Cycle Selection Box icon in Designer v2

[zzbrufador]

Can someone tell where is it?

[GarryP]

It’s in the Select menu now. (I have no idea why it’s been removed from the Context Toolbar, maybe so that a keyboard shortcut could be used.)
The default keyboard shortcut is “.” (dot, full stop, period).

Edited November 15, 2022 by GarryP
Added more details.

[Matthew Twomey]

So is there no way to add this back to the context toolbar?

[Brian_J]

20 minutes ago, Matthew Twomey said:

So is there no way to add this back to the context toolbar?

Unfortunately no, the Context Toolbar can’t be customized.

[zzbrufador]

For me, it was very useful button in the toolbar.

[JET_Affinity]

On 11/15/2022 at 4:08 AM, GarryP said:

It’s in the Select menu now...The default keyboard shortcut is “.” (dot, full stop, period).

Thanks, Garry. I just became aware of V2 yesterday, rushed to order it, and that was the first thing I checked for.

Of course, searching the Help files for "Cycle Selection Box" returns no results. (Affinity still sorely needs a far better implementation of its documentation.)

On 11/15/2022 at 4:08 AM, GarryP said:

I have no idea why it’s been removed from the Context Toolbar, maybe so that a keyboard shortcut could be used.

Having the keyboard shortcut for it is certainly nice, but keyboard shortcuts are not limited to menu selections. The main toolbox icons have them. No reason the Context Bar icons can't have them.

I still insist that one of the best features that could be done for Affinity Designer's interface is to make the 'lollypop' rotation handle able to rotate the bounding box independent of the selected content. This would be a godsend for illustration. Where do developers get the notion that the only direction in which something needs to be scaled is parallel to the bounding box?

For the simplest and most common example, consider any ellipse that represents a tilted circle: The minor diameter of such an ellipse must always be aligned parallel to the direction of the 'thrust line' that the circle 'orbits'. But this principle applies to countless other things, too, including shapes and artwork that are not bilaterally symmetrical like an ellipse. One needs to be able to:

1. Rotate any shape drawn 'in the flat' so that it is oriented correctly about its thrust line.
2. Then scale it in the direction of its thrust line to make it appear tilted.

This is essential in axonometric drawing, but just as valid in general commercial illustration.

JET

[GarryP]

I don’t think any of the Context Toolbar controls in the Affinity application have keyboard shortcuts, or, as Brian_J mentioned above, any form of user-customisation. (There may be technical reasons for this, I simply don’t know.)

So, if Serif had a large number of requests (or some other compelling reason) to add a shortcut key to the Cycle Selection Box functionality, that might have given rise to the functionality being moved from the Context Toolbar to a menu.

As with most things, what’s better for some may not be better for others.

[Mr. Doodlezz]

What, why has this feature been removed – without replacement – from the menu bar? It's not like it's made room for another button now, it's just disappeared. 😥

I find the way to navigate via a context menu very inconvenient, because instead of clicking only twice to switch between the two views, you need at least four clicks and you can't immediately switch back and forth between the two.

This is a very unfortunate and, for me, incomprehensible decision. Can Affinity staff provide an explanation as to what led to this decision?
The only reason I can think of would be that another icon would have to be updated, but I can't imagine that this is actually the reason.

Edit: I revise my comment by 70%: I have seen that Cycle Selection Box has now been assigned to a shortcut – this is of course super helpful and I could imagine that this is also the reason why the button has disappeared. Nevertheless, I could imagine that many people will miss the button. For me, though, the shortcut solution works great. 😉

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, Mr. Doodlezz said:

What, why has this feature been removed – without replacement – from the menu bar? It's not like it's made room for another button now, it's just disappeared. 😥

I find the way to navigate via a context menu very inconvenient, because instead of clicking only twice to switch between the two views, you need at least four clicks and you can't immediately switch back and forth between the two.

This is a very unfortunate and, for me, incomprehensible decision. Can Affinity staff provide an explanation as to what led to this decision?
The only reason I can think of would be that another icon would have to be updated, but I can't imagine that this is actually the reason.

Edit: I revise my comment by 70%: I have seen that Cycle Selection Box has now been assigned to a shortcut – this is of course super helpful and I could imagine that this is also the reason why the button has disappeared. Nevertheless, I could imagine that many people will miss the button. For me, though, the shortcut solution works great. 😉

A new button was added at the same time this was removed - Allow Selection to Consider Items Inside a Group.

I'm going to guess there were requests for a keyboard shortcut for Cycle Selection Box but because it wasn't in the menu that wasn't possible. So it was added to the menu and removed from Context Bar at the same time. It might feel like there's plenty of room for both but the Context Bar controls overflow on my 14" MacBook Pro screen at default resolution, depending on which object type is selected, so Serif probably has chosen a max limit for the Context Bar.