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Nested symbols causing crashes


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So. I couldn't find any documentation of a symmetry tool for vectors (maybe I didn't look hard enough, idk) but what I did find out by accident is that you can put a copy of a symbol inside itself and then flip the nested symbol to create a symbol with symmetry. Yay! However, it becomes very fragile if you try to edit the symbols while sync is turned on.

Attached image is a picture of my outliner if it isn't clear what I mean. I'll refer to the symbol with the full heart in its thumbnail as the Topmost Symbol and the one with the half heart as the Nested Symbol.

  • Crash if you delete the topmost OR nested symbol in the layers panel (can get past this by detaching everything or turning off sync before deleting)
  • Crash if you detach the nested symbol and delete the topmost symbol 
  • Crash if you select the topmost OR nested symbol and attempt to change the stroke or fill
  • Crash if the layered symbol is part of a group with other objects and you attempt to change the stroke or fill of the group
  • (For the record you can change these things just fine as long as you edit the curves individually, you just can't do it on anything that's labeled Symbol)

I'm guessing the crashing is because these actions create an infinite loop? Maybe actions that create an infinite loop when used on nested symbols could throw an error and/or turn the sync off for you.

symbols steroids.png

Edited by bibblefutzer
I forgot you can turn off sync and it solves the crash problem .-.
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14 hours ago, SPaceBar said:

Hi @bibblefutzer Welcome to the Affinity forums! Sorry to hear you are experiencing crashes but it's good to see you found a workaround. Thanks for sharing it on here too.

Could you upload your file so I can attempt to repeat your findings please?

Sure thing. You might also be able to repeat it in a different document if you set up a symbol the same way.

paige ATD heart logo.afdesign

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 Really interesting bug. Self-reference or recursion in Affinity documents. 

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Perhaps this will help you - I consider this a form of symmetry, but it may not suit your purpose.  It’s based on your idea of nesting Symbols, but does not require any.

I created two circles, made them different colors so you can follow each one individually, put them in a containing rectangle, and then constrained each one separately so it stays next to the closest side of the rectangle.  See attached file.

I’ve left the stroke on the rectangle so you can see it, but it’s irrelevant for this purpose and can be removed.

Try using the move tool to resize the rectangle by dragging on the sides.  You can rotate too.  If you need the circles to be identical at all times, replace each one with an instance of the same Symbol.  If you want the circles to be different, just use plain circles, no Symbols.  Of course, you can mix and match different shapes and Symbols inside the rectangle.  And you can have multiple shapes/Symbols in the same rectangle.

Regards

Symmetry with Constraints.afdesign

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By the way, the circles will clip to the rectangle - if you enlarge them, the portions that extend beyond the rectangle will become invisible, so your rectangle must be large enough for the whole of each contained shape to be visible.  Distance from any edge of the rectangle to a circle is not important for this discussion.  While you’re putting your design together you might find it useful to give the rectangle a low-opacity fill; when you’re done, just make the rectangle invisible by removing both it’s fill and it’s stroke.

Regards

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6 hours ago, LionelD said:

Perhaps this will help you - I consider this a form of symmetry, but it may not suit your purpose.  It’s based on your idea of nesting Symbols, but does not require any.

I created two circles, made them different colors so you can follow each one individually, put them in a containing rectangle, and then constrained each one separately so it stays next to the closest side of the rectangle.  See attached file.

I’ve left the stroke on the rectangle so you can see it, but it’s irrelevant for this purpose and can be removed.

Try using the move tool to resize the rectangle by dragging on the sides.  You can rotate too.  If you need the circles to be identical at all times, replace each one with an instance of the same Symbol.  If you want the circles to be different, just use plain circles, no Symbols.  Of course, you can mix and match different shapes and Symbols inside the rectangle.  And you can have multiple shapes/Symbols in the same rectangle.

Regards

Symmetry with Constraints.afdesign 17.63 kB · 0 downloads

Oh, cool! I didn't know we could do this. I don't think it would help with my specific situation because I needed the heart halves to be snapped together in the middle but I can see how this would be helpful for other situations where you need symmetry for sure.

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Hi @bibblefutzer I have managed to recreate the crash.

Windows - My document appears to be perpetually loading - doesn't open.
macOS - I can open the document and if I hide the nested symbol under the main symbol it will crash.

- Looking at the crash log it says that you have an orphaned colour tag. When we added a colour tag to the symbols I was able to hide layers without it crashing any more on macOS. I'm still unable to load it on Windows.

I'll get the issue logged and pass it on to the development team.
 

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I am able to open the document under Windows 10. With the informaltion from @SPaceBar  I tried to remove the colour tag (right click on the layer and select the colour tag deselect symbol). Designer crashes here. And curiously, no crash report is generated.

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