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[ADe] Select same color / fill / stroke / appearance


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On 7/17/2019 at 1:08 AM, Timespider said:

 

Hi community yep I skipped a lot too, to get to here.

Affinity Team, I understand your small and I love AD, AP, APUB, but is there an update for this thread other than "Ready when it's Ready"?

5 years seems like a hell of a loooong time & it seems there's a lot of professionals here requesting it.

+1

+1

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10 hours ago, B4ttleCat said:

Too right, I wouldn't have bought Designer if I knew it didn't have this feature. Now I recognise that's mostly on me because like you said, who would've thought in 2019 a professional design application wouldn't have a 'select same...' feature. Nonetheless, I'm not particularly keen on paying for a new version when I haven't got any value out of the version I bought due to a deal-breaking feature omission.

Coreldraw also doesn't have it.  It has a Find and replace that is extremely complex and time consuming to use.  There are a couple 3rd party macros that attempt to plug this gaping hole but they're never as elegant as a built-in solution.

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10 hours ago, robinp said:

I’m slightly intrigued why @BennyD reacted ‘confused’ to my post above? It seems pretty straightforward as a series of questions. Can you elaborate?

Hi @robinp,

I cannot and do not speak for @BennyD, but I am pretty sure you are not getting an official answer to your question when this feature is coming. They do not give a timescale.

All the best.
d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

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On 7/18/2019 at 2:27 AM, JGD said:

An interesting looking app, but with only three very mixed reviews. :(

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4 (iPad 7th gen)

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13 hours ago, dominik said:

Hi @robinp,

I cannot and do not speak for @BennyD, but I am pretty sure you are not getting an official answer to your question when this feature is coming. They do not give a timescale.

All the best.
d.

For sure, but the questions nor the intent are confusing.

Of course I’d be astounded if, after all this time, they suddenly confirmed a roadmap for this feature because of someone asking (again) on the forums. 

Worth asking nonetheless. 

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On 7/20/2019 at 6:50 AM, robinp said:

I’m slightly intrigued why @BennyD reacted ‘confused’ to my post above? It seems pretty straightforward as a series of questions. Can you elaborate?

I just reacted confused because you asked five questions at a time. Nothing more.

I totally agree with you about the idea that having at least some information about the roadmap would be great for further consideration if the shift away from Adobe is worth all the effort or if it's wasting time.

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On 7/18/2019 at 4:51 PM, Kuttyjoe said:

Coreldraw also doesn't have it.  It has a Find and replace that is extremely complex and time consuming to use.  There are a couple 3rd party macros that attempt to plug this gaping hole but they're never as elegant as a built-in solution.

It doesn't? Wow. I'm itching to fire up a trial here and check out just how botched it is, then.

If it's as bad as you described it, it's yet further motivation for Serif to come up with the “spiritual successor” to FreeHand's selection dialog boxes at some point. ;) It would trounce the competition, no doubt about it.

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On 7/20/2019 at 5:26 PM, Alfred said:

An interesting looking app, but with only three very mixed reviews. :(

I haven't used it in a while, and yes, it hasn't been as promoted or as spruced up as it should've been for its age. If you knew the guy personally, you'd probably understand why.

I almost feel bad for inviting him to be my PhD co-supervisor, as he already has so much on his plate right now… He and I think in very similar ways; we almost always put others in front of our own interests. He's barely older than me, and only now is he seriously worrying about his health and slowing down a bit. Yeah, the entire “having one of his best friends offing himself” thing probably took a big toll on him, too (I had to give a class with him the day after, and it was probably one of the weirdest, hardest things I've ever done on a mixed personal/professional level, especially considering I also knew and really admired that other guy, so I wasn't exactly in the best shape either but was in that socially-awkward situation of not wanting to upstage anyone in my own grief and having to keep my cool…), but I'd say the academic life in general is still the biggest burden, bar none. I sometimes think I must be out of my damn mind for even thinking that getting into that is a good idea for myself, and yet… I don't know, man, we're just like these crazy Lemmings, always walking towards the academic abyss of not having a life just to make sure others do. :P

But hey, if you ever try it out and have some suggestions you want to fast-track straight to the source, drop me a hint. Hopefully he'll get around to giving it some TLC soon, and I'm guessing the entire iPadOS thing may be a great pretext for that (I know I'll be asking him about it in September regardless, as we're giving another workshop then). ;) And judging from what I know, behind the scenes (*wink-wink*; there are no NDAs here, because there's a preexisting relationship of trust which renders them unnecessary, but let's just pretend for the sake of argument there are), we can and should expect great things from that app in the future. The only question now is, well, when.

