AD: Hide selection box?

[cal.zone]

I've searched the forums and found lots of requests for this feature in Affinity Photo, and it sounds like you implemented it, but I haven't found anything about the same thing in Designer.

 

Basically, the issue is that the selection box often obscures critical details needed to make aesthetic judgements and especially judgements relative to size, placement, and alignment.  Illustrator has the cmd-H shortcut which allows you to hide your selection until you press the shortcut again.

 

I know that Designer has a "view mode" where the selection box will get hidden when you drag it, but this is not the same thing. For one, it requires actively dragging it. For another, it presents some unintuitive behavior (multiple object selects get automatically hidden for some reason… which is confusing because why should they be treated different from single object selects?). Lastly, it is a button you have to click with your mouse, which is much slower and harder to manage than a shortcut, which allows you to quickly and easily turn it on and off as needed.

 

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Unrelated question:

 

Does Affinity use any "temporary" keyboard shortcuts? What I mean is, Adobe had some very convenient shortcuts that were only active as long as you were pressing the key, and as soon as you let go, your previously selected tool would be active. For example, cmd-spacebar to quickly zoom in or out… or spacebar to pan the canvas… or cmd to use the selection arrow… or option to use switch normal selection to direct selection tool… and when you let go, you're back to whatever you had before. Lots of tools actually changed mode (temporarily) if you pressed a certain modifier key. This is extremely useful when editing curves to bring up the anchor conversion tool, subtract anchor point, add anchor point, or select and drag anchor point. 

 

That said, more than anything, I pine for a temporary zoom and arrow.

[R C-R]

To temporarily hide the selection bounding box when the Move, Node, or any of the shape tools are active, hold down the spacebar, which temporarily switches to the View (hand) Tool used to pan the view. This is just like in Photoshop in that respect but it also hides the bounding box.

 

To temporarily switch to the Zoom Tool, first hold down the spacebar & then hold down the CMD key. (You must press the spacebar first or it won't work.)

 

When using the Pen Tool to draw shapes, holding down the CMD key temporarily switches to the Node Tool. 

[cal.zone]

Thank you for the tips.

 

The spacebar to hide the box seems to mostly work ok.  I found a case where it doesn't work: when you're working with text. I imagine I'll bump into other cases where it's not the same, considering that it's effectively replacing my current tool with a panning tool — and because it's also only a temporary effect.

 

Spacebar + CMD… great news! Works well (and as one would expect, adding option makes it zoom out).

 

I'm surprised there's no temporary Selection (Arrow/Move tool) shortcut. That seems like a pretty common use case.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, cal.zone said:

The spacebar to hide the box seems to mostly work ok.  I found a case where it doesn't work: when you're working with text.

Perhaps obvious, but that is because when you are typing text tapping the spacebar inputs the space character, as it must to make it possible to enter a space from the keyboard. If holding down CMD first & then the spacebar worked it might be different but for whatever reason that does not work. 

[Polygonius]

On 1.3.2018 at 6:43 PM, cal.zone said:

Basically, the issue is that the selection box often obscures critical details needed to make aesthetic judgements and especially judgements relative to size, placement, and alignment.  

Yeah, same for me, i often work with small fonts, small objects.... in a big overview to see the context...

Spacekey helps temporally, but it isnt a comfortable solution. Sometimes i want to PIN a layer (completely irrelevant where

 i click in the canvas - this layer keeps as long selected, untill i say in the layer-panel or via shorty ... back to normal selection behavior) and sometimes i only do not want to see the selection-box. Espacilly for remove / resize small objects... this box is in some circumtances more an obstacle than a help! Some stunts are impossible with the space-key and for other reasons: Create 2 checkmarks in the layer-panel:

1. Show/Hide layer seletion

2. Keep current layer 

[dutchshader]

in preferences>tools you could set the toolhandles to smalest, this might help a little.

[boo]

Select your object and at the top of the toolbar will display certain icons. 

The one in the middle is to hide the Selection Box, it only disappears while dragging.

 

Otherwise, holding Spacebar hides it.

 

It's too bad it can't always be on,

you will need to tap this button every time you open up AD.

 

[pixeldroid]

Please make this a toggle!  I've mostly switched from AI to AD, but I have to say that everytime I use AD, I wonder how graphics programmers could not implement hiding the selection border - it is such a basic necessity when working in computer graphics.

[lightstream]

On 8/13/2018 at 11:18 AM, pixeldroid said:

Please make this a toggle!  I've mostly switched from AI to AD, but I have to say that everytime I use AD, I wonder how graphics programmers could not implement hiding the selection border - it is such a basic necessity when working in computer graphics.

I agree, VERY frustrating.

[andrewio]

On 4/30/2019 at 3:05 AM, lightstream said:

I agree, VERY frustrating.

+1

[transwagon]

 

On 8/13/2018 at 5:18 PM, pixeldroid said:

Please make this a toggle!  I've mostly switched from AI to AD, but I have to say that everytime I use AD, I wonder how graphics programmers could not implement hiding the selection border - it is such a basic necessity when working in computer graphics.

I absolutely agree. It is a basic necessity. Hiding the selection box via the spacebar is a unsatisfactory workaround.

[pixeldroid]

Its a very annoying hindrance not to be able to hide the bounding box of the currently selected object in both AF and AP. Such a basic oversight has been hard to fathom all these years...

Finally, I've discovered a workaround: Open the Outer Shadow effect and choose the Offset Tool. You can now select any layer and use the arrow keys to move it and see exactly what your image looks like. Note that you can use the 'v' key to toggle to the arrow and back the Offset Tool. Unfortunately you can't use the Transform Box w/the Offset Tool, (nor can you use it when pressing the spacebar).

[Flavelius]

+1 This permanently visible box makes it hard to edit layer effects like outlines. A toggle in the toolbar would be very helpful
Edit: Atleast it hides when dragging sliders

Edited April 19, 2020 by Flavelius

[AffinityType]

Has this issue ever been solved? This is a basic, essential feature for graphic designers who need to see how a font will appear in a layout.