How to hide a bounding box?

[J a n]

Hello, I have a question for AD.
How to hide a bounding box? Spacebar is a good tool, but I need it for the whole project.
And one more similar question. Stabilizer. Is there a way to hide the red line connecting the brush with the cursor?

[Gabe]

Hi @J a n,

Space should work for the whole project ( temporarily, until you release it). There is no way to permanently hide the bounding box. 

Also, you cannot hide the red stabiliser line. 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

[J a n]

Hi, thank you for the answer.
Unfortunately the spacebar doesn't work for object movement. Moves the whole document.

[Gabe]

For object movement, there is a box you need to enable/disable to hide/show the selection box: 

[dutchshader]

With the move tool selected you can, in the context toolbar, set" hide bounding box while dragging"

 

Edit: Too late

[J a n]

Thank you. I understand that, but it is not ideal.
Unfortunately, this feature can not be used with the space bar. That is, if I move the object, it will always be bounded at the beginning.
Can I change the keyboard shortcut for the spacebar function?
The spacebar moves the document and unfortunately also hides the bounding box.

[Gear maker]

Actually there are several other times when the spacebar doesn't, can't be used or can't easily be used to hide the bounding box.  Such as:

When adjusting the blending mode.

When in one of the text tools.

When using the color picker tool.  The bounding box is hidden but the blue outline is not.

During the actual drawing using the Shape tools.

When using the corner tool.

When adjusting the opacity of the object.  If the spacebar is held down when clicking on the opacity slider the bounding box is temporarily switched off, but most tools won't work either during this period.  Handy exceptions to this are when using the Color picker tool and adjusting the blending mode.

And I'm sure I've messed many more.

 

[Madame]

I haven't tried this in all those occations, but can you try if the H key is working for you?

[Gear maker]

Madame, the H tool gives me the View Tool.   I wish it did a hide.

[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).

[walt.farrell]

6 hours ago, pixeldroid said:

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...

Pressing the space bar doesn't work for you?

[Gear maker]

If you are in AD, a trick I found is to go to the Stroke panel, click on the Pressure icon WHILE HOLDING DOWN THE SPACEBAR.  Then close the pressure window by clicking anywhere outside the Pressure window.  You can also do this with the Opacity slider.  It doesn't matter what layer is selected.  The bounding box will then stay hidden until the spacebar is pressed.  Not as good as a cmd H but it works well and is easy to do.  Just don't tell the Affinity people as they might fix the bug that allows this.😁

[brainwipe]

For me pressing space bar isn't enough because I need the boxes to disappear while I am moving layers. I want to bounce between layers and move without this dirty great bounding box popping up. It's the first time moving to AP that I've been unimpressed.

[Aammppaa]

@brainwipe You can turn off bounding boxes while moving objects…

Context toolbar of move tool > Hide selection whilst dragging

[pixeldroid]

Re: using the spacebar - if you are mousing over or using the arrows to change the values in a numeric input field, such font size, scale or position and you hit the spacebar, the spaces are added to the numerical input.

Re "Hide while dragging": what about when you just want a little tweak using the arrow keys?

I've been working in CG for 30 years. Every time I use AD and AP, I wonder how a major graphics package has managed not to implement this basic feature.

[pixeldroid]

Another way to compensate for this is to open a second window (View/New Window) to the file and place it so both windows can be viewed. The bounding box will only show in the window with focus.

[transwagon]

Please, we need a shortcut to hide the bounding box. This is so essential.

All the mentioned workarounds are just that: workarounds.

Please :-)

[NKC]

I want the ability to check a tick box to hide bounding boxes permanently. Using space bar and other workarounds doesn't cut it. For me, a designer of 25 years experience, a bounding box is just extra screen clutter I can do without. It's hard to believe it's 2021 yet this simple function hasn't been coded into Affinity apps. CS had it 2003! C'mon Affinity! You can add this ability with your eyes closed. Make it so...

[R C-R]

14 hours ago, NKC said:

I want the ability to check a tick box to hide bounding boxes permanently.

Just curious, but if you could do that how would you access the functions that rely on being able to click & drag the pointer on or near the bounding box or any of its handles? That includes shearing, rotating, & resizing the contents of the bounding box around an arbitrary transform origin (which also is set by clicking & dragging). For rotated objects there is also the Cycle Selection Box function to consider, which enables different results when transforming the contents.

For that matter, how would you know what object is selected if its bounding box is hidden & the Layers panel isn't open?

[NKC]

I'm not a UX designer, so I'll leave the logistics to Affinity to figure out. I come from InDesign so having this function makes perfect sense to me - Hide Frame Edges or Boxes - YouTube. I only need to see a Frame Edge or Bounding Box when I click on single element or multiple elements using Shift, otherwise complex layouts with multiple assets look incredibly messy with dozens of boxes. Not to mention overly confusing. I only need to see a Frame Edge or Bounding Box when I click on an element and that's it. Otherwise it's just visual clutter, to me anyway.

What is the benefit to having Frame Edges or Bounding Boxes active all the time? I don't see one. It's a needless mess.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, NKC said:

... with dozens of boxes.

Where do you see a multiplicity of bounding boxes visible at the same time? Can you post a screenshot showing that?

[thomaso]

6 hours ago, R C-R said:

Where do you see a multiplicity of bounding boxes visible at the same time? Can you post a screenshot showing that?

APub shows all bounding boxes (without handles) of all frame-text objects – unless you have "Preview Mode" activated.

AD always shows bounding boxes only for selected objects – kind of a permanent preview mode.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, thomaso said:

APub shows all bounding boxes (without handles) of all frame-text objects

Only if you have View > Show Text Flow enabled.

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, thomaso said:

AD always shows bounding boxes only for selected objects – kind of a permanent preview mode.

Which I why I am puzzled by what @NKC said earlier:

15 hours ago, NKC said:

I only need to see a Frame Edge or Bounding Box when I click on single element or multiple elements using Shift, otherwise complex layouts with multiple assets look incredibly messy with dozens of boxes.

Of course, multiple elements can also be selected by dragging with the Move Tool (or via the Select All menu item), so I am not sure if NKC wants to disable showing bounding boxes when multiple elements are selected using those selection methods or has something else in mind.

Regardless, if there are no bounding boxes to indicate what is selected, what would indicate that? With so many operations dependent on what is selected I cannot image anyone would consider it good UI design if there was no indication of that.

If one just wants to see the work with nothing selected, there are multiple ways to do that.

[Gear maker]

15 hours ago, R C-R said:

Where do you see a multiplicity of bounding boxes visible at the same time? Can you post a screenshot showing that?

R C-R there is only one bounding box, but there are sometimes multiple frames shown.  I believe this is what NKC is seeing.