My suggestions...

[Lluís]

My suggestions (Excuse my mistakes, I'm not a native english speaker)

1. For me, merge data is absolutely necessary. (I see a specific pinned post for that, great!)

2. Why are there no global layers?... How can I make a catalog with multiple languages then? Global layers are essential!

3. Please, add duplicate tools with grid parameters: vertical and horizontal distance and number of copies.

4. Be able to rotate pages individually (for design purpose). Currently only is possible globally.

5. Pressing Ctrl + combination should zoom to the selected object (if selected) and not to the center of the page like now.

6. In vector mode (like on a editing an imported PDF), transform functions doesn't work, ¿why?

7. Its important that if you hold "Alt key" always activate the hand tool to move a view, specially important when you are on text tool, since it's not possible to use the H key or any other, because it would be written as text.

8. When you define a color with a name, and this color is applied to a style, the style is not updated if you later change the color. Fix it please.

Very exited whit the potencial of Affinity Publisher, give me more power to leave InDesing forever. Thanks!!!

Edited May 16, 2019 by Lluís

[Patrick Connor]

@Lluís

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums

What a great set of suggestions, hope you stick around for a while. It would be helpful if the bugs were (also) reported to the bugs forum.

[fde101]

18 hours ago, Lluís said:

•  Pressing Ctrl + combination should zoom to the selected object (if selected) and not to the center of the page like now.

I like this idea.  The current behavior could easily be maintained when nothing is selected.

 

18 hours ago, Lluís said:

Its important that if you hold "Alt key" always activate the hand tool to move a view, specially important when you are on text tool, since it's not possible to use the H key or any other, because it would be written as text.

On Windoze, the "alt" key is also used when entering text - keying in a number while holding down alt produces special characters, ex. ALT+33 will produce an "!" character, etc. - and on the Mac, the related "option" key is also used for special characters, though in a slightly different way.  I don't think that this need prevent what you are requesting from working, but it might complicate the implementation a bit in that the key would need to be passed through to the text entry method while also enabling the behavior of the hand tool?

 

18 hours ago, Lluís said:

 When you define a color with a name, and this color is applied to a style, the style is not updated if you later change the color. Fix it please.

I definitely agree that it would be better to have the style updated when a global color is changed.  Same with gradients that use global colors for individual stops.  Note that in any case this would only work for global colors: a swatch can be global or not, and only global color swatches push down updates to those things on which they are used.

[Alfred]

14 minutes ago, fde101 said:

a swatch can be global or not, and only global color swatches push down updates to those things on which they are used

As discussed elsewhere on these forums, there’s an argument for making all colours global (or at least global by default).

[fde101]

3 minutes ago, Alfred said:

As discussed elsewhere on these forums, there’s an argument for making all colours global (or at least global by default).

I must have missed that discussion.

There are several ways to apply colors: if you use the color panel or most of the pickers in the various popups, no realistic possibility for global colors exists.

If you use the swatch palettes, then you need to deal with the distinction between application/user and document palettes.

If the "global" colors were stored in non-document palettes, then the colors of the document could change simply by opening them on a different computer, and that does not impress me as as a particularly sane option for a layout application.

In the Affinity products, I do believe that the current restriction of only supporting global colors when they are stored in document swatch palettes is the more sensible approach.

 

One could next argue that all swatches in document palettes should be global.  This would cause document swatch palettes to exclude functionality that is available on application/user palettes and I don't see a reason for that?

 

If we then argue that the only way to apply colors in the document should be through document swatch palettes and that the swatches on them should always be global, this might make sense for a "normal" layout application (it is how PageMaker used to work long ago), but Publisher is designed to share documents with Photo and Designer, and this arrangement would not be a happy one for users of those products.  Trying to restrict colors to only global colors on document swatch palettes would be a bit of a cross-application usability fiasco when exchanging files.

 

In the end, I don't see this as a good direction for Affinity Publisher to be going in.  Other layout applications that don't have the same cross-application document compatibility, maybe.

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, fde101 said:

If you use the swatch palettes, then you need to deal with the distinction between application/user and document palettes.

If the "global" colors were stored in non-document palettes, then the colors of the document could change simply by opening them on a different computer, and that does not impress me as as a particularly sane option for a layout application.

In the Affinity products, I do believe that the current restriction of only supporting global colors when they are stored in document swatch palettes is the more sensible approach.

I agree that making colours global in anything other than document palettes would not be a particularly sane thing to do, but I think that having document swatches default to being global would be helpful in many situations.

