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This is my first post and I would like to say to the Affinity team, way to go on creating a truly promising vector application. I downloaded the trial and I'm still playing around with it to get a feel for it. I have been reading these forums since October. I have been very excited about the possibility of a vector program that can replace Illustrator (without the stupid subscription). I have been enjoying the trial version for the last 3 days. Thanks for making a trial version available. I do have a few requests. I know that you can hide and show items but in Designer but having to go to the Layers menu and then weed through tons of different shapes just to hide and show things takes too long. In Illustrator there is a simple "hide" command and it can be assessed in the menu or by shortcut (command 3), as well as "show all". These two shortcuts alone are a huge time saver. As well in Illustrator you can add the apply the last color or gradient used with a shortcut (the comma key for color and the period key for gradients). I know that Designer has some shortcuts but for me, more is better. They help to save time and time is money. 

 

One of the only things I dislike about the program is color selection. Selecting a color and applying a color should be easy but for me it seems very confusing and not at all intuitive in Designer. I don't know if it is only me that thinks this or not but comparing it to Illustrators super easy to use and easy to understand way of applying color and selecting swatches, Designer has some way to go. I'm not saying that the Illustrator way is the best but it is easy to use and very intuitive. Keep up the great work and I'm looking forward to seeing how Designer develops. I'm also excited about your forth coming photo and layout app as well. 

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Never mind about the colours, I've been using Illustrator too long and I just assumed that things would be the same. While they are similar, they are not the same. I played around some more with the colour selection and what was throwing me off was the fact that Affinity Designer shows the fill and stroke "well" (I'm not sure what the actual name is but the fill/stroke indicator, in Illustrator it is a square and in Affinity Designer it is a circle) in three different places. There is one on the Colour palette and one on the Swatches palette as well one in the area below the main menu. As well, the confusing thing for me was that they are opposite of Illustrator. The one on top is the fill and the one on the bottom is the stroke. It also seems odd that the eye dropper is located on both the swatches palette and the coulors palette but not the tool bar? I still find the swatches palette needs some work. I'm still hopeful that you will be able to add a "hide/show" option other than accessing it via the layers palette. 

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I agree somewhat on your comments, things aren't completely there yet. Although rather than copy what Illustrator does I think they are trying to create a better system, it's early days and with helpful feedback I think we'll get something better. It's a work in progress and let's not forget Adobe's had a 25 year head start.  ;)

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Meb,

 

Any chance that Hide/Show All might be on or added to but just not listed on the official Road Map? I'm surprised that not many people are requesting this as it is one of the biggest time savers for me when using Illustrator. Being able to hide something with a simple keystroke and then being able to show it without having to mouse over to the Layers palette and toggle the Hide/Show button every time I need to hide/show something saves me an enormous amount of time. I'm still hoping that it will be added some time in a future release. I know that the development team is working hard and that they've got a full plate but I'm still hopeful for this. 

 

Just as an update, after my trial was up, I purchased Affinity Designer from the App store and I'm very happy with it. I have been thoroughly enjoying the program. I love how easy it is to adjust lines, a real improvement on the way other programs work. I also like the way Affinity Designer handles gradients, very interesting. Keep up the great work, I'm looking forward to seeing how the program matures. 

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@Hokusai 

The features on the roadmap aren't a definitive list. Others will be added to replace the ones that were implemented. TonyB stated there:

The idea is the list will never get longer. As we complete and release features then we will replace those features with new ones.

 

I believe Tony limited it to a certain number of items to keep things manageable, and to keep the development focused. Hide/Show All, like many other refinements weren't ruled out. They are useful, and with time they will find a way into the program. The thing is, Affinity team can't implement everything - that took Adobe 26 years to accomplish with Illustrator - in just one year/generation...

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MEB,

 

Thanks for the response. I understand the need to keep the development team focused, I think that is a good idea. As someone who has been using Illustrator for over 20 years, I realize that the program took a long time to mature and develop. Affinity is off to a great start and I'm looking forward to seeing how it matures. I can't wait to see what will be added for version 2 and I'm ever hopeful for Hide/Show All!

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Hide/Show all is not a priority for me.

I use it very often in AI because all layers are active in AI and often it's difficult to select what you want. Lock elements (cmd 2) in AI is helpful too for same reasons.

But in AD, only elements on active layers can be selected.

I think that in AD, you must organize your work with more attention than AI : Naming layers, naming objects, looking at where are drawn objects. Sometimes in AD, I can't select what I want because objects are on a wrong layer.

Maybe it would be useful to add a shortcut to force AD to select objects on non active layers.

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