Select groups within groups first
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This is actually important. For me, selecting content on the canvas has been the single biggest and worst obstacle when moving from Illustrator and mostly Affinity Designer. Affinity Designer doesn't have much to offer but the central mechanism - the bread and butter of drawing - is that the implementation in AD simply works almost like I expect a drawing program to work.
In my opinion we have to options to work with layers:
- In the layers panel
- On the canvas
I would label them as the mechanical and the visual option. I almost exclusively select items on the canvas, because that is where my pen and eyes are all the time, and Affinity Designer at least honors this. I use the mouse, toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts, I work FAST and with few obstacles. This is critical when you work with complex drawings. Not a bunch of objects or groups, but hundreds of objects groups in a well thought out hierarchy. To me the layers panel is a mechanical way of working with design objects. The layers panel is mostly used for navigation, naming objects and rearranging them - the way I use AD and VS.
But most of the time I can use the mouse and the move tool in AD (transform tool in VS) to select whatever group or object I need to work with.
Now, I do not expect the object itself to be selected when I click on it. There is some logic from the layers panel structure that is more important.
Example:
I draw a human face with complex eyes. Each eye is a group with many underlying objects. I may want to move the eye up a bit to align it with the other eye - or maybe I want to rotate it slightly. This can be a quick and easy operation in AD. When I click on the iris as the first thing after opening the file...- In AD the GROUP is selected and I can immidiately move it (the entire eye). One more click on a member of the group and that object is selected. Makes sense.
- In VS the object I clicked on is selected and I have to move mouse and eyes and mind to the layers panel to select the group. Doing this a hundred times during a working session is a pain and an obstacle. And why I constantly find myself in AD again. It kills both flow and joy.
This example represents every single type of document I work with. Many groups with many objects. Hundreds. In some document thousands of objects. Groups are not just collections to structure the content but also objects I need to select easily to scale, rotate, move and copy-paste groups.
I immidiately noticed that selecting objects in VS was different and I gave it a lot of time. I understand a lot of the interface is inspired by Adobe Illustrator. But my long time evaluation of VS is that selecting objects, layers and groups naturally and efficiently was the biggest challenge coming from other programs. And still is.
Combined with the two selection modes in the layers panel (selected in panel or selected on canvas) I have had a hard time adjusting to VS.
I hope the movie in the first post from Affinity Designer demonstrates how simple and beautiful the selection process can work in practice.
Otherwise I have configured VS to function rather well now - but my concern is that people using the trial are experiencing problems or are confused by the default settings. A survey after an expired trial would reveal such issues. The perfect workflow could drown in configuration options and required configuration combinations.
The good news is that in my case VS is really getting close to being outstanding.
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Now that I mentioned working FAST, @vectoradmin I think that one issue I have is a little day in VS with the transform tool and probably also node tool.
I move the pointer from one group another and click an object. I see a slight delay before VS shows the objects contour and nodes. Sometimes there is a delay, sometimes not.
It is perhaps next to impossible to see on this movie but a few times I cannot select the object directly. Several times you see the delay that comes and goes:
This is with "select and transform members of grouped objects" active.
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@vectoradmin @chillywilly @Devil-Dinosaur
See this movie for a more illustrative example of how elegant and disciplined Affinity Designer goes down through the hierarcy of groups.
Should I desire to select a single object directly I do so by Command-clicking the object. However, I am more often trying to navigate to a group.
Affinity Designer example (Ignore the first title)
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@Ingolf So basically what is missing is that when clicking on a selected group, an object inside a group can be selected. Is there more to it?
This is in the first phase of the feature backlog.
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@vectoradmin
No.
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Click on something. If it is member of a group (lets call it Apple), select that group first (select on artboard!)
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A) Click on something inside that group (if not inside that group go to B)
** If it is member of a group, select that group first (select on artboard!)
** else select the object itself on artboard
** etc. etc. all the way -
B) You clicked on something outside that group (Apple)
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** If it is member of a group, select that group first (select on artboard!)
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** else select the object itself on artboard
** etc. etc. all the way
If you re-watch the video I just posted, you can see that Affinity Designer selects groups all the time until I reach an object not in a group.
I am selecting groups that represent a part of the drawing and that makes more sense than selecting every object directly. I constantly know what group/part of the tower I have selected and can instantly either apply effects to or just select something inside it. I can also see the groups visually instantly. I can see the structure that way too and I know instantly what is part of that group and what not.
They way it works flawlessly in Affinity Designer taught me to structure my object hierarchy thoroughly because it make it much easier to work with huge amounts of objects and much easier to cope with mentally. As I mentioned often I don't have to pay any attention to the layers panel in Affinity Designer - because I get a mental model of the structure they way selecting layers first work.
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@Ingolf Got it! Will try to do it accordingly.
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I was having trouble following the earlier videos in this thread, and I have not had a chance to go through the latest explanation - glad @vectoradmin understands! (the issue with understanding is me not you @Ingolf )
but I can add support for improving the selection process overall - it can be very frustrating trying to get VS to actually highlight the thing i am trying to select. So any ways to improve upon it is welcome in my book!
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@vectoradmin said in Select groups within groups first:
@Ingolf Got it! Will try to do it accordingly.
You are a star!
I think it would be the logical way to work in the 'Select and transform members of grouped objects' mode than can perhaps change label to 'Select and transform groups and members of grouped objects'
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@vectoradmin I really appreciate seeing your responses!
What @Ingolf suggested sounds similar to what I'm used to with Adobe Illustrator. If I click on something that has been grouped the entire group is selected. If I want to select just that object, I believe I can use the Command key (on Mac) to select only that item. For example, to change the color of a logo where each letter is a separate shape in a group, I click any letter to select the entire group and I can just modify the color.
I would be just as happy if I could just simply select the group or layer item in the Layers panel and then each item in the group/layer was selected inside of it. The use of modifier keys to change the behavior (e.g., select only one layer deep vs. all layers) would be extra nice.
Thanks so much for considering this update!
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@Devil-Dinosaur Thank you for your reply! Unfortunately, I don't experience what you have described. I have a group comprised of letter shapes. When I selected the group and only the group circle was selected, I wasn't able to change the color of any object. When I opened the group and selected each item in the group individually (holding shift and dragging so all the circles were selected), then I could change the color.
