Layer management

[FatCatStudio]

Hi guys,

 

At first I would like to excuse for my English. It's not good enough to write too much. ;)

But I have an idea, and I would love if You'll think about it.

 

Lately I designed something like that:

periodic_table.zip

 

(Iif you like it, you can take it and use it. It's public domain. But it didn't have lately discovered elements 113, 115, 117, 118. I'll update it soon. ;))

 

As the name says it's a periodic table. It consist of 118 elements, and each element consist of 5 layers. For one language. Without the legend. I have 3 languages. English, Polish and Latin. So I have almost 1800 layers.

 

Working with such amount of layers is a pain in the ass. You have to scroll a lot, select hundreds of layers and change their properties. 

So, I have an idea. What if you could assign a tag to the layer? And then search the layers by this tags? And then select all searched layers and change the thickness of a border. Or size of a font. Or whatever you need.

I think it'll be a great improvement in working with multi layered documents. 

 

There's no other graphic software on the market that allows this level of layer management. If you implement it, don't forget to patent it and charge Adobe for using this idea. And send me some money for the invention. ;)

 

I hope You like this idea, and You'll think about it. :)

 

Cheers!

EDi

[Fixx]

Can't you just use grouped layers? That way you can also compact layers palette as you can fold groups away.

Tags would of course allow other operations that grouping does not, but most users would find tagging too cumbersome task.

[FatCatStudio]

Of course I'm using groups. As you can see in the attached file. I have over 600 of them. And I have lost few hours, while working on this periodic table, only for scrolling the groups list and clicking them to open/close. :D

 

I'm not talking about the feature for most users. If they don't want to, they don't have to tag layers. But when someone is working on some big, complicated project with lots of layers, he can save a lot of time and finger joints by tagging his layers and searching them. ;)

 

And there is a lot of such projects. Take the web design for example. Sometimes you have to design 20 pages (each one with hundreds of layers) just for one screen size. Multiple that by 3 for other devices and you end up with document consisting of two thousands layers at least. Lots of this layers are similar, and when you have to make a change, with the option to search the layers and change them all at once you can save few hours of your life. :)

As we all know, Affinity seeks to serve UI designers. This option may be their salvation. :)

 

Oh, and as we speak about UI designers. We have spot colours now. I would love to have "spot" fonts, border thickness and all the things that don't go under 'styles'. :)

 

And copying and pasting slices in export persona. This one is a must do. Imagine if I want to save each element in the periodic table as a slice. I have to draw every f*ing rectangle by hand. Instead of drawing just the first one and then pressing ctrl+j (or pressing alt and draging) and just changing the position. 118 identical rectangles. Who have enough life for this? :D

 

I think Affinity needs to get some programmers to design some functionalities. Programmers think differently than designers, and when it comes to designing user interfaces and technical stuff, contributions of programmers can be very helpful. ;)

[Lojza]

1) Search function for layers and slices. Just a small input box that will filter the layers / groups / elements / slices according to what contains entered text.

 

2) Duplicating a slice and reordering existing slices is a must-have.

 

Please, consider this for future betas ;)

 

(I tend to disagree a bit with FatCatStud!o on the last point though. I think Affinity has a squad of programmers with pure genius if it comes to algorithms and innovations. I guess it is the touch & heart & feedback of an experienced day-to-day designer that's sometimes missing. But, hey, that's what these forums are for, aren't they? ;)).

[Ted North]

1) Search function for layers and slices. Just a small input box that will filter the layers / groups / elements / slices according to what contains entered text.

 

I guess what  was suggested is  to make a search by layer's name and I strongly support this idea.  In addition to the quick search of the needed layer  it will also give a designer an additional incentive  to assign layers some meaningful names. I can imagine that implementation of this feature might not be extremely simple but in my view it is definitely worth the effort.