Guides improvements

[Ash]

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad

A number of suggestions have been taken on with guides...

1. When you move a guide by dragging it on a document you will now see both the position of the guide relative to the ruler origin (as before) as well as the distance from the guide's previous position. So this means if, for example, you just want to move a guide 10mm you can achieve that easily without having to change the ruler origin.

2.When dragging a guide, holding Shift will now snap the guide to ruler marks. As this is based on ruler marks this also means the further you are zoomed the granularity of the Shift-constrained snap increases. Shift will snap based on the distance from origin, Shift-Alt will snap to the delta distance.

3. If you hold Alt or Command (Ctrl on windows) before dragging a guide that will now create a copy of the guide.

4. If you drag a new guide from rulers then guide visibility will automatically be toggled on (if it was set to off).

5. Alt-clicking on any guide will delete the guide.

6. Double clicking on an existing guide will now open the guide manager dialog (with the guide you had double clicked having focus in that dialog.
 

Please note: on iPad you will need to use an attached keyboard or use the command controller (if not visible you can toggle it on from the document menu) to access the modifiers. Also worth bearing in mind that Alt is the global modifier for ignore snapping, so if you create a copy of a guide using Alt while you still hold Alt snapping will be disabled.

Please let us know what you think or if you spot any problems with this new functionality.

[Patrick Connor]

Known Issues

• AFB-7382 - Snapping Guides to Ruler Units/Delta still snaps to other objects/page centres.
• AFB-7384 - Status Bar for Guides needs updating

Further known issues will be added to this list as they are reported to us by customers in this thread.

[JavierBecana]

I tried this in AD beta and it works great. Using CTRL on Windows to copy a guide is a great time saver. One thing that bothers me a bit is that I have to keep pressing CTRL while dragging. When you press CTRL and drag you have already decided you want a copy, so once you start draging I wouldn't need to keep pressing CTRL till the end. Just my thought.

[GarryP]

My guess is that the ‘hold CTRL and drag’ process to copy guides is the same as that used to copy layers with the Move Tool.
It gives you the option to move/copy at any time during the drag, not just at the start.

[Ash]

As it happens we have made it so you can use ctrl or alt to copy a guide, and they work in very slightly different ways - primarily because alt is also the global modifier for ignore snapping. So if you alt-drag (need to have alt held before you start the drag) you can release alt and the original guide remains.

[debraspicher]

3 hours ago, JavierBecana said:

I tried this in AD beta and it works great. Using CTRL on Windows to copy a guide is a great time saver. One thing that bothers me a bit is that I have to keep pressing CTRL while dragging. When you press CTRL and drag you have already decided you want a copy, so once you start draging I wouldn't need to keep pressing CTRL till the end. Just my thought.

Yes, this feels awkward. It also causes the original guide to move out of place if <Ctrl> is inadvertently dropped. (Nothing an Undo can't fix though)

[Ash]

We'll have a chat here - perhaps we should just never drop the original using either key, would be more consistent. We are also looking at adding alt-click a guide to delete it (possibly next week's build) so if you create a copy and actually don't want the original it will be a lot easier to delete it than having to drag the guide off the page.

[debraspicher]

6 minutes ago, Ash said:

We'll have a chat here - perhaps we should just never drop the original using either key, would be more consistent. We are also looking at adding alt-click a guide to delete it (possibly next week's build) so if you create a copy and actually don't want the original it will be a lot easier to delete it than having to drag the guide off the page.

This I do like, especially when having to remove more than one at a time. Popping bubbles rather than cat pushing object off table.

Usually if it's multiple, I'd go into Guides and remove there because I have a fair idea of where they're positioned numerically. A quicker delete method makes guides more useful for people who "haphazardly" place elements rather than strategic. ie. illustrators, which tend to be more temporary.

[Ash]

10 minutes ago, Red Sands said:

Is there any reason why copy via dragging should work differently than when copying layers with Command/Control + drag?

No - I think the way it is working now for the copy drag is the same as objects right? you can choose to put cmd down after you've started the drag to create a copy, but that also means releasing means it's no longer copying. Anyway - we'll have a bit of a review.

and yes cursors will need sorting once all the functionality is in.

[Seneca]

43 minutes ago, Ash said:

No - I think the way it is working now for the copy drag is the same as objects right? you can choose to put cmd down after you've started the drag to create a copy, but that also means releasing means it's no longer copying. Anyway - we'll have a bit of a review.

Personally, I think this is the right behaviour.

[Old Bruce]

3 minutes ago, Red Sands said:

I'm not a fan of both Alt/Opt and Control/Command having the same functionality.

Here on Mac Option + Click and Drag makes a copy and turns off snapping. Whereas Command + Click Drag keeps snapping on.  A subtle difference in functionality, but ever so useful at times.

