question about workflow

[papasmountainmedia]

In illustrator/Indesign when I was designing, I would use the workspace around the pages to store items I was moving around.  When I move things elements off the page in the affinity software they disappear.  

is there a feature that I am missing that I can use to hold elements when I'm re-arranging a page?

[Joachim_L]

Welcome to the Affinity forums @papasmountainmedia!

2 minutes ago, papasmountainmedia said:

When I move things elements off the page in the affinity software they disappear.

Visit menu View >> View Mode and uncheck Clip to Canvas.

[thomaso]

The Clip to Canvas options works in APub as expected but seems to be auto-activated in AD with a disabled (grayed out) menu entry.

The menu entry seems to appear different in different documents with artboards, here the orange marked menu shows being ticked very subtle, the pink seems to be obviously unticked. Regardless of this setting, none of them displays objects in the workspace.

According to this moderator's note it seems to be coded as inaccessible in AD in purpose ("by design"), though it's unclear whether the clipping should be en- or disabled.:

 

[iconoclast]

In my version of Designer (1.9.2.1035 on Windows) "Clip to Canvas" is active and it can be deactivated and activated again as I want. Possibly a Mac-version issue?

[MEB]

Hi @iconoclast
It should only appear greyed out in documents that use artboards. For regular non-artboard based documents you can turn it on/off depending on the behaviour you wish.

[thomaso]

6 minutes ago, MEB said:

It should only appear greyed out in documents that use artboards.

Aside that, should it be grayed out and activated – or in its deactivated state? That's not clear from Sean P's note:

Quote

(Clip to Canvas is disabled when you have artboards present)

 

[MEB]

It's a bit irrelevant if it's activated or not to be honest (ticked or not) - the point is you can't switch between the two because the behaviour when using artboard-based documents is unique.
For regular (non-artboard) based documents, Clip tp canvas hides any objects that are not over the canvas area. This implies you can't use the pasteboard area since you can't see any objects there (although you can still place them there if you want). If an object crosses the boundary of the canvas only the part over the canvas is visible. 

On Artboard based documents however objects are simultaneous being clipped to canvas - if an object crosses the boundary of the canvas only the part over the canvas is visible - but you can still use and see objects in the pasteboard area if they not touch the artboard/are completely outside it (contrary to regular non-artboard based documents which hides them).

[thomaso]

3 minutes ago, MEB said:

It's a bit irrelevant if it's activated or not to be honest (ticked or not) - the point is you can't switch between the two because the behaviour when using artboard-based documents is unique.

It would be relevant if there were only either / or. Thanks to your explanation I realized (wasn't conscious before) that there are always both possible states for Clipped To Canvas actively working together when artboards exist.

• Clipped: if objects are partially on the artboard.
• Not clipped: for objects completely outside an artboard.

So artboard content in bleed areas will always be clipped – contents entirely in the workspace is never clipped & not assigned to any artboard.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, thomaso said:

• Clipped: if objects are partially on the artboard.
• Not clipped: for objects completely outside an artboard.

FWIW, it is possible to have an object partially over an artboard but not on it, so it is not clipped, as in this unclipped.afdesign example. But to do that, you have to move the object out of the artboard on the Layers panel & then not move it anywhere else over the artboard in the workspace window. If you do, it immediately snaps back into the artboard.