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AP: Text Convert to Curves - Missing?


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I'm following a text tutorial in which the Convert to Curves feature is used. In the video the button is to the right of the Stroke panel as shown below. It does not appear in my version of AP. How is this done now?

image.png.2937d194abcf14416175ff03927a1eec.png

 

Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub

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Select the text object or layer with the move (arrow) tool instead, in order to see then that option.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
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14 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Select the text object or layer with the move (arrow) tool instead, in order to see then that option.

Thank you. One of the problems with following tutorials is that it's hard to tell when the author changes tools!

Looking at the video again I see that while he was using the text tool Convert to Curves button was indeed not visible. When he cut to the next scene it was visible so he must have switched tools during the cut.

Had the tools in question been grayed out rather than removed from the UI I would have had a clue that the feature was still there but unavailable in the current context (although I doubt I would have thought to choose a different tool to make it appear). 

Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub

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1 hour ago, casterle said:

When he cut to the next scene it was visible so he must have switched tools during the cut.

It is unlikely there were any cuts/scene changes if this was an official video. Instead, what you probably were seeing is the normal behavior of the Context toolbar, so named because its contents automatically change depending on the tool selected.

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16 hours ago, R C-R said:

It is unlikely there were any cuts/scene changes if this was an official video. Instead, what you probably were seeing is the normal behavior of the Context toolbar, so named because its contents automatically change depending on the tool selected.

I'm not sure what your point is. I assure you I know when a video cuts from one sequence to another. And it wasn't an 'official' video, it was part of a Udemy course.

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5 minutes ago, casterle said:

And it wasn't an 'official' video, it was part of a Udemy course.

I suggest contacting the instructor with any comments/suggestions/questions.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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22 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I suggest contacting the instructor with any comments/suggestions/questions.

If it was a video from drippy cat (Simon) then you can contact him through these forums. Click on the name here: @drippy cat.

John

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

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2 hours ago, casterle said:

I'm not sure what your point is.

In essence, it is that what appears on the Context toolbar changes depending on the tool & object selected.

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54 minutes ago, R C-R said:

In essence, it is that what appears on the Context toolbar changes depending on the tool & object selected.

I agree, they do change. What I don't understand is why..

Why do I have to change tools to have access to Convert to Curves? There's room on the Text Tool toolbar - in fact the toolbars are identical between using the Text Tool and the Move Tool except for the controls that are hidden when the Text Tool is selected

Perhaps it's this way for historical reasons, but to avoid confusion (and provide convenience) it should be changed (IMHO, of course :)).

Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub

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2 minutes ago, casterle said:

There's room on the Text Tool toolbar - in fact the toolbars are identical between using the Text Tool and the Move Tool except for the controls that are hidden when the Text Tool is selected

Perhaps because once you convert it to curves it's no longer text, and it would be confusing to do that and still have the Text tool active but unable to do anything.

-- 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.
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Yes, the text tool itself works and is intended primary for text related input/editing etc. but not for a direct object conversion into an other object here. - Further, other objects like for example shapes, make use of and reuse the same attribute feature here when selected with the move tool. - So the move tool is there to select several different objects, where some of these objects can be converted to curves then, since the object in state propagates this functionality.

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1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Perhaps because once you convert it to curves it's no longer text, and it would be confusing to do that and still have the Text tool active but unable to do anything.

This could be handled by the UI displaying an optional dialog indicating what happened, then switch to the Move Tool. At least it would be obvious what was happening.

Not that this is a big enough issue to distract the devs from other important work, but it could be added to a list of stuff to consider when they next work on UI issues.

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

Yes, the text tool itself works and is intended primary for text related input/editing etc. but not for a direct object conversion into an other object here. - Further, other objects like for example shapes, make use of and reuse the same attribute feature here when selected with the move tool. - So the move tool is there to select several different objects, where some of these objects can be converted to curves then, since the object in state propagates this functionality.

Given that the Move Tool is used to convert other objects to curves, it does make sense that the Convert button lives there. 

Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub

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2 hours ago, casterle said:

What I don't understand is why.. Why do I have to change tools to have access to Convert to Curves?

@Mark Ingram ,all Devs. Yes, that is the real question.

Why does one make it up to the user to activate an arbitrarily chosen workmode to get access to Text to Curves Tool? It's bloodcurdling not to have Text to Curves in the Menu / the RMB-Menu of the Text tool but having to change to the Move tool.

 2019-03-02_23h06_34.thumb.jpg.1e143481f5adc272ef1721434e39c8c0.jpg2019-03-02_23h08_40.thumb.jpg.c8887c43e9bdc7ae7ba816b29bcb5ed6.jpg

Left: Publisher, Right Indesign.

Yes, it generally makes sense to offer context-adapted toolsets. But one has clearly overdone things when one forces users to memorize and obey programmer determined  artificial editing sequences which have no practical foundation: Just in order to get access to certain tools.

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1 hour ago, casterle said:

There's room on the Text Tool toolbar ...

