Apply stroke to one side only

[ConnectCreative]

It would be a great feature to be able to apply strokes to individual sides only, unless I'm missing the obvious and its already there! Example on the right is what I was looking to achieve.

[GarryP]

Have you tried using a one-cell table?

[Old Bruce]

You could try messing about with Text Decorations in Text Styles. Your request is a good one though.

[fde101]

For this particular case, wondering about a shadow positioned due north with 100% opacity...

[Old Bruce]

Hell, two rectangles offset. There are many work arounds but the suggestion by @ConnectCreative is valid and would prove to be quite useful.

[dominik]

45 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

There are many work arounds but the suggestion by @ConnectCreative is valid and would prove to be quite useful.

On first thought I was intrigued by this suggestion, as well. But after a second thought I realize that this is only going to work with rectangles because they are simple (four sides). How could we apply that kind of 'selective stroke' to a triangle, ellipse or a star shape?

If there is a clever way to enhance strokes in this way I'm all for it. But it may need a lot of thinking to get it right.
I could imagine something similar to dash patterns, or the like.

d.

[fde101]

32 minutes ago, dominik said:

How could we apply that kind of 'selective stroke' to a triangle, ellipse or a star shape?

An ellipse might be a tough case and probably excluded unless you want to get *really* fancy with this feature and that is likely out of reasonable scope.

For the other shapes it could be on the basis of a "side" of the shape and possibly toggled by having tool that you could use to click on the "sides" to turn the stroke on and off - for example, each of the three legs of a triangle, or each of the halves of a spoke of a star.

For enclosed paths created using the pen tool (or converted to from something else), a "side" could be the stretch between two nodes, making stroke inclusion in effect a boolean property of the node.

 

The question is, does the ability to do this warrant a new tool of its own, and if it does, is this really a Publisher feature or more of a Designer feature?

[dominik]

5 minutes ago, fde101 said:

For the other shapes it could be on the basis of a "side" of the shape and possibly toggled by having tool that you could use to click on the "sides" to turn the stroke on and off - for example, each of the three legs of a triangle, or each of the halves of a spoke of a star.

That is an interesting idea. And, yes, I'd rather imagine it as a feature of Affinity Designer. But (most likely) not in version 1.7 

d.

[fde101]

23 minutes ago, dominik said:

But (most likely) not in version 1.7

I think they have enough ideas to keep them busy for a while... many of them a bit more pressing.

[MikeW]

Since QXP acquired the ability to have multiple borders, I've used them X number of times.

 

However, there really isn't a difference between a rectangle with such a capability and what was suggested above, a single-cell table. It's what I did for years before a rectangle w/ individual border capability. In the image below, the top is a rectangle, the bottom a single-cell table.

As fde mentions, there are other fish to fry. At least in this instance there is a darn near exact method for accomplishing the same thing in APub.

[Jere222]

I found a solution for myself using fill linear gradient.

• Begin #666666 
• 1st stop at 1% #666666 midpoint 0% 
• 2nd stop at 2% #F2F2F2 midpoint 0% 
• end gradient #F2F2F2.

Doesn't have a crisp line but works for me.

[sfriedberg]

There is another general solution, now that the Affinity suite has acquired the contour operator (which was not available in 2019).  Take any curve, generate a contour of a width that will put the centerline of your offset stroke at the desired position.  Break the contour apart and discard the pieces you don't want.  Apply a stroke to the piece(s) you kept.  This can also be used to create multi-color striped ribbons, etc.