[AD] Isolation Mode

[Dazmondo77]

On 4/1/2020 at 2:54 PM, chessboard said:

There seemed to be an approach for an isolation mode, when it became possible to view shapes, groups or layers solo by ALT-clicking the thumbnail in the layers palette. I find it hard to understand why it's impossible to manipulate multiple objects in this view.

In designers early days, ALT-clicking showed potential for a future 'Affinitized' isolation mode - it was just so frustrating that as soon as you tried to edit the isolated group it went back  to full preview - Still hold hope for this as it seems a far more seamless approach than illustrators where you can accidentally trigger isolation. 

In Designer Alt-click a layer or group to isolate then click on any layer outside the isolated group for full preview seems to me like far more natural approach, although maybe the layers panel should reflect the isolation by ghosting layers outside the isolated group

[chessboard]

You can so somewhat simulate an isolation mode by using symbols. When you transform the group that has to be isolated into a symbol, you can place another instance of this symbol somewhere (on a second artboard for example )and manipulate it separeted from the rest. After that you can delete the second instance and the symbol again and the once selected group is changed to be a group again, instead of a symbol. This has the advantage, that you can see the symbol(i.e. group) in its overall context while working on it at the second instance.

Needs some more clicks than in illustrator but works quite fine.

[genghiskhang]

I'm on day 5 of designer trial and I love it for the most part because its simple and you can mix vector and raster art or just do pure raster art without opening up photo. Coming off AI though...isolation mode or even allowing to lock shapes (without going through the layers) is a must. This is a matter of speed and flexibility. This lack of feature is preventing me from thinking to a full purchase at the moment, I can finish a complicated drawing in AI in almost half the time in designer. So right now, its not time efficient for me to use designer. 

[MEB]

Hi @genghiskhang,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
To isolate an object/layer. press and hold alt and click the layer in the layers panel (over the thumbnail or an empty space on the layer, not over the layer's name, otherwise you will rename the layer).
Regarding locking/unlocking layers/shapes - press and hold cmd+L and shift+command+L to Lock/Unlock them (with the object/layer selected). You can also set a custom keyboard shortcut if you wish in Affinity Designer Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts section (setting the first dropdown to Designer and the second to Layer and looking for those commands on the list below).

[luispedrofonseca]

@MEB I'm sorry if I sound harsh, but after 6 years and 5 pages of users asking for the same thing, this is beyond ridiculous.

Have you ever seen or used the isolation mode in Illustrator? How is that comparable to what you're recommending here? I'm genuinely curious...

[luispedrofonseca]

On 10/7/2014 at 1:15 AM, MEB said:

I'm not aware of any improvements regarding groups but there are still so many areas being worked, that i'm not surprised to see changes here. In any case this is a good request but only an Affinity developer can give you a definite answer.

Just give them some time, i'm sure they will step in and give you more info here. 

Oh and BTW, still waiting for that additional info.

[MEB]

Hi luispedrofonseca,
Yes, i have used it/I'm aware how it works in Illustrator. I know the implementation in Affinity Designer is quite basic, I was just informing the user about it (as he said it was trialling the app) as well as offering options to lock/unlock object/layers through keyboard shortcuts. I didn't intend to devalue the thread/user's feedback in any way. I'm sorry if it sounded/looked like that.

[luispedrofonseca]

No worries @MEB. 

Any chance we're going to see any updates regarding this in the foreseeable future?

[Dazmondo77]

6 minutes ago, MEB said:

I know the implementation in Affinity Designer is quite basic

It's not that it's basic, it's just currently just a preview. If we could just edit whatever we have isolated, for me, I think it would be loads better than illustrators    

[MEB]

Hi luispedrofonseca,
Only the management/developers know, sorry.

[MEB]

1 minute ago, Dazmondo77 said:

It's not that it's basic, it's just currently just a preview. If we could just edit whatever we have isolated, for me, I think it would be loads better than illustrators    

It should let you edit objects individually. Try to edit the nodes of a shape you draw with the Pen Tool in isolation mode for example. It should work without issues. However some operations or working with groups of objects will exit isolation mode.

[luispedrofonseca]

@MEB Any chance we can get a word from one of them? I believe a feature request with over 6 years and dozens of interested users should be enough to at least acknowledge if it's being considered as a potential feature or not.

[Highvoltage]

I'm really really sad for people who bought Affinity.

[Dazmondo77]

1 hour ago, MEB said:

It should let you edit objects individually. Try to edit the nodes of a shape you draw with the Pen Tool in isolation mode for example. It should work without issues. However some operations or working with groups of objects will exit isolation mode.

Sorry MEB I thought this post was referring to isolating groups and having the freedom to work on anything within the group - yes isolating single objects for edit is occasionally handy - still optimistic that this could be a great feature especially if you could isolate 'tagged' layers or special groups to enable isolating and working on multiple objects that could reside within different groups or layers throughout your entire layer stack

 

[genghiskhang]

 

14 hours ago, MEB said:

It should let you edit objects individually. Try to edit the nodes of a shape you draw with the Pen Tool in isolation mode for example. It should work without issues. However some operations or working with groups of objects will exit isolation mode.

This works only for single objects and not groups. Is there a hide all other objects function, I know you can cmd+K to find the object in the layers and manually hide everything and manually unhide. well I also found another seemingly lacking basic feature of being able to warping vector shapes. I guess I'll have to go back to illustrator regretfully. 

