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In my previous companies I worked a lot with MS Visio.

It would be possible to have similar features in AD? Maybe  a new category named Stencils in order to be different from Assets category.

In this new Stencils category to have Flow Chart symbols sub-category, Diagrams, Furniture, Garden, and so on. Also, the capabilities to import Visio stencils or even SmartDraw would be great!

This new feature will extend the AD capabilities in combination with already implemented features.

I woull be agreed to pay a fee for the major updates for all Affinity`s software in order to have a better product. I know that is a a lot of work to do by the developers to implement new features.

Thx

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How would this be different from Assets? Why can't you create your own "Stencils" category in the Assets panel, & in it create various sub-categories like for diagrams, furniture, etc.?

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I hope you worked with MS Visio or SmartDraw. They are very complex, they have more than stencils....

Yes, I can do my own Stencils in AD or into another external vector software.

The purpose for having Stencils as a distinct category for AD only, is to be easier for the users to access it and to have its own sub-categories.

Nothing special.

Thx.

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What do this "Stencils" in MS Visio do? I know stencils from ArtRage, a pixel based painting app. In ArtRage, stencils are like prefabricated masks, you can drag from a panel to your document. But its not clear to me what stencil are for in a vector program.

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1 minute ago, mrs68tm said:

Do a Google search for Microsoft Visio.

I already did that. As far as I saw, Visio is more a Diagram Editor than a Vector Graphics Editor. You can of course create diagrams with a vector graphics editor, but it is a special topic. And it is still not clear to me what the stencils are for and how they work.

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Microsoft Visio is based on stencils. Stencils are palettes of shapes that can be used to create almost any diagram you need. Each palette is task-specific making it easier to locate the shape/s you require. You can open and work with multiple stencils and can even create your own.

Do a YT search for stencils. There are tons of very well-done clips about stencils.

 

Thx

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6 minutes ago, mrs68tm said:

Microsoft Visio is based on stencils. Stencils are palettes of shapes that can be used to create almost any diagram you need. Each palette is task-specific making it easier to locate the shape/s you require. You can open and work with multiple stencils and can even create your own.

Do a YT search for stencils. There are tons of very well-done clips about stencils.

 

Thx

OK, that sounds to me like stencils in Visio are similar to Assets (Assets Studio Panel) in Designer. Stencils in ArtRage are like masks, as I said. So it wasn't clear to me how that should work with vectors.

I don't know if there are prefabricated shapes for diagrams somewhere on the net. Google for it and take a look at the Ressources-section here in the forums. Or create your own stencils and store them in the Assets panel. But be aware of that too many stuff in the Assets Panel can slow down the app.

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7 hours ago, mrs68tm said:

The purpose for having Stencils as a distinct category for AD only, is to be easier for the users to access it and to have its own sub-categories.

I still do not understand why you cannot use Assets for this (since they support both categories & sub-categories, named & organized however you want) or why you think it would be easier to access them if there was a separate "Stencils" studio panel for that than if you just set up Asset categories & sub-categories for these items.

2 hours ago, mrs68tm said:

Stencils are palettes of shapes that can be used to create almost any diagram you need.

This still does not seem any different from what you could do using Assets, other than assets can include more than just vector shapes, including artboards, raster objects, layer effects, etc.

Stencils assets example.afassets is a very quick & crude example of how this could be done. It can be used in all three Affinity apps via the Assets panel import function.

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4 hours ago, iconoclast said:

I don't know if there are prefabricated shapes for diagrams somewhere on the net.

I did a quick Google search but did not find much that could easily be adapted to the Affinity Assets studio.

That said, it is very easy to create various kinds of diagrams in AD using the built-in quick shapes, some lines & other vector shapes created with the Pen Tool, some text layers, maybe a few effects like shadows to create a 3D look, & so on. 

Maybe if we knew more about the kind of diagrammatic 'stencils' the OP wanted we could suggest more about what to look for as pre-made shapes?

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If stencils simply are vector based shapes, it should be possible to export them from other apps (as svg) and import them to Designer to add them to the Assets Panel. And it shouldn't be too hard to create own ones in Designer, I think. I'm no expert in this diagram topic, but I think it is a little bit special interest for a vector graphics app. It is possibly more a case for office apps or special diagram editors.

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15 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

I'm no expert in this diagram topic, but I think it is a little bit special interest for a vector graphics app.

I know there are vector graphic apps that have 'smart connector' objects that can be attached to other objects so that when those other objects are moved around in the workspace the connectors automatically reconfigure to remain connected to them, but I do not know if that is anything like what the OP wants.

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29 minutes ago, mrs68tm said:

Stencils is another name for shapes. Each software`s developer has a name its own name.  Stencils is just name. Microsoft could name it Assets, Shapes,Figures and so on. The name is not so important.

Well then, what is important? Specifically what is it that makes Affinity Assets any less useable or suitable for what you want to achieve with shapes?

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36 minutes ago, mrs68tm said:

It was just a thought of mine...

I saw a lot of angry in some posts related to this topic.

I truly regret I  started it....

I don’t see anger in any of the responses here. I think your fellow users are just genuinely puzzled about what you think you could do with a new Stencils panel that you can’t already do with the existing Assets panel.

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1 hour ago, mrs68tm said:

It was just a thought of mine...

I saw a lot of angry in some posts related to this topic.

I truly regret I  started it....

Not really angry. But you didn't really answer to our questions and so it was a little bit exhausting to even find out what you mean with "stencils".

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8 hours ago, iconoclast said:

I don't know if there are prefabricated shapes for diagrams somewhere on the net.

Tons of them. I googled for 'shapes for diagrams', and got 734,000,000 results. Even a quick look resulted in a lot of useful resources.

Paolo

 

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3 hours ago, R C-R said:

I did a quick Google search but did not find much that could easily be adapted to the Affinity Assets studio

Correct me if I’m wrong, but can't you save as assets any object in a Designer document? Since Designer can import nearly every known file format, this means that you can import shapes from everywhere.

Paolo

 

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1 minute ago, PaoloT said:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but can't you save as assets any object in a Designer document? Since Designer can import nearly every known file format, this means that you can import shapes from everywhere.

Paolo

 

You can at least save PNGs as assets. JPEGs should work too. But I don't think that it makes sense, because they can't be scaled lossless and will look more pixelated than vectors anyway. And JPEGs don't support transparencies, so you will be limited in using them in combination with other shapes.

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3 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but can't you save as assets any object in a Designer document?

Sure, but I was looking for items that were complete diagrams, like for flow charts, not just the individual shapes that could be used to build them.

I thought that's what the OP might be looking for, & why I included something kind of like that in my sample afassets file.

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2 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

You can at least save PNGs as assets. JPEGs should work too.

But neither support saving vector shape objects, right?

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5 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

You can at least save PNGs as assets. JPEGs should work too. But I don't think that it makes sense, because they can't be scaled lossless and will look more pixelated than vectors anyway.

But, as far as I understand, assets have not to be bitmap objects. They can be any object, therefore primarily vector objects.

Paolo

 

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3 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

But, as far as I understand, assets have not to be bitmap objects. They can be any object, therefore primarily vector objects.

Paolo

 

No, of course not. That's what I wanted to make clear. I would always prefer vector assets in Designer. But you can also use bitmaps, e.g. to use them as textures or so. But you should not overload your Assets Panel, because too many Assets  can slow down the app.

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8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Sure, but I was looking for items that were complete diagrams, like for flow charts, not just the individual shapes that could be used to build them.

Does it make sense? A workflow is usually unique to a process, so what could you do with a complete flow referred to a project unrelated with one you are working on?

Paolo

 

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