Managing and moving assets

[Paul Martin]

I now create most assets (usually small graphics) in Designer and save them as assets, but I am wondering if they can be efficiently exported to or shared with Publisher. I see there is an earlier message about "importing clip-art" but I am unclear where the folders it refers to should be created -  do Designer or Publisher have pre-defined folders for assets? Is there any way that an asset created in Designer (or Photo) can be automatically updated in Publisher?

What do colleagues feel is the best approach to using/sharing assets across Affinity products?

[thomaso]

Assets seem to be saved in a custom .propcol file in the according user preference folder of the according Affinity app. The path may vary with platform and used store.
For instance: ~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Publisher/user/assets.propcol

Additionally there is an option to save (embed) assets with an Affinity document via the burger menu:

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

Assets seem to be saved in a custom .propcol file in the according user preference folder of the according Affinity app. The path may vary with platform and used store.
For instance: ~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Publisher/user/assets.propcol

Yes, they are. But in my experience you cannot copy that file from one application to another, at least on Windows. They seem to have some application-specific data in them.

So, if you need to copy the assets, you should Export and Import them, or Embed them.

[thomaso]

28 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

But in my experience you cannot copy that file from one application to another, at least on Windows.

Maybe, though it wouldn't be quite useful, because replacing the .propcol this way would make any possibly existing assets disappear from the app where the .propcol gets replaced. The mentioned file path was rather meant to ask this part of questions:

3 hours ago, Paul Martin said:

-  do Designer or Publisher have pre-defined folders for assets?

In the initial post it seems the OP is aware of the option to import/export – and additionally wants to know where the app stores its data.

In case the question is meant to be rather "Where from does the app import?" : It is like with other resources (brushes, images etc), they don't have to be at a specific place to be able to get imported. You just need to guide the app on import (or place)(as on export) to your preferred path – which might be differing for an asset transfer between two computers, respectively between differing platforms or systems.

After you imported assets of an exported asset file the app will store the imported data at its own place – as a copy, which means after your import you may delete the previously exported / imported file since it's gets copied in the app's data during import. (~ like placed images which are set to get embedded, not linked).

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

After you imported assets of an exported asset file the app will store the imported data at its own place – as a copy, which means after your import you may delete the previously exported / imported file since it's gets copied in the app's data during import. (~ like placed images which are set to get embedded, not linked).

I would keep the files you imported from as a form of backup.

As all the installed assets are stored in one file, if anything bad happens while that file is being updated you can lose everything that is installed. Therefore some good kind of backup is needed, for the day when all the installed assets (except the default ones) vanish, and you need to install them again. The original files will work for that. Or, if you have a good system backup you can copy the assets.propcol file from the last system backup you made.

[Ben G]

On 6/25/2021 at 9:18 AM, walt.farrell said:

I would keep the files you imported from as a form of backup.

As all the installed assets are stored in one file, if anything bad happens while that file is being updated you can lose everything that is installed. Therefore some good kind of backup is needed, for the day when all the installed assets (except the default ones) vanish, and you need to install them again. The original files will work for that. Or, if you have a good system backup you can copy the assets.propcol file from the last system backup you made.

Hi Walt, I am in an Assets quandary in Affinitiy Publisher 2.  In upgrading and installing Publisher 2, after having some custom Assets I created and used for years in in Publisher 1, now I have no assets in either Publisher 1 or 2. 

I do have over a year of Time Machine backups and have been digging to somehow find the old Assets file that I can Restore and then import into my Publisher 2 version.. as the very thing you mentioned has happened to me, that is, my Publisher Assets have disappeared after installing and opening Publisher version 2, and it's been months since I've had to use any assets in Publisher 2, so it's just a week ago I noticed my Publisher Assets are gone.

I was able to find and import an old assets file from 2020, but I have added several Assets in either 2022 or 2023, and those are what's missing. So tonight before I tracked down and imported this old assets file from 2020 (I must have exported my Assets at one point and created this file as a backup), there were no Assets in my Publisher 2.0.

[Ben G]

On 6/25/2021 at 9:18 AM, walt.farrell said:

I would keep the files you imported from as a form of backup.

As all the installed assets are stored in one file, if anything bad happens while that file is being updated you can lose everything that is installed. Therefore some good kind of backup is needed, for the day when all the installed assets (except the default ones) vanish, and you need to install them again. The original files will work for that. Or, if you have a good system backup you can copy the assets.propcol file from the last system backup you made.

Ooops, I didn't ask you a question. 

I was wondering the same thing, do you know what folders in MacOS to look in for my old Publisher 1 Assets files?  I have MacOS Catalina 10.15.7.

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, Ben in Texas said:

do you know what folders in MacOS to look in for my old Publisher 1 Assets files?  I have MacOS Catalina 10.15.7.

This FAQ should provide some information: 

 

[Ben G]

19 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

This FAQ should provide some information: 

 

Thank you.