Global/shared layers across art boards

[Guest]

I've been bitten by this workflow issue once again. I've got a series of art board illustrations all with various text layers that are used for placement only within Designer (somebody else will finalize the text in Canva later on). I need to be able to turn these text layers on and off quickly and easily. In Illustrator I would have placed these text elements within a (real) layer that was available on ALL art boards within the document. Toggling the visibility (one-click) would toggle this layer and ALL OF THE TEXT ELEMENTS CONTAINED ON IT AT THE SAME TIME. In Affinity I'm left scrolling through the bloody layer panel within each 'art board', expanding and collapsing other groups in order to toggle them on and off individually (much clicking, no fun). What's worse, when they're off the only way I can toggle them back on is to repeat that same, damn, laborious process once again.

If you're hell-bent on keeping your broken 'everything is a layer' (including art boards) model, then PLEASE think of us users who would LOVE a way to better organize our files in order to quickly isolate parts of our documents that we could like to manage in different ways. As it stands now everything is a layer… it's friggin' 'turtles all the way down' in layer form.

[MEB]

Hi Brian,
Disable the Edit All Layers button on the bottom left of the Layers panel, create a new layer on top of the layer stack for the text, place all the placeholder text objects inside that layer, lock it, then enable the Edit All Layers button again and keep working on the illustrations. If you need to hide the text layer do it as usual through the layers panel. Disable the Edit All Layers button every time you need to adjust the text objects (otherwise they will be moved to the respective artboard's layers where they are placed above on canvas). Since they are just placeholders hopefully you will not have to change them that much after locking them in place.

[Guest]

Hi MEB,

Thank you for the reply, unfortunately that doesn't work with my existing document. It works fine if you start out that way, but trying to move stuff around after the fact is really frustrating. Copy/paste onto the new layer places the objects on other art boards(?!), and shuffling items through the VERY LONG layer list to the new layer is an exercise in madness as the list doesn't scroll as you move an item (move. stop. scroll. repeat). Please, just fix your concept of layers and art boards. It's not innovative, it's simply another reason for me to keep paying Adobe.

[Dazmondo77]

The latest beta includes 'select same tag colour' which is available via select / select same / Tag Colour and also by right clicking the layers panel, so you should be able to tag all your layers you want to switch off altogether, on different artboards, throughout your layer stack. just select one of the layers that has the tag colour you want to switch off and right click and scroll down to select same tag colour and un-tick  -  hope this works for you?  see attached :

[Guest]

Thanks @Dazmondo77, 

I don't use beta software (no time, risk of corrupt files, etc) but I'll look to try that workaround once it's out of beta.

[Dazmondo77]

1 minute ago, Bryan is lurking… said:

I don't use beta software (no time, risk of corrupt files, etc) but I'll look to try that workaround once it's out of beta.

I'm finding it really handy in the tests so far 👍

[prophet]

That is an intriguing work around for the missing "global layers" feature. Look forward to trying it out.

[Guest]

One more addendum to the lack of global layer woes… if you have artwork on a 'global layer' (as described by @MEB above) that spans two art boards, when you go to export said art boards the artwork from the shared layer is omitted. The expected behaviour would be the portion of the artwork that is visible on each art board is included in the export. Sample file attached.

SharedLayerAcrossArtboards.afdesign.zip

[Dazmondo77]

13 hours ago, Bryan is lurking… said:

One more addendum to the lack of global layer woes… if you have artwork on a 'global layer' (as described by @MEB above) that spans two art boards, when you go to export said art boards the artwork from the shared layer is omitted. The expected behaviour would be the portion of the artwork that is visible on each art board is included in the export. Sample file attached.

I think the current limitation is anything that is printable or exportable needs to reside within an artboard and your example sits on-top of your layer stack - I think the only way currently would be to duplicate and drag each into the L and R artboard layers - then you could use the tag function as described above to switch off and on (if you had a very busy layer stack)

[Dazmondo77]

Also if you use via StudioLink in Pub (retaining artboards) if you go to photo persona in the latest beta you can now link layers - which is a bit unintuitive in its present form, but may evolve into something pretty cool in the future - the way you link, is to select a layer then drag the layer you want to link it to (without selecting) over to the Shared Layer little square in the Links panel - this should give you a few basic linked features such has linked switching layer visability on and off and transparency 

[prophet]

Linked layers…another interesting work around.

There are many ways to skin the cat, but I still think the easiest would be for Affinity to just include a zipper on said feline. The global layer concept exists and is by now a standard in many workflows. Would love to see the concept brought to Designer (and especially Pub).

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Dazmondo77 said:

Also if you use via StudioLink in Pub (retaining artboards) if you go to photo persona in the latest beta you can now link layers - which is a bit unintuitive in its present form, but may evolve into something pretty cool in the future - the way you link, is to select a layer then drag the layer you want to link it to (without selecting) over to the Shared Layer little square in the Links panel - this should give you a few basic linked features such has linked switching layer visability on and off and transparency.

This is SO unintuitive I can't imagine trying to actually use it—it feels like an engineering answer to a design problem. "Just drag this here, then drag it to the checkbox in this other tab, then active it in the other application… simples!"

Also, having to parent layers to individual art boards brings me right back to the original problem of not wanting to constantly have to play a painful game of hide and seek/memory in the layers palette to manage my objects, groups and layers across art boards.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, prophet said:

…another interesting work around.

I'm starting to wonder if I have more work-arounds for the various Affinity apps than I do benefits from using them? There are some lovely touches (masking in Designer is my favourite), but there are so many significant shortcomings after 5+ years that I find it difficult to believe that Serif will ever address them.