Gradients and Global Colors

[fde101]

If you set one of the color nodes in a gradient using a global color swatch, it seems to copy out the color instead of referencing the global color.  As a result, if the global color is changed the gradient does not update.

It would be much better if the gradient updated along with other users of the global color swatch.

[Old Bruce]

This would be great, I bet that it more than likely means a major rewrite of the code for the gradient tool. Unless the team has included this already and we haven't found out how to do it.

[fde101]

I am skeptical that this would take a "major" rewrite - maybe a minor one...  but that is ultimately for Serif to decide.

In any case, it would be a more correct level of functionality.

[Jens Schmidt]

ping

[Petar Petrenko]

Colors must be global by default (InDesign, QuarkXPress).

[fde101]

13 hours ago, Petar Petrenko said:

Colors must be global by default (InDesign, QuarkXPress).

Colors are already global by default when they are created as global colors.  They are only non-global when they are created as non-global colors, imported from a foreign source that does not support global colors (PDF, etc.), or when they are used in gradients.

[Joachim_L]

2 minutes ago, fde101 said:

They are only non-global when they are created as non-global colors, imported from a foreign source that does not support global colors (PDF, etc.), or when they are used in gradients.

Are there arguments against Affinity making the colours global colours even on import?

[Petar Petrenko]

12 minutes ago, fde101 said:

Colors are already global by default when they are created as global colors.  They are only non-global when they are created as non-global colors, imported from a foreign source that does not support global colors (PDF, etc.), or when they are used in gradients.

What I mean is that only global color must exist in all Affinity apps (InDesign, Quark).

[fde101]

36 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

What I mean is that only global color must exist in all Affinity apps (InDesign, Quark).

That would be incredibly problematic when working with photos, which can contain a very large number of colors that are quite unlikely to change in a uniform manner.

I must firmly disagree with this.

 

44 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

Are there arguments against Affinity making the colours global colours even on import?

A PDF may contain a mixture of content for which it would make sense for the colors to be global, and content for which it would not make sense.  The content for which it would not make sense may potentially contain a large number of colors, which would pollute the palettes if added to them with a large number of useless entries.  While photographs would obviously fall into that category and could be readily detected while importing, there could also be vector data that falls into this category, which may not be so easily distinguished from the content for which global colors would be useful.

An option upon import to make a "best effort" attempt to identify colors to make global would probably not be a bad option, but I would argue that it would be better to provide improved tools for replacing existing colors in the document with newly created global colors, as even if that option were given, it is likely that it will not get it right sometimes and users would need to be able to manipulate things both ways to clean up after it.

[Petar Petrenko]

28 minutes ago, fde101 said:

that are quite unlikely to change in a uniform manner.

If you don't need to change the color, then don't do it. Select or create another global color.