Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

View objects outside artboard.


Recommended Posts

I too would LOVE to see the this implemented. 

 

MEB: Nice to know about the checkbox in the new document dialog. But what Celionicoli means is that all objects outside the working canvas (or artboard) become invisible. In illustrator we can can have everything outside the main artboard area. This helps experiment and have elements hidden that we don't want to show yet but still available to us. This is really important for the Artboards and the general Affinity Designer workflow.

 

This is one of the things that has kept me from using the software.

------------------------

Fernando Velarde

www.velarde.com

Instagram.com/soyfervelarde

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

The only way to view objects outside the canvas for "regular" documents is to turn the document into an artboard following the steps i outlined above or converting the document to an artboard using the Artboard tool. 

It's a little different from Illustrator because in Designer artboards and layers belong to the same hierarchy while in Illustrator they are independent from each other, but the pasteboard behaviour is the same. So why not using a artboard? Or am i missing something?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello MEB.

 

Here's a screenshot of two artboards to show what I mean. I have objects that get cut off when they are outside of the dartboard.

 

I want to see all my drawings and objects even when they are in the grey area (outside of the artboard). Is this currently possible...? This is REALLY is useful for us designers...

 

As it is currently implemented any object i place outside the artboard simply disappears to Designer. It is lost and I can't even select or find it. It goes to limbo. Or are we doing something wrong....?

 

 

Thanks

 

post-9627-0-99911300-1450198274_thumb.png

------------------------

Fernando Velarde

www.velarde.com

Instagram.com/soyfervelarde

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello again MEB.

 

I must have been doing something wrong or having a particular tool selected but every time i dragged and object outside the artboard it simply disappeared and couldn't even select it. I can see the objects outside the artboards now.

 

Still seems strange that objects that are in the boundary of the artboard  and the grey area outside get cut off visually while working with them.

 

But well it's not that bad as I see I can have info outside the artboards.

 

thanks,

post-9627-0-02267800-1450199223_thumb.png

------------------------

Fernando Velarde

www.velarde.com

Instagram.com/soyfervelarde

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I could have sworn I had put out a feature request for this, but I'd vote to have "create artboard" ticked by default when you create a new document. Just a simple flip around. Pasteboard access is such a desirable feature, it should really be there the entire time. I can see the benefit of having a focused canvas too, but more often than not I imagine most people want access to the pasteboard, I know I do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

...and here we go, just a quick preview of what I'm talking about. I'm simply pressing a keyboard shortcut to toggle the document clipping on/off. The screen recorder makes it look slower than it really is... :(

 

(plus, I've had to resize it to be super-small so it fits in our maximum file size limit on the forum - sigh!)

 

toggle.mov

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm currently adding the ability to toggle whether the document is clipped to the canvas or not - this is available for non-artboard documents so I think that gives you what you're actually looking for by default.... hopefully! :)

 

The video looks good. thanks.

Hopefully this preference would be available indistinctly if the document has 0, 1 or multiple artboards. 

------------------------

Fernando Velarde

www.velarde.com

Instagram.com/soyfervelarde

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Hello Matt.

 

I've just downloaded the 1.4.1 update and see the new "clip to canvas" view option. 

 

This is exactly what I wanted but it only works on single page documents.... (which you mentioned before on the thread)

But could this be implemented in multiple artboards documents...? It's really not very useful the way it is implemented right now.

 

In graphic design we do a lot of multi page documents and to only to have this feature in single page documents kind of defeats the purpose of it.

 

Regards,

 

fjv

------------------------

Fernando Velarde

www.velarde.com

Instagram.com/soyfervelarde

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Is it posible that objects dont get put under Artboard layer automaticly when you drag it to the artboard the view. Because objects are visable on multie boards if not grouped under Artboard layer.

 

Hope my questiom makes sense.

OS Name    Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Version    10.0.17134 Build 17134
System Type    x64-based PC

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...
  • 5 months later...