[Lluís]

4 hours ago, fde101 said:

On Windoze, the "alt" key is also used when entering text - keying in a number while holding down alt produces special characters, ex. ALT+33 will produce an "!" character, etc. - and on the Mac, the related "option" key is also used for special characters, though in a slightly different way.  I don't think that this need prevent what you are requesting from working, but it might complicate the implementation a bit in that the key would need to be passed through to the text entry method while also enabling the behavior of the hand tool?

Thanks for your reply.

As far as I know, Alt + left click mouse button doesn't produce any character. If you press Alt + any other key, you be able to make any special character that you want.
If you use a mouse and click with the middle button it appears hand tool, this it's ok. My point is because I use a Wacom tablet (doesn't have middle button). In this case it's much faster simply hold the "Alt" key and press and drag the stylus on the tablet, the moment you release the Alt key, the hand tool disappears.

This is exactly how I work in InDesign and I assure you that it's much more efficient than changing the tool or use a vertical and horizontal sliders every time while I'm working on a zoomed text.
If you work with a mouse, isn't as dramatic as tablet because at least you always have the central button available to hold.

I only ask Affinity for an optional "Alt" hold key for hand tool, if the user want. Simply as an option.

[fde101]

38 minutes ago, Lluís said:

My point is because I use a Wacom tablet (doesn't have middle button).

Depending on the specific tablet you have, you may be able to assign the middle button to one of the side buttons on the pen or to one of the "extra" buttons on the tablet.  On the pen for mine the side button has two parts: the lower part is assigned to the right button and the upper part to the middle button (the way I have it configured) which is very convenient.

[Old Bruce]

25 minutes ago, fde101 said:

Depending on the specific tablet you have, you may be able to assign the middle button to one of the side buttons on the pen or to one of the "extra" buttons on the tablet.  On the pen for mine the side button has two parts: the lower part is assigned to the right button and the upper part to the middle button (the way I have it configured) which is very convenient.

I also often use the end/eraser on the pen for something useful in other programs. (In graphics apps I find it far easier to just hit the hotkey for the eraser too so I have no need for the eraser end to be wired to the eraser brush)

[Lluís]

2 hours ago, fde101 said:

Depending on the specific tablet you have, you may be able to assign the middle button to one of the side buttons on the pen or to one of the "extra" buttons on the tablet.  On the pen for mine the side button has two parts: the lower part is assigned to the right button and the upper part to the middle button (the way I have it configured) which is very convenient.

You are right, but I use pen buttons for others functions and its unnatural for my put the hand tool in that button... or maybe -I recognize it- because I've been used an "Alt" key on my left hand for ages. Since PageMaker what I remember. Thanks again.

[walt.farrell]

If it helps, @Lluís, for #7 you can press Escape, which will swith out of text editing mode, then press Space to temporarily get the View (Hand) Tool, then click in the Text Frame again to get back in text editing mode.

Also, to zoom to the selected object (#5) you can double-click on its thumbnail in the Layers panel.

[thomaso]

21 hours ago, Alfred said:

21 hours ago, fde101 said:

If you use the swatch palettes, then you need to deal with the distinction between application/user and document palettes.

If the "global" colors were stored in non-document palettes, then the colors of the document could change simply by opening them on a different computer, and that does not impress me as as a particularly sane option for a layout application.

In the Affinity products, I do believe that the current restriction of only supporting global colors when they are stored in document swatch palettes is the more sensible approach.

I agree that making colours global in anything other than document palettes would not be a particularly sane thing to do, but I think that having document swatches default to being global would be helpful in many situations. 

I don't see a necessarily need for such an either – or.

Compared to other application preferences it IS possible to change a global setting within one document globally even if it gets opened on a different computer. For instance the application preference for Color Profiles or the application presets for New Documents page sizes. Both can still get changed globally within a document opened on a different computer – regardless of the application settings of the both computers.

So I guess a global color swatch (set in application palette) would then be enabled to appear on a different computer in the documents palette. Or, even more simple: Just one palette – to avoid the need for switch between different sys/app/doc palettes.

That also would allow to create a global application color swatch but still might get changed within one document without changing it for other documents.

[Lluís]

13 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

If it helps, @Lluís, for #7 you can press Escape, which will swith out of text editing mode, then press Space to temporarily get the View (Hand) Tool, then click in the Text Frame again to get back in text editing mode.

Yes, it helps... It isn't as good as only hold the Alt key, but it is a good alternative to assigning a button to the pen, since this last one method makes it necessary to fly on the tablet, that is, the pen must not touch the tablet so that the button assigned to the hand tool works.

Thank you!