Vector Flood Fill Tool on transparent background?

[Peter Panino]

It seems the Vector Flood Fill Tool does not work on a transparent background:

In principle, this would be the main application for a fill tool, namely, the automatic filling of an empty area with a color. For an existing object, I don't need a fill tool because I can simply change the color property of the object.
But maybe I'm just being dumb?

[GarryP]

The Vector Fill Tool will only fill areas of layers; the background is not part of a layer and so it cannot be filled in this way.

Edit: It is my understanding that the Vector Fill Tool will only fill areas that are ‘defined’ by the geometry of layers; the background is not part of a layer and its bounds are not ‘defined’ by a layer, and so it cannot be filled in this way. You would probably need a Serif developer to tell you exactly what the tool can fill.

A quick ‘workaround’ in this case would be to create a rectangle with the same dimensions of the artboard/canvas, select both shapes, and then use the tool.

Edited October 27, 2023 by GarryP
Added clarification.

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[Peter Panino]

5 minutes ago, Return said:

To me it does.

How do you do it?

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[Peter Panino]

9 minutes ago, GarryP said:

A quick ‘workaround’ in this case would be to create a rectangle with the same dimensions of the artboard/canvas, select both shapes, and then use the tool.

As I said, I don't need a fill tool for an existing object because I can simply change the color property of the object. So, IMO, the existing Vector Flood Fill Tool doesn't make any sense to me.

[GarryP]

Have you looked at the examples in the Help?

It explains how you can create new shapes by, for example, filling the geometries created by overlapping shapes, and other things.

It's worth having a read.

[NotMyFault]

It should be an assistant option similar to using brush on empty canvas creates a bitmap layer.

Photo has fill layers which are missing in Designer. 
So Designer should create a rectangular shape in the exact size of the canvas (or artboard if present) if those assistant option is set.

[Dan C]

13 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

It should be an assistant option similar to using brush on empty canvas creates a bitmap layer.

This would be a good addition to the OPs Feature Request post here - 

14 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

So Designer should create a rectangular shape in the exact size of the canvas (or artboard if present)

An Artboard in Affinity Designer is essentially just a Rectangle with layers nested inside - meaning you can already use the Vector Flood Tool on an Artboard. However I have noticed that the created layer is not correctly nested within the Artboard when using this workflow, which I'm logging with our team now.

To be clear, the current expected behaviour of the Vector Flood Fill Tool on a regular canvas background is to perform no 'Fill' action and therefore the above Feedback post is valid for consideration.
However I believe the Vector Flood Fool Tool should work with an Artboard background, though this currently is somewhat incorrect in the layer placement for the generated Curve object, which I've reported to our devs

[loukash]

2 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

Photo has fill layers which are missing in Designer. 

You can always add one via File→Edit In Photo and back again. It will continue to behave as expected, i.e. as an infinite shape. Then you can duplicate and edit the Fill layers in Designer as you see fit to distribute them into individual artboards. You can even place a "global" Fill outside all artboards, affecting them all. (That's the magic of the universal Affinity document format )

[NotMyFault]

1 hour ago, loukash said:

You can always add one via File→Edit In Photo and back again. It will continue to behave as expected, i.e. as an infinite shape. Then you can duplicate and edit the Fill layers in Designer as you see fit to distribute them into individual artboards. You can even place a "global" Fill outside all artboards, affecting them all. (That's the magic of the universal Affinity document format )

Or save one as asset, to avoid switching between apps which is still missing on iPad.

I did not test it yet but I assume fill layer may not play well combined with artboards (when placed outside of them)

[NotMyFault]

As we mentioned fill layers - this bug is unfixed since more than 2 years

 

[loukash]

1 minute ago, NotMyFault said:

Or save one as asset

I vaguely recall this has been causing some issues.

1 minute ago, NotMyFault said:

switching between apps which is still missing on iPad.

You could save a kinda "Fill layer template" in Photo, open in Designer and resave as an afdesign "template" to easily copy the layer between documents within ADe. 

5 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

I did not test it yet but I assume fill layer may not play well combined with artboards (when placed outside of them)

I did test quickly and haven't noticed anything suspicious. Export to PDF/X also worked as expected.