Your favourite tip?

[Dale]

What's the hint or tip you've appreciated the most when using Affinity Designer, or the hint/tip you wish you'd been told early on?

 

Whether it's for efficiency, accuracy, or achieving something that you just can't do in other apps, what would you pass on to a newbie? Obviously the forum is packed full of some fantastic tips, and some experts can write (or have already written) a book son design, so to help distill what's most useful into one thread just let me know your favourite tip or two. I'm drafting my own top 10 and will share it here as well. (Edit: whoops it's a top 20 already. Now 25.)

 

My aim here is to publish the info on Creative Bloq late in November, and also collate tips from the community for issues of the upcoming Affinity Review magazine and quick tip videos! We love the involvement you've all had here and can't wait to release more cool stuff to enhance Affinity apps! Thanks, Dale.

[Dale]

I think the tip I appreciate the most is that dragging and dropping layers (depending on the drop target) is a quick way to clip objects and apply masks, as well as the usual changing z-order etc. It shows how much thought has gone in to simple tasks, with logic marrying fluidity.

 

As a relative newb to Macs and no pro designer, I'm not used to a keyboard shortcut workflow so the 'shortcut' I appreciate the most is clicking the middle mousehweel for panning. It allows me to work zoomed in and edit nodes, pressure profiles, colours, fills etc etc and move around the design while leaning lazily on one elbow rather than having to reach for keys :)

[ronniemcbride]

The fact that you can add math equations into input field! Ohh and I am a shortcut junkie  but cmd plus to zoom in and cmd minus to zoom out with combination space bar  and dragging for panning. these are probably my most used  functions when getting around. I could name some more but I will practice some restraint :P

 

-R

[Kathrin]

I am a keyboard junkie too :-) My best Shortcut is Press Alt and move two fingers on the Touchpad up and down to zoom :-) (this I use more often then the cmd +/- )

 

My favorite tipp using AD is creating new shapes by combining differnt shapes to a  cool new one.

[ZVK]

I love to use the grid, snapping and the ruler that allows me to drag the guide lines for more precision. 

[Jobalou]

Hi, my prefered tip is in "Shape tools"... The original shape of an object can change if you change the parameter's shape.

At the end you can have a completely unique and different shape of initially chosen.

[eejits]

Grabbing a texture image (.jpeg) from t'internet and pasting it straight on top of an object and it's clipped. Changing the opacity and applying effects alters the look to what you want. You can then apply more layers or textures on top of the original texture to create even more unique images.

[peter]

The bezier game. So simple when you know how :wub:

[retrograde]

Mine is pressing the spacebar when applying effects or just anytime to see the object without the coloured bounding box or nodes path visible.

 

So simple!  I think I smile everytime I do it...

[ronniemcbride]

Mine is pressing the spacebar when applying effects or just anytime to see the object without the coloured bounding box or nodes path visible.

 

So simple!  I think I smile everytime I do it...

 

ohh wow I don't know how many times I have used the space bar and did not realize that. Talk about a such a small but powerful detail hahahahaha WOW

 

 

 

IT those little details we should not take for granted!

[ronniemcbride]

Here one for ya: When you're using any of the draw tools if you press the command key you can quick access the node tool to adjust nodes then when you let go it goes back to the tool you were using.

[retrograde]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that similar to illustrator's workflow...?  

 

You have to be careful though because pressing command and moving the object will make a copy much the same as option drag... I am forever finding unwanted duplicate copies of stuff...because I use that command key a lot. I wonder if that's by design. It's sort of redundant as it seems to be exactly the same as the option key... I for one wouldn't miss that feature if it mysteriously disappeared.  ;)

 

Regarding the space bar tip above, yes it's a nice little hidden gem! What's cool about it is it only pertains to the object that's selected as opposed the application wide command -H in illustrator to hide all ... and it's a toggle so press to hide let go to show again, very slick!

[retrograde]

As long as we're hanging out on the command key, here's another.  When scaling, pressing command scales everything from the centre... very handy! ( that's "Center" for our American cousins)  ;)

[Dale]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions so far. This first tips article will cover 15 subjects from setting up the workspace to advanced curve editing with lots of handy keyboard, touch, and mouse shortcuts in between. Some focus came straight from the forum, thank you!

 

Don't stop! I'd love to attribute more tips to the designer that described them in future articles, or they could appear in the upcoming Affinity Review magazine.

 

Dale.

[peter]

Command+z, undo, undo, undo.

[retrograde]

Oh yeah? ...Well how about shift command Z - "redo"  AHA!  :P

[peter]

Yup, can't have one without the other!

[stephen may]

I have just duplicated and added .eps to an old Freehand MX file (that had no suffix) and it opened successfully YAY!

[Gear maker]

Have you ever created a complex shape but when you finish it had been rotated a few times so the bounding box was all kittywampus.  I had been trying to figure out a way to keep the shape in the proper the orientation but get the transform to show 0 degrees rotation to have a straight bounding box.  Found the easiest way is to draw a rectangle bigger than the shape and totally overlaps it.  Then use the Intersect Operation.  The resulting shape will be zeroed out.  The color will the same as whichever layer is on the bottom.  Multi shape objects need each shape to be done separately.

[elabx]

Have you ever created a complex shape but when you finish it had been rotated a few times so the bounding box was all kittywampus.  I had been trying to figure out a way to keep the shape in the proper the orientation but get the transform to show 0 degrees rotation to have a straight bounding box.  Found the easiest way is to draw a rectangle bigger than the shape and totally overlaps it.  Then use the Intersect Operation.  The resulting shape will be zeroed out.  The color will the same as whichever layer is on the bottom.  Multi shape objects need each shape to be done separately.

THIS, I have also thought about this, and will totally take your trick haha, maybe a Rotation Mode checkbox? Kind of like when you pick a gizmo orientation to local or global in a 3D software?

[ronnyb]

Try the Reset Selection Box in the toolbar across the top....

 

 

THIS, I have also thought about this, and will totally take your trick haha, maybe a Rotation Mode checkbox? Kind of like when you pick a gizmo orientation to local or global in a 3D software?

[Gear maker]

This "Favorite tip" string seems to be forgotten...

 

I seem to tend to draw a lot of long narrow objects and need to place a gradient the length of it.  Unless the object is horizontal or a 45 degree increment of that (which never happens in my drawings) there is no easy way to get the gradient perpendicular to the object.  If I zoom in far enough to accurately change the angle of the gradient, then I can't see anywhere near the ends to see if it's positioned on the object accurately.

 

If the object is fairly rectangular, so its nodes are only at the two ends.  Then an easy way to get the gradient set is to:

Set the gradient to be closely positioned as normal.  Then zoom in on one end, using the node tool to grab all the nodes on that end.  Move those nodes until the gradient is in the correct position for that end (the object moves but not the gradient when in the node tool).  Then using the move tool and holding the ctrl key down rotate the object back into position (the gradient moves with the object using the move tool).  Verify everything is okay on the other end just to be sure.

 

I hope this helps other people with this problem.