Selecting tools using the keyboard

[nicoppc]

Hello,

 

selecting tool using the keyboard is really challenging. Indeed, pressing the appropriate key will most of the time give you a different tools.

 

Example: press P. Did you get the pen tool or the node tool ?

 

Press B: Which one did you get ? no ones know.

 

I tried today once again to use Affinity in my workflow but I failed. Unfortunately.

 

It crashes several times, I did a wonderful path with the node tool which I could not convert to a selection afterwards, and keep fighting a brush... and was not able to get a black/white brush..

 

In the end, I did my gradient and mask in PS in less than 2 minutes..

 

Let's hope, it will change in Affinity 2.0

[anon1]

On 21/06/2016 at 7:15 PM, nicoppc said:

Hello,

 

selecting tool using the keyboard is really challenging. Indeed, pressing the appropriate key will most of the time give you a different tools.

 

Example: press P. Did you get the pen tool or the node tool ?

 

Press B: Which one did you get ? no ones know.

could not agree more!

 

 

On 21/06/2016 at 7:15 PM, nicoppc said:

It crashes several times, I did a wonderful path with the node tool which I could not convert to a selection afterwards, and keep fighting a brush... and was not able to get a black/white brush..

 

In the end, I did my gradient and mask in PS in less than 2 minutes..

 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/6593-path-to-selection/?hl=selection&p=98368

that should clear things up for you regarding the wonderful path to selection conversion

[Callum]

Hi Nicoppc,

 

The Pen Tool and the Node Tool are both assigned the same shortcut. Pressing [P] will first switch to the Pen Tool then to the Node Tool if you press [P] again, is the shortcut used for all the tools on the Brush Tool flyout menu so it will cycle through the tools with each press of the key.

 

 

C

[MEB]

Hi nicoppc,

You can set a custom shortcut (Affinity Photo ▸ Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts section) for each of the the tools so they don't cycle anymore. Additionally you can also customise the Tools  (View ▸ Customise Tools...) to add all brush related tools as separated buttons rather that a pop-up menu.

[anon1]

But then you loose the whole cycling behaviour MEB,

A preference to activate cycling only in conjunction with the shift key would be much better.

[MEB]

Exactly. Wasn't that the point here or am i missing something?

[anon1]

My take on that is like:

Say you´re working on a mask and you´re constantly switching between the brush and the smudge tool.

In this case cycling through the brushes is really annoying and might unintentionally happen in any moment of distraction.

 

I can prevent that by deleting the b shortcut for all the other brush tools. (as you said)

 

BUT

If I then would indeed like to use the pixel brush for other work I either have to "waste" (and remember) another shortcut button or use the mouse.

So in the case I´d like to just press shift and cycle through them using the b brush shortcut. Easy to remember and user-friendly.

 

 

For me this would be even more important for the healing, patch and inpainting tool.

[R C-R]

Hi nicoppc,

You can set a custom shortcut (Affinity Photo ▸ Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts section) for each of the the tools so they don't cycle anymore. Additionally you can also customise the Tools  (View ▸ Customise Tools...) to add all brush related tools as separated buttons rather that a pop-up menu.

In Affinity Photo, since the N key is unused, I set it to invoke the Node tool. That works quite well for me.

 

I have also customized the Tools palette much as you suggested, which helps reduce confusion about which tool is selected. However, that would be much more effective if the icon of the currently selected tool in the Tool palette did more eye-catching than just change its background color from dark grey to black.

 

That could be done by using a lighter color background that would contrast more with the grey of the palette's background or with an outline in a bright color like green or red.