre-press work. I don't see any situation where these keys could be useful as they are.

[D.VE]

On 5/25/2023 at 12:13 AM, Stephen Babb said:

This needs to be disabled. It is dangerous for pre-press work. I don't see any situation where these keys could be useful as they are.

 

Yeah... Could you please make this at least assignable? 

I almost never work with transparency... Alway hit the key by accident

-thx

[dbacoreworks]

100% agree with above; I spent some time setting up a table and then after about an hour's work, realized the table's text was ever-so-slightly lighter than the rest of the document text. Could not figure out what I had done so I started doing command-Z, undoing things step by step until the text turned normal again. The last command said "undo set global opacity" (or similar) and that led me to this thread.

I've searched for that phrase and/or term in the built-in Help and the online manual and I get "no results found" so I was pretty lost for a while.

So I have to work from the command-undo spot before I accidentally hit whatever key I hit.

And to build on the above, something global like this at least needs an "are you sure?" dialog pop-up before enacting.

 

[R C-R]

On 5/24/2023 at 5:13 PM, Stephen Babb said:

I don't see any situation where these keys could be useful as they are.

Some use them to quickly & precisely set/change the transparency of selected items since that can be done in 1% or 10% steps.

[geneM]

This "feature" still trips me up to no end, especially in Designer where accidentally changing opacity isn't always that obvious.

On 12/2/2023 at 2:12 PM, R C-R said:

Some use them to quickly & precisely set/change the transparency of selected items since that can be done in 1% or 10% steps.

In theory, this should be good. But this assumes this workflow is effective for a majority of users, and is not a negative experience for all of those who don't use it. Plus the behavior is different between software, so it's pretty annoying.

Ideally there should be a way to turn it off so you could repurpose the number keys for something else, or to just prevent users from accidentally triggering the behavior.

Or at the very least, there should be a way to remap which attribute the numerical input works on. In Designer, I very rarely need to change a layer's opacity; I'd more often need to change the individual fill/outline of that layer. In Photo, I'd more often adjust a brush's flow value than its opacity.

Edited December 21, 2023 by geneM

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, geneM said:

In theory, this should be good. But this assumes this workflow is effective for a majority of users, and is not a negative experience for all of those who don't use it.

I think it just assumes that users will be careful about accidentally hitting those keys, much like it would be for any other less-than-obvious accidental keypress.

That said, since it does trip up a lot of users, perhaps there should be an option to disable it ... but whether it should be the default or not I could not say.