Hey guys

 

I've just downloaded Affinity Designer with a view to replacing Illustrator. I've come up against this problem except with my existing ai and eps files. Like many of you I use the area outside the artboard to hold elements I don't want to be seen in the final design. I have the elements showing off the artboard in a new document, but what about files that were created in Illustrator? There's no option to 'create artboard' when opening an ai file, so that means anything off the artboard in an existing file is lost when opening in Affinity.

 

Is there a way to open ai files and show the objects outside the artboard?

 

cheers

 

Craig

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

Hi craigquik,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

There's no way to get the content placed outside artboards in the Ai files when importing into Affinity Designer since we are only able to access the PDF stream contained in the Ai file (the rest is proprietary) which doesn't contain the items placed outside Illustrator's artboard(s).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...

Hi! I just wanted to chime in… Even if you don't change a thing on the way AD treats artboards and layers, this feature (being able to toggle “Clip to Canvas” in multiple-artboard documents) absolutely must become available at some point in the future. Even if things may look a bit messy in certain documents, because of artboard positioning, that should be our choice to make. This modal logic that determines that a document can be in either single- or multiple-artboard “mode” (and it's an invisible mode, at that, not like your well-thought-out personas), with different tools available depending on which “mode” you're in, adds unnecessary complexity and makes the app feel a bit broken. And I'm not using the word “broken” liberally here; having access to objects that extend past the artboard edges, even if temporarily, is of paramount importance; how else are you supposed to be able to easily select (and drag) objects that may have only a smidge inside the artboard?

 

But wait: it gets worse. I was playing around and reading the forums here, and I found out a few things about AD that left me utterly dismayed. I understand that you can still make objects visible, even with the “Clip to Canvas” option grayed-out, by dragging them outside of the artboard they're in in the Layers panel, but then they won't export because the corresponding slices will be empty… even though it doesn't seem like it visually; when looking at the working area, the artboard/slice will seem to have content, but only after exporting the files or by looking at the layers panel thumbnails will the user realise they are, in fact, empty. In my book, this is a big UX no-no. It feels as if AD is working against you, in a quite frankly illogical fashion. Yes, I know it makes sense from a database/file structure standpoint, but from a visual standpoint it's a mess. So… artboards are these transparent, diaphanous entities that allow objects to show through, but unless you manually specify on a panel which ones belong to them, they won't show up when exporting. Are we working with a modern and supposedly WYSIWYG vector app with full PDF and pre-press support, or with AutoCAD ca. 1992? :S 

 

Also… is there any replacement for artboards in AD, as in a proper slice tool that actually slices things in half but still shows up on the Draw persona? Because it seems you can't really slice an object between two adjacent artboards, as it can only “exist” on/belong to either one of them. That turns “Slices” into a bit of a misnomer when applied to artboards…

 

I hadn't done any complex, multi-artboard documents in AD before, but now that I started trying that out I realised just how limited AD is and… to be honest, I feel a bit cheated. Ai's implementation, all with two different panels, may feel cumbersome (I mean, all of Ai *is* cumbersome, the whole thing), but AD's implementation seems dumbed-down and broken by design. Lumping artboards with objects doesn't really make much sense if you think about it, and having your objects jumping around in your Layers panel without direct user intervention in said panel (that isn't creating, deleting or locking objects) is a big, BIG UX no-no in my book as well.

 

If I'm working on a complex multi-layer document (like, say, a map or a diagram), already spent quite a bit of time grouping objects into different layers, and need to use artboards/slices for some reason, that will completely screw up my workflow… I can either fight against AD by duplicating all my layers, moving them to the new artboard, etc. etc., or just cave in, fire up Ai and get it done in ten seconds flat (basically the time it takes to press Shift+O, select an artboard size and place it where I want it) and, even accounting for its excruciatingly slow opening time, I will still get it done faster (and in a cleaner fashion, without having to expand the file size and complicate it further with all the duplicates) than in AD. I understand that you wanted to make artboards into “mini-AD documents” inside of a bigger AD document, but shouldn't users be given some kind of choice on how to use that feature?

