"Drop color"?

[bpedit]

Is there a way, in Designer, to efficiently color (fill) an unselected object with the current color in the Color manager by just clicking on it? Imagine a matrix of rectangles representing a beading pattern. Choose a bead color, then click the rectangles which you want of that color.  I've tried various tools in various ways but all methods seem rather burdensome for this application.

 

I would imagine the Fill Tool would do this but it only act as the Color Picker Tool on an unselected object.

[Alfred]

23 minutes ago, bpedit said:

Choose a bead color, then click the rectangles which you want of that color.

 

Try doing it the other way around. Select the rectangles which you want to recolour, choose the Colour Picker Tool (default keyboard shortcut i) and click on an object in the workspace which has the desired colour; if the colour is displayed elsewhere on the screen, click anywhere within the workspace, drag until the cursor is over the colour that you want, and then release the mouse button.

[bpedit]

Thanks. This is currently the manner in which I am forced to work but is inferior to what I would like to do. As you choose successive objects it gets dicer to accurately select the next one, having to carefully place the cursor to avoid other operations such as rotating the previous selection. These rectangles form a dense matrix, abutting edge to edge. Too, it's difficult to accurately gauge which rectangles have been selected. It also lacks the visual feedback of successively building the design. Finally, it adds the extra operations involved in selecting the color after the fact of selecting the objects.

[Alfred]

Can't you marquee-select new objects to avoid things like accidental rotation? Perhaps I'm missing some important detail about what you're trying to do.

[firstdefence]

Organise your objects with layers by grouping them then apply colours to the group.

[bpedit]

This is only a small portion, the pattern extends 10 inches. Also, imagine 25 rows, versus the 7 shown here, with more intricate designs.. Marque selection is out. I can't imagine how layers will help.

 

 

 

 

 

[Pšenda]

Firstdefence suggests, that you located the same colored objects into a single Group/Layer, to which you can then apply the color settings.

[Cedge]

Unless I'm mistaken, this technique was once called pixel art. It was relatively popular with a small segment of the digital graphic arts community, although I haven't encountered any in years.  If memory serves, it was usually done using a pre-made grid and a fill tool of one sort or another and used a specialized pixel art editor. I'm not sure there really is a best way to do it in AP.

[Alfred]

There's a Pixel Tool (in the Pixel Persona!) in Affinity Designer.

[Cedge]

Alfred
Not being a practitioner of this obscure black art, I'm unable to say if it would work or not. In my mind one could probably import an image of a grid and work from there, but I'm purely guessing here.

[bpedit]

Thanks all for the help. I think the best solution for now is to move the Swatch palette close to my grid and drag colors onto the rectangles. It's slower that what I envisioned but has the advantage of filling in a column at a time, regardless of color.

[toltec]

3 hours ago, bpedit said:

Thanks all for the help. I think the best solution for now is to move the Swatch palette close to my grid and drag colors onto the rectangles. It's slower that what I envisioned but has the advantage of filling in a column at a time, regardless of color.

 

What I would do is use "Paste Style". Very fast using two hands and you would get an instant visual. What's more, you don't have to keep moving the mouse pointer or your eye focus to a swatches palette and back again.

 

Select one rectangle that is in the colour you want, and "Copy" it. Select the rectangle(s) you want to apply the colour to, then Paste Style. etc etc, etc. The shortcut of Shift + Control + V would be too awkward for normal use, so set a simple one key shortcut for Paste Style, e.g. the backslash key, \

 

Edit > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts and in the Edit dropdown menu, scroll down till you find it.

 

it would be very fast (well, for individual colouring). Keep your finger over the backslash key, click to select a rectangle (or several) then press the backslash key to "paste" fill with the colour, and so on. When you need a different colour, copy a different colour rectangle.

 

[bpedit]

13 hours ago, toltec said:

 

What I would do is use "Paste Style". Very fast using two hands and you would get an instant visual. What's more, you don't have to keep moving the mouse pointer or your eye focus to a swatches palette and back again.

 

That sounds good, I will give it a try. Thanks!