X for toggle fill and stroke does not work in shape editor mode



  • @Boldline said in X for toggle fill and stroke does not work in shape editor mode:

    @Ingolf said in X for toggle fill and stroke does not work in shape editor mode:

    Yes, it is normal for me to hand trace something and to make fine adjustments with the node editing tool. I have traced the contour of whatever I am hand drawing with the pen tool and to finalize it I toggle the pen color and fill color to make it a solid shape where I will often add a gradient to the fill.

    Would you be willing to do a video demo of this process? I'd be really curious to see the process you use and how the x option would factor in - thanks!

    Quick'n'dirty illustration:

    Movie

    Both X and I for color picker works instantly here in Affinity. So much easier program to hand trace in. I am not going to slow down this workflow for any price or reason in another program.



  • Even faster - mouse, X and I keys used

    Video

    • Draw with pen (red for visibility and to show how great it is to have I key ready to activate color picker)
    • Node editing tool activated making pseudo adjustments
    • Pressing I for color picker
    • Grabbing color from other eye (to stroke)
    • X
    • Grabbing color from eye (to fill)

    Done in a few seconds, no roundabouts. This is the essential part and one of the reasons why Affinity is so popular - these workflows are so easy and fluid. I could almost forgive Serif for the lack of vector features for these well thought out workflows.

    Seriously, I work twice as fast sometimes in Affinity compared to Corel and Adobe.



  • @Ingolf You're using the Pen tool to draw that shape, then you hit X to bring the Fill button to the front, right?

    The same works here in VS when drawing with the Pen tool — I close the shape, hit X and the Fill button becomes active: https://recordit.co/4BogrL8YJU

    In the second part of the video I simply Option-click the color wheel directly and the color gets assigned to Fill color if the Stroke button is active.



  • Yes, in the pen tool. But the second you activate the node tool you have to leave the fast workflow and remember what they keys do know.

    The 'simply' part complicates what I described above. Simply is the most dangerous word I know. 🙂



  • I am not looking for the color wheel - I am often about to pick a color from the photo or scan.



  • @Ingolf That also works here — I draw the shape with the Pen tool, I don't hit A to switch to the Shape Editor — I hit X directly to enable the Fill button, then press I and Shift-click the bitmap to pick color for the fill from it.

    Quick video here: https://recordit.co/0LCMQvhJGL



  • So if I understand correctly, after closing the shape with the Pen tool you switch to the Shape Editor (A) to adjust the nodes, still without a fill so you can see what's under it, then apply a fill only afterwards, and there comes the problem with the X shortcut.



  • @b77 @Ingolf With standard keyboards, if you hold down the command key while using the pen tool, you get the node edit arrow and can adjust nodes on the fly. As soon as you let go of the command key, it switches back to an active pen tool immediately and you can then conitinue drawing or go in and swap to a fill



  • It is a general design issue with keys switching functionality (or as a consequence thereof has no effect) from panel to panel or feature to feature. Same goes for the layers panel and for example the spacebar shortcut.

    Whatever workaround there is, I have to memorize additional workarounds, and it is bad and non-standard practice that disturbs workflows that will be repeated hundreds of times on hundreds of objects in some drawings/designs.

    But thanks for the tips! 🙂


  • administrators

    @Ingolf Changed the shortcuts to have X always for the color swap.