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Live Union, Subtraction, etc


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I realize I'm posting a fair amount of requests, but I'm going through the app looking for things that have become essential to my UI workflows. Being able to live adjust boolean / pathfinder / operations is extremely useful. 

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Hi Andy,

I think it refers to compound paths / compound shapes in Adobe Illustrator (Sketch supports this too).

 

Illustrator allows you to adjust the original shapes you used in a boolean operation by keeping them intact and editable - it doesn't "flat/expand" the result as Affinity or Xara would do. They are maintained within the compound shape as editable shapes but only the result of the associated boolean operation is visible. When you edit one of the original shapes the result of the boolean operation is updated accordingly.

 

You can think of it as a kind of a "special mask/group" that filters the result of the boolean operation, but the original shapes are still there and can be edited anytime.

 

Below i've attached a screenshot that shows how Illustrator display a compound shape resulting from an intersection between a square and an elipse. Note the layer panel with the shapes intact.

post-59-0-83834800-1406043615_thumb.png

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Yes, it's a good request. Don't forget to add a way to flat/expand the resulting shapes if needed, i mean to discard the hidden parts of the resulting boolean operation and keep only the shape that's visible as a single object (basically what Affinity does currently). Sometimes that's very useful. Illustrator provides a way to do it too.

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I would suggest using a modifier + click to leave the shape non-expanded. Or give us the option for a default action.

 

Illustrator (cs6) currently defaults to expanding the boolean operation by default, and gives the option to hold a modifier key to leave the operation unfinished (non-expanded, or un-flattened)... see screenshot.

 

For the sake of speed, i would not want to have to press "expand" or "finish" every time i used the subtract option, adding extra steps like that would slow down most users. The request above, though a valid point, should not be default.

 

The way Affinity currently handles this action is ideal for most situations.

post-82-0-22632100-1406062484_thumb.png

Art director by day, illustrator by night: Check Out My Shutterstock Gallery

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Hi Andy,

I think it refers to compound paths / compound shapes in Adobe Illustrator (Sketch supports this too).

 

Illustrator allows you to adjust the original shapes you used in a boolean operation by keeping them intact and editable - it doesn't "flat/expand" the result as Affinity or Xara would do. They are maintained within the compound shape as editable shapes but only the result of the associated boolean operation is visible. When you edit one of the original shapes the result of the boolean operation is updated accordingly.

 

You can think of it as a kind of a "special mask/group" that filters the result of the boolean operation, but the original shapes are still there and can be edited anytime.

 

Below i've attached a screenshot that shows how Illustrator display a compound shape resulting from an intersection between a square and an elipse. Note the layer panel with the shapes intact.

 

Correct explanation. Thank you Affinity/Serif team for communicating so openly.

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If your working with the boolean operations, could you also look into the "Combine" (corel draw - ctrl+L) / "Make Compound Path" (illustrator - cmd+8)... this seems to be missing from the boolean operations. 

 

Posted about that one here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/284-combine-compound-path/

Art director by day, illustrator by night: Check Out My Shutterstock Gallery

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Ok, sorry for the poor quality, but here's a video (note that when I clicked the bool op button on the toolbar, I was holding the option key - not holding it would do what it did before).. 

 

Realtime Compound Geometry With FX, Gradient Fill And LineStyle In Affinity Designer.

csg480.mov

 

AndyS

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Impressive! That actually looks way more useful than i thought it would be.

 

Question, will you be able to select multiple object groups and click the "create curves" button to convert them all at once? I could see myself working this way up until the end, then selecting my entire drawing and applying the convert-to-curves and having all objects finalize at once. 

 

Edit: nevermind, i think i answered my own question. The convert to curves buttons shows up for all selections regardless if its needed or not, which is great. Illustrator hides the "make curves" function if anything in the selection doesn't need it... but if we didn't already know illustrator is dumb, we likely wouldn't be posting in this forum would we? LOL!!

Art director by day, illustrator by night: Check Out My Shutterstock Gallery

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MEB, I'm currently working on the Node and Pen tools. They might not make the next Beta, but they are coming very soon.

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  • 9 months later...

Just discovered this!

 

Awesome... I was about to put in a feature request for it :)

 

One thing... this feature (like several I've only found so far by reading the forums) is entirely non-discoverable... Can we consider maybe having a discoverable toggle on the toolbar for this, instead of the invisible Option-click? 
 

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  • 4 months later...

Ok, sorry for the poor quality, but here's a video (note that when I clicked the bool op button on the toolbar, I was holding the option key - not holding it would do what it did before).. 

 

Realtime Compound Geometry With FX, Gradient Fill And LineStyle In Affinity Designer.

attachicon.gifcsg480.mov

 

AndyS

 

Curious what's the status of this feature? This would be very handy and looks like it's been in dev for some time.

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Hello thcsiz,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

This is already available. You can create a compound selecting two or more objects and then going to menu Layer ▸ Create Compound.

Alternatively you can also press and hold ⌥ (option/alt) while clicking on the boolean operation icons (on the Persona toolbar) to create a compound from the selected objects.

 

For more information, please check Affinity Designer Help ▸ Object Control ▸ Compound objects.

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