Why do you think there always will be room on the Context Toolbar for everything, particularly when a text item is selected? I use a 27" iMac with a display width of 2560 pixels. When I have a text item selected in the current 1.6 version of Affinity Photo, it requires about 1880 of those pixels to display all the Context Toolbar functions at once. If I was using a laptop with a narrower screen, or if (as I often do) I work with a narrower workspace window to allow room on the screen for several floating Studio panels next to that window, there is no way everything would fit in the available space on the toolbar.

In the current Mac beta the Context Toolbar is a bit more compact when displaying the text item functions, but part of that is because the text stroke options are now in the Character panel. There is no way to know what other changes may be made for the retail 1.7 release that could either lengthen or shorten the width needed to cram everything into the toolbars, so it is not safe to assume anything about how much room will be available.

Anyway, the important thing to keep in mind is that the Context Toolbar is intended to interactively display only the functions that are applicable to the currently selected tool & object. One of the benefits of this is instead of just greying out inapplicable functions, which could shove several applicable ones off into the ⨠ sub-menu, the available width can be devoted to displaying as many of the ones that actually can be used as will fit, regardless of screen or workspace window size.

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13 minutes ago, hifred said:

Why does one make it up to the user to activate an arbitrarily chosen workmode to get access to Text to Curves Tool? It's bloodcurdling not to have Text to Curves in the Menu / the RMB-Menu of the Text tool but having to change to the Move tool.

At least in the Mac versions, the Layer menu has a "Convert To Curves" menu item, a default keyboard shortcut to invoke it, & it works for any item selected in the Layers panel -- you don't have to switch to any tool to use it.

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16 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Why do you think there always will be room on the Context Toolbar for everything, particularly when a text item is selected?

I've seen at least one Context Toolbar with a drop-down at the right side that exposes more items, but I can't remember which one. That's one solution, but a better one might be to allow us to edit context menus and assign priorities as to which ones would 'overflow' to the drop-down. 

17 minutes ago, R C-R said:

One of the benefits of this is instead of just greying out inapplicable functions, which could shove several applicable ones off into the ⨠ sub-menu, the available width can be devoted to displaying as many of the ones that actually can be used as will fit, regardless of screen or workspace window size.

You're right about that. This is a discussion that programmers have had for decades, even pre-dating GUI's like Windows and Mac OS (although I haven't been involved for many years). There isn't really a right answer. Almost everything in software is a trade-off.

The UI can be more configurable, allowing users to adjust the Context Toolbar as they progress in learning the program, but this costs dev hours that could be used for bug fixes, new features, etc. Doing it well is not an easy task given the contextual nature of the toolbar (customization must take into account not only the tool selected, but also the object selected). Perhaps this will come at some point, but I'd rather the devs work on more pressing issues.

Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub

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27 minutes ago, R C-R said:

At least in the Mac versions, the Layer menu has a "Convert To Curves" menu item, a default keyboard shortcut to invoke it, & it works for any item selected in the Layers panel -- you don't have to switch to any tool to use it.

Ok, I have to admit that this is better than nothing (also available on Windows). Still it's certainly not where I would search first – admittedly biased from my Indesign background (which doesn't give individual objects layers but uses Layers as folders for similar stuff). For me text is primarily text and I would look in its associated options, in order to turn it to dumb vectors.

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Or simply use the shortcut ⌘+↩︎ on Mac

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16 minutes ago, casterle said:

I've seen at least one Context Toolbar with a drop-down at the right side that exposes more items, but I can't remember which one.

I don't know if you are using a Mac or Windows PC, but on Macs in 'non-separated' window mode (where the toolbars are restricted to the width of the Affinity workspace window) that window can be narrowed enough that only a few items will fit on  the context toolbar, regardless of the tool or object selected. That necessitates clicking on the  toolbar icon to drop down in a text menu list everything that won't fit.

The same thing is true for the main toolbar, particularly when it has been customized to include a lot of items not in the default set.

Obviously, it is not normal to work with a very narrow workspace window, but sometimes it is hard to avoid that if the screen isn't very wide to begin with & some of its space is needed to display a floating studio panel like the Layers one wide enough to see all of its long custom layer names.

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14 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Or simply use the shortcut ⌘+↩︎ on Mac

Or Ctrl+Enter on Windows.

But I think both of those only work when the text cursor is active in the frame.

-- 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

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5 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Or Ctrl+Enter on Windows.

But I think both of those only work when the text cursor is active in the frame.

Like I mentioned about an hour ago, on Macs it works whenever the text block (Artistic or Frame) is selected in the Layers panel. It does not matter which tool is selected or if you are in text entry mode in the workspace. It even works if you are editing or adding a custom name to a layer in the Layers panel.

IOW, it is just about as close to "it just works" as one could hope for. :)

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44 minutes ago, >|< said:

Thankfully, the devs have not yet been curtailing the UI to the often narrow window of His Highness.

But they have 'curtailed' it to the width of the screen or workspace window, which often is too narrow to display everything. ;)

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