Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Step and Repeat


Recommended Posts

Hi,

Quark's "Step & Repeat" misses creating grid of objects like InDesign. So it will be perfect if we can get a combination of those two.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Would be cool, if it was as complex as Illustrator's: they solved it by using transform-effects which can be applied multiple times with different values.

For example, making a notepad-grid:

  1. make a tiny rectangle (0,5pt x 0,5pt)
  2. add effect "transform"(x-offset: 5mm, with 39 copies)
  3. add 2nd transform on top(y-offset: 5mm, with 56 copies)
  4. voilá you have a A4-sheet full of perfectly spaced out half-centimetre-dots
  5. special: adding rotation 1° distorts this to an interesting pattern

This would be a powerful feature! At least add it to Designer!

Bildschirmfoto 2018-09-06 um 18.01.05.png

Bildschirmfoto 2018-09-06 um 18.02.07.png

  • Main machine: iMac 2019 (21,5-inch 4k, 6core), 64GB RAM, 1TB nvme + 2TB ssd, running on Mac OS 13;
  • Display setup: 28" 5k Display (primary) + 21,5" iMac4k-Display for studio panels (secondary);
  • Keyboard layout: german apple extended keyboard (aluminium);

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@woefi I tried to recreate your second pattern with power duplicate but there were several obstacles:

  1. I could not find a way to set a polar offset. After duplicating and rotating, typing a value for x position just moves it along global x axis and not local. Alignment handles can be dragged along angle of rotation, but it's totally imprecise. I'm not sure if any of the math expressions would be able to accomplish this. Sine function? I'm bad at math.
  2. Trying to work around this I created a temporary grid and constrained drag 5mm away. The problem is that this is not precise and the transform panel coordinates are still in the global coordinate system.
  3. Then I had the idea to duplicate & move the dot without rotating first, group them & rotate it, snap it so that the first duplicated dot was exactly on top of the original first dot. The duplicated second dot was then in the correct position, so I deleted the other dots, duplicated the original dot again, rotated it & snapped it to the second dot that was already in place. Now I could power duplicate to repeat the rotation & offset.
  4. Then I tried to group the first row of 39 dots and repeat the procedure, but the result was not as desired.

At this point I give up in my personal challenge. It's a contrived example, so I don't know how much it really matters. I think a non-destructive transform effect would be nice to have though.

Screen Shot 2018-09-06 at 18.56.28.png

♥️Affinity v2; macOS 14; ⌨️🖱; recreational user since 2014.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, hawk said:

@woefi I tried to recreate your second pattern with power duplicate but there were several obstacles:

...

I think a non-destructive transform effect would be nice to have though.

Well, I did not expect somebody to do the (obviously big) effort in replicating this feature. @hawkThank you for this proof of concept! :11_blush:

Now, I've experimented a little bit with power duplicate and it's "nice". But I hope there is nothing legal (re adobe) preventing Affinity in implementing such a system of nested transform-functions like in illustrator. I wonder why PowerDupli is available in Publisher, but nothing similar is in Designer...  :35_thinking: I wouldn't mind if it's even a better approach than adobe's – maybe live updating/modelling...

  • Main machine: iMac 2019 (21,5-inch 4k, 6core), 64GB RAM, 1TB nvme + 2TB ssd, running on Mac OS 13;
  • Display setup: 28" 5k Display (primary) + 21,5" iMac4k-Display for studio panels (secondary);
  • Keyboard layout: german apple extended keyboard (aluminium);

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
4 minutes ago, GeoffM33 said:

Yes, this is essential. Especially with the 'grid' function as in InDesign.

P.S. I refer to the step & repeat topic rather than more complex functions. (I'm still not sure how these forums work and how replies relate to previous messages.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/6/2018 at 4:24 PM, woefi said:

I wonder why PowerDupli is available in Publisher, but nothing similar is in Designer

Power Duplicate is a feature of all 3 Affinity applications.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Step and Repeat is essential in any page layout and/or Publishing program. Throughout my career, Quark and InDesign have been the staples of my work. However, the cost (particularly with Adobe) is starting to become a burden. I have done some sample work with Publisher and find it capable of fulfilling my page layout needs with some limitations. Good start...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

AS a previous PagePluxX9 user (and at least 6 versions before) this feature was there. I am really disappointed in this (yes, there are some better features) but it is SO different and IMO lacking for what we, previous CUSTOMERS were using. In addition, all of the terms are different. I have several hundred docs in the old program (which purposely crashes all the time) and have just bit the bullet. But I am trying to produce a book and having to learn this - not knowing what the new "term" is, crappy and uncustomizable toolbars really makes this is bad taste in the mouth.
HEY guys, don't shoot your paying customers to try to appeal to a whole new market. It really is not cool.

And yes, I do still like it better than anything else out there - but this really leaves a bad impression on me. Very unhappy. 
They could have worked harder (or even at all) to take the Serif users into consideration. You would not be where you are without us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is an easy feature to code so its absence presumably means it's low on Serif's priority list. There is some UI complexity though. What should be selected after transforming? The choices are the original object, the copies, or the original plus the copies. The best answer is just the copies because standalone Duplicate commands always leave just the copy selected. Also because duplicating an object inside a group could create the copies inside the same group for convenience, and of course you can't select objects inside and outside a group at the same time. And also some users will hit Delete when they see unexpected results and leaving the copies selected would do what they expect.

