Visual Tab Stops in Affinity Designer

[gotanidea]

Is there visual tab stops ruler for text objects in Affinity Designer, as the ones in Adobe Illustrator (the hotkey is Ctrl + Shift + T) and VectorStyler?

I think using Paragraph panel > Tab Stops fields to set the tab stops is not really intuitive

[v_kyr]

See:

[gotanidea]

7 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

See:

 

Where is the XML file located on WIndows? I tried to find the XML file that contains the ShowFrameTextRuler option in C:\Users\<User>\.affinity\Designer\2.0 directory, but I couldn't find it.

Is there a graphical or user friendly way to set the tab stops, as the ones in Adobe Illustrator and VectorStyler?

[v_kyr]

9 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

Where is the XML file located on WIndows? I tried to find the XML file that contains the ShowFrameTextRuler option in C:\Users\<User>\.affinity\Designer\2.0 directory, but I couldn't find it.

I don't use Windows thus can't tell you where initial app settings are hidden there or if it's maybe a compressed dat-file there.

9 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

Is there a graphical or user friendly way to set the tab stops, as the ones in Adobe Illustrator and VectorStyler?

I also don't know how those set tabstops in a graphical manner, maybe you show some screenshots from those in order for people to see what you mean with "in a graphical user friendly way".

Other than that, if you also have Publisher than you can maybe take over textframes with shown rulers over to Designer from it.

[gotanidea]

8 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

I don't use Windows thus can't tell you where initial app settings are hidden there or if it's maybe a compressed dat-file there.

I also don't know how those set tabstops in a graphical manner, maybe you show some screenshots from those in order for people to see what you mean with "in a graphical user friendly way".

These visual tab stops are draggable in VectorStyler:

Draggable Tab Stops in VectorStyler

Is there such feature in Affinity Designer?

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

Is there such feature in Affinity Designer?

No. That's a Publisher feature, in the Frame Text Ruler

[v_kyr]

17 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

These visual tab stops are draggable in VectorStyler:

Draggable Tab Stops in VectorStyler

Is there such feature in Affinity Designer?

As I said above before, if you would enable that option then for ADe then yes. - On your Win box if you have Publisher too, then setup a FrameText with rulers there and copy/paste that over into your ADe and look if that keeps the rulers then showing up!

Those tabstops on frame rulers would too be draggable in Affinity apps ...

 

[gotanidea]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

No. That's a Publisher feature, in the Frame Text Ruler

@v_kyr told me how to activate the tab stop feature for Designer on Mac. Do you happen to know how to activate that on Windows?

[gotanidea]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

As I said above before, if you would enable that option then for ADe then yes. - On your Win box if you have Publisher too, then setup a FrameText with rulers there and copy/paste that over into your ADe and look if that keeps the rulers then showing up!

Those tabstops on frame rulers would too be draggable in Affinity apps ...

 

 

Thanks for the trick on Mac. I will make a new thread to ask for the tab stop feature for Designer

[v_kyr]

47 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

Thanks for the trick on Mac. I will make a new thread to ask for the tab stop feature for Designer

Basically it would behave the same on Windows as far as you can alter the default setting for the ShowFrameTextRuler option there too.

However, here are two files one created with APub and one with ADe, try to open both of these (also the Publisher file one) with your Win Designer version, in order to see if the FrameText in there will be shown with rulers (?). - You will have to select the frame text layer in the layers panel and the FrameText tool in the tools bar, in order to make the rulers hopefully then appear. - In case they do appear (aka it works) you should keep a working file then as a template for frame text rulers (maybe making an asset group for that then and drag it inside the asset panel, so you can then always reuse it).

• frametext.afpub
• FrameText.afdesign

[gotanidea]

6 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Basically it would behave the same on Windows as far as you can alter the default setting for the FrameTextRuler option there too.

However, here are two files one created with APub and one with ADe, try to open both of these (also the Publisher file one) with your Win Designer version, in order to see if the FrameText in there will be shown with rulers (?). - You will have to select the frame text layer in the layers panel and the FrameText tool in the tools bar, in order to make the rulers hopefully then appear. - In case they do appear (aka it works) you should keep a working file then as a template for frame text rulers (maybe making an asset group for that then and drag it inside the asset panel, so you can then always reuse it).

• frametext.afpub
• FrameText.afdesign

I can see the visual tab stop ruler in Publisher, by turning on the View > Show Text Ruler. But there is no such thing in Designer

[v_kyr]

2 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

I can see the visual tab stop ruler in Publisher, by turning on the View > Show Text Ruler. But there is no such thing in Designer

Try to reuse one from Publisher in Designer, copy/paste one over between the apps. Or as a workaround however, always create the frame text with visual tabstops then in Publisher and take/copy the resulting textframe afterwards over to Designer then.

