Bug Affinity Photo Aligning and distributing objects

[erdi12]

If a key object is selected in a selection of several objects, the behavior is different 
when aligning it via the context bar or the dialog box. 
The Key object is taken into account with the context bar. It is ignored in the dialog box. 

In the dialog box, only the options that are present in the selection field, such as "At selection frame", are used. The "Key Object" option is missing. Distributing is not available in the context bar. Distributing with Key Object is possible in the dialog box.
It is expected that the key object in the dialog box will be used when distributing and aligning.

Screen recording in the atachment

 

Affinity Photo 2.4.2, 2.5.3 WIN11 23H2

[GarryP]

In this case, when you use Align Left you should change the “Align to”, once you have selected the Alignment type, to First Selected.

That’s the same as using the Align Left on the Context Toolbar. First Selected = Key object.

[erdi12]

14 minutes ago, GarryP said:

In this case, when you use Align Left you should change the “Align to”, once you have selected the Alignment type, to First Selected.

That’s the same as using the Align Left on the Context Toolbar. First Selected = Key object.

This is confusing. The key object can only be selected last or earliest as the second object in a multiple selection and if it is to be used, 
"selected first" must be selected.

[GarryP]

I think the Key object was recently changed (maybe for 2.0?) from last selected to first selected for some good reason that I can’t remember.

This might have had some knock-on effects that haven’t yet been reflected/rectified in the other functionalities.

Other than that, when you marquee-select some layers the software selects them in a non-user-specified order – which I can’t remember the details of off the top of my head – and that often requires the user to have to select the Key object manually. So even if you are selecting the Key object last, it’s still called the first selected.

It’s confusing to me too. Hopefully someone else will come along an explain it better than I can.

[carl123]

33 minutes ago, erdi12 said:

This is confusing. The key object can only be selected last or earliest as the second object in a multiple selection and if it is to be used, 
"selected first" must be selected.

After you make your selection of objects to be aligned you can manually set the Key Object by Alt-clicking on the desired key object. This object will then be highlighted in blue and will be worshipped as a God for all alignment options - This God will also be known as "First Selected" in any Align to... dropdown options

[bbrother]

17 hours ago, GarryP said:

I think the Key object was recently changed (maybe for 2.0?) from last selected to first selected for some good reason that I can’t remember.

You are very wrong.

"Nominate key object" was introduced in version 2.0. There was no such feature before version 2.0.

From the first day it appeared, if you wanted to use a key object as an alignment reference while using the dropdown panel in the toolbar, it was mandatory to select "First selected" in the [Align to:] dropdown.

"Last selected" was never used to honor a key object. I know this for a fact because I asked @Ash specifically about it when he discussed the object distribution improvements in version 2.4.

 

18 hours ago, erdi12 said:

This is confusing.

Yes, you are right, it is very confusing. To the point that many users are not even aware that such a feature as "Nominated Key Object" exists.

This has been raised as a bad and confusing UX, users have been asking for an additional dedicated "Key Object" option in the [Align to:] dropdown menu, Serif knows about it but unfortunately nothing has been done to improve the workflow here.

I may be wrong, but in my opinion it was done in this poor and unintuitive way out of cost savings. They decided to use the current code and logic to the maximum without bothering about the unintuitive UX. It's art for art's sake, done all too often in Serif to save developers time and money. This approach made me move on and start looking for other solutions.

[DWright]

Hi @erdi12, I have logged this issue with our developers.