 

I honestly don't know how you can fix this and make AD more flexible without having to completely rework certain technical and UX assumptions (which might also break other people's workflows and documents). But, IMHO, I think you've screwed up royally with the multiple artboard implementation, as it feels extremely counter-intuitive and, frankly, useless for a sizeable proportion of your current and/or potential userbase. Please add a different type of artboard-like “thing” that doesn't mingle with (and screw up) layers, if you will, because these artboards, as they stand now, are utterly broken. Freehand (and even – *GASP* – Ai) got it somewhat right, so there's no reason AD shouldn't as well. Even though I have strongly complained on occasion about the lack of certain features in AD (I still think the Option+drag duplication behaviour feels wrong, and I still miss the option to have an object snap to its nodes on the “ghost” of its original position when dragging) or AP, I never thought I would ever write this on such strong terms: I believe you've out-Adobe'ed Adobe on the unintuitiveness department on this one. :(

 

Come to think of it, you were probably thinking illustrators and web designers would appreciate your approach, because it is indeed orderly and saves on panels, but I think it is too much left-brainy for either group, and especially for print designers and students (that may need to do certain imposition jobs by hand and absolutely need proper slice support for those). It really forces you to respect an excessively rigid hierarchy on the layers panel that both adds unnecessary extra steps and may not even make much sense from a functional standpoint.

 

Philosophically speaking, this reminds me of when Apple decided to remove the ability to have windows spanning different screens because of the revamped Mission Control. The difference being that they more than made up for losing that ability, because that multi-desktop system now feels tighter and more intuitive than ever. I mean, should you even be able to have part of a window overlapping a full-screen app? And how could they reconcile multiple virtual desktops with multiple screens? They did the right thing, IMHO, because they had to contend with two levels of 2D complexity, one virtual and one physical, that conflicted with each other.

 

On the other hand, having that kind of behaviour (i.e. objects that can't show up/exist on two different pages and be exported on both of them at the same time) on a WYSIWYG vector drawing app, which presents us with a single, rigid virtual 2D plane made of multiple content layers, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And considering different sections of that plane as different layers makes even less sense; if anything, if you really wanted to have them on the Layers panel and simplify the UI, they should all co-exist in a single special “Artboards” layer. Now THAT would make more sense. Your approach, sadly, turns something that should feel like an emulation of a physical working canvas into a… I don't know, a “Microsoft Windows 3.1's File Manager”-like thing, with boxes inside of other boxes?

 

I'm really sorry for sounding so harsh, but… yep. I do feel cheated. I can't really use nor recommend AD as unreservedly as I thought I could. And I'm also sorry I hadn't noticed these limitations during the beta process, because I would've strongly made the case for a better implementation like the one I've just suggested.

Anyway, if you want, I can send you some old multiple-artboard projects I did both on Freehand and Ai that would be nigh on impossible to make on AD (without getting seriously frustrated with your app, at least), with some context on all the workflow (including printing, trimming and mounting). If you are serious about print, you absolutely must try to fix this in some way. Even if you make slices accessible and visible in the Draw persona to make up for it (and yes, a user may wish to be able to work while seeing its slices, especially for planning around, you know, actual physical seams on the printed matter, without having to resort to extra guidelines and other fluff), I still feel that the route you've taken needlessly complicates using AD for daily, multi-artboard work. It is so weird and cumbersome that I actually considered using white rectangles and slices as faux-artboards to work around ADs implementation, really, but… oh, wait; slices can only be exported into raster files, not PDFs, so… yeah, you definitely have to fix this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, JGD said:

Hi! I just wanted to chime in… Even if you don't change a thing on the way AD treats artboards and layers, this feature (being able to toggle “Clip to Canvas” in multiple-artboard documents) absolutely must become available at some point in the future. Even if things may look a bit messy in certain documents, because of artboard positioning, that should be our choice to make. This modal logic that determines that a document can be in either single- or multiple-artboard “mode” (and it's an invisible mode, at that, not like your well-thought-out personas), with different tools available depending on which “mode” you're in, adds unnecessary complexity and makes the app feel a bit broken. And I'm not using the word “broken” liberally here; having access to objects that extend past the artboard edges, even if temporarily, is of paramount importance; how else are you supposed to be able to easily select (and drag) objects that may have only a smidge inside the artboard?

