Is there a way to move an object parallel to another (that isn't a product of 45⁰)?

[ronanski]

So I have a word inside a tag shape, and they are both parallel to each other. I want to be able to move the word left or right within the tag but not horizontally, I want it to stay in line with the tag shape. Is there a way to do this other than moving them both back to horizontal, adjusting and then rotating them both back?

[Michail]

11 minutes ago, ronanski said:

So I have a word inside a tag shape, and they are both parallel to each other. I want to be able to move the word left or right within the tag but not horizontally, I want it to stay in line with the tag shape. Is there a way to do this other than moving them both back to horizontal, adjusting and then rotating them both back?

You can press the Ctrl key (copy) when moving with the move tool and then delete the old layer.

[v_kyr]

Or select the KATIE text layer (and only that one) with the move tool, then press on your keyboard always the keysequence ...

1. cursor-right
2. cursor-down

... repeatedly, in order to move by pixels and keep the text diagonal adjusted to the right. - You can inspect in the transform panel the actual x,y position moved values.

[ronanski]

2 hours ago, Michail said:

You can press the Ctrl key (copy) when moving with the move tool and then delete the old layer.

Oh wow! That worked! Thank you Michail!

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Or select the KATIE text layer (and only that one) with the move tool, then press on your keyboard always the keysequence ...

1. cursor-right
2. cursor-down

... repeatedly, in order to move by pixels and keep the text diagonal adjusted to the right. - You can inspect in the transform panel the actual x,y position moved values.

No, that won't work v_kyr. This would just be a very long winded way of moving it at 45⁰. My point was I wanted to move it anything NOT a product of 45⁰, eg. parallel to the tag.

[BlueLiner]

Assuming Affinity Designer 2.0, my new favorite way might be the warp tool. Start with your tag rotated as desired along with the name. Draw a rectangle with no fill and I am going to use a red stroke for visibility but I will remove the stroke later leaving an invisible rectangle:

With the rectangle still selected, select Layer-Warp Group-Quad from the text menu bar at the top. With the node tool move each corner to align with the tag:

Move "Katie"in to the warp group

Grab the move tool and use it to position "Katie" on the tag. You will notice it morphs to the warp once you move it in the area of the red rectangle. Now turn off the red border:

Now with the move tool selected, click on the Katie text in the layers to select it. Then click and hold while holding hold down the shift key (constrains movement to horizontal or vertical) and slide it right and left to position as were hoping to do.

You can also move the text in to the rectangle but if you drag it outside, it will disappear.

 

[NotMyFault]

 

 

While move tool is active, check „alignment handles“. This allows to move along x or y axis (relative to object even if rotated).

[loukash]

In v2: 
Layer > Convert to Text Frame
Then you can simply resize the frame and the text will move along, depending on the paragraph alignment left/right/center.

In v1 you'll have to create a text frame of the size of the artistic text and copy & paste the latter.

[BlueLiner]

I forgot about alignment handles. On desktop look for

I have been playing with the warp tool a lot so I went there right away. I think its worth trying though esp. if you want to swap out names quickly. In that way the rotation is right on every time without having to remember the rotation angle. I like this technique for mock-ups. Rather than warp text directly, or really any vector, I start with a shape and use warp to form it to my object, then I just drag in anything I want to form to that shape. In this way it is a bit like manually creating a warp envelope in CorelDRAW or Illustrator.

[ronanski]

On 1/12/2023 at 10:26 PM, BlueLiner said:

Assuming Affinity Designer 2.0, my new favorite way might be the warp tool. Start with your tag rotated as desired along with the name. Draw a rectangle with no fill and I am going to use a red stroke for visibility but I will remove the stroke later leaving an invisible rectangle:

With the rectangle still selected, select Layer-Warp Group-Quad from the text menu bar at the top. With the node tool move each corner to align with the tag:

Move "Katie"in to the warp group

Grab the move tool and use it to position "Katie" on the tag. You will notice it morphs to the warp once you move it in the area of the red rectangle. Now turn off the red border:

Now with the move tool selected, click on the Katie text in the layers to select it. Then click and hold while holding hold down the shift key (constrains movement to horizontal or vertical) and slide it right and left to position as were hoping to do.

You can also move the text in to the rectangle but if you drag it outside, it will disappear.

 

What?? They've created a new version instead of updating?! So after 7 or so years of people desperately asking for a simple warp tool and them constantly promising it will be soon, 7 years later they finally say, oh actually we're not going to include that in the programme, but if you pay us more money again for another version then you can use. Unacceptable! I'd rather fork out the thousands needed for adobe than pay any extra money to affinity if i'm honest. My version does not have this option.