Edited December 15, 2020 by genghiskhang

[LennyHood]

Hey. I just recently tried Affinity Designer for illustrations, overcame my long-term Adobe Illustrator habit, and I can say I absolutely love it! Everything is more convenient, intuitive, faster here. Thank you!. I don't want to go back to Illustrator at all.

The only big pain is the above topic. Often in cases where there are many small objects (for example, strands of hair, fur, just strokes, highlights ...), it is necessary to be able to isolate a group or object and work only with them.

I understand the team's approach to minimizing unnecessary functions and general loading by other tasks. Therefore, I will offer, in my opinion, a logical and not too laborious option.

You already have the isolation function - by clicking on the layer icon and Alt pressed. In theory, this is already a ready-made solution (When other layers are hidden), but I will suggest improving this function.

1) When you click on the layer thumbnail with Alt pressed, all layers are hidden, except for the current one. An isolation icon (for example, an eye icon) appears on the side of the current layer and group.

2) If the work is carried out with the current layer or group, as well as nested layers (in my example - pink squares), then the isolation mode - DOES NOT CLEAR! These layers can be edited, new ones can be added inside, etc. Until the ESC key (?) is pressed or until the layers that are not included in the isolated group are selected.

3) If you press ESC (?) or select any of the hidden (non-isolated) layers, the isolation mode is reset, as it is now.

It seems to me that this solution is quite simple. I hope the developers will pay attention to it. Thanks again for your work.

[chessboard]

It is basically just as simple as that. Just make the existing "solomode" permanent until the user quits it by button or key (for example the ESC-key). Since all the functionality allready seems to be existing (turning on solo-mode, hiding all other objects/layers etc.) it seems to be just a question of program-design.

Despite hoping for a real solution I would suggest to try the workaround via Symbols. This works quite well for me.

And I think you're right, that AD is much easier to use than Illustrator in many cases. The ability to nest and combine vector shapes and pixel layers and use them as cliping masks, working with gradients, picking colours, working with transparency, symbols and much more is so much easier than Illustrators workflow. Nevertheless there are some essential functions that are missing in AD (isolation mode, warping and perspective distortion for example).

And to be clear: I would happily pay more for all Affintiy Products (as long as they stay with perpetual licences) if this would make it possible to get them on the professional level of Adobe softwares in all areas.

[Tupaia]

On 12/14/2020 at 4:05 PM, MEB said:

Hi luispedrofonseca,
Only the management/developers know, sorry.

Hello MEB!
Sorry to say, but that's a ridiculous statement! Who else if not you has a 'direct wire' to the developers/management? This is an important feature, and not too hard to implement. It's there already, actually, but the fact that after isolating an object, any click on the canvas will un-isolate it again renders it useless. Take my word for it - I work with Rhino3D each and every day, which has a good implementation of this. Would go crazy if isolate wasn't working. AutoCAD, 3ds Max, Illustrator, ... they all have this. It doesn't make a difference if it's a 2D or 3D application - same principle. The point of an isolate tool is to be able to work on one or a few objects more easily in a complex document.

You see, I love to work with the Affinity products, and use them whenever I can in our architectural office, and advertise it to whomever I can, but things like this are nasty spoilers.

You have heard complaints like this maybe a 1000 times because this or that hasn't been implemented yet, but this feature is really ripe for fixing at last after years.

Sincere thanks!

 

[constantin]

Totally support this thread. Lock/unlock all, hide/unhide all keys and isolation mode are absolutely essential to work with complex files. Why not replicate AI behavior? Would make transition easier for the armies of Illustrator users. Hope Affinity management keeps an eye on the forum.

[retrograde]

On 12/17/2020 at 4:05 AM, chessboard said:

It is basically just as simple as that. Just make the existing "solomode" permanent until the user quits it by button or key (for example the ESC-key). Since all the functionality allready seems to be existing (turning on solo-mode, hiding all other objects/layers etc.) it seems to be just a question of program-design.

Despite hoping for a real solution I would suggest to try the workaround via Symbols. This works quite well for me.

And I think you're right, that AD is much easier to use than Illustrator in many cases. The ability to nest and combine vector shapes and pixel layers and use them as cliping masks, working with gradients, picking colours, working with transparency, symbols and much more is so much easier than Illustrators workflow. Nevertheless there are some essential functions that are missing in AD (isolation mode, warping and perspective distortion for example).

And to be clear: I would happily pay more for all Affintiy Products (as long as they stay with perpetual licences) if this would make it possible to get them on the professional level of Adobe softwares in all areas.

YES!!!

[Alex W]

Isolation could just be an additional function for the visibility in the layers panel which toggles off visibility all but the selected item (be it a layer, group, curve, whatever), and then toggle back to previous visibility settings. 

This would be more a layer panel feature than a groups feature, and be far more flexible than trying to address it via groups.

[pier]

Has proper group isolation finally been implemented in V2 after all these years?

Not having this feature on Designer is an absolute deal breaker (as many have commented on this thread for almost a decade).

[chessboard]

Yes!

If you put some shapes into a group or under a layer you can Alt-click the thumbnailof this group or layer in the layer palette an only the content of this group or layer is shown. You can than select an manipulate any object or shape. To exit this "solo-mode" click anywhere other than on an object or shape.

[Aammppaa]

I find the new command "Hide Others" to be the best method of isolating a selection.

Ctrl + H to hide others.

Shift + Ctrl + Alt + H to show all.

Similar shortcuts on Mac no doubt.

[chessboard]

Thank you for this tip! I had not seen this option. It's even better because you can click anywhere without leaving isolation mode.