 

But wait: it gets worse. I was playing around and reading the forums here, and I found out a few things about AD that left me utterly dismayed. I understand that you can still make objects visible, even with the “Clip to Canvas” option grayed-out, by dragging them outside of the artboard they're in in the Layers panel, but then they won't export because the corresponding slices will be empty… even though it doesn't seem like it visually; when looking at the working area, the artboard/slice will seem to have content, but only after exporting the files or by looking at the layers panel thumbnails will the user realise they are, in fact, empty. In my book, this is a big UX no-no. It feels as if AD is working against you, in a quite frankly illogical fashion. Yes, I know it makes sense from a database/file structure standpoint, but from a visual standpoint it's a mess. So… artboards are these transparent, diaphanous entities that allow objects to show through, but unless you manually specify on a panel which ones belong to them, they won't show up when exporting. Are we working with a modern and supposedly WYSIWYG vector app with full PDF and pre-press support, or with AutoCAD ca. 1992? :S 

 

Also… is there any replacement for artboards in AD, as in a proper slice tool that actually slices things in half but still shows up on the Draw persona? Because it seems you can't really slice an object between two adjacent artboards, as it can only “exist” on/belong to either one of them. That turns “Slices” into a bit of a misnomer when applied to artboards…

 

I hadn't done any complex, multi-artboard documents in AD before, but now that I started trying that out I realised just how limited AD is and… to be honest, I feel a bit cheated. Ai's implementation, all with two different panels, may feel cumbersome (I mean, all of Ai *is* cumbersome, the whole thing), but AD's implementation seems dumbed-down and broken by design. Lumping artboards with objects doesn't really make much sense if you think about it, and having your objects jumping around in your Layers panel without direct user intervention in said panel (that isn't creating, deleting or locking objects) is a big, BIG UX no-no in my book as well.

 

If I'm working on a complex multi-layer document (like, say, a map or a diagram), already spent quite a bit of time grouping objects into different layers, and need to use artboards/slices for some reason, that will completely screw up my workflow… I can either fight against AD by duplicating all my layers, moving them to the new artboard, etc. etc., or just cave in, fire up Ai and get it done in ten seconds flat (basically the time it takes to press Shift+O, select an artboard size and place it where I want it) and, even accounting for its excruciatingly slow opening time, I will still get it done faster (and in a cleaner fashion, without having to expand the file size and complicate it further with all the duplicates) than in AD. I understand that you wanted to make artboards into “mini-AD documents” inside of a bigger AD document, but shouldn't users be given some kind of choice on how to use that feature?

 

I honestly don't know how you can fix this and make AD more flexible without having to completely rework certain technical and UX assumptions (which might also break other people's workflows and documents). But, IMHO, I think you've screwed up royally with the multiple artboard implementation, as it feels extremely counter-intuitive and, frankly, useless for a sizeable proportion of your current and/or potential userbase. Please add a different type of artboard-like “thing” that doesn't mingle with (and screw up) layers, if you will, because these artboards, as they stand now, are utterly broken. Freehand (and even – *GASP* – Ai) got it somewhat right, so there's no reason AD shouldn't as well. Even though I have strongly complained on occasion about the lack of certain features in AD (I still think the Option+drag duplication behaviour feels wrong, and I still miss the option to have an object snap to its nodes on the “ghost” of its original position when dragging) or AP, I never thought I would ever write this on such strong terms: I believe you've out-Adobe'ed Adobe on the unintuitiveness department on this one. :(

 

Come to think of it, you were probably thinking illustrators and web designers would appreciate your approach, because it is indeed orderly and saves on panels, but I think it is too much left-brainy for either group, and especially for print designers and students (that may need to do certain imposition jobs by hand and absolutely need proper slice support for those). It really forces you to respect an excessively rigid hierarchy on the layers panel that both adds unnecessary extra steps and may not even make much sense from a functional standpoint.