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5 hours ago, JGD said:

But hey, if you ever try it out and have some suggestions you want to fast-track straight to the source, drop me a hint. 

Well, at only 1.99 GBP it wasn’t exactly a major investment, so I went ahead and purchased a copy. I quickly discovered that the complaint in the first negative review doesn’t now apply, and perhaps never did: you can’t accidentally swipe back to the previous page when trying to draw a line from right to left, because drawing requires two fingers and swiping requires one (and in any case, the swiping action only works in a well-defined area at the top of the screen).

It’s many years since I last made a serious attempt at calligraphy with an italic pen, but I don’t recall having major difficulties achieving smooth strokes. It’s quite another story with this app in its current state, where drawing at a moderate speed produces a very wobbly stroke and drawing too fast introduces gaps. Perhaps I would get better results with an iPad Pro or a different screen protector, or a new set of fingers!

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4 (iPad 7th gen)

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1 minute ago, ErrkaPetti said:

If you guys NOT can’t use Affinity Designer without this features, why didn’t you make a refund in the first beginning?

If this software isn’t enough for you, change to something else...

And, you probably paid peanut money for this so it’s not that you’ve lost a big amount of money (compares to CC subscription)...

Yeah, I’ve seen this kind of response before. What you’re basically saying is ‘shut up’ which essentially defeats the purpose of forums like this. If you’re not interested in the discussion then maybe don’t join in

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15 minutes ago, ErrkaPetti said:

But, if someone say that he hasn’t been able to use Designer for FIVE years because it’s lacking a feature he MUST have, it’s hard not to comment on that...

There are a lot of other software out there, so use them instead...

Affinity Designer is a semiPro app for the price as an simple app...

Serif have all the right to judge how the schedule for implementing looks like concering new features, so, just like arguing about Apple products they do whatever they think is the right way to go...

 

Yeah yeah. And I have every right to ask them whatever questions I want. And to think that it is really really rubbish that this simple feature request has gone unresolved for so long.

You may notice that I’ve never said Serif haven’t got every right to plan and develop their software however they wish. That is blindly effing obvious but thank you for making it. It doesn’t negate any of the points I and many others have been making.

The only point you’ve made that I think is interesting is why I didn’t apply for a refund. I think the answer is probably twofold:

1- I always assumed / believed that supporting this suite was a two way thing. Showing support for it was and is important in the understanding that it is work in progress. No one expected it would be a complete feature parity replacement for Illustrator on day one. With that commitment was a hope that user feedback would be treated with respect and prioritised accordingly. 

2- I think I honestly thought that the feature must be there and I just hadn’t found it before it was almost certainly too late to get a refund. I’m not a person that uses vector design apps every day so it would be quite easy for a few weeks to pass by. 

 

Ultimately, this is a basic feature but one that was understandable wasn’t delivered on day one. Prioritisation of certain features and actually shipping a product inevitably results in some features not making the cut. 5 years later do I think that’s the case? No. Something else is going on and that is concerning.

Either that or those making the decisions about which features to prioritise, don’t actually work with complex files. Ever. 

I don’t know which is more concerning. What is clear is that it is really bad. 

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While I can see that this would be a useful feature for some people for some jobs, I find it hard to believe that the lack of it stops anyone from using AD at all, for anything. There are a lot of people who seem to manage perfectly well without it!

The thing is that all the Affinity apps are lacking some features that a lot of us would like, and it is frustrating that it takes Serif so long to implement them. But they are still excellent apps, at a very good price, and still in (comparative) early stages of their development.

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1 minute ago, PaulEC said:

While I can see that this would be a useful feature for some people for some jobs, I find it hard to believe that the lack of it stops anyone from using AD at all, for anything. There are a lot of people who seem to manage perfectly well without it!

95% or more of what I need it for is for editing of PDFs of CAD drawings. 

If you’ve ever done that you’ll know it is simply impossible to do without this feature. 

