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Affinity Designer: change gradient on multiple objects


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I have a design with multiple duplicate objects. They each have a gradient fill. With all of them selected, is it possible to edit the gradient? I'm not seeing any way to do that.

 

Thanks for any help!

 

(First post here)

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  • 4 years later...
On 6/8/2016 at 8:24 PM, MEB said:

Select them all, change to the Fill Tool, then go to the context toolbar and click on the rectangular colour well. Edit the gradient there and all selected objects will be updated.

Hi MEB, Sorry if this is because I'm on an iPad (AD version 1.9), but it might be a general question: 
When I do this, I can edit the gradient for all the objects, ok. However, this also sets the position and direction and length of the gradient to the same for all objects. Clearly I would like only to change the colours so that each object preserves their own direction etc.
Is this possible? And if so, is it possible on all platforms, including iPad?

Best regards, Hans

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54 minutes ago, Dybkjær said:

I can edit the gradient for all the objects, ok. However, this also sets the position and direction and length of the gradient to the same for all objects. Clearly I would like only to change the colours so that each object preserves their own direction etc.
Is this possible? And if so, is it possible on all platforms, including iPad?

I don't know whether Affinity on iPad supports global colours, but the functionality you seek is available when global colours are used in gradients. Editing the global colour swatches will change the colours in the gradients with no changing of location, rotation or scale.

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1 hour ago, anon2 said:

I don't know whether Affinity on iPad supports global colours, but the functionality you seek is available when global colours are used in gradients. Editing the global colour swatches will change the colours in the gradients with no changing of location, rotation or scale.

Thanks for pointing me in that direction. Yes, the iPad has global colours and when using those as the colour of an endpoint allows me to change the colour of all gradients. Very nice.

And combining this with the new Select Same I can use this technique with old origami diagrams that were not planned ahead with global colours:

The iPad lacks the "Add current fill as global colour".  So I cannot have global gradient fills. But I can add each end of the gradient as a global colur, then put these now global colours back into the gradient. Then "Add current fill" to the swatch palette. And finally I can use Select Same to select all the objects with the original gradient fill, apply the new gradient fill with the global colour endpoints, and deselect. Now, by using your method, editing the global colours used in the endpoints will change the gradient colours of all the objects.

I think I'm happy now. Thanks again.

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2 hours ago, MEB said:

If you change the direction/angle, it will be applied to all objects as a "group" (that is, all will share the same gradient).

Thanks. When selecting many objects, then the gradient tool, it seems the attempt to edit the endpoint colours assumes that all objects should have the same direction etc. as well, which definitely not was what I hoped for. However, Anon2 above pointed me to the global colours which combined with the nifty Select Same leads to a quite workable solution, see my reply there.

It might be even more efficient if I had the option of adding a gradient fill as a global colour that would be editable - it is not in the iPad, but seems to be on the Mac? 
Right now I end up with a non-editable gradient fill and to editable global colours in the swatch palette, where I hoped for just one editable gradient fill in the palette.
Am I right that this is not currently possible (on the iPad)? If so, it is on my wish list for you 🙂 
Best regards and thanks for all the improvements and extensions with version 1.9,
      Hans

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1 minute ago, Dybkjær said:

It might be even more efficient if I had the option of adding a gradient fill as a global colour that would be editable - it is not in the iPad, but seems to be on the Mac? 
Right now I end up with a non-editable gradient fill and to editable global colours in the swatch palette, where I hoped for just one editable gradient fill in the palette.
Am I right that this is not currently possible (on the iPad)?

It's currently not possible in the desktop app or the iPad app.

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12 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

A Style cannot be updated so whenever changes are made, a new style might be in order, but it is helpful as you can change gradient angle etc. settings for individual objects and still change stop colors globally.

It's a sadly missed opportunity for Affinity that Styles have been implemented only as static presets of attributes instead of being live like Text Styles.

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  • 2 months later...
On 6/8/2016 at 8:24 PM, MEB said:

Yes, it is. Select them all, change to the Fill Tool, then go to the context toolbar and click on the rectangular colour well. Edit the gradient there and all selected objects will be updated.

Although the thread started with all objects in question being selected I'd really think a better way would be to allow gradient fills being global. Being able to globally edit a gradient fill swatch and having the changes applied to all objects having that fill while not having to be selected themselves would be extremely helpful.

As of now you seemingly can't edit/update a given gradient fill swatch that's already in a palette as it is not global by default and you cannot make it global by any means. On the other hand I'd think that when you have created some gradient (and put the "My wonderful sunset" swatch into your palette) it's quite obvious that you might want to make some edits to it later and have all objects carrying that swatch/gradient updated automatically (without first having to select them all).

Wishing this were possible isn't that exotic, isn't it?

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