 

Philosophically speaking, this reminds me of when Apple decided to remove the ability to have windows spanning different screens because of the revamped Mission Control. The difference being that they more than made up for losing that ability, because that multi-desktop system now feels tighter and more intuitive than ever. I mean, should you even be able to have part of a window overlapping a full-screen app? And how could they reconcile multiple virtual desktops with multiple screens? They did the right thing, IMHO, because they had to contend with two levels of 2D complexity, one virtual and one physical, that conflicted with each other.

 

On the other hand, having that kind of behaviour (i.e. objects that can't show up/exist on two different pages and be exported on both of them at the same time) on a WYSIWYG vector drawing app, which presents us with a single, rigid virtual 2D plane made of multiple content layers, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And considering different sections of that plane as different layers makes even less sense; if anything, if you really wanted to have them on the Layers panel and simplify the UI, they should all co-exist in a single special “Artboards” layer. Now THAT would make more sense. Your approach, sadly, turns something that should feel like an emulation of a physical working canvas into a… I don't know, a “Microsoft Windows 3.1's File Manager”-like thing, with boxes inside of other boxes?

 

I'm really sorry for sounding so harsh, but… yep. I do feel cheated. I can't really use nor recommend AD as unreservedly as I thought I could. And I'm also sorry I hadn't noticed these limitations during the beta process, because I would've strongly made the case for a better implementation like the one I've just suggested.

Anyway, if you want, I can send you some old multiple-artboard projects I did both on Freehand and Ai that would be nigh on impossible to make on AD (without getting seriously frustrated with your app, at least), with some context on all the workflow (including printing, trimming and mounting). If you are serious about print, you absolutely must try to fix this in some way. Even if you make slices accessible and visible in the Draw persona to make up for it (and yes, a user may wish to be able to work while seeing its slices, especially for planning around, you know, actual physical seams on the printed matter, without having to resort to extra guidelines and other fluff), I still feel that the route you've taken needlessly complicates using AD for daily, multi-artboard work. It is so weird and cumbersome that I actually considered using white rectangles and slices as faux-artboards to work around ADs implementation, really, but… oh, wait; slices can only be exported into raster files, not PDFs, so… yeah, you definitely have to fix this.

I think they need to put this to the current roadmap.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...
  • 2 months later...

I know it's about died, but this topic should not be dropped. Having heard such good things about Affinity Photo, I figured I could nab both Photo and Designer to make my life easier and escape Adobe's clutches.

Imagine my shock and dismay when I go to open my first .AI as a test in Designer to find that the majority of the data in the file is gone due to being outside the artboard. The only way to save this information, that I've found, is to expand the artboard in Illustrator and then open it in Designer. I understand this is an issue that likely can never be fixed due to the importing process, but the true issue is what follows.

Using an expanded artboard, once opened in Desginer, trying to edit the artboard smaller again makes everything outside of it completely invisible and essentially useless.

In an INCREDIBLY roundabout method, I can make my old .AIs pretty close to how they are presented originally in Illustrator by:
1) Opening the file in Illustrator and expanding the artbook to fully include all symbols, images, and relevant data.
2) Open this file in Designer and then make the entire area an artboard there.
3) Drag all previously hidden content outside of this new artboard.
4) Resize the artboard back to the desired size.
5) Pray that nothing was somehow lost in the shuffle.

Depending on the size and intricacy of a file, this could be anywhere from a several minute to hour or longer endeavor, all while being forced to use the program I was trying to avoid just to make the program I want to use…… usable!

Please look into your artboard handling more. This is horribly frustrating.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.