Improvement Area Tool

[joe_l]

Reported before? I have to admit, that I do not use the Area Tool, but there is room for a small improvment IMO.

Imagine two elements that you want to measure, none of them selected.

1. Pick the Area Tool and click one element and you get your measurement values.

2. Now try to click the second element with the Area Tool ... ... ... not working. The first element stays selected.

To get the measurement of the second element you have to e.g. change to the Move Tool and then back to the Area Tool to measure the second element. Two actions too much.

[Ash]

You can hold cmd to select different objects in the area tool. Shift + cmd will add additional objects to your current selection. 

[Pšenda]

17 hours ago, Ash said:

You can hold cmd to select different objects in the area tool. Shift + cmd will add additional objects to your current selection. 

It's a shame that nothing like that is written in Help.
Although the possibility of measuring multiple objects is discussed here, how to select them is not.
https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_area.html

[walt.farrell]

35 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Although the possibility of measuring multiple objects is discussed here, how to select them is not.
https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/index.html

It would help to have a pointer to the relevant Help page, rather than the index. You can right-click on a link to the topic to get the right URL.

The Measuring topic (https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/pages/DesignAids/measuring.html) mentions how to select them, but it's a bit vague. (Watching the Status Bar helps.)

The Area Tool topic (https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_area.html) says to select them, but doesn't say how.

 

[Pšenda]

14 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

It would help to have a pointer to the relevant Help page, rather than the index.

Of course, I usually do it that way, but sometimes the force of habit - that is, the completely common and standard procedure of copying the address from the address bar, unfortunately overcomes the senseless necessity of copying the link via some button at the very bottom of the page, which is usually not even visible.

[Dan C]

16 hours ago, Pšenda said:

It's a shame that nothing like that is written in Help.
Although the possibility of measuring multiple objects is discussed here, how to select them is not.

I'm getting this logged with the help team now - the 'Measuring' page does include this modifier under the house plan image, but I agree it could certainly be clearer.

Equally, the Area Tool and Measure Tool pages should have these modifiers listed.

26 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

the completely common and standard procedure of copying the address from the address bar, unfortunately overcomes the senseless necessity of copying the link via some button at the very bottom of the page, which is usually not even visible

I believe this is already logged with our help team to be improved in the future - as I personally understand it can be frustrating for the URL directly not to update with the page currently being viewed. I'll be sure to 'bump' this log for you now to bring it to their attention once again  

[Pšenda]

3 hours ago, Dan C said:

Equally, the Area Tool and Measure Tool pages should have these modifiers listed.

It is clear that the quality and complexity of the Help can be improved endlessly (thanks to the work on it and its visible improvement), but for example, in the linked page about Measurement, where the main tools Measure and Area tool and its specific functions (perimeter mode, cusped segment) are mentioned,

there is no direct link to the description of these tools - that's a shame, it would make working with Help easier.

Perhaps it would also be appropriate if the introduction of these terms/tool names (today only in bold) be a direct link to a page that describes them in detail.

[Dan C]

No problem at all!

1 hour ago, Pšenda said:

Perhaps it would also be appropriate if the introduction of these terms/tool names (today only in bold) be a direct link to a page that describes them in detail.

I agree, I must say I'm surprised that these Tools aren't directly linked within this page already - either throughout the Help body itself or as part of the 'See Also' section, so I've included this improvement request within the Help File bug report

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Area and Measuring Tool pages don't clearly cover modifier keys for multi-selections" (REF: HELP-96) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.3.x".
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us.