[max3.2]

So I’ll just hijack this overall guides improvement and throwing a color setting again - that would be great. Even just global like for column guide would do the trick in most cases

[GRAFKOM]

My suggestions for the behavior of Windows guides in Affinity programs:

CTRL - creates a copy of the guideline when you hold down the key and move the guideline (as it is now).

ALT - creates a copy of the guide when moving the guide (as it is now).

CTRL+ALT deletes the guide <also right click deletes the guide> (as it should be).

SHIFT + CTRL - rotates the guideline - e.g. if you are mouse on the left side of the screen, the start of rotation is on the right side of the screen - similarly as in Vectorstyler (as it should be).

Or no extra keys if you are the mouse on the right side of the screen on the client area then the slide guide icon changes to the rotate guide icon and you can rotate it, while holding down the SHIFT key forces it to rotate 45 degrees - similar to Vectorstyler (it should be).

Double clicking on the guide opens the GUIDES window - where you can set the color of the guides with live preview (as it should be).

[Ash]

Think double clicking guide to go straight to guide options is a great shout - we can have a look at that.

In terms of changing guide colour this will likely have to come in a future update, though are interested in feedback around importance of setting guide colour individually vs it just being a global setting for all guides (well you would effectively have three colours to set - normal guides, column guides and margins),

[GRAFKOM]

I just checked the behavior of the guides in CorelDraw. The handling of guides is perfectly thought out in this program.

These ideas can be used in Affinity.

Guides behave like objects.

They can be:

mark,

select with SHIFT and move e.g. only 3 guides at a time,

move,

copy,

block,

turn visibility on or off,

also copy with the mouse by clicking the right mouse button while moving,

delete with the DELETE key,

change the color of the guide - individually or globally, - individually simply by selecting a color from the color palette,

rotate - when setting the pivot point, the CTRL key forces rotation every 15 degrees.

When copying, moving or rotating the guide, small icons are shown explaining the current action.

Due to the fact that the guides behave like objects, they can also be controlled from the level of the transform panel (position and rotation).

I will add that the GUIDES layer is created, so everything in the GUIDES layer is treated as something to be snapped to - rectangles, circles, shapes, lines, etc.

[Luiz Sko]

Hi! I tried to find a way to lock de guides and I couldn’t. Is there a way to lock guides? If not, We would like to see this option soon.

Thanks!

[Hangman]

@Luiz Sko, welcome to the forums...

If you go to the View Menu, there is an option there to select Lock Guides, it will lock all guides rather than individual guides...

[Luiz Sko]

Thanks @Hangman

I find it. But I did test right now, and when I locked for the first time it doesn’t work. So I did try again and it works. Then I tried for the third time and it does not work again.

I’m using Designer on iPad 10th

[lepr]

On 2/16/2023 at 3:12 PM, Ash said:

We'll have a chat here - perhaps we should just never drop the original using either key, would be more consistent.

If that change were made, it would create an inconsistency between object dragging operations and guide dragging operations. Then it could be argued that making the same change for cmd-dragging of objects would also improve consistency on two levels: creating consistency within object operations and restoring consistency between object operations and guide operations.

Actually, I'm happy with how cmd-dragging and opt-dragging an object has been working for years, and similarly happy that exactly the same modified dragging is now available for guides. My vote would be for leaving cmd-dragging as it is in the initial beta for 2.1.

Edited February 18, 2023 by ,,,
reworded for clarity

[GRAFKOM]

4 minutes ago, ,,, said:

My vote would be for leaving cmd-dragging as it is in the initial beta for 2.1.

Of course, there may still be two ways to copy guides and objects by CTRL and ALT and by right-clicking while moving - to choose from.

[Hangman]

10 minutes ago, Luiz Sko said:

I’m using Designer on iPad 10th

In which case, it should be Document > Guides and then select the Lock Guides option from the menu at the bottom of the screen... is that not working for you?

[Luiz Sko]

Há 22 minutos, Hangman disse:

Nesse caso, deve ser Documento > Guias e, em seguida, selecionar a opção Bloquear Guias no menu na parte inferior da tela... isso não está funcionando para você?

At V2 I think this doesn’t exist in Document. But I found the lock botton and it is inconsistant. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Let see what will happen in the next versions. Thanks a lot!

Edited February 18, 2023 by Luiz Sko

[Luiz Sko]

Há 2 minutos, Luiz Sko disse:

Na V2, acho que isso não existe no Documento. Mas eu encontrei o botão da fechadura e é inconsistente. Às vezes funciona, às vezes não. Vamos ver o que vai acontecer nas próximas versões. Muito obrigado!

Portuguese version.

[ronnyb]

On 2/13/2023 at 11:30 PM, Ash said:

There is a bug in the new release with this new floating info badge: It doesn't respect the Use Large Font UI setting in the app's preferences. Also it could use a little letter-spacing for legibility

[Frozen Death Knight]

Any thoughts about allowing different colours per guide? I think that would be pretty handy.