Button to Remove all fraction (80,3) numbers from artboards XY axes

[thiagoff8]

Hello, how are you guys? I really love Affinity Designer. But there's something that makes me a little anxious when I'm going to export the files LOL

I work with online ads, creation and management (Facebook, Instagram, Google...)

Sometimes I have to make many versions of the same ad, to test, improve the optimization... you can see in the attached example.
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Sorry for the background, but something that bothers me a lot and takes a lot of my time is manually going from artboard to artboard removing the commas from the X and Y axes to prevent Affinity Designer from exporting 1 extra white pixel.

They could add a button to align all artboards to full numbers or even create an option to prevent artboards from being created on fractional axes.

I know you are going to talk about the Snapping option, but it is not 100% functional in this case. And it doesn't solve the problem of organizing already created files, when you try to align the artboards (select all, Alignment Space Vertical or horizontal) the comma comes back....

I absolutely love Affinity Designer. This is the only, seriously the only problem that drives me crazy with the software.

[Old Bruce]

Have you never used the Force Pixel Alignment button? In my experience it does the job you describe.

[thiagoff8]

I always use and leave it on but it doesn't solve the problem of organizing already created files, when you try to align the artboards (select all, Alignment Space Vertical or horizontal) the comma comes back....

Some time you work on a team, the other person did not activate the option when creating.....

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, thiagoff8 said:

the comma comes back

I don't know if it will help in that scenario, but make sure you do not have Move by Whole Pixels enabled in your Snapping options.

[Pšenda]

20 hours ago, thiagoff8 said:

but it doesn't solve the problem of organizing already created files

The position of all Artboards is governed by the position of the leftmost (X) and most top (Y) Artboard.
Try adjusting the position of the X leftmost Artboard (enter 0,3 px), if they do not match all the others.

[walt.farrell]

33 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

The position of all Artboards is governed by the position of the leftmost (X) and most top (Y) Artboard

Really? They've always seemed independent, to me.

[Pšenda]

10 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Really? They've always seemed independent, to me.

So give it a try.

 

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by Pšenda

[walt.farrell]

6 hours ago, Pšenda said:

So give it a try.

Thanks. I hadn't interpreted your suggestion in that way, so I might not have been able to duplicate what you meant.

It's interesting, and indeed if all  the artboard positions are off by .3 px that could provide part of a useful workaround. Of course, you would also have to account for non-pixel Y coordinates, too. And if any of the artboards are not off by exactly that same amount it gets messy.

[Pšenda]

14 hours ago, Pšenda said:

enter 0,3 px

Before correcting artboard positions, I recommend setting the maximum number of decimal places in Preferences to find out the exact offset value.

[Old Bruce]

Instead of setting the displayed decimal places to 4, or what ever number you feel is good enough, just assume that the problem is there and it must be fixed. The reason I say this (often) is that x.000009 will not show up, and there will not be any indication that there is a fractional pixel set. Yet there will be a problem.

The solution for this is to have an indication that there is a fractional pixel setting. But then the problem will still need to be fixed.

When I just assume there is a fractional setting that is messing up the export I select the x, y and h, w inputs in the transform panel and use the up key and the down key to toggle the settings for each of them. This will force them to be integers, so long as I don't have the stupid Move by Whole Pixels set this will fix the location and size to whole pixels. 

[MmmMaarten]

Having to correct 'semi-values' for positions and sizes is a pain. This is taking way too much time, while upfront I know I want to work with only integer values most of the time. The force pixel alignment toggle is not sufficiant for this as it's not correcting for once. Especially Artboards here always need to be on integer values because they cause issues when exporting to output files when not set to integer values, like graphics that are 1 pixel too high or wide.

It would be really helpful if Serif could add this:
- Prevent artboard locations to be affected by other artboards (to me this is unnecesarely causing issues and confusion, but also makes the system of artboards feel unreliable, because values are changed that don't need to be changed)!!
- Add a setting to preferences to only use integer (pixel-)values for artboard sizes and locations
- Add a feature to convert all existing node-position-values (x/y) to integer
- Show a clear indication (like a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark) next to textvalue inputboxes to indicate a value is NOT integer!! (a lot of times Affinity doesn't show any decimal, while in fact there are. This can be very frustrating as it's often causing issues when using the outputted SVG's for interactive use, like I do, when needing to rely on thes values. For instance if paths need to 100% start at the position another path ended)

My 2 cts 😉

[Fagnu]

Ok, after 6 YEARS suffering this issue myself, I FINALLY found a solution 🙏

Go on Settings > User Interface > Decimal Places for Unit Types (see image attached)
Set the Pixels to 0 (zero)

After this you can move/ resize the Artboards as much as you desire in this life it will never ever again will bring the comma again.

Pay me a beer

[Pšenda]

4 hours ago, Fagnu said:

Ok, after 6 YEARS suffering this issue myself, I FINALLY found a solution 🙏

Go on Settings > User Interface > Decimal Places for Unit Types (see image attached)
Set the Pixels to 0 (zero)

After this you can move/ resize the Artboards as much as you desire in this life it will never ever again will bring the comma again.

Pay me a beer

Unfortunately, you did not understand the problem - it is not about the "display" of numbers with a decimal point, but about the inaccurate "position" of pixels, which causes unwanted artifacts during export:

On 5/18/2022 at 8:25 PM, thiagoff8 said:

exporting 1 extra white pixel

 

[Fagnu]

Based on my experience what causes the 1 px difference when exporting is the value after the comma.

After change the settings I mentioned, you need to delete the slice (export persona) and generate it again. 
 

Try this

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, Fagnu said:

After change the settings I mentioned, you need to delete the slice (export persona) and generate it again. 

But, you need to make sure the Artboard is actually on an integer pixel location, and has an integer size, before you recreate the Slice.

In fact, you should increase the number of decimal places in that setting, make sure you work with Snapping enabled, with Force Pixel Alignment enabled, and with Move by Whole Pixels disabled. 

Then you can see when your Artboards have an incorrect size or location, and minimize the chances of that happening.

Where setting the number of decimals to zero temporarily might help you, is it can make it easier to resize and relocate the Artboards properly when they are wrong. With zero decimals displayed, you can simply click in location and size fields and press Enter in each to get the values set properly. You'll also need to make sure the Aspect Ratio lock is disabled when changing the size. 

And when you're done, set the Display Decimals higher in the application Settings, again.