Move data entry

[Ash]

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS and Windows

When in the move tool, as well as other object creation tools such as shapes, picture frames and artboard tool, pressing Return or Enter will now show a new dialog, allowing you to specify a precise distance you want to move your current selection. e.g. below I am moving the apple 100px to the left and 200px down. As you can see that also shows what it means in terms of what angle and distance that relates to. You can alternatively choose to manually specify distance and angle. 

The original position of the object is indicated with a light grey box.

In addition you can chose to duplicate the object to the new position, and also specify how many copies of it you want to make. In the below example I've moved the item 200px at a 45 degree angle and checked the duplicate box, and 5 copies. This results in a total of 6 apples.

 

As you are adjusting any of the values you will get a live preview of your result. You can choose to cancel the operation with the Cancel button (or Esc) or commit with the OK Button (or Return / Enter) or simply by clicking off the dialog.

The dialog will optionally remember it's previous values the next time you bring it up when you have "Previous Settings" checked, meaning you can move multiple objects one by one by the same amount (for example in a case where items are on different spreads / artboards or in other cases where achieving a multiple selection of them to begin with is difficult). A Reset button is also available to quickly zero all the values in the dialogs to start from scratch.

As well as manually typing the values in, you can also change them by click-drag on any of the labels, or using mouse roller when hovering over any of the input boxes.

Rotation

As has been requested during the beta of this feature we have now added the additional option of Rotation. This again makes it easy to rotate an object by a specific amount. It also opens up some useful options when used in combination with duplicate.

e.g. in the example below I have created a ring of 25 evenly spaced squares, by moving the transform origin of the square and choosing a rotation of 14.4 degrees with 24 copies. TIP: you don't need to get your calculator out as all of these fields accept equations. So in this case you could just type "360/25" in the Rotation field to work out 14.4 degrees is the required value.

You can also try playing with a rotation and distance step on duplicates for various effects. e.g. below a couple examples with a line and a star where copies are being stepped by both a distance and rotation:

 

[n_shcherbakov]

Very cool, but it would be even cooler if there was an option to add this as an effect or entity to the appearance panel like is done in Illustrator. This approach opens up many options for experimentation. 

[Sonny Sonny]

It could be great with "rotate"

[Frozen Death Knight]

Would be nice to have a Duplicate Linked option as well, so that the copies can actually change alongside the original object.

[Hangman]

Great addition thank you...

+1 for a rotate option to be added to the panel that honours the transform origin...

[joe_l]

+1 for a rotate option and having the choice to have more than 100 duplicates.

[Ash]

1 hour ago, Sonny Sonny said:

It could be great with "rotate"

Yeah, we'll see what we can do - thanks!

[Powerhorse]

This is a nice Feuture, but for people who only work with one hand, not operable

[Return]

Oh, here the last applied attributes is a real mess as this will create multiple instances of object B if this was previously done on object A.
And why are fields connected to each other?
 

 

 

 

 

[Athanasius Pernath]

2 hours ago, n_shcherbakov said:

Very cool, but it would be even cooler if there was an option to add this as an effect or entity to the appearance panel like is done in Illustrator. This approach opens up many options for experimentation. 

This could be a new dimension of value, enabling professionals to effortlessly apply intricate procedural setups. Please, consider to introduce this feature too.

Thanks. 

[garrettm30]

This is a nice feature also. As I consider this together with the object creation with data entry, I see that you are on the way to creating something like an on-demand version of features in the Transform studio without needing to keep the studio open. I would be interested in that to free up some space, because otherwise I personally have the Transform and History studios with tabs sharing the same space on the sidebar. But it is lacking a couple of data points (absolute position, width/height sizes) to fully achieve that.

Another way to think about it is that it is now an interface for the power duplicate feature. But here too, it can’t handle everything that power duplicate can, such as resize and (as was mentioned above) rotate.

It may not make sense to take it all the way for full feature duplication of transform and power duplicate, but maybe some of these things could make sense to add, perhaps even with an expansion triangle for more options.

[Ash]

1 hour ago, Return said:

Oh, here the last applied attributes is a real mess as this will create multiple instances of object B if this was previously done on object A.
And why are fields connected to each other?

Yes this is by design currently - it will remember the last settings you had, with a view that there are instances where you do indeed what to do the same operation to another object or selection. The reset button is there to quickly clear any previous settings if you wish.

[MikeTO]

Nice feature! +1 for Rotate, but also for Slant and Twist.

It would be great if this was also added to the main menu with the existing Edit > Duplicate, which raises the question of whether this should be named Transform instead of Move/Duplicate to avoid confusion, and then grouped with Layer > Rotate and Flip commands which are already grouped as Transform.

I found it slightly confusing that I have to be in the Move tool to move a selected shape. I drew a shape and immediately pressed Return but that's the shortcut for Create now. The shape looks selected so I expected Return to bring up Move. Perhaps having Return as the shortcut for Create could be changed to something else and then Return could work for Move when any shape tool is selected, too? Not a big deal for me, I will use this transform feature so little but others might be confused by it being modal.

Thanks

[Michail]

3 hours ago, Frozen Death Knight said:

Would be nice to have a Duplicate Linked option as well, so that the copies can actually change alongside the original object.

In the meantime, one could help oneself by means of a combination with the symbol functionality...

[Petar Petrenko]

With these new features I think you are very close to Blend tool.

Very excited about all of them. Thanks.

[Michail]

23 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

With these new features I think you are very close to Blend tool.

For this, it would have to be possible to cross-fade into other shapes. In addition, the number of duplicates should not be limited to 100.

