Pen tool switching characteristics

[barbBear]

Affinity Designer 2.6.0
MacBook Pro OSX 15.3.1
32 GB RAM memory
Screen grabs attached.

Hello,

Thank you for all your work on the Affinity software. I am so happy to have a good tool to use.

I have just upgraded my whole suite.
I have two different behaviors happening (A & B below) that I don’t think are “right”.

I am using the Pen tool in Affinity Designer 2.6.0 on a newly created document.
I have a screen shot image in the background to trace.

A-
I select the pen tool and have no stroke and a colored fill selected in the swatches.
I draw a pen shape (closed) or segment (open path).
The stroke switches to black.

B-
I select the pen tool and have a colored stroke and a None fill selected in the swatches.
I have a brush selected (say, India Ink 02).
I draw a pen shape (closed) or segment (open path).
The stroke manifests in a plain stroke. (but it doesn't switch to black)

I thought … could be thinking of another program … that the selected stroke color and brush stayed selected during the drawing.

Is the Pen supposed to switch to black and a plain stroke?

 

[loukash]

1 hour ago, barbBear said:

A-
I select the pen tool and have no stroke and a colored fill selected in the swatches.
I draw a pen shape (closed) or segment (open path).
The stroke switches to black.

That would mean that the black stroke and no fill are saved as the tool defaults (Edit → Defaults). (Which is usually the standard, I think.)
To create a new default for the current tool like Pen or Pencil, switch to the tool while an object with the matching attributes is selected and click the "Synchronize defaults from selection" button in the toolbar or in the Edit → Defaults menu. The subsequent objects you draw will inherit these new attributes.

[loukash]

1 hour ago, barbBear said:

B-
I select the pen tool and have a colored stroke and a None fill selected in the swatches.
I have a brush selected (say, India Ink 02).
I draw a pen shape (closed) or segment (open path).
The stroke manifests in a plain stroke. (but it doesn't switch to black)

I thought … could be thinking of another program … that the selected stroke color and brush stayed selected during the drawing.

Is the Pen supposed to switch to black and a plain stroke?

Frankly… thinking of it now, after 10 years (!) of being an Affinity user, I still don't get the exact mechanism here either…  
But apart from the aforementioned "Defaults" workflow, there's also Edit → Paste Style, which is probably why I never bothered to care too much about how it works.

[barbBear]

I did try the Edit/Defaults and Sync from Selected Object; however, the Pen tool default did Not stick when I created a new document.

When I am creating a new object, Edit/Paste Style isn't really helpful.

 

[loukash]

40 minutes ago, barbBear said:

I did try the Edit/Defaults and Sync from Selected Object; however, the Pen tool default did Not stick when I created a new document.

It's explained here https://affinity.help/designer2/en-US.lproj/pages/ObjectControl/objectDefaults.html but I've never found this concept to be intuitive. (Especially changing the global default font for the text tools in order to get rid of the ugly Arial for good was a "challenging task" until the setting stuck upon app relaunch…)

46 minutes ago, barbBear said:

When I am creating a new object, Edit/Paste Style isn't really helpful.

Well, as long as you don't copy anything else inbetween, copying a styled object to the clipboard once and then repeatedly applying Paste Style via keyboard shortcut to new objects as you go, it should work.

Then there's also the Style Picker tool.

[loukash]

Perhaps we both should have a look at e.g. this (and possibly others) tutorial (again)  

 

 

[barbBear]

19 hours ago, loukash said:

It's explained here https://affinity.help/designer2/en-US.lproj/pages/ObjectControl/objectDefaults.html but I've never found this concept to be intuitive. (Especially changing the global default font for the text tools in order to get rid of the ugly Arial for good was a "challenging task" until the setting stuck upon app relaunch…)

Well, as long as you don't copy anything else inbetween, copying a styled object to the clipboard once and then repeatedly applying Paste Style via keyboard shortcut to new objects as you go, it should work.

Then there's also the Style Picker tool.

Thank you.