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On 7/26/2019 at 6:18 PM, PaulEC said:

While I can see that this would be a useful feature for some people for some jobs, I find it hard to believe that the lack of it stops anyone from using AD at all, for anything. There are a lot of people who seem to manage perfectly well without it! 

The thing is that all the Affinity apps are lacking some features that a lot of us would like, and it is frustrating that it takes Serif so long to implement them. But they are still excellent apps, at a very good price, and still in (comparative) early stages of their development. 

Depends on what you do.

If you're like me, a person who has to deal with graphics and/or technical drawings brought to you by your customers and you have to edit those as per their requests, you will find out it's a vital, necessary feature.

If you're designing stuff from the start, or doing creative stuff with Designer, you might be happy without it (albeit even you would benefit from this very feature if you ever did something complex and you needed to edit it for whatever reason - selecting every single object and modifying its  properties is simply horrible with say 4000 objects per one document).

Edit: You should consider amount of people (potential Serif customers) who want to get rid of Adobe not because it's bad, but because they can't afford its subscription model anymore, it would be more than reasonable for Serif to add such a trivial, but again, vital feature that basically still stops them from switching over. And omission of this feature is simply a blocker for them, even with reasonable prices and licencing model Serif offers.

From marketing point of view, I just don't get Serif, to be honest.

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1 minute ago, CLC said:

Depends on what you do.

If you're like me, a person who has to deal with graphic brought by your customers and you have to edit those as per their requests, you will find out it's a necessary feature.

If you're designing stuff, or doing creative stuff with Designer, you might be happy (albeit even you would benefit from this very feature if you ever did something complex and you needed to edit it for whatever reason - selecting every single object and modifying its  properties is simply horrible with say 4000 objects per one document).

Yeah, it’s surprising how some people can’t see how essential this feature is. 

The sad thing from a business development point of view for Serif is that those users like me are a potentially HUGE market. A market where justifying ~£50 per month of Adobe is very hard to do when there are many other very expensive pieces of software that are also needed to do our job. None of which we use anywhere close to 100% of the time. 

Having a tool that mostly does what is needed for an affordable price would completely clean up. 

To do this though, these essential features are absolutely 100% needed. 

If I was Serif, I’d be identifying the markets that need the tools but only need some key features and deliver those as a priority. Filling out the rest in time. What they seem to be doing instead is adding flashy features that look impressive in YouTube videos but that most people will never need. Even those using the apps 100% of the time. 

I’d say it’s time to focus on the nitty gritty and give the flashy a rest. 

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15 minutes ago, robinp said:

If I was Serif, I’d be identifying the markets that need the tools but only need some key features and deliver those as a priority. Filling out the rest in time. What they seem to be doing instead is adding flashy features that look impressive in YouTube videos but that most people will never need. Even those using the apps 100% of the time.  

I’d say it’s time to focus on the nitty gritty and give the flashy a rest.  

I have to agree, but I feel (without any real clues, it's just a gutt feeling) that Serif is currently working on a maintenance release of all apps (despite the season which suggests most of them are on vacation), that would get rid of the most annoying bugs. I hope they will also incorporate some of the most requested features like this one.

All I have is hope though :10_wink:

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Hi robinp,
I understand your request and frustration for not having this available yet but these same arguments apply to every other market/area where a couple tools would be of help and considered essential for the app in that area. Affinity apps/features are not being developed/prioritised based on/or to "arbitrarily" fill the need/gaps of different markets (or to mimic behaviours or features of other apps) - they are primarily being developed as whole (consistent) project on their own right - based on our own vision/following our current plans. We keep improving/expanding them (as time permits) based on user feedback but in way it does make sense in this context and when it's applicable/feasible for the dev teams. Nobody is denying there's a few features lacking and that a few years have passed by now but that time was used to offer a host of new features/improvements to the apps, expanded to other platforms and complete the suite as intended - it wasn't wasted in meaningless/flashy things - while i understand some may not be relevant for you - specially if you work frequently with technical drawing -, it doesn't mean they aren't for other users. It's not easy to fulfil the expectations of everyone in particular when users have different needs/requirements. We did and continue doing our best to address these concerns (even if not as quick as users eventually desire/want) but we have to do it according to our resources and time and without "hijacking" our own vision for the suite.

