Feature Request: Artboards, Artboards, Artboards

[JWhiteUX]

I'm not asking Serif to copy Adobe, but if Affinity is going to keep up with the pack, they'll need to add Artboards.

 

Sketch, Illustrator, and Photoshop2015 have Artboards. this is critical for designing interfaces, and far more efficient than Layer Comps.

[MEB]

Hello JWhiteUX,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Artboards are already planned.

Please check our roadmap for more info on what's coming

[Petar Petrenko]

Why artboards? Aren't resizeble pages better than artboards? They can be differently oriented also -- Portrait or Landscape. And they will be same through all three apps and they can be, also, used for laying out text on multiple pages.

[marsofearth]

Why artboards? Aren't resizeble pages better than artboards? They can be differently oriented also -- Portrait or Landscape. And they will be same through all three apps and they can be, also, used for laying out text on multiple pages.

 

Why Artboards?

Because they are a Fast way to quickly set up Layouts/Exports without having to mess with your layers.

 

Resizable Pages are neither better nor worse than artboards, but a 'necessary' compliment to layout.

 

Both fit a niche and they can certainly appear to overlap in function,

but in the end a Hammer works better than an Axe depending on your needs.

[Stephen_H]

+1 on the artboards. When I design a logo, I usually have alternate versions off the page. A master font version off to the side while I modify a curves version. I'm finding I have to have multiple hidden layers to store these working files and that's not visually inspirational.

 

It's quite strange that I can drag items off the page – I just can't see them anymore. I can select them and bring them back so they're not disappearing entirely, they're just hidden. It's as if the background around the page is actually a frame on the top layer obscuring everything not on the page. Weird.

[MEB]

Hi Stephen_H,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

We are still improving the foundations of the app  ;)

Both artboards and access to the pasteboard area are coming in a future upgrade.

[wantingtoswitch]

I was told by the Facebook page manager for Affinity that animated GIFs could be a possibility after artboards are implemented. Oh please make it so with robust output options (# of colors, dithering, quality, # of loops). Fireworks is our best option now, and many Fireworks users are looking to Affinity as the alternative since Adobe has stopped supporting Fireworks. Photoshop's workflow is too slow, especially on the composition side. Fireworks interface for arranging animated GIFs is great (works with separate states that look like layers, can easily duplicate a state by dragging onto the new state icon within the pane) but we're not sure how long it's going to function without support.

 

We use them for advertisements and need each frame length to be customizable. I'd imagine others would like to be able to drop video into the "frames" area, then set a default frame rate, etc.. since these days video to GIF is pretty popular. 

 

It's tempting to call animated GIFs antiquated or gimmicky, but this isn't true. They are still used heavily in advertising design and also made a bit of a comeback for compatibility on multiple devices. They also take less time to develop, so are especially valuable for low volume, quickly implemented advertising campaigns that are cost sensitive.

[Petar Petrenko]

It's quite strange that I can drag items off the page – I just can't see them anymore. 

 

It is not true. Have you ever worked with ID or QXP?

You can see items off the page (pasteboard) all the time. And they will always be beside the page you put them on so they will not interfere with items on other pasteboards.

Or, you can put them into library and reach them more quickly.

[Stephen_H]

It is not true. Have you ever worked with ID or QXP?

You can see items off the page (pasteboard) all the time. And they will always be beside the page you put them on so they will not interfere with items on other pasteboards.

Or, you can put them into library and reach them more quickly.

 

I know, I was referring to ADesigner holding content but not displaying it on the pasteboard – not ID or QXP. (Those are the apps that have made me so reliant on using a pasteboard that I don't know how to work without it, Though QXP was a pain because we became reliant on a pasteboard extension to make it large enough to use, which if you didn't have the extension, you couldn't open the document – terrible for sharing documents)