[ronanski]

On 1/12/2023 at 10:36 PM, NotMyFault said:

 

FullSizeRender.MOV 2.2 MB · 0 downloads  

 

While move tool is active, check „alignment handles“. This allows to move along x or y axis (relative to object even if rotated).

Is this another thing from version 2? As this is not possible in mine. With alignment handles button pressed, this does not work on text layers.

[ronanski]

On 1/12/2023 at 10:39 PM, loukash said:

In v2: 
Layer > Convert to Text Frame
Then you can simply resize the frame and the text will move along, depending on the paragraph alignment left/right/center.

In v1 you'll have to create a text frame of the size of the artistic text and copy & paste the latter.

I don't have version 2 but the version 2 suggestion worked all be it fiddly in my version 1. But did not understand the version 1 suggestion. 

[NotMyFault]

1 hour ago, ronanski said:

Is this another thing from version 2? As this is not possible in mine. With alignment handles button pressed, this does not work on text layers.

Works identical in V1 and V2. Works with Artistic text, Farm text, absolutely any layer type (except fill layer of course)

 

https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_move.html

https://affinity.help/photo2/English.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_move.html

[loukash]

1 hour ago, ronanski said:

I don't have version 2 but the version 2 suggestion worked all be it fiddly in my version 1.

In v1, the "Layer > Convert to Text Frame" command only works on shapes like rectangle, ellipse, etc. But not on existing "artistic text" objects.
In v2, "Layer > Convert to Text Frame" will also convert artistic text to a text frame directly.

1 hour ago, ronanski said:

But did not understand the version 1 suggestion. 

Copy "Katie" as text selection.
Draw a new text frame anywhere.
Paste "Katie" inside.
Adjust its angle so that it matches the original artistic text "Katie" angle
Enable the "Snap to object bounding box" snapping option and adjust the new text frame size with the Move tool so that it snaps to the underlying bounding box of the artistic text. Or at least the top right corner since you want to move it around anyway.

That's how to convert an artistic text object into a text frame object.
That all said…

The easiest method in your scenario are the alignment handles anyway. No conversions needed.  

[ronanski]

2 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

Works identical in V1 and V2. Works with Artistic text, Farm text, absolutely any layer type (except fill layer of course)

 

https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_move.html

https://affinity.help/photo2/English.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_move.html

So I tried it again, apparently I just needed to zoom in more to see the handles  however it seemed a bit buggy, when I moved it, it would start masking random sections of the word, I couldn't quite work out what was going on tbh, but I already have a solution for this particular problem from Michail anyway so not looked into it in too much detail.

[ronanski]

2 hours ago, loukash said:

In v1, the "Layer > Convert to Text Frame" command only works on shapes like rectangle, ellipse, etc. But not on existing "artistic text" objects.
In v2, "Layer > Convert to Text Frame" will also convert artistic text to a text frame directly.

Copy "Katie" as text selection.
Draw a new text frame anywhere.
Paste "Katie" inside.
Adjust its angle so that it matches the original artistic text "Katie" angle
Enable the "Snap to object bounding box" snapping option and adjust the new text frame size with the Move tool so that it snaps to the underlying bounding box of the artistic text. Or at least the top right corner since you want to move it around anyway.

That's how to convert an artistic text object into a text frame object.
That all said…

The easiest method in your scenario are the alignment handles anyway. No conversions needed.  

Oh I thought you meant convert the shape to text frame, as surely the text frame is already a text frame anyway?

 

So I copied the katie text into new text frame, but it was already angled the same as original. If it wasn't however I might as well have just done what I did initially, (manually adjusting the angle manually by eye, but without all these extra steps?) And then moving it to snap to underlying bounding box still not making sense as I cannot see where this box is and it snaps to lots of points around the area but none exactly on top, and this would not be possible as the underlying box is angled but this new one created is now horizontal but with angled text... overall still don't really have a clue what you're suggesting sorry, but seems very long winded, (even more so than the initial workaround I had, that I was trying to avoid) and still doesn't seem to work...

[loukash]

1 minute ago, ronanski said:

overall still don't really have a clue what you're suggesting sorry

No problem.
To align your already existing "Katie" text, regardless if it's "artistic" or "frame", simply use the alignment handles as initially suggested by @NotMyFault.
Actual problem solved, long ago…