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10 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi robinp,
I understand your request and frustration for not having this available yet but these same arguments apply to every other market/area where a couple tools would be of help and considered essential for the app in that area. Affinity apps/features are not being developed/prioritised based on/or to "arbitrarily" fill the need/gaps of different markets (or to mimic behaviours or features of other apps) - they are primarily being developed as whole (consistent) project on their own right - based on our own vision/following our current plans. We keep improving/expanding them (as time permits) based on user feedback but in way it does make sense in this context and when it's applicable/feasible for the dev teams. Nobody is denying there's a few features lacking and that a few years have passed by now but that time was used to offer a host of new features/improvements to the apps, expanded to other platforms and complete the suite as intended - it wasn't wasted in meaningless/flashy things - while i understand some may not be relevant for you - specially if you work frequently with technical drawing -, it doesn't mean they aren't for other users. It's not easy to fulfil the expectations of everyone in particular when users have different needs/requirements. We did and continue doing our best to address these concerns (even if not as quick as users eventually desire/want) but we have to do it according to our resources and time and without "hijacking" our own vision for the suite.

Hi @MEB

Sure, so when is this feature coming? The constant prevarication is what's creating the frustration. 

Of course different users have different needs, but tell me a sector of users that wouldn't use a 'select by... (attribute)' feature? I'm sure almost everyone would use it from time to time and some would use it almost all the time. It surely cannot be that this feature would be hard to implement as long as the attributes of each element can be interrogated. If they can't then that is a major and fundamental flaw in the app which I don't believe is the case.

Is the 'vision' for Designer to ever cater to those working with complex files? Currently it seems not.

I stand by that lots of flashy features have been introduced over this time period that would surely have taken a lot of resources, when this basic and essential feature is missing. Show me another thread that is even close to this length and age requesting a feature?

Anyway, 'hijacking' seems a bit extreme. Or defensive? This is not a suggestion about totally changing the way the apps are structured or a massive change to the UI. This is simply a menu item and a dialogue box. Or a panel.

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On ‎7‎/‎17‎/‎2019 at 9:04 AM, jamesholden said:

I'm fascinated at the hope shown in the posts here, and over such an extended period of time.

You obviously have no idea how long it took Illustrator to acquire its meager Select Same... commands—and many other things people here call "must have deal breakers." ;-)

JET

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6 minutes ago, JET_Affinity said:

You obviously have no idea how long it took Illustrator to acquire its meager Select Same... commands—and many other things people here call "must have deal breakers." ;-)

JET

How is this relevant? I mean, everything is judged in the context to what else is around at the time.

Edit: a good example would be making a mobile phone in 2019. You wouldn't have a hope in hell of being successful if your phone didn't have a full sized touchscreen and a camera. That took the mobile industry decades to arrive at and are now seen as essential features.

As it stands, Designer has almost no value to me, and I'm sure, many others.

I guess the primary question is, does Serif care or want to do anything about it?

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16 minutes ago, JET_Affinity said:

You obviously have no idea how long it took Illustrator to acquire its meager Select Same... commands—and many other things people here call "must have deal breakers." ;-)

JET

It was from version 5.1 (1996) and 7 (1997, Windows - there was no version 6 for Win) and in version 6+ (1996, Mac) - so it was more or less 1 year (but in offline days, where you bought new version of spinning discs, thus the distribution was different and there was nothing like agile releasing like nodays). Every feature was thoroughly tested before relese.

You're also forgetting that this feature is nothing heavyweight, it's about taking document tree and parsing it through few regular expressions, fetching the result to selection.

A one day job tops (few hours actually). In case document object model is done right.

There might be an issue with the sequential file structure of affinity documents but when you load the document to RAM, the whole document tree must be available anyway, so this last line is more of just rhetorics.

Edit: I believe it's more an issue with feature requests. I beleive that Serif is afraid of adding user requested features because other people would start pushing for their other requested features to be added, pointing out to this one as an example that "it can be done"...

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4 minutes ago, JET_Affinity said:

You obviously have no idea how long it took Illustrator to acquire its meager Select Same... commands—and many other things people here call "must have deal breakers." ;-)

JET

As you rightly pointed out when I tried to deploy a similar argument in relation to a feature which took a long time to be added to DrawPlus, the length of time for a feature to be added to Adobe Illustrator shouldn’t be used as justification for the time taken to add a comparable feature to competing applications. :)

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