One more UI wrinkle is if this feature adds the ability to put each copy onto subsequent pages. This is useful for things like offset tabs. In this scenario, it's obvious that copies cannot be created inside of a group and that only the last copy be left selected. This introduces some UI inconsistency which isn't great but the alternative is to add UI complexity. And of course this may mean that the function may have to create additional pages if they don't already exist.

If Publisher and Designer were scriptable one of us could write a transform script.

Download a free manual for Publisher 2.4 from this forum - expanded 300-page PDF

My system: Affinity 2.4.0 for macOS Sonoma 14.4, MacBook Pro 14" (M1 Pro)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bonjour à tous. Ça a déjà été évoqué par ailleurs, Affinity a manifestement abandonné cette pratique, mais une feuille de route permettrait d'y voir plus clair.

Hello everyone. It's already been mentioned elsewhere, Affinity has obviously abandoned this practice, but a roadmap would make it clearer.

Toujours pas !
Windows 10 Pro 21H2 - Intel Core i7-3630QM CPU @ 2.40GHz - 16 Gb Ram - GeForce GT 650M - Intel HD 4000
Affinity Photo | Affinity Designer | Affinity Publisher | 2

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For a basic grid repeat like a sheet of business cards it looks like it could be faked using the data merge grid set up, and dropping your design into the first cell. It then instantly propagates across the page grid. But this is only in Publisher. And it's limited to a regular grid layout. I discovered this idea by accident whilst setting up some data merged labels. Might look into it further some time. 

But keep nagging Serif/Affinity to come up with something, chaps!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, FrustratedandConfused said:

AS a previous PagePluxX9 user (and at least 6 versions before) this feature was there. I am really disappointed in this (yes, there are some better features) but it is SO different and IMO lacking for what we, previous CUSTOMERS were using. In addition, all of the terms are different. I have several hundred docs in the old program (which purposely crashes all the time) and have just bit the bullet. But I am trying to produce a book and having to learn this - not knowing what the new "term" is, crappy and uncustomizable toolbars really makes this is bad taste in the mouth.
HEY guys, don't shoot your paying customers to try to appeal to a whole new market. It really is not cool.

And yes, I do still like it better than anything else out there - but this really leaves a bad impression on me. Very unhappy. 
They could have worked harder (or even at all) to take the Serif users into consideration. You would not be where you are without us.

This is not an update to PagePlus, this is a new from the ground up application, so expecting feature for feature from page plus is not realistic. It is SO different because it is not PagePlus. There is nothing stopping you from using PagePlus as far as I know, if that works for you why switch to something different?

If you think Serif has done something to purposely make your program crash all the time why would you even think of buying from them? That would make Serif a pretty bad company that I don't think anyone would want to support.  They are not shooting the paying customer, they are giving the paying customer great tools for a more then fair price. There are demos that you can download and use for 30 days and sometimes 90 days, this gives you plenty of time to make an informed decision on if the Affinity apps are right for you. I am not sure why you are being so insulting to Serif, they are a company making software so they can make money. They have made 3 great programs that are feature rich yet you infer they are not even working "They could have worked harder (or even at all)". Again, this is not an update to your PagePlus apps, they have continued to update and bring about great new features that are bringing it closer and closer to Adobe which charges far more for their software. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, wonderings said:

This is not an update to PagePlus, this is a new from the ground up application, so expecting feature for feature from page plus is not realistic. It is SO different because it is not PagePlus. There is nothing stopping you from using PagePlus as far as I know, if that works for you why switch to something different?

If you think Serif has done something to purposely make your program crash all the time why would you even think of buying from them? That would make Serif a pretty bad company that I don't think anyone would want to support.  They are not shooting the paying customer, they are giving the paying customer great tools for a more then fair price. There are demos that you can download and use for 30 days and sometimes 90 days, this gives you plenty of time to make an informed decision on if the Affinity apps are right for you. I am not sure why you are being so insulting to Serif, they are a company making software so they can make money. They have made 3 great programs that are feature rich yet you infer they are not even working "They could have worked harder (or even at all)". Again, this is not an update to your PagePlus apps, they have continued to update and bring about great new features that are bringing it closer and closer to Adobe which charges far more for their software. 

 

i guess, i appreciate your feedback.  I do however find it very interesting when a question that is framed regarding Adobe is asked - that same attitude and position is not taken. 

Edited by FrustratedandConfused
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, FrustratedandConfused said:

i guess, i appreciate your feedback.  I do however find it very interesting when a question that is framed regarding Adobe is asked - that same attitude and position is not taken. 

They really did have to start from scratch. It's like when Adobe built InDesign from the ground up, they didn't re-use PageMaker's code. If Serif had attempted to build every feature of the old app and every feature they needed to be competitive with Adobe all in 1.0 they would have failed.

But I'd be surprised if this feature wasn't in a future 2.0 release.

Download a free manual for Publisher 2.4 from this forum - expanded 300-page PDF

My system: Affinity 2.4.0 for macOS Sonoma 14.4, MacBook Pro 14" (M1 Pro)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, MikeTO said:

They really did have to start from scratch. It's like when Adobe built InDesign from the ground up, they didn't re-use PageMaker's code. If Serif had attempted to build every feature of the old app and every feature they needed to be competitive with Adobe all in 1.0 they would have failed.

But I'd be surprised if this feature wasn't in a future 2.0 release.

We may expect Adobe will start again to redo its trio from scratch. i don't think they are very happy what is happening here with Affinity.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.