Identify and switch Brush and Stroke attributes option/tool

[Craig Deeley]

This covers a question and a feature or two feature requests.

 

I am looking for a way to identify a stroke.

I am expecting to be able to find and switch to a particular stroke in a collection.

I am not sure if I am missing some simple trick for finding and switching to a stroke - from to tools palette or another (NOT Brushes) palette.

 

This is my situation.

I have at this point, hundreds of custom brushes in several collections. The previews of these are in some cases very similar. I need a fast way to identify a Brush used making art - that may be stored in any of a large number of collections without having to hunt for it thru trial and error.

My present problem: The sheer number of brushes I have makes searching for a specific brush from among many collections an extremely time consuming task.

 

Something that is missing from the Brush palette is a easy way to spot a brush by name.

In fact that would be a big request for a future feature. Where the Brush palette shows a visual preview and a size indication on the left. It would be super helpful to have the brush name included in the preview area.

See example:

 

The Brushes name would be built into the preview - not just a yellow context thing that only shows if hovering over the brush.

Personally - I find the size of the brush less important than its name. The size can change - the name is fixed and as such is a very fast identifier along with the brush image.

 

However...

My real issue is the need to do a fast switch to a Brush from a selection of the stroke that is already in a piece of art.

I may be missing something but what I have found is this: If I click on a stroke applied to the "canvas" I do see an indicator of the brushes identity in the menus top left. See upper portion of this image:

 

This is good. 

However.

This indicator does not tell me what the brushes name is - nor does it give me an option to select the same brush or switch to this brush.

If I click this indicator and then click the Properties button I do get the Brush Editing menu - But again - this menu does not have the brushes name (this is odd because the Brush Edit menu from the Brushes menu does have the name. What shows up in the Properties seems to be context driven) See image:

 

Nor is there an option to switch to this brush from the Edit menu.

 

 

What I would like to see (and this is a super useful feature) would be a way (or tool) to select a Brush stroke already applied to the canvas (where I am drawing) and have the brush both identified and the brush attributes switch to the selected brush - so that I can immediately draw with the selected brush the next time I use the brush tool and draw a stroke.

If this fewture exists already - I need help finding it!!

If this feature doesn't exist - I would dearly love to have it added. Either in the form of a new selection tool addition or as something similar to the functionality of the Freehand tool or arrow tool in the application Expression3/Microsoft Expression Design. In those versions of the application, click (tap) an object with the Freehand Pen or arrow selection tool and the tools attributes switch to the clicked objects attributes. 

 

An example of why this is useful. If I have several Brushes in use in the drawing I am creating and want to use the existing strokes in my drawing as a palette… Just clicking on one of the strokes will switch me to the Brush I want. The drawing doubles as a palette saving tons of time that would be lost hunting up a brush in the Brushes menu and brush collections menus.

 

I hope the user base can either help me find an existing tool or suggest a trick to achieve what I want - or I would like to suggest a new and vital feature/tool be added to make this possible.

 

Thanks

 

Craig

[markw]

Hello Craig,
I’m with you on this one!
I probably don’t have anywhere near the number of brushes you have but even so, knowing the hassle I’m going to have trying to find the same brush twice, raster or vector, while working makes me think twice before starting an illustration in Affinity.
I really hope they can improve the brush navigation soon.

[A_B_C]

+1  :)