Interesting way to quickly create a grid of shapes





  • @Boldline that's a nice feature, lots of control.
    I am not sure if you use the Affinity products, but they recently added a feature like this. When you click-drag to draw a new shape, before you let go, use your down and right arrow keys to duplicate them horizontally (right arrow) and vertically (down arrow). Need spaces in between? Long-press any of the arrow leys after creating your next shape and you can adjust the gap in between!

    Apologies for the off-topicness, but to bring it back on topic, the glorious Repeater Panel in VS has you covered!

    Interesting note: neither VectorStyler nor Affinity allow the user to use these techniques with Artboards, just shapes. Not sure if AI allow for this, but judging by the interface it looks like their "Split Into Grid" is in the object menu, so probably not?



  • @Victor-Vector

    I think @Boldline knows the Repeater very well 🙂
    If I remember correctly, the Repeater was built into VS
    on a suggestion of him



  • @Subpath Yes, I know he does.
    I mention it for people who are new to VectorStyler, to let them know about the feature, if they are not aware.



  • @Victor-Vector

    aha, tricky 🙂



  • @Victor-Vector I do have the affinity suite that I use from time to time. I had purchased it years ago hoping it would be my Illustrator replacement! It did not fit that billing but it did lead me to VS and that has been an answered prayer. I'm still intrigued by Affinity and I like to use it on occasion, especially if I'm working on a design with raster and vector together. I not so secretly hold out hope for a "Rasterstyler" or "Pixelstyler" companion program in not to distant future years!

    I had not tried the method for making a grid of squares in Affinity Designer as of yet, but I will now that you explained it. Thank you for that.

    You are correct to bring up the Repeater option to create a grid and that offers far more options than the example in the original post in Illustrator. I do think having simple and more complex options is a good thing in any vector program. Multiple methods to get to the same result is a hallmark of most every vector editing program! Having a quick and easy way to add a grid like you described in Affinity currently and like the demo video shows might be useful - or it could cause VS to feel more bloated... Obviously @VectorStyler has the final say in these things.

    I really like the idea you had to utilize this method of creating a grid as a feature in the artboard creation. I could see this being a really handy feature for quickly laying out a grid of artboards

    I appreciate the encouragement about Repeater @Subpath. We've all contributed a number of ideas for new tools or improvement. I can't remember right now how much of a contribution I made to it specifically, but I'm happy giving @VectorStyler all the credit for creating such a powerful tool in VS 🙂



  • I think i mentioned this somewhere before
    Magix Graphics Designer (Xara) also have
    an interesting way to create a grid of shapes

    here a video