Exporting Guides

[DGee]

Hi All, 

Is there a way to export guides or copy and paste them between documents?

I spend a lot of time building grids according to Fibonacci proportions etc.. it's time consuming and it would be great to be able to copy and paste them between documents so that I dont start from scratch.

[walt.farrell]

No.

However, you could (for Guides or Grids): Start a new empty document, create your Guide or Grid, then use File > Export as Template which will save your document as a Template. Then, the next time you want a document with that setup, just start from the Template instead of a document Preset.

To create a new document in V1:

[DGee]

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

No.

However, you could (for Guides or Grids): Start a new empty document, create your Guide or Grid, then use File > Export as Template which will save your document as a Template. Then, the next time you want a document with that setup, just start from the Template instead of a document Preset.

To create a new document in V1:

That's a great idea, Many Thanks Walt.

I hope they consider implementing this in future releases as I think it can be really useful.

Also transforming objects and type by predefined ratios ( 1/1.618 1/1.414 ) would be great.

It would be super easy to implement and designers use this all the time. I currently do it manually.

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.

For "predefined ratios": You're wanting something where Serif has chosen some ratios and they're there automatically? You want to be able to save your own ratios? Or you simply want to use ratios? That last one already exists.

 

[DGee]

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You're welcome.

For "predefined ratios": You're wanting something where Serif has chosen some ratios and they're there automatically? You want to be able to save your own ratios? Or you simply want to use ratios? That last one already exists.

 

ideally I would like to chose from a predefined range of common ratios and be able to scale things up and down by that ratio with a click of a button.

I didn't know you could use ratios, I don't see that in the transform panel.

Also being able to just choose prebuilt grids for a project would be killer.

 

[walt.farrell]

21 minutes ago, DGee said:

I didn't know you could use ratios, I don't see that in the transform panel.

https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/Workspace/expressions.html

[DGee]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/Workspace/expressions.html

Thanks Walt, but that's not really what I mean. 

I was already using those expressions ( BTW golden ratio is 1.618. and using "phi" as suggested in the manual results in 1.6 ).

Say we have an object with linked proportions

W: 40mm

H: 60mm

I would enter 40mm/1,618 in the box and it scales down the object by the golden ratio. The problem is whenever I want to resize an object following a scale ratio I have to manually enter that expression which is time consuming. A separate ratio box would be needed which locks the range of proportions to multiples of the ratio.

 

[walt.farrell]

You could simplify that to /1,618 I think. Yes, having built-in buttons would be simpler, but I doubt that will happen for quite some time, if ever.

Also, phi and gr in Affinity are 1.618034 to 6 decimal places. If you think it's 1.6 you don't have your decimal places settings set high enough. Preferences, User Interface. The calculations always use full precision internally, but this controls how many decimals are displayed and where rounding occurs for display purposes.

So, for your purpose, /gr should work nicely.

[Pšenda]

Or try Assets.

[DGee]

34 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You could simplify that to /1,618 I think. Yes, having built-in buttons would be simpler, but I doubt that will happen for quite some time, if ever.

Also, phi and gr in Affinity are 1.618034 to 6 decimal places. If you think it's 1.6 you don't have your decimal places settings set high enough. Preferences, User Interface. The calculations always use full precision internally, but this controls how many decimals are displayed and where rounding occurs for display purposes.

So, for your purpose, /gr should work nicely.

oh right… I wasn’t aware the other decimals were hidden. thanks for the tip I have just tweaked my prefs for decimals.

 I’m gonna build macros for  resizing with ratios.

[DGee]

14 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Or try Assets.

not sure what you mean

[walt.farrell]

42 minutes ago, DGee said:

I’m gonna build macros for  resizing with ratios.

I'm not sure that will work.

Macros tend to remember the results of the calculations that are made while you record the macro, not the mechanics of the calculation. So, given a field that has a value of 10", if you record a macro that does a transform using /gr it is likely to remember and record 6.179, and apply that to your selected object when you next run the macro. I do not know this will happen, but it seems likely it will.

[DGee]

24 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I'm not sure that will work.

Macros tend to remember the results of the calculations that are made while you record the macro, not the mechanics of the calculation. So, given a field that has a value of 10", if you record a macro that does a transform using /gr it is likely to remember and record 6.179, and apply that to your selected object when you next run the macro. I do not know this will happen, but it seems likely it will.

I haven’t tried this with Affinity macros yet, but I have with Photoshop actions.

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, DGee said:

I haven’t tried this with Affinity macros yet, but I have with Photoshop actions.

They are very different, and work very differently.

[DGee]

6 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

They are very different, and work very differently.

I've just tried the macro tool, in this case it worked as I could expect PS to work. I divided the dimension by gr and it worked just fine.

Gr scale down.afmacro

[walt.farrell]

That's good news. Thanks for testing and reporting.

[Pšenda]

6 hours ago, DGee said:

not sure what you mean

For inspiration. 

 

[kaffeeundsalz]

10 hours ago, DGee said:

The problem is whenever I want to resize an object following a scale ratio I have to manually enter that expression which is time consuming. A separate ratio box would be needed which locks the range of proportions to multiples of the ratio.

I don‘t quite understand what you mean. Affinity has the feature to lock the aspect ratio of an object when resizing – in the Transform panel (the tiny chain icon beneath the dimensions fields) as well as when using the drag handles on canvas (sometimes in combination with a modifier key depending on the layer type). Wouldn‘t this kind of proportional scaling always preserve whatever ratio you’ve defined for an object?

[DGee]

12 minutes ago, kaffeeundsalz said:

I don‘t quite understand what you mean. Affinity has the feature to lock the aspect ratio of an object when resizing – in the Transform panel (the tiny chain icon beneath the dimensions fields) as well as when using the drag handles on canvas (sometimes in combination with a modifier key depending on the layer type). Wouldn‘t this kind of proportional scaling always preserve whatever ratio you’ve defined for an object?

No, it's not the same. You mean width to height ratio, I mean scale factor. In the golden ration that factor is 1.618, so if you build a visual hierarchy in your layout that scales by that factor it creates visuaL harmony. Leonardo da Vinci and countless artists used this, and many designers use this nowadays. 

[kaffeeundsalz]

I see. Thanks for pointing out the difference.