Nichod Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Andy Somerfield Posted July 22, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 22, 2014 Hi Nichod, Can you explain what you mean by "live adjust" for boolean operations? How would you expect it to work? We're always keen to make tools / operations have live previews, so if we can do something here we probably will.. Thanks, AndyS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted July 22, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 22, 2014 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. matroskin 1 Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Andy Somerfield Posted July 22, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 22, 2014 Sounds like a reasonable thing to do... Andy Lojza 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted July 22, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 22, 2014 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. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyO Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 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. Quote Art director by day, illustrator by night: Check Out My Shutterstock Gallery Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted July 22, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 22, 2014 I agree that the "expanded version" should be the default. Its what most people would expect. TonyO 1 Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nichod Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Andy Somerfield Posted July 23, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 23, 2014 I'm going to try to implement this - I'll let you know how it goes :) AndyS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyO Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 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/ Quote Art director by day, illustrator by night: Check Out My Shutterstock Gallery Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Andy Somerfield Posted July 24, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 24, 2014 I've managed to get this in - I'll try to send some screen caps or a video - so I can make sure it's what you guys actually want :) Give me a few minutes.. AndyS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Andy Somerfield Posted July 24, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 24, 2014 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 karim, TonyB, MacGueurle and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted July 24, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 24, 2014 Impressive Andy! The boolean operation dropdown in the layers menu is very useful. Super improvement ;) Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRScott Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Very cool! I've got a lot to learn. :) Quote Gregg OS X Version 10.14.6 iMac 27" 3.2 GHz i5- 32 GB Huion Kamvas Pro 20 iPad Pro 12.9" IOS 13 AD = OS IOS, AP = OS IOS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyO Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 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!! Doc Pixel 1 Quote Art director by day, illustrator by night: Check Out My Shutterstock Gallery Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Andy Somerfield Posted July 24, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 24, 2014 Yes, that will work as you expect :) I'll clean this code up and ship it in the next beta.. AndyS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted July 24, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 24, 2014 Hum... if this and node snapping both are coming in the next beta (plus some more things i'm following), i will have a lot to play with next week ^_^ Can't forget the option key to create the compound shapes. Better start creating a doc with all the shortcuts and modifier keys... Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyO Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 OOOH! a list of all modifiers would be epic! ... i wouldn't wanna write it, haha! Quote Art director by day, illustrator by night: Check Out My Shutterstock Gallery Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Ben Posted July 25, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 25, 2014 MEB, I'm currently working on the Node and Pen tools. They might not make the next Beta, but they are coming very soon. Quote SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer Software engineer - Photographer - Guitarist - Philosopher iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395 MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300 iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted July 25, 2014 Staff Share Posted July 25, 2014 No problem. Thanks for the update Ben. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nichod Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 Looks very nice! A great implementation. It functions similar to Sketch which I really like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrograde Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Andy that video is impressive. As an logo designer that will allow for lots of playing with shapes and ideas before having to commit. Great job! Quote http://www.kevincreative.com https://www.behance.net/kevincreative https://dribbble.com/kevincreative https://www.instagram.com/kevincreative/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karim Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 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? MattP 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thcsiz Posted September 6, 2015 Share Posted September 6, 2015 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 Curious what's the status of this feature? This would be very handy and looks like it's been in dev for some time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted September 7, 2015 Staff Share Posted September 7, 2015 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. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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