Why does my text layer always jump out of the layers order even when my bottom layers are locked?

[Kevin Jacobs]

Why does my text layer always jump out of the layers order even when my bottom layers are locked?

[GarryP]

I think we will need more explanation to know what happening.
Try and be more precise as to exactly:

• what you have got;
• what you do;
• what you get.

Would it be possible for you to record a video of what’s happening?
If not, can you show us ‘before’ and ‘after’ full-screen screen-grabs?

[Kevin Jacobs]

Hello Garry, Here is a screen recording of my Affinity Designer file. You'll see that every time i move the body text layer it keeps disappearing and moves down into the bottom locked layers below. I hope you or someone can help me out considering this is a essential function to any workflow. Thanks.

Affinity layers jump.mov

[MEB]

It's because of the artboard. You are moving an object that's located over an artboard. Affinity automatically places all objects located over an artboard inside its corresponding artboard layer in the Layers panel. Since the artboard is located way below on the bottom in the layer stack it becomes hidden by other layers placed above. If you turn off Edit all layers button (on the bottom left of the Layers panel) it would honour your layer construct.

Usually artboards are used as canvas so ideally they should be located at the root of the Layers panel and not within other layer contructs (inside groups, clipped whatever).

[GarryP]

MEB just got in there before me.

I think it’s something to do with having the text frame ‘outside’ of the Artboard – not ‘outside’ in position but ‘outside’ as in ‘not contained within’.
Normally, artboards are the things which are in the ‘root’ of the document and everything else is in an artboard.
You seem to have the text frame outside of an artboard which itself is inside a group, but I don’t know why you’ve done this.
I don’t know why the software moves the text frame inside the group but I don’t think it’s supposed to be outside to begin with.
Have you tried putting the artboard at the top of the layer list (as the ‘root’ layer) and then having everything else inside that?

Edited July 6, 2021 by GarryP

[Kevin Jacobs]

I don't see a layers button on the bottom right only the trash can icon then add new layer icon. Can you provide me with a screen shot to where i can find "Edit all layers button"?

[MEB]

It's bottom left, not right. It's visible on your video in the Layers panel, the only button on the left side on bottom.

[GarryP]

[Kevin Jacobs]

Garry! Your the man! 
It worked! Thanks big time!

[Kevin Jacobs]

Im a newbie to the Affinity products. As im starting to get familiar with Affinity products i noticed that they make something that should be very simple so difficult? 

[MEB]

Hi Kevin,
As explained above typically artboards are used as canvas as such they should be placed at the root of the layers stack. All other objects that are part of design are then placed inside them. Imagine you need to create multiple elements based on the same design (say a flyer, a facebook banner and a card, whatever), you would create an artboard for each one of the pieces with the respective design/objects placed within their respective artbords - you can use the pasteboard - the area around the artboards - to temporarily store objects you may want to rework, store or reuse in all pieces like logos, certain branding elements (you can also use symbols for common elements shared between pieces) etc. and then export all of them simultaneously or individually as required. Otherwise you would have to create a new/independent file for each of the pieces.

We do list them (the artboards) in the Layers panel (contrary to other apps) because this allows to manipulate them as objects as well to create for example grids of artboards (for icons design for example), transforming artboards in object and vice-versa etc.

[Casio]

Hallo,

On 7/6/2021 at 3:57 PM, MEB said:

If you turn off Edit all layers button (on the bottom left of the Layers panel) it would honour your layer construct.

Am I correct in thinking that 'Edit all Layer's button will sort of turn off the 'automatic' allocation/assigning of an element to the artboard it is placed on top of. 

This would be immediately helpful in situations that I work with regularly, for example;

I work with about 30 x A4 artboards placed together and then I place a large graphic over the top so that my output can be saved as a tiled PDF with multiple pages. This works if I make sure that the graphic is placed at the top most layer- and importantly not touched after positioning- just before I make the tiled PDF. 

But often I do need to reposition or even modify the graphic (itself a AD svg or PDF) and of course it automatically attaches to an artboard and most of the graphic disappears from view (I know it's still 'there', because it only shows on the artboard it has attached itself onto, even though it is larger than that single artboard). 

Many thanks in advance,

Casio

[MEB]

Yes, you are correct. It will disable the behaviour that forces objects placed on top of artboards on canvas to be automatically moved to the respective artboard's layer.

[Casio]

Excellent, thank you MEB for confirming that.

Another question, if I may. When converting multiple artboards to a multipage PDF, I notice that the last artboard created is however, always the first page in the PDF. Can this order be reversed or manipulated in some way?

Or for my situation described above, do I need to reorder my 30 artboards in the layers panel so that my Artboard Nr.1 (in the top left-hand corner of the series) is at the bottom of the layers. etc etc

Thanks in advance, Casio

[MEB]

Hi @Casio,
The bottom artboard layer in the layers stack always corresponds to the first page in the exported PDF. The order/position of the artboards on canvas is irrelevant for this.

So to get the right order, make sure you place the artboard layer that corresponds to the first page on the PDF on the bottom of the layer's stack in the Layers panel (the top artboard layer in the layer's stack corresponds to the last page on the PDF).