[v_kyr]

17 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

I can see the visual tab stop ruler in Publisher, by turning on the View > Show Text Ruler. But there is no such thing in Designer

Yes since that is as default disabled (ShowFrameTextRuler = NO/False) in the basic option settings for ADe & APh and there is no menu option toggle available for that ShowFrameTextRuler in ADe & APh, like it is in APub. - The above shown Mac way always enables the default option of ShowFrameTextRuler = Yes/True generally for ADe/APh via altering the default settings.

[gotanidea]

57 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Try to reuse one from Publisher in Designer, copy/paste one over between the apps. Or as a workaround however, always create the frame text with visual tabstops then in Publisher and take/copy the resulting textframe afterwards over to Designer then.

It doesn't work. I will just make a request for the feature, because it's very important for a graphic design application and it's available in Adobe Illustrator/ VectorStyler

[walt.farrell]

8 hours ago, gotanidea said:

It doesn't work. I will just make a request for the feature, because it's very important for a graphic design application and it's available in Adobe Illustrator/ VectorStyler

Why not just do your work in Publisher?

It has everything from Designer except the Export Persona and the Pixel Persona. If you also have Photo, then Publisher has everything from Designer except the Export Persona, and you can just switch to Designer when you need that.

[loukash]

9 hours ago, gotanidea said:

I will just make a request for the feature, because it's very important for a graphic design application and it's available in Adobe Illustrator/ VectorStyler

My favorite feature of the Affinity suite is that it's not a monolithic bloated app with hundreds of panels, tools, and menu commands. (Yes, I'm looking at you, VectorStyler and Ill-Frustrator!)

Focus is a virtue.

Seamless switching between the three apps on the fly via StudioLink personas or File > Edit In… is the intended Affinity workflow. And I, for one, like it this way.  

[gotanidea]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Why not just do your work in Publisher?

It has everything from Designer except the Export Persona and the Pixel Persona. If you also have Photo, then Publisher has everything from Designer except the Export Persona, and you can just switch to Designer when you need that.

I thought Publisher is more akin to Adobe InDesign? I was used to make layout design in Adobe Illustrator for individual pages and Adobe InDesign was just used to combine them

[gotanidea]

20 minutes ago, loukash said:

My favorite feature of the Affinity suite is that it's not a monolithic bloated app with hundreds of panels, tools, and menu commands. (Yes, I'm looking at you, VectorStyler and Ill-Frustrator!)

Focus is a virtue.

Seamless switching between the three apps on the fly via StudioLink personas or File > Edit In… is the intended Affinity workflow. And I, for one, like it this way.  

I used to make all layout design in Adobe Illustrator for individual pages and Adobe InDesign was just used to combine them. I will just use VectorStyler if I don't make a book, because I'm so used to the old workflow

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

I thought Publisher is more akin to Adobe InDesign? I was used to make layout design in Adobe Illustrator for individual pages and Adobe InDesign was just used to combine them

Yes, that's how it is marketed, but it makes a good platform for working in general if you have all 3 applications.

[v_kyr]

6 minutes ago, gotanidea said:

I thought Publisher is more akin to Adobe InDesign? ...

On it's own yes, but if you have all apps of the Affinity Suite, then you can dynamically switch between all three apps in your workflow and thus using the capabilities every one of them offers here (to some degree) also inside the other apps.

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

On it's own yes, but if you have all apps of the Affinity Suite, then you can dynamically switch between all three apps in your workflow and thus using the capabilities every one of them offers here (to some degree) also inside the other apps.

And, to be clear, Publisher allows a quick way of doing that for the main Personas of both Designer and Photo, in addition to the general capability provided by all 3 applications to switch to another one.

[v_kyr]

BTW had a chance to take a quick look on V2 Windows versions (Apub & ADe) here and saw that due to the V1 -> V2 UI changes things have changed here now.

The show FrameRulers toggle is no longer a common menu entry in APub, instead it seems it's now (in V2) a toggle button part on the context bar. - Thus the APub frame ruler toggle button option setting is now under Win (AFAI recall) placed into an explicite APub related command.xml file.

ALSO NOTE:  that altering let's say a Win ADe command.xml file accordingly wouldn't work here, since ADe doesn't have such a frame ruler toggle button UI component at all and doing so (modifying a ADe command.xml file) would probably crash ADe then, or leave it in an unsave condition, since it can't perform that operation on a for ADe nonexistent button!

SO:  if people want to have the capability to use and toggle frametext rulers also under ADe & APh independently of APub, they have to demand that this has to be added by Serif for the other apps then too!