[MikeTO]

I think the Duplicate checkbox could be eliminated if Copies defaulted to 0 - setting it to 1 or higher would duplicate.

You might consider adding an In Front/Behind option to choose where the copies are created in the layer stack.

And an option to create the copies on subsequent pages, or every other page. This would allow transforming an object across pages. Not available if the object is on a master of course.

[_Th]

Thanks for this fantastic addition!

Would love to have keyboard shortcuts to activate each of the available fields. So, in Windows, ALT + H would be equivalent to clicking the Horizontal field, i.e., highlighted, ready to type new value or turn on/off. Tabbing through the fields already works great. Suggested:

• H - Horizontal
• V - Vertical
• D - Distance
• A - Angle
• P - Duplicate
• C - Number of Copies

For those of us who do everything possible by keyboard, additions like these keyboard shortcuts (and the new function itself) make us much faster/more productive.

[Fenrir0921]

The layer location I want to duplicate is optional,

Because the effect of making stereoscopic characters must be the opposite layer arrangement

So, add an option to "increase layer down", how about ~?

[ronnyb]

On 7/28/2023 at 6:21 AM, Ash said:

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS and Windows

When in the move tool pressing Return will now show a new dialog, allowing you to specify a precise distance you want to move your current selection. e.g. below I am moving the apple 100px to the left and 200px down. As you can see that also shows what it means in terms of what angle and distance that relates to. You can alternatively choose to manually specify distance and angle. 

The original position of the object is indicated with a light grey box.

 

In addition you can chose to duplicate the object to the new position, and also specify how many copies of it you want to make. In the below example I've moved the item 200px at a 45 degree angle and checked the duplicate box, and 5 copies. This results in a total of 6 apples.

As you are adjusting any of the values you will get a live preview of your result. You can choose to cancel the operation with the Cancel button (or Esc) or commit with the OK Button (or Return / Enter) or simply by clicking off the dialog.

The dialog will remember it's previous values the next time you bring it up, meaning you can move multiple objects one by one by the same amount (for example in a case where items are on different spreads / artboards or in other cases where achieving a multiple selection of them to begin with is difficult). A Reset button is also available to quickly zero all the values in the dialogs to start from scratch.

As well as manually typing the values in, you can also change them by click-drag on any of the labels, or using mouse roller when hovering over any of the input boxes.

Would be oil to have another checkbox labeled Symbol below duplicate, to create the duplicates as linked symbol/s

[Sonny Sonny]

6 hours ago, _Th said:

Thanks for this fantastic addition!

Would love to have keyboard shortcuts to activate each of the available fields. So, in Windows, ALT + H would be equivalent to clicking the Horizontal field, i.e., highlighted, ready to type new value or turn on/off. Tabbing through the fields already works great. Suggested:

• H - Horizontal
• V - Vertical
• D - Distance
• A - Angle
• P - Duplicate
• C - Number of Copies

For those of us who do everything possible by keyboard, additions like these keyboard shortcuts (and the new function itself) make us much faster/more productive.

I don't think this is necessary. These keyboard shortcuts should work if there is only on feature/function. But there are somy other features, these shortcuts will mess up the other shortcuts of other features/function.

[Sonny Sonny]

16 hours ago, Ash said:

Yeah, we'll see what we can do - thanks!

Thanks so much. This feature would be the begining of "object blend" like Illustrator's feature that we are waiting for so long! Can't wait for the improvements of this feature in near future!

[Petar Petrenko]

9 hours ago, _Th said:

Thanks for this fantastic addition!

Would love to have keyboard shortcuts to activate each of the available fields. So, in Windows, ALT + H would be equivalent to clicking the Horizontal field, i.e., highlighted, ready to type new value or turn on/off. Tabbing through the fields already works great. Suggested:

• H - Horizontal
• V - Vertical
• D - Distance
• A - Angle
• P - Duplicate
• C - Number of Copies

For those of us who do everything possible by keyboard, additions like these keyboard shortcuts (and the new function itself) make us much faster/more productive.

Maybe Affinity have to assign shortcuts to every menu and submenu like Microsoft has done within Word, Excel...

[Intuos5]

17 hours ago, Ash said:

Yes this is by design currently - it will remember the last settings you had, with a view that there are instances where you do indeed what to do the same operation to another object or selection. The reset button is there to quickly clear any previous settings if you wish.

Wouldn't it save clicks if you could instead recall previous inputs and start from 0 by default instead?

I agree with people who voiced turning this into a procedural festure, where you can go back and change the distance between the objects and/ or array them.

Rotation and array support (based on extent from start to end or distance in between objects, rotation between objects for radial arrays and array on paths) would be super nice.

[Intuos5]

9 hours ago, _Th said:

Thanks for this fantastic addition!

Would love to have keyboard shortcuts to activate each of the available fields. So, in Windows, ALT + H would be equivalent to clicking the Horizontal field, i.e., highlighted, ready to type new value or turn on/off. Tabbing through the fields already works great. Suggested:

• H - Horizontal
• V - Vertical
• D - Distance
• A - Angle
• P - Duplicate
• C - Number of Copies

For those of us who do everything possible by keyboard, additions like these keyboard shortcuts (and the new function itself) make us much faster/more productive.

Or even change it to a sort of modal shortcuts the way Blender does. In that case you could press H with the tool active and move the mouse a certain distance, this distance will then be input in the horizontal distance input box, V for vertical, etc. Dismiss with Esc and confirm with enter or clicking. This makes making changes very intuitive and hands-on.