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Improved Swatches Panel


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Now that the full Affinity Suite v. 1.7.1 has been launched, I would like to request that the dev teams take a second hard look at the UI for the Color and Swatches panels. Presently, it's just too cumbersome to build and specify swatch collections for documents.

Please do study and analyze the Adobe UI here. In Adobe's UI you'll experience the following:

  • a color swatch clicked on from any built in swatch library will automatically be added to the active document palette
  • swatches that are added to the active document palette will automatically carry a meaningfully descriptive label (e.g., Pantone 801 C for a coated spot color; C=60 M=0 Y=100 K=0 for a process ink color)
  • within one swatches panel window, swatches can be organized into useful groups and displayed simultaneously
  • moving a swatch from one user defined group to another is a simple drag and drop move.

By contrast, in the Affinity Suite UI you'll experience the following:

  • adding a color swatch from any built in swatch library (e.g., Pantone Coated) requires multiple clicks and selections as one must first create a user defined document palette, then switch to the Pantone palette, find and click on the desired spot color to load it into the color well, switch back to the user defined document palette, then click the "Add Current Color as Global Color" icon.
  • spot color swatches that are added to the active document palette are not correctly labeled, but are given generic labels such as "Global Color 1"
  • a user cannot display more than one user defined swatch groups or "Affinity Palettes" at once. Instead one must use the pop-up palette switcher to move from one group/palette to the next.
  • and moving a color swatch from one user defined group/palette to another is also a cumbersome, multi-click experience.

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

 

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  • 1 year later...

Bumping this because it's still relevant. 

And I would add the following:

  •  the UX behavior for any "new item" command (e.g., new swatch, new palette, new spare channel, etc.) should automatically present a naming dialogue box so that one can create and name the new item in one fluid motion.
  • double clicking a color swatch to edit its properties should allow one the opportunity to change all properties (color model, color numbers, spot vs. process, overprint vs knockout)
  • when a color swatch is defined as a spot color, and/or as an overprinted color, the symbolic swatch markings that indicate spot and overprint should display wherever in the interface that the swatch palette is presented (i.e., not just in the main swatch panel, but also in all of the contextual presentations of the swatch panel, like the tool bar and all of the adjustment and effects layers.
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Allow me to add an addendum to the list of feature requests:

  • Sort out the inconsistent UX behaviors when selecting a swatch from any of the Pantone swatch libraries, and give the user control over to which user defined palette a Pantone swatch should be copied. Presently, this is what happens:
    • When a user clicks on a swatch from a Pantone color swatch library for the first time – even when the user has created one or more named document color palettes (e.g., Primary Colors, Secondary Colors, Accent Colors) – the Affinity application will automatically generate a new document color palette titled "Document" and place a copy of the Pantone swatch there rather than ask the user where he/she would like to place the copy of the Pantone color swatch.
    • Subsequently, when a user clicks on additional swatches from a Pantone color swatch library, a copy of that color swatch is not placed in any document color palette – neither the user defined document color palettes, nor the auto-generated document palette titled "Document". The Pantone color simply fills the color well above, requiring the user to then switch palettes and to use one of the "Add color to ..." buttons to add the color swatch to a palette.
  • Give the user the ability to copy / move a color swatch from one palette to another.
    • If I have two or more user defined palettes (e.g., Primary Colors, Secondary Colors, Accent Colors), I want a convenient way to right click on a color swatch in one palette and choose a command to move or copy that color swatch to another user defined palette.
    • Presently, one has to do this in three to five steps: 1) select swatch in Palette 01 to fill color well; 2) switch color palette selection to Palette 02; 3) click one of the two "Add color to ..." buttons to add the color swatch to Palette 02; 4) switch the color palette selection back to Palette 01; 5) right-click on the original color swatch to delete it from Palette 01.
  • Give the user the ability to duplicate and reclassify a user generated palette from one type to another (Document / Application / System). 
    • Presently, the only way to manage this is a multi-step process: 1) export the user defined Application Palette, "My Colors"; 2) import the exported "My Colors" color palette file as a Document Palette; 3) delete the original "My Colors" Application Palette.

There is a ton of room for innovation and improvement with regard to color palette building, selection and management. I would encourage the development team to take this on as a project. Start thinking through the problem of creating and curating project color palettes as a designer or artist would. Make the tools and interface support a creative, intuitive and frictionless work experience.

Thank you.

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I was just going to post on this and did a search before hand. I don't know if I am alone on this but I really dislike the way colour swatches are handled. Do we really need to have this long list of different hues for various colours? Please simplify or at least give us the option to reduce all this clutter. Attached is a comparison of Indesign and Publisher. I cannot even fit the entire list of colours in the colour swatch panel in Publisher. It is just unnecessary. Same goes for the Greys, though that is nowhere near as bad as the Colours selection. I don't see the time saving of having all those percentages of K in a separate section. Just go with CMYK, anyone can select black as their colour and adjust the tint as needed.  I think in this case the best solution is following Indesigns function here. Simplify the colour swatch to the basics, show automatically any pantones/spot colours that might be in a placed file in this swatch panel automatically so I can use the colour with other elements. .

