Alt-click new layer automatically moves current selection to a new layer

[Ash]

Apps: Publisher and Designer
Platforms: All

In the layers panel if you alt-click add new layer when you have a selection, all items in that selection are moved to the new layer created. In other words this behaves similar to grouping, but rather than creating a group it puts your selection into a new layer.

Additionally for desktop versions you will find a new option in the right click menu for "Move Selection to New Layer" which achieves the same thing.

 

This makes it far easier to organise your work into layers, without having to create an empty layer first and drag the items you want into it.

[Hangman]

Another really simple but very effective addition, thank you... 🙂👏

[Return]

Only the button and rightclick menu on object/layer for new layer works but there's also an entry for new Layer in the rightclick menu in the layerspanel and main menu that doesn't get reached when using alt key on windows.
Perhaps add ctrl to the mix to have this entry also an option to create the Layer by selection.(like creating compounds menu>layer geometry>ctrl+alt+add, etc.)
Or add a menu item for this too.
Not trying to be daft here but doesn't this need to be written as Layer with a capital L in your post as this is what is used here.

[Frozen Death Knight]

I like the menu change for the R click menu on the canvas, but the option is missing in the Layers panel.

Should be added alongside Group and Ungroup. This option has more in common with those than rasterizing.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Return said:

Not trying to be daft here but doesn't this need to be written as Layer with a capital L in your post as this is what is used here.

YES!!! I was totally confused about this until I realized he meant "Layer" & not an ordinary layer!

[Intuos5]

Is it possible to add this to a keyboard shortcut too (e.g. so I can assign it to N)? So that if you create a new layer with a selection of objects, it moves the selected objects to the new layer and if you don't have a selection, it creates a new layer? I would definitely prefer that over the more simple New Layer command.

[Return]

On 7/14/2023 at 8:38 PM, R C-R said:

YES!!! I was totally confused about this until I realized he meant "Layer" & not an ordinary layer!

Perhaps Serif needs to rethink the label here or for the other objects as this is confusing for most.
I know it has been requested before but since the expansion of the suite with publisher as core collaborative tool it would seem logical to rephrase the objects into what they are, objects.
Just lose the label layer for these items and use it solely for the Layer(container) object.

IMHO It should be pixel object or image object, group, symbol, text frame object, art text object, compound object, etc.
And for quickshapes their respected names(rectangle, ellipse, etc.) and when converted they should be called shapes.
If a line is a line it is a line and not a curve or a stroke(already gives me a headache, hope nothing serious though).
And as for curve vs curves (bleh)
 

[Intuos5]

Atleast pixel layers should always be called pixel layers (and not layers in Photo).

[michael_o]

Awesome little but HUGE addition. I am here for those improvements in detail.

I agree with all the comments above:

1. - Add options (w CTRL or ALT f.e.) to decide what should be included
2. - Alike Command+G add a short cut so we can make this similar operation with our keyboards while in the workflow
3. Add also an option for 1. and 2. to undo this: move all objects from a created layer by menu and a keyboard shortcut
   
   THX!

[Intuos5]

For me, the most important layer managing problem is that it is not always clear on which layer objects reside. If you use a simple nested layers approach and your selection resides within one sublayer, it's clear. But as soon as you have selected objects on several nested layers with different parent layers and you need to move them to a new parent layer while retaining the nested layer structure it becomes a very tedious task.

In Illustrator, you can drag all the selected contents from one layer to another without having to locate the individual objects that you want to move — you make a selection and can move the selected content to a (sub)layer of choice by dragging a dot from one layer to the next. With this Beta feature, we can now move objects to a new layer, but this does not yet cover the workflow where you want to move objects within a layer to another sublayer without drag and drop + layer reordering. In this case, you either need a similar solution as Illustrator or a send to layer command.

[Hangman]

I'm unsure if there is already a way around this but currently, using this feature always nests the newly created Layer directly above the first selected object which means you then have to drag the new Layer out of a nested Layer (assuming the objects selected are already in their own Layers), which becomes a bit counter-productive.

I would prefer the newly created Layer to automatically appear at the top of the layer stack.

[Hangman]

Using Alt-Click to Create a New Layer from Nested Symbols Crashes Affinity Designer. The same is true when dragging nested symbols outside their nested layers as described here...

 

[Jon P]

Thanks @Hangman that's been logged with us through that thread.

I've logged an improvement about also adding it to the Layers dropdown, which would allow it to be assigned a shortcut

[Hangman]

Hi @Jon P, Perfect, thanks for logging both...