Affinity Designer Suggestion - Simplify the handling and modification of Assets, Symbols and Groups

[ChristAlix]

Hi guys,

 

At the moment I'm fighting with the theme of assets, symbols and grouping in the Affinity Designer.
Compared to the illustrator, Affinity has revolutionized the handling of symbols and I am "relatively" satisfied with the available tools, but there is still room for improvement!

 

I've been looking for the same ideas for a long time. There are many suggestions with different content and it is very difficult to follow them, so I do not know whether there have been similar proposals or not.

So, let's go!

 

With the identical objects I was able to help myself with assets and symbols, but when it comes to working on other forms in a group simultaneously, it's over with fun.
Replacing symbols or objects with inheritance of their original size and position is not possible in Affinity Designer or I haven't found a function for it yet.

I have found a good example of how such a thing can or has been realized in Microsoft Powerpoint (2013). It is not a real illustration program but the simple way to modify objects is unsurpassed!

 

Please have a look at the examples here and I am curious about your review.

Is this a "Nice to Have" feature for you or a feature that allows you to work quickly, effectively and flexibly?

Or is such a feature already in your portfolio? 

 

 

Here you will find some visual examples without the generation of symbols "cloning" like in AD:

 

Objects can be modified individually or together in a group.

 

Different objects can be modified together

 

Objects can be replaced together or independently. The size, position and rotation of the original object is taken over.

 

 

Just a very simple drawing like the pentaptych or tryptichon is a challenge in AD

An example of how PowerPoint works.

Try to do this in AD with symbols at the same time and then replace them afterwards.

 

In addition, AD (such as Adobe Illustrator CC and Incscape. With the exception of the CAD programs, because it would be fatal) a strange feature to deform the symbol duplicates (which are changed in their aspect ratio) during rotation. 

 

 

 

It is also not possible to edit the symbols in the "quasi" mask group, since this group is converted to a solid layer.

 

 

 

[Dave Vector]

I see where you are going with this and I agree. 

 

I used to use 3DSMax quite a bit and I would miss ability to create parent-child relationships when manipulating objects when I would use Adobe Illustrator.  It always annoyed me that such a valuable feature was not very well implemented by the Illustrator team, and I was very excited by Affinity Designer when I first saw it.  In fact, when I first watched their promo video, I bought AD right away!

 

I had no idea those manipulations were possible in MS PowerPoint (unless that is only in the German version ).  There are a lot of features to learn from MS-PP.  Being able to quickly manipulate multiple symbols/assets/objects would create a faster and more flexible workflow.  I hope it makes it onto Serif's development slate.  I know they would do a stellar job of making it elegant.