Screen_Shot_2021-02-16_at_12_51.40_PM.png

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi

Agree with most all theses comments… I'm going crazy trying to find a simpler way to use overprint properly... did not find one, and had to use transparency instead, not good at all. 
Finally gave up and back in AI CS6 to do that for multiple vectors logos.

Ticking a box for this function is much-much simpler… 

Thanks in advance for improving this.
All the best.

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  • 6 months later...
On 2/16/2021 at 12:57 PM, wonderings said:

Do we really need to have this long list of different hues for various colours? Please simplify or at least give us the option to reduce all this clutter

You are looking at two different things.

The "Colors" palette in the Affinity products is an application-level palette with a long list of pre-defined non-global colors, while the "Swatches" panel in InDesign is showing you colors which are defined in the document, thus being the equivalent of a document palette in the Affinity products.

In Publisher, click the hamburger menu in the upper-right corner of the Swatches panel and choose Add Document Palette.  This will create an empty swatches palette that you can then customize with the colors you need for that document.

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2 minutes ago, fde101 said:

You are looking at two different things.

The "Colors" palette in the Affinity products is an application-level palette with a long list of pre-defined non-global colors, while the "Swatches" panel in InDesign is showing you colors which are defined in the document, thus being the equivalent of a document palette in the Affinity products.

In Publisher, click the hamburger menu in the upper-right corner of the Swatches panel and choose Add Document Palette.  This will create an empty swatches palette that you can then customize with the colors you need for that document.

I am well aware I can make a custom pallet, this is not the issue. The default swatch should be basic the basic colours and simplified without the need for users to create their own. This is not a make or break thing of course as it is customizable, just an annoying UI that I do not think is all that functional. Could just be me of course. The other thing that is severely missing is for spots and pantones inside of placed files to show in the swatch panel as it does in Indesign. Now this is a very functional feature. If you were to look back at my original screen shot comparing Publisher to Indesign. If I were to drop a PDF with Pantone 032 in my Indesign file, in the swatches panel I would automatically see 032 C there, no need to hunt around a convoluted pallet/swatch system, just there and usable for anything I may need to do to match and use colours present in the placed document. It is so simple and basic and I think, as I have again said before, they should flat out copy Adobe on this rather then try and re-invent the wheel. 

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3 minutes ago, wonderings said:

The default swatch should be basic the basic colours and simplified without the need for users to create their own.

Exactly what colors are "basic"?

This will be different for different users who work on different projects with different requirements.  For a given type of document you can create the palette once with the things you specifically need then save a template for creating new ones in the future.  You can also save text styles and the like in that template and they will all be there for you when you create a new document from the template.

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The basic colours for print are CMYK. I would take the few basic colours over an endless list that is given by default. Again this is not an issue with the software as it all works, just not a great basic setup in my opinion. It is all subjective. I do think a simplified basic swatch list is far simpler and easier to start with then every hue imaginable. You can build that as you go if you really need that for every single job you setup. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Another +1 for needing attention on colour pallet aspect of the UI.

Like: ever wanted to delete a few swatches that were cluttering your view?

Ctrl+click on color > select delete > confirm deletion.
Ctrl+click on color > select delete > confirm deletion.
Ctrl+click on color > select delete > confirm deletion.....

Gets pretty dull pretty quickly.

Needs a shift+click to select a range or Cmd+click to toggle a selection to allow for multiple deletion.

Even removing (or having the option to remove) the confirm would greatly help.

While I'm loving the switch from Adobe I am struggling with some of the real basics that are missing. Meaningful PDFs too for example.

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  • 11 months later...

Hi, let me add a few suggestions/possible bugs to the swatches panel. 

  1. If and object with global color is copied into another document the global swatch color of the copied object does not appear in the swatches panel. The object has it, as displayed in the color panel.
  2. All swatches copied from a diffrerent document do not appear in the swatches panel. They sometimes do appear among the greys, but not always. When I create a new swatch, the possibility to show document swatches appears and works, but the copied swatches don’t appear there either.
  3. When deleting a swatch, the app should ask, whether I want to replace it with another swatch - easy and useful.
  4. When adding a global color the color bars in the color selector are always set to one default dark color - why not the actual color?
  5. In the greys tab, the swatches appear and are named as Grey 10% and so on. But after applying it to an object the grey is mixed from all cmyk colors - that is a mistake. If I create a truly grey (K-only) swatch, it works.

Does this work the same for you, or am I doing something wrong?

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On 8/31/2022 at 9:39 AM, mmmccckkk said:
  1. In the greys tab, the swatches appear and are named as Grey 10% and so on. But after applying it to an object the grey is mixed from all cmyk colors - that is a mistake. If I create a truly grey (K-only) swatch, it works.

This has been discussed before.  It happens because the swatches on the provided grays palette are RGB rather than CMYK, and because color management is applied when converting them.

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