Selecting and Moving Objects by Anchor Points

[robJS]

1. In Adobe Illustrator it is possible to turn off bounding box from menu or by using a keyboard shortcut,. This enables  one to select an object by one of its anchor points and move the entire object without changing the shape of the object. This is useful and in some cases indispensable for building complex objects or shapes by moving one object by its anchor point and snapping it to the anchor point of another object.

 

Is there any way of achieving this in Affinity Designer?

 

2. A related question: Also in Illustrator it is possible to select and edit objects within a group of objects and edit the selected object without ungrouping.

 

How can one do this in Affinity Designer?

[MEB]

Hi robJS,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

1. You can use snapping to help you position objects's anchor points over others (check Snap to object bounding boxes in the Snapping Manager). For geometry nodes, change to the Node tool and drag a marquee selection around all nodes of the object (or press ⌘ (cmd) + A to select them all) then drag one of them to move the whole object. If you need to snap the nodes of the current object to the nodes of another object, press ⇧ (shift) + ⌘ (cmd) and click over the second object to select it (you must have both selected) then drag one of the nodes of the original object over the ones of the second. Make sure Snap to geometry of selected curves and Snap all selected nodes when dragging are enabled in the Snap section on the context toolbar (for the Node Tool). If you are working with smart shapes you must convert them to curves first to be able to access their nodes (menu Layer ▸ Convert to Curves).

 

2. You can also do it in Designer. Double-click an object that's contained inside a group to edit it. You can then select other objects within the same group with a single click. Alternatively press and hold ⌘ (cmd) and click any object on the canvas to select it no matter its position on the layer hierarchy.

[R C-R]

If you just want to move objects (of any type) around on the canvas without changing their shape, why not use the Move tool? As long as you don't click & drag on a bounding box control point, you can move any object without changing its shape or dimensions.

 

Also, you can quickly switch to the Move tool when almost any other tool is selected by double clicking on an empty spot in the workspace, including outside the canvas.

[robJS]

Hi MEB,

 

Thanks for the ‘workaround’ for selecting and moving  objects by their anchor points. I have tried some simple examples and it works fine but my wife is the creative graphic artist and I am just her ‘tech support’ :-) I will have to wait until she does something creative and complicated before we can test it properly. However, I still think the Illustrator option to turn off bounding boxes is a much better solution. Having to convert objects to curves is impractical in some cases and is time consuming and a bit annoying. My wife never uses bounding boxes in Illustrator and  I think the complication of the Affinity Designer workaround may discourage her from using it. Also the ability to turn off bounding boxes has a number of other advantages such as reducing visual distraction and avoids the bounding boxes getting in the way is some operations.

 

I think the designers of Designer should give some thought to providing this option. 

 

Note to RCR:

 

Thanks, I am aware of the suggestions you made. However, working without bounding boxes, in the Adobe Illustrator way, is much more accurate when building up complicated graphics.

[R C-R]

Note to RCR:

 

Thanks, I am aware of the suggestions you made. However, working without bounding boxes, in the Adobe Illustrator way, is much more accurate when building up complicated graphics.

Maybe I am missing something but how can the presence or absence of a bounding box affect the accuracy of the work?

 

The only time I can think of when having a bounding box & its control points visible could be an issue is if the object is so small at the current zoom level that it becomes difficult to avoid grabbing a control handle, but simply by zoom in (which for accuracy is always a good idea) takes care of that, & there are several ways to do that quickly & efficiently.

 

I use a mouse with a scroll wheel, & with the 'use Mouse Wheel to Zoom' option enabled, it is even possible to zoom in & out simultaneously while performing any other operation, making this extremely fluid.

[robJS]

Hi RCR,

 

We all have different ways of working and create different types of graphics. In my wife’s case her illustrative graphics often require her to move a curve by clicking on an anchor point to snap an anchor point of one curve to another anchor point on another curve without changing the shape of the curve she is moving.

 

When selecting an object or curve with the move tool one cannot determine where the anchor points are. When selecting the same object with the node tool one can see the anchor points but one has to select them all if one wants to move the curve by dragging on an anchor point.

 

With the Adobe Illustrator option of turning bounding box off one can simply use the standard selection/move tool to move an object by its anchor points. Also in Adobe Illustrator one gets a visual feedback from the cursor when one is snapping one anchor point over another. All of this makes building up a complicated graphic easier and in a graphic with a multitude of other objects more intuitive and less prone to accidental moves, transformations and shape changing.

 

Before you suggest that we just stick with Illustrator that is what we are trying to get away from as our old Illustrator CS 1 requires us to boot our Mac in to Snow Leopard in order to use it. Designer appears to have everything my wife needs but it would be nice if Designer had the turn bounding box off option :-)

[R C-R]

Hey robJS,

 

I see what you want & how this could be useful. However, this would require something other than just turning off the bounding box because currently the snapping options don't support snapping to an arbitrary anchor point of another object.

 

According to the Snapping help topic, these are the only options for that:

 

• Snap to object bounding boxes—when checked, objects can be aligned based on its bounding box.
• Include bounding box mid points—when checked, objects snap to vertical or horizontal centre of a target object. This option is only available if the above option is selected.
• Snap to gaps and sizes—when checked, arrows represent matched gaps between snapping candidates and matched horizontal and/or vertical sizes.
• Snap to shape key points—when checked, objects can be aligned to key points on shapes, such as the start and end of a rounded corner.
• Snap to object geometry—when checked, objects can be snapped to object vertices and not simply to the bounding box or key points. Vertices are object corners or intersections, such as the points of a star, within a shape's bounding box.

If 'key points' and/or 'vertices' were generalized to any node or something like that, I guess this would be possible, but it would not actually require hiding the bounding box ... I think!  :wacko:

[MEB]

Hi robJS,

There's two types of "nodes here": the anchor points are located above the bounding box itself.  You can turn them and the bounding box itself off while dragging an object clicking Hide Selection while Dragging button on the context toolbar with the Move Tool selected. However this will not do what you want because with the Move Tool selected you are not able to see and snap to the geometry nodes - that is the nodes located over the path itself -. For this you have to use the Node Tool as i explained above.

 

The behavior you are looking for from Illustrator cannot be replicated at the moment. Curiously I've been talking about this with the dev team. I also would like it to work that way.

[R C-R]

You can turn them and the bounding box itself off while dragging an object clicking Hide Selection while Dragging button on the context toolbar with the Pen Tool selected.

 

I think you mean with the Move Tool selected, right?

[MEB]

Yes, post corrected. Thanks.

[robJS]

Hi everyone,

 

Thanks for your input and information on this subject. I now know I should have checked my terminology and added a note to my original post indicating that my reference to ‘Anchor Points’ in this post refers to the Bézier Curve end point ore, as refered to in Affinity Designer, ‘Nodes’ and not to the Bounding Box ‘Handles’.

 

 

Sorry for the confusion.