Graphics not showing up

[TiffanyJ]

Every time I try to open a new file or one I previously designed, the page comes up blank.

[Gear maker]

Where is your document/canvas, it should be white or checkerboard?  If this shape is drawn off that then try pressing the backslash "\" key.  Does that show it?  Or use the menu View>New view>Clip to canvas.  That's my guess that you are drawing off the canvas.  If you click cmd 0 it should zoom in to show the canvas.

[thomaso]

Also it might help to switch the ruler on, its numbers give you an idea where you are in the 'endless' workspace.

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums.

In addition to the advice above, your screenshot doesn’t seem to show what you would get when you first open the document.
When you first open a document in Designer nothing is selected, so having a layer selected doesn’t match up with your statement that this is happening when you open a document.

Can you show us a screenshot (preferably with the rulers switched on, as advised above) of what the application looks like when you open the document without doing anything else afterwards?

P.S. You should probably change your user name or nasty spam bots will be able to find you.

[R C-R]

Another tip is to make the Transform panel visible so when you click on a layer with the Move Tool you can see its x & y coordinates. If they include negative numbers or ones much larger than the document size, you know the selected object is probably outside the canvas or artboard.

[Alfred]

2 hours ago, GarryP said:

P.S. You should probably change your user name or nasty spam bots will be able to find you.

You can change your Display Name here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/settings

[TiffanyJ]

16 hours ago, Gear maker said:

Where is your document/canvas, it should be white or checkerboard?  If this shape is drawn off that then try pressing the backslash "\" key.  Does that show it?  Or use the menu View>New view>Clip to canvas.  That's my guess that you are drawing off the canvas.  If you click cmd 0 it should zoom in to show the canvas.

 

16 hours ago, Gear maker said:

Where is your document/canvas, it should be white or checkerboard?  If this shape is drawn off that then try pressing the backslash "\" key.  Does that show it?  Or use the menu View>New view>Clip to canvas.  That's my guess that you are drawing off the canvas.  If you click cmd 0 it should zoom in to show the canvas.

It’s there but you can’t see it.  That’s the issue.  It is in the box but I can’t see it.  It’s been doing this for at least a week.  The right side shows the actual design but no matter if I start a new one or pull up a completed design, I can’t see it 

[TiffanyJ]

5 hours ago, R C-R said:

Another tip is to make the Transform panel visible so when you click on a layer with the Move Tool you can see its x & y coordinates. If they include negative numbers or ones much larger than the document size, you know the selected object is probably outside the canvas or artboard.

I think it’s a Mac issue.  Not sure if it picked up a virus 

[Old Bruce]

I think what has happened is the stripes are off of the Artboard. They are in the artboard but not on/over it. Use Command + - to zoom out and then use the Move tool to drag them onto the artboard.

 

[thomaso]

7 hours ago, TiffanyJ said:

I think it’s a Mac issue.  Not sure if it picked up a virus 

There is no reason to assume either of them.

It is rather that your current position in the large workspace area is away from the position of your Artboard. That makes you pasting objects besides an Artboard but belonging to it and therefore occurring inside its Layer in the Layers Panel but not appearing on a page view.

The Navigator Panel does not show the area outside the Artboards, instead its content is reduced to the Artboards (as kind of service for focused navigation).

You can click such a pasted but 'invisible' object and release it from its artboard. That way it gets visible and isn't inside this artboards layer anymore, though you can move it back on/in the artboard using the layers panel.

To "repair" your view you can use cmd-0 or manually zoom out until you see your artboard appearing in the view area. It can be cumbersome to zoom out AND move the pasted object, instaed it is easier to delete such pasted object, then fix the view, then paste again. This time it will be pasted on the artboard. Like here at the end: