Save a gradient as a swatch (Win11)

[Philosoraptor - Jeff H]

Seems like this should be a very simple question, but how do I save a gradient as a swatch? I'm not getting the little "save current fill..." control (may not be the exact wording) - I have definitely seen it before but it seems to show up in some contexts and not others, and the contexts where it does don't come up in the natural course of my workflow.

The root of the problem may be (yet again) Affinity's handling of tables, which seem to be off in their own world and not designed to interact with other elements in a sensible way. The only context where I need gradients in my main current project is as backgrounds in tables (and for specific cells, never for whole tables at a time - that rules out a bunch of other ways of creating gradients, as I've learned through frustrating trial and error). So with the Table panel showing, I select the cells I want and then click the fill under "Stroke and Fill", and it brings up another little panel where I can edit the gradient to my heart's content, and it does have a Swatches panel on it as well, from which I could select the gradient if I were to save it... but neither tab includes any means of actually saving it.

One thing I read in a similar earlier thread was that I have to be on a "fill layer" as opposed to a "pixel layer" to do this. To be honest, I have no idea what that means. I know what layers are, but not the typology of them that Affinity apparently uses. In any case I'm not explicitly using any in this project (apart from master pages insofar as that's how Affinity seems to implement those), and I didn't find anything obviously useful in the Layers panel.

What's the most straightforward way to do what I want here? Ideally from within an existing table?

[NotMyFault]

I would try to decouple creating swatches from using swatches for tables.

create the swatches e.g. from a regular rectangle while the fill tool is active (not using any UI related to tables).

All swatches should be visible the in table related UI.

A fill layer is a special layer type in Photo. You normally can use a rectangular shape in the size of the document / page / artboard instead. 
 

I dont expect a fill layer is required in Publisher. Either a help text was borrowed from Photo, or the term was used to say „any vector layer (not pixel öayer) below having a fill“, or someone mixed up fill layer and fill tool. Can you share a screenshot and the link of the help page where you found this?

[Philosoraptor - Jeff H]

Yeah, decoupling tables from gradients is almost certainly the way to go. IE make a rectangle or something, colour it the way I want, save it from there, delete the rectangle. I had a less articulate version of the same thought a couple hours after making the above post, thinking about that word "ideally" in my own last sentence. Sometimes just writing or talking these things out makes me think of something like this, that feels like it should have been obvious all along. Thanks for the confirmation that it will probably work.

Regarding the types of layers, it wasn't a help file or FAQ, it was in an earlier thread on this forum on a similar topic. I believe you might be the one who said it! But if those are a Photo and/or Designer thing, that would explain why I haven't come across the terms before. I only have Publisher. Probably that earlier thread involved a different context where one or both of the other programs in the suite were in play. If you're still curious I'll search it out for you tomorrow - my brain is currently cheese.

[Philosoraptor - Jeff H]

On 9/6/2024 at 12:49 AM, NotMyFault said:

I would try to decouple creating swatches from using swatches for tables.

create the swatches e.g. from a regular rectangle while the fill tool is active (not using any UI related to tables).

All swatches should be visible the in table related UI.

This sort of worked for a while but that's no longer true. Until recently, when I followed the procedure you outline here, it would sometimes save the gradient as expected. (Other times, it would save only the colour on one "end" of it. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to which one happened. But at least it sometimes worked!)

Tonight, however, it consistently goes like this:

1. I select something (generally an otherwise plain rectangle created specifically for this purpose, not anything in a table) that already is coloured the way I want the new swatch to look
2. I make sure the gradient tool is selected, as you described
3. I also make sure the first two settings at the top are set to "fill" (not normally a problem) and "frame" (rather than "text", which as a side note, is a stupid default)
4. Under "Swatches", I make sure "Gradients" is selected in the drop-down, then click "Add current fill to palette".
5. It saves, not anything remotely related to the fill I chose, but plain black (CMYK values 0, 0, 0, 100, solid rather than a gradient). Not even one of the colours I was using in the gradient!

Any ideas?

[NotMyFault]

Can you please upload a screen recording and a test file (saved with history)?

and please try reboot the PC and app once. 
All Affinity Apps have show signs of instability. I‘m especially tortured on my M1 based Mac and iPad, where I need to restart several times a day.

[Philosoraptor - Jeff H]

19 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

Can you please upload a screen recording and a test file (saved with history)?

and please try reboot the PC and app once. 
All Affinity Apps have show signs of instability. I‘m especially tortured on my M1 based Mac and iPad, where I need to restart several times a day.

 

Thanks. I'll try a couple things and get back to you. If I do need to upload files, is there a dropbox or something where I can do that? I'd prefer not to be too public with my stuff at this stage, though making an exception would not be the end of the world (we're not that far from the point where I'll want to spread it far and wide...)

[NotMyFault]

Affinity forum moderators can provide a Dropbox link. You may try to reach them by mail.(see contact us on bottom of page)