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[AD] Align with key object / aligning nodes


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First of all, I find affinity designer awesome and I cannot wait to be able to completely switch from the bloated, overprice 'mud brick' rental packages. However for this to happen, I would need to have better vector graph alignment tools. In particular, I would need to be able to select a 'key object' that stays put while the other objects are aligned relative to the key object. Also, it would be great if one could select multiple nodes (inkl. a key node) and align them. The snapping function works great but sometimes it is just not enough...

 

Anything like this planned anytime soon?

 

Thanks

 

Lars

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  • Staff

Hello Lars,

Welcome to Affinity Forums,

We are aware of those limitations. Both were discussed a couple of times here in the Forum, and they should be implemented later.

However i can't give you a specific timeframe for this. It may take some time.

If you want to know what's planned, check our roadmap. It will give you an idea of what's coming in the short/mid term. Features marked in blue are currently being worked on and should come first.

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  • 1 year later...

I agree this is a key feature for working with objects.

As a workaround I thought I can lock one object and align the other to this. But this doesn't work at all. Even the locked item has been moved. Is this by intention?

I think a locked item should not be movable.

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Hi fr43nk,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

If the locked item(s) was selected trough the Layers panel - indirectly (because it was inside of a group or layer) -, yes, it will move, because you have explicitly selected it even if indirectly through the Layers panel (this is by design).

If you try to select a locked item directly on the canvas or in the Layers panel then no, it will not move, because you are not even able to select it in first place in the first case (to avoid accidental moves) and because selected locked objects are locked in the second case (their bounding box handles are represented by crosses in the canvas).

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Thank you for the explanation. Then I will go with a more complicated workaround, when aligning to objects.

So this feature would be really helpful in that great application. Is this already planed to be build in?

I think this could really be the replacement for my good old Illustrator :)

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  • 4 months later...

OK, hopefully the product/dev team will take notice. Aligning to a key object is essential when you can't afford to guess which object will be picked as a key object. Even a minimal version of this that makes the first or last selected object the key object would already be a big step forward.

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The idea with the Key Object sounds good.
 
I had the idea to use a "locked" object as "Key Object". But the aligment function moves the object wich is locked, too!
 

 

Bug or feature?
 
Many Thanks to the Affinity Team for the great tools.
 
---
 
Using AD 1.4.2
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  • 2 months later...

I design furniture and aligning multiple selected nodes within object or line to whatever I choose is essential. At the moment, afdesigner is limited to > select nodes, check ... shift select object to align to, check .... select align and watch your drawing shift to the edge of the page! Not amusing. I'm aware they can be independently dragged out but that's like drawing a square to measure something (oops, going back 12 years there).

 

The measuring/building guides and snapping functions are great in afdesigner & I love moving objects with your real-time measuring guide. Sadly this is useless when I want to shift 7 alternating nodes 3.5 mm. Lets say I want to straighten a line, isn't it easy to drag over the 2 nodes and press align top? That also somehow brings me to the move dialog ... or lack of. The transform palette is the second limitation here.

 

Please designer designers, forget the funky punk stuff for a minute & lets get these basic pillars of design tools sorted. :wacko:

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have to second this. It's a feature that's quite essential for a power user.

 

I just started using Affinity Designer in the Windows Beta version and it was a no-brainer for me to instantly buy it when it was released, since even this missing feature is not really a showstopper for me. For the moment I am working around it like this:

- Copy the object that you consider the key object

- Select the copy and all other objects that you need for the alignment operation

- Do the alignment

- Move the selection so that the copied object aligns with the original

- Remove the copy

 

While this resolves the issue for me, it's a bit inconvenient. Right now, for horizontal alignment the object with the lowest x-coordinate is considered the key object. And similarly for vertical alignment the object with the lowest y-coordinate. Here's a proposal:

No need to get fancy with an extra 'key object selection tool' or a special key-press. Why not just consider the object that has been selected last as a key object? This way you could simply deselect and reselect an object that you would like as key object.

 

Thanks.

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Good evening from Germany!

 

I bought AD for Windows yesterday and I am already in love with it and the possibilities. I switched from Inkscape which is a great tool, but I am sure that AD can give me a boost in workflow as soon as I am familiar with it.

What I appreciate in Inkscape is the "align to" function. As it gives the user the choice what to align to, I only used "last selected" which is good enough as @ebfx already said.

 

Would be pretty cool if you can add this feature soon! :)

Best regards and a great weekend!

 

Chris

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  • 1 month later...

I love Affinity Designer and recommend it to all my colleagues. It would be even better if you could please add the align to key object feature mentioned above. This is one of the features that I miss the most from Illustrator, and would help the workflow very much.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

We are now in 2017, I hope that this feature get added soon. I feel like many others that its imperative to have a "first selected" or "key object" or better worded a selectable frame of reference to align to. As a new user to affinity, but very familiar with tools like Inscape and the A brand, am surprised that this feature is not there.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Hi guys,

 

Two years, and two pages of people agreeing with me, after the initial post, I was wondering if that feature finally will materialize. Seems to me, that it should be quite easy to implement....

 

Any news?

 

Thanks,

 

Lars

Nothing is as easy as it sounds when it comes to development, trust me. HOWEVER...I do find it unacceptable that key object alignment still isn't in place since this request has been added. While noting is as simple as just adding a line of code, there are other added features in place (all of which have been phenomenal) which are, relative to adding key-object alignment, far more complex and involved. I never realized how much I used it until I didn't have it available and it's quite crippling. It most likely should have been part of an update which included tweaks to the grid system and such. All of the other features on the roadmap are quite nice but this isn't necessarily a "tool" it's part of many, many designers actual workflow.

 

Guys, you can absolutely meet the status quo of Illustrator before adding on things Illustrator can't do because....AD is far more lightweight, efficient, and snappy. You're winning, I promise. It's already a better product. I think people are still looking for some small design "staples" is all, and something tells me that adding those small "staples" are going to boost your user base. People will gently exhale when they realize they're missing out on nothing and gaining everything when they drop Adobe for Affinity. But you gotta give designers their wubbies if you expect them to switch over. Everyone wants everything, we get that, but this isn't really a feature. It's a basic function in many ways. Table stakes.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just making this post to support the request for this feature.

 

Switching from CorelDRAW to Affinity would be much less painful with a few basic features present. I feel that this is a key part of workflows of almost all long time Corel users. Also, shortcut key bindings would greatly decrease the time taken to design stuff which involves laying out multiple elements on a page. 

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