Animated zoom in Affinity products

[n_shcherbakov]

Adobe has long had this simple but cool feature — animated zoom. The idea is simple: there is a hotkey that can be used to zoom the same way as with the zoom tool selected and the left mouse button pressed, while in any mode and with any tool selected on the fly. Adobe's default setting is cmd (ctrl) + space + primary click. It would be nice to get this feature 🙂

*it's essentially the same as temporarily activating pan by space, just cmd+space activates the zoom-tool

[Bobby Henderson]

The "Z" key operates in a sort of similar way. Press "Z" and then click and hold down the left mouse button to drag the zoom in and out. Adobe Illustrator is different in that the Ctrl & Spacebar keys bring up the zoom tool and it reverts back to the previous tool when lifting off of those keys. In Affinity Designer you have to press the "Z" key again or a keyboard shortcut for another tool, such as spacebar for the hand-panning tool or "V" for the Move pointer tool. I guess it would be nice if there was an option to hold down the "Z" key while zooming and let it revert to the previous tool when lifting off of the key.

[walt.farrell]

Just in case you're not aware of it, and in case it's relevant to you, you can use a mouse-wheel to zoom that way, too. Exactly how depends on your Affinity Settings for "Use mousewheel to zoom" under Tools. But it can be done with either setting. For example, if that setting is enabled, then using the wheel zooms directly. If it's disabled, then on Windows Ctrl and the wheel zooms.

[n_shcherbakov]

6 hours ago, n_shcherbakov said:

the same way as with the zoom tool selected

@Bobby@walt.farrell maybe I didn't describe it accurately enough, but I understand perfectly how the zoom tool works and you are suggesting quite the opposite of what I'm talking about. What I'm saying is that it's convenient to access this function by a certain shortcut: when it's in the status "pressed", the animated zoom happens immediately, and when you release it, it automatically returns to the previous tool. It's especially convenient to set this shortcut to the mouse button, for example (below in the video how it works for me in Illustrator).

[Bobby Henderson]

I do understand what you mean -a keyboard shortcut that toggles the tool on and off (returning to the previously used tool) when the key is pressed or let go. I'm far more accustomed to using Adobe Illustrator (been using it since version 2.5 in the early 1990's; I'm getting old). The "Z" key doesn't have a toggle behavior, although it is pretty fast to click "Z" again to turn off the zoom tool.

Regarding mouse-wheel zoom, I'm not all that big a fan of it. I think it's faster and easier to just press a keyboard shortcut and mouse click and drag into the zoom target. Illustrator's zoom and hand-panning tools toggle on/off via their keyboard shortcuts. When I work in Illustrator my left hand is usually positioned over the Ctrl, Alt, Shift and Spacebar keys. When I'm using the pen tool to draw out a path I'll toggle combinations of those keys to edit the path while drawing and simultaneously adjusting the view. It's really one of the things I like most about Adobe Illustrator. The pen tool in Photoshop behaves in a similar manner, as does the zoom and hand tool functions.

[WKansepa]

On 3/2/2023 at 7:41 PM, Bobby Henderson said:

The "Z" key operates in a sort of similar way. Press "Z" and then click and hold down the left mouse button to drag the zoom in and out. Adobe Illustrator is different in that the Ctrl & Spacebar keys bring up the zoom tool and it reverts back to the previous tool when lifting off of those keys. In Affinity Designer you have to press the "Z" key again or a keyboard shortcut for another tool, such as spacebar for the hand-panning tool or "V" for the Move pointer tool. I guess it would be nice if there was an option to hold down the "Z" key while zooming and let it revert to the previous tool when lifting off of the key.

@Bobby HendersonI just wanted to point out that to achieve a temporary zoom akin to Adobe's, you need to press Spacebar first and then Control key in any Affinity application. Coming from Adobe it somehow feels counterintuitive but it works.