Pinning - option to put the object in the background

[Holz]

Hi! First post. Guy from germany. Happy with the affinity suite. Best products ever!!! 🙂

Currently i'm working on a book for a client, over 300 pages. So, pinning is needed for my project - for tables and for background info boxes. Every time if i had to add more pages, i must go through the complete book and change manually all the info boxes.

So ... please add an option to let us change that behavior (that pinned objects only shows in the foreground). I need to bring them in the background.

Thank you for your outstanding software!

Edited May 7, 2021 by Holz

[Joachim_L]

Welcome to the Affinity forums @Holz!

Yes, I see the benefit behind you request and additionally I like to request to put a text wrap on the pinned object.

Interesting, I have to revert my request, because what I wanted is possible, but with a "strange" workflow. To add a text wrap to a pinned object you have to click on Edit Wrap Outline first, then you change the behaviour in Show Text Wrap Settings. Maybe this is the way text wrap was meant to be?

[Holz]

Hi Joachim_L, thank you for your welcome!

Did you use AP on Mac or Windows? For me, i can't confirm your behavior on Windows. I only had to click on "Text wrap" and make the settings...

[Joachim_L]

My fault, I had the object pinned inline and not floating. With floating it works as ever.

[carl123]

If you play with different blend modes and opacity settings you can simulate a pinned object being behind the text.

 

[Holz]

Hey carl123, thank you for your answer.

I tried that before... BUT the problem is that: if you export it to PDF, than this page will rendered as bitmap. So it is unfortunately not an option for me.

[loukash]

5 hours ago, Holz said:

the problem is that: if you export it to PDF, than this page will rendered as bitmap. So it is unfortunately not an option for me

Exactly.

There is a possibility, however, and that's overprint. If the pinned object, the text and background allow it, of course:

 

[loukash]

Another post, another weird workaround…
(Or rather an INSANE workaround, as @Bryan Rieger would call it )

Yep, the green cat is pinned, is behind the text frame, does not overprint, and there's no transparency or other effects involved.
Anyone brave enough to find out?
(Hint: linked layers!)

Disclosure:

• Be prepared for crashes.
• Save early, save often.
• There will be some redraw issues as you can see at the end of the video where the cat seems to be stuck. If that happens, save, close document and reopen.

[loukash]

Other than that…

9 hours ago, Holz said:

add an option to let us change that behavior (that pinned objects only shows in the foreground). I need to bring them in the background.

+100!

[Holz]

Haha, thank you for your funny hacks, loukash. And your effort to make a video. I have to try your green cat workaround 🐱🤭 By the way, i love cats 😍

[loukash]

1 hour ago, Holz said:

I have to try your green cat workaround

The actual "hack" was hidden in the video because the document was – deliberately – in Preview Mode.
The magic happens outside the pages:

The text frames on spread 1 are "linked layers", but linking is only enabled for the text content. The text frames on the other spreads don't need to be "linked layers" because the text from frame 1 will flow through them anyway.

The cat is a partially linked/synced symbol, but that's a remainder from an early stage of this experiment and likely unnecessary for the final result because the red cat now lives outside the page anyway.

You may need to switch back and forth between all three personae to enable and adjust the link and symbol features; but that's not even a hack: that's literally an Affinity feature by design.

The only "hack" here is how to enable the Links (or the Text Frame and Pinning) panel in all three personae. That's not "by design", rather a kinda "bug", or – more positively, paraphrasing the good ole Bob Ross – a happy accident. Search my post history on how to enable them (may work on Mac only).

1 hour ago, Holz said:

By the way, i love cats

In case you didn't know yet: the Cat shape tool is a built-in easter egg!

[loukash]

Aaaand…
The final and probably the most straightforward workarou… er, workflow:

1. don't worry about your pinned objects while working on the layout and keep them on top (optionally set them to temporarily to Multiply to make them transparent)
2. when finished, unpin them in place and put them in the background

[Holz]

Thank you again for your indefatigably effort! The easter-egg, resp. the easter-cat  was new to me, cool 🙂

In my current project i simply place the info box shapes in the respective pages. When new pages are added, than i move my shapes. "Only" less than 20 pages are affected by it.

In the end, I always try to keep it simple.

[loukash]

1 hour ago, Holz said:

In the end, I always try to keep it simple.

Wise.
My "crazy" workarounds are meant more as a "proof of concept". As in: it's always good to know what you could do if needed.

[NotMyFault]

I tried the trick with linked text frames, in a simplified version: Only link the text frame, the floating shape is not copied / linked at all.

Seems to work. But I must admit Publisher crashed once when switching back from Photo (to link the text frame).

 

test linked start i text.afpub

[loukash]

18 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

a simplified version

But the text is now doubled on the page. That could lead to potential ink issues in print, considering the shaky overprint functionality in Affinity.

Anyway… as noted, it's just a "proof of concept", not a serious solution.

[NotMyFault]

45 minutes ago, loukash said:

But the text is now doubled on the page. That could lead to potential ink issues in print, considering the shaky overprint functionality in Affinity.

Oh we could try to drive this weak workarounds even further. Could we find a way that the text doesn’t get exported in the original copy? It seems 0% opacity does the trick. (Tried on Photo on iPad and exported as PDF). Nothing rasterized, text only once.

[ashf]

+1 for this option.