john77m Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 I would like to scale an object by percent, rather than have to do the math to change the x and/or y. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted May 21, 2016 Staff Share Posted May 21, 2016 Hi john77m, Welcome to Affinity Forums :) [EDITED] You can use math operations inside input fields, so for example if you want to change the width of an object to half you can replace the existing value with *=50% in the Transform panel. [EDITED]. For information about the expressions you can use in the input fields check the menu Help ▸ Affinity Designer Help ▸ Workspace ▸ More ▸ Expressions for field input. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oval Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 … you can add *50% after the existing value in the Transform panel or replace the existing value with *=50%. Both notations will work. Yes, both work, but they are not the same. The first one results in wrong/inaccurate results in too many cases! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted May 21, 2016 Staff Share Posted May 21, 2016 Hi Oval, Can you post a sample file/example where it fails using the first notation and works with the second please? Thanks. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oval Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 Hi Oval, Can you post a sample file/example where it fails using the first notation and works with the second please? Thanks. LOL. john77m is not an advanced user of Affinity Designer. If you simplify things, bridges can collapse. You know that the numbers in the fields don’t represent/show the exact dimensions in many cases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paolo.limoncelli Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 Yes, both work, but they are not the same. The first one results in wrong/inaccurate results in too many cases! In particular because john77m is not an advanced user he would be very happy to know where expressions fail :) But not only him, I'm curious too as other members of the community for sure... Which are these cases? I wasn't able to find a bug related... Quote The white dog, making tools for artists, illustrators and doodlers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted May 21, 2016 Staff Share Posted May 21, 2016 LOL. john77m is not an advanced user of Affinity Designer. If you simplify things, bridges can collapse. You know that the numbers in the fields don’t represent/show the exact dimensions in many cases. Oval, That's not an inaccuracy bug. The application is simply rounding the values if there isn't enough decimal places to represent the whole result. You can change the number of decimal places used for different units in Affinity Preferences, User Interface section. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oval Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 I wasn't able to find a bug related... Who said, it is a bug? You just get different results. Think about that: π is not 3.141592653589793 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oval Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 Oval, That's not an inaccuracy bug. The application is simply rounding the values if there isn't enough decimal places to represent the whole result. You can change the number of decimal places used for different units in Affinity Preferences, User Interface section. That was not said. But don’t advise beginners, both results are the same in all cases, if you don’t tell them in which cases both results in the same dimensions. You only can get six places, which is not the precision of the real dimensions of the objects. Adding “*50% after the existing value in the Transform panel” should not be used/advise, if you don’t know that the field shows the exact value. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted May 21, 2016 Staff Share Posted May 21, 2016 Oval, Internally the application uses more than six decimal places to perform calculations, however for practical reasons the max number of values displayed in the fields are six. This in not uncommon, other applications do the same. This is also an illustration/design application not a CAD software. What are you doing with it that requires such a high number of decimal places? If you need such level of precision maybe you should consider a CAD application instead? I can't explain/detail every single related feature when a user poses a question about something for obvious reasons. The accuracy/precision of the input fields was not in question here - just how to use percentages to scale objects. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oval Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 Oval, Internally the application uses more than six decimal places to perform calculations, however for practical reasons the max number of values displayed in the fields are six. This in not uncommon, other applications do the same. This is also an illustration/design application not a CAD software. What are you doing with it that requires such a high number of decimal places? If you need such level of precision maybe you should consider a CAD application instead? I can't explain/detail every single related feature when a user poses a question about something for obvious reasons. The accuracy/precision of the input fields was not in question here - just how to use percentages to scale objects. Hey, a very good strategy to ask questions … Did you tell him that both result in different dimensions in most cases? No. Have you asked john77m before, with how many decimal places he works? No. Perhaps with one. Why do you need an example? You know that both are mathematically different. Why do you ask me questions about my needs? It is about john77m’s needs. You know that not only CAD needs precision. If he needs to duplicate his object many times for a watch design or just to align with x*2, your precision could be not enough. Perhaps he is a type(face) designer, not an illustrator, … have you asked? Imprecise numbers (in the fields / in the context toolbar with only one correct decimal place) are still not indicated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paolo.limoncelli Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 Who said, it is a bug? You just get different results. Think about that: π is not 3.141592653589793 The discussion is moving to Georg's proof here... :P Ok clear! ;) Quote The white dog, making tools for artists, illustrators and doodlers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted May 21, 2016 Staff Share Posted May 21, 2016 Oval, You are right. The first notation only works correctly if the number of decimal places set in Preferences is high enough to avoid rounding. I'm checking this with the dev team. I didn't understood your first post correctly. Please accept my apologies and thanks for the heads up. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paolo.limoncelli Posted May 22, 2016 Share Posted May 22, 2016 Finally we have an answer... :) Quote The white dog, making tools for artists, illustrators and doodlers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john77m Posted May 24, 2016 Author Share Posted May 24, 2016 Thanks, MEB, This is exactly what I was looking for. (Indeed, I'm not a watchmaker nor need to scale by Pi!) I'm used to FreeHand, where you enter a simple number for scaling. paolo.limoncelli 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oval Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 Oval, You are right. The first notation only works correctly if the number of decimal places set in Preferences is high enough to avoid rounding. I'm checking this with the dev team. I didn't understood your first post correctly. Please accept my apologies and thanks for the heads up. Thanks, perhaps an indicator will prevent some people to run into problems in future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Ben Posted May 25, 2016 Staff Share Posted May 25, 2016 @Oval You know that the numbers in the fields don’t represent/show the exact dimensions in many cases. I'm not sure what you mean by "in many cases". Quite simply, floating point double precision far exceeds anything a user would want to see. The process of making most geometry will mean that most numbers displayed will be rounded to some degree. Even numbers that look whole might have a very small fractional part that we truncate/round. Do you need to see the 0.000001 of the real number? Probably not. I get the impression you are seeing this as a bug, as opposed to an intentional feature. No app is going to give you this sort of precision when dealing in text entry. I think we've covered this subject on about 10 threads now! So, we offer two approaches to formula entry - direct input where the text is interpreted directly (so subject to the rounding that was applied when turning the number into text), and relative formula that operate on the internally held precise value. It depends on the operator used and the content of the text field when you hit enter. Since this feature requires some degree of knowledge, it's reasonable to expect people to read the help file to get the low down on how this works and how precision is affected. Read the help, and all should be clear. paolo.limoncelli 1 Quote SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer Software engineer - Photographer - Guitarist - Philosopher iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395 MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300 iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oval Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 @ Ben I get the impression you are seeing this as a bug, … No, never. Just said both methods can result in different dimensions. Like john77m, many users are not watchmakers. An easy example: If they illustrate they do it without knowing the exact dimensions. If advised to use both “notations” as equal [see the unedited version of #2] they can get in trouble when they just add *50% after the existing value, group it with some other objects, do it again and again … and then backwards with 200%, … and they wonder: Does not fit any more! HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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