No idea why Edit All Layers not works

[himhimlo]

Trying to understand how the Edit All Layers works but found that there is no any restriction (i.e. not function) even when I disable the Edit All Layers. Can anyone help me? Is it a bug or I missed something about this function?

[Alfred]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @himhimlo.

It’s difficult to advise you without knowing in some detail what you tried to do, what you expected to happen and what actually happened.

[himhimlo]

Thanks for the quick reply.
To clarify, I expected I should not be able to select other layers' object when I selected one layer if I turned off the Edit All Layers. But it seems that I can select them with or without the Edit All Layers off.

Edited April 14, 2019 by himhimlo

[himhimlo]

10 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @himhimlo.

It’s difficult to advise you without knowing in some detail what you tried to do, what you expected to happen and what actually happened.

Thanks anyway.

[Alfred]

I think you expected the ‘Edit All Layers’ setting to do something it’s not designed to do. Please see the Help on Selecting objects.

[himhimlo]

9 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I think you expected the ‘Edit All Layers’ setting to do something it’s not designed to do. Please see the Help on Selecting objects.

Sorry, I forgot to say that I am using Affinity Photo on Windows instead of Affinity Design.

[himhimlo]

Pls watch the video below which show the problem.

Demostration

[R C-R]

Aside from its effect on the "Select All" command that @Alfred linked to (which applies to both Photo & Designer), from what I can tell this also has an effect when there are capital L container layers, those with the "(Layer)" suffix:

If anything in one of these "(Layer)" type layers is the current selection & "Edit All Layers" is not enabled, then at least for me nothing else can be selected with the Move tool. So if for example I have a document with 2 "(Layer)" type layers containing some objects & some objects not in either of them, I can click on any non-layer objects to select them, but as soon as I click on a "(Layer)" I can no longer do that.

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Aside from its effect on the "Select All" command that @Alfred linked to (which applies to both Photo & Designer), from what I can tell this also has an effect when there are capital L container layers, those with the "(Layer)" suffix:

Affinity Photo doesn’t have “container” layers, does it?

[himhimlo]

11 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Affinity Photo doesn’t have “container” layers, does it?

I too not found any container layer in Affinity Photo. Still no idea how the Edit All Layers works.

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Affinity Photo doesn’t have “container” layers, does it?

You can't create "(Layer)" type layers in Affinity Photo but (for example) if you have Designer you can create a new document in that app, add a "(Layer)" or two to it, use File > Edit in Photo to work on it there & save it as an .afphoto document, like in this Layers & not layers.afphoto file.

[himhimlo]

7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

You can't create "(Layer)" type layers in Affinity Photo but (for example) if you have Designer you can create a new document in that app, add a "(Layer)" or two to it, use File > Edit in Photo to work on it there & save it as an .afphoto document, like in this Layers & not layers.afphoto file.

OMG, it is so diffcult for a user to understand. By the way, thanks @R C-R for solving my question.

[Alfred]

15 minutes ago, R C-R said:

You can't create "(Layer)" type layers in Affinity Photo

Yes, that’s what what I meant when I said APh “doesn’t have” that feature.

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Yes, that’s what what I meant when I said APh “doesn’t have” that feature.

But it does seem to have the 'Edit All Layers' option in the Layers panel just to support the "(Layer)" container select/can't select feature I mentioned for the Move Tool. In Photo, "Select All" selects all the pixels in a raster layer when only some of them are currently selected with one of the selection tools ... I think. 

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

In Photo, "Select All" selects all the pixels in a raster layer when only some of them are currently selected with one of the selection tools ... I think. 

I think so too. That’s certainly the behaviour I would expect where pixel selection is concerned.

[R C-R]

So are we all in agreement that in Affinity Photo, "Edit All Layers" has no effect unless the document has at least one "(Layer)" container, which (currently) can only be created in Affinity Designer (ignoring for now the Affinity Publisher beta)?