My first days with Affinity Designer

[edge07]

After I've used Affinity Designer for a few days now and created my first design with it, I have a long list of missing features and feature requests: 

 

- Artboards!

- Ability to change grid settings

- Ability to make Layout grid (columns, rows usw.)

- Ability to change the size of layers with cmd + arrow keys like in Sketch, which is super-useful as soon as you are used to it

- Change font sizes with arrow

- Tab should jump to next layer when in layers list.

- Ability to apply border-radius to normal rectangle and vice-versa, so that you don't need to decide beforehand but can easily swap.

- Change opacity with 1, 2, 3, ... like in Photoshop

- If "Snap to units > Pixel" is checked, it should really snap to pixels and not produce "0,5" decimals. Or should at least be able to select "round to half-pixels" or not.

- Alignment buttons shouldn't be hidden behind an icon but accessible right from the toolbar

- If you press Enter when a shape/layer is selected, it should either jump to its vector points or the the "Transform" tab. Because you always need to use the mouse if you want to change the dimensions or position of a layer.

- It's very hard to see which tool is selected in the toolbar.

- Pressing "M" shouldn't change between the three related form tools, but rather "Shift + M" like in Photoshop. Because at the moment It often happens that the shape tool is already selected and then I switch to the next shape with intention. 

- "Color Chooser" overlay should be closable with "Esc".

- Alignment of vector points should also work, for example if you select two vector two from a shape and press the "Align to Top" button than these two points should be aligned to the topmost of the two points.

- It should be possible to alter the vector points of a shape without the need to convert it to curves first.

- When an input field is focused, for a example at the "Transform" or the "Rounded rectangle" panel, then you shouldn't need to press "Enter" before you can change the value within it. Because, why is focused if you can't change it's content right from the start? Sometimes, in the "Transform" panel, even if an input field is clearly selected (white background), there is no way to change its content, but you rather change the position of the layer if you press the arrow keys.

- You should be able to measure distances with "Alt" like in Sketch.

- Guidelines should work like in Photoshop. If you drag from the top ruler you get a horizontal guideline, if you drag from the left ruler you get a vertical guideline. I know, in Sketch it also works like in AD, but there it's obvious which type of guideline you get because you see preview of the line.

- Color dropper it color chooser dialog doesn't work as expected. When I drag it to a certain position at the screen the whole document gets a color overlay. However I would just expect that the color under the position, where I just dragged, is chosen, nothing else.

- Layers don't snap to guidelines when moving/resizing. The color of the layer changes to indicate that snapping is happening, but the layer doesn't really snap.

- If you click on a layer it should immediately be revealed in the Layers Panel and not just after you selected "Find in Layers Panel".

- The customization of vector points should be much better. Like in Sketch you should have 5 options: Straight, Mirrored, Disconnected, Asymmetric and should also be able to control the border radius of each vector point. Because, at the moment you can't even set a mirrored vector point, eg. if you drag one handle that the other handle also moves accordingly. 

 

While I like many things about AD I would still use Sketch to make UI designs because of it's simplicity, ease of use and focus to the tasks. However I could totally see myself using it, especially with the addition of Artboards and Layout Grids. But at the moment it's still too complicated in some parts and misses some essential features to be "the" tool. But it's already very close to Sketch in my eyes.