Designer; is there any way to share a template that is somehow "write protected"?

[Otto Manuel]

Hi,

 I am curious to learn the most effective way to share a template or basis project in a way that would prevent the contents from being overwritten. I other words, is there a way to force subsequent users to opt for the "Save As" command so that the template is preserved and not corrupted by unintended modifications?

 Is there a way to do this with Affinity templates or do I have to rely on additional back up or archive copies being kept available if a change to the template occurs which requires restoration to the original state?

 Thank you! 

[Old Bruce]

Just now, Otto Manuel said:

is there a way to force subsequent users to opt for the "Save As" command so that the template is preserved and not corrupted by unintended modifications?

That is exactly what happens with a .aftemplate file. Each time you open it you get a new document which has to be saved with a name of your own or the Untitled default name.

Make a document with everything you want, size colour space, margins, Master/Parent pages, Actual pages, Document palettes, text styles, even text and images. Then go to File > Export as Template... and save to wherever you would want to have your template files stored.

[Otto Manuel]

I was about to say "perhaps I am missing something..."  but I just went and looked at the save options and realized the source of my confusion.

What I found confusing is that when I open one of my templates and want to save some edits I am offered two options: File > Save and File > Save As. I anticipated only having an option to "Save As", but now, if I understand correctly, in this instance the option to Save or Save As are identical or redundant.

I have always been hesitant to select "Save" as I assumed it would overwrite the template, and have assumed that anyone could do so.

I also had to remind myself, and I hope I recall correctly, that you actually need to File > Export as Template rather than simply save a template.

The fact that the "Save", and "Save As" commands displays the suggestion that you can save either an *.afdesign, or *.aftemplate contributed some confusion. I guess I assumed that if you open an .aftemplate that designer will "Save" an .aftemplate by default.

There does not seem to be a dialog box method to select a choice to write the .aftemplate rather than the default .afdesign, but I found that if you manually type the .aftemplate suffix Designer will recognize it and not append anything after the identifier.

In any event, I am reassured that for the most part the templates function in the manner I had hoped for.

 

Thank you for the helpful information!!!

Thank you!

 

 

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, Otto Manuel said:

 Is there a way to do this with Affinity templates or do I have to rely on additional back up or archive copies being kept available if a change to the template occurs which requires restoration to the original state?

Another option to prevent a file from getting overwritten is to lock the file on system level, for instance in macOS with cmd-i –> lock / or to define it as template in the same window, for instance (if you are in Windows I guess it offers a similar option):

2 hours ago, Otto Manuel said:

I have always been hesitant to select "Save" as I assumed it would overwrite the template, and have assumed that anyone could do so.

The current Affinity document's file name indicates whether you work in a copy of the template or in the template itself.

[Otto Manuel]

Yes, I had not looked and realized that opening a file such as "SomeNamed.aftemplate" in Designer resulted in a project known as "Untitled", I just assumed it would have opened as "SomeNamed.aftemplate".

I am glad to have figured this out.

Thank you!