Setting a default colour palette

[DesignSurge]

This is an issue I had with V1 of all Affinity apps and are still seeing the same behaviour in V2.

Way back, I created an application palette of a few, basic CMYK colours. At various times when the palette is in use I have used the option in the swatches panel to set it as the default for CMYK/8, however the setting never seems to stick. I have done this with all 3 macOS desktop apps multiple times, but every time I create a new CMYK document the colour palette has reverted to the usual 'Colours'. It would be nice to open or create a CMYK document and find that my chosen CMYK colour palette is automatically active.

Is this a bug, or am I doing it wrong, or misunderstanding the functionality of the setting?

[smadell]

Good morning, @DesignSurge. I noticed that your question has gone unanswered for quite a while, and thought I'd chime in. As far as I know, there's no way to specifically designate any given swatch palette to be the default one. However… you can still make this happen. It's simple, and takes two steps.

First, in the Swatches panel, choose the "hamburger" menu (top right) and then Sort > Alphabetic. This assures that your menu is arranged in alphabetic order.

Second, select whatever swatch palette you want as your default and, also from the hamburger menu, choose Rename Palette… You'll need to rename the swatch palette to something that will place it at the top of an alphabetic list. The easiest way to do this (in my opinion) is to place as asterisk (*) in front of the existing name.

Your swatches should now be ordered alphabetically, and the palette you renamed should be at the top of the list (and therefore the "default").

[DesignSurge]

Hi @smadell

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I did work that one out for myself eventually, simply changing the name of the colour palette I wanted as the default to make sure it was at the top of the list alphabetically. However on mac at least there is an option to set the current palette as the default for various colour modes, unfortunately it doesn't seem to work.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, DesignSurge said:

However on mac at least there is an option to set the current palette as the default for various colour modes, unfortunately it doesn't seem to work.

It may be working, but not as you expect.

When applied to a Document Palette, it will save that Palette and its current contents, and will create that Document Palette automatically when you create a new document using that color format. However, it does not select it as the current active Palette.

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

It may be working, but not as you expect.

When applied to a Document Palette, it will save that Palette and its current contents, and will create that Document Palette automatically when you create a new document using that color format. However, it does not select it as the current active Palette.

This confused me too, until @MEB finally made it clear to me in another topic that there is an unfixed minor bug in both the V1 & V2 apps, that being that the default document palette should automatically be selected when the new document is created but it is not, so you have to open the list of palettes in the Swatches panel & manually select it to choose colors from it to use in your document.

[DesignSurge]

It does seem to be a pointless feature if the 'default' palette isn't actually selected as the active palette on creating a new document, just a minor niggle in the end.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, DesignSurge said:

It does seem to be a pointless feature if the 'default' palette isn't actually selected as the active palette on creating a new document, just a minor niggle in the end.

Not pointless, because at least you have that palette instantiated in the document, without having to create it each time (or use Templates).

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, DesignSurge said:

It does seem to be a pointless feature if the 'default' palette isn't actually selected as the active palette on creating a new document, just a minor niggle in the end.

The point is you do not have to use the Swatches 'burger' menu's "Add Document Palette..." item to create a document palette, name & populate it with a default set of color swatches. Instead, you just have to select the pre-created palette from the list.