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Designer .aftemplate? Can I store state of Group expansion, Pixel Persona, and brush specifics?


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Hi,

 I am wondering if there is a way to store useful status information in a .aftemplate file.

 For example; It would seem ideal, for me, if I could store the state of a group's expansion, current layer selection, the persona view (such as pixel), and brush selection details including color, size, character, stabilizing and symmetry settings etc.

 It seems like I can bake the layer selection into an export, but the group collapses so the selection is not visually apparent upon opening the template. The rest of the stuff seems to default to basic states and I find myself having to select persona and brush details each time I open the template.

 It seems like it would be great to have all that ready to go, so I could open a specific template and immediately start drawing.

 Can it be done? What can I learn about this?

 Thank you!

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25 minutes ago, Otto Manuel said:

Can it be done?

As far as I know, no, it cannot be done.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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Thank you for answering the question.

It sure would be nice to be able to do this. I honestly can't think of a drawing program that does this, but can think of many multimedia applications in which you can open a template and find everything in the state you left it in all ready to go.

I starting to realize how many times I have had to repeat the steps to get a Designer project started after creating a new project or opening an old one.

 

Thank you!

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1 hour ago, Otto Manuel said:

It seems like it would be great to have all that ready to go, so I could open a specific template and immediately start drawing.

So for example you would find it useful to have new documents start off already populated with some specific number of groups, each of which had some specific number of children, all of the children either empty or with the some specific content, & the group(s) & children all expanded in some specific way in the Layers panel?

I do not understand how that could be very practical.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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1 hour ago, R C-R said:

So for example you would find it useful to have new documents start off already populated with some specific number of groups, each of which had some specific number of children, all of the children either empty or with the some specific content, & the group(s) & children all expanded in some specific way in the Layers panel?...

Yes, that is exactly what I described. For my interest I only need one of the group's expanded to enjoy the benefit, and that would be the group that I had left expanded just before exporting the template, and subsequently found collapsed when I opened the template again.

Also, as I mentioned, having a suitable default brush associated specifically with that template would also be a nice time saver.

I would find it very helpful, but now that I know that it is not currently possible, I'll just continue repeating myself over and over, when I start a new project.

Here is an example of how it works with an audio multimedia program: I open a "template" file that can have any number of blank lanes, which can be thought of as layers, any or all of which may have adjustments pre-set in the lanes, hit the keystroke "R" and begin the process of recording audio.

So that is Launch application, open template, hit R, go for it with a bunch of adjustments applied on the fly.

For a portion of the work I am doing in Designer a similar type of template functionality would be ideal.

Thank you!

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21 minutes ago, Otto Manuel said:

Yes, that is exactly what I described. For my interest I only need one of the group's expanded to enjoy the benefit, and that would be the group that I had left expanded just before exporting the template, and subsequently found collapsed when I opened the template again.

What are the contents of this group in the template? Is it just a number of empty layers; a mix of pre-populated pixel, image, vector, & text layers; or something else?

Also, why would you always want to work on something in that group, or something in one if its child layers every time you created a new document?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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@Otto Manuel, I am still struggling to understand how what you want would work. It might help if you could post an example *.aftemplate file pre-populated with the groups & their children you want to use as a template for new work. I realize the groups won't be expanded but at least I might be able to get a better idea of how this could be helpful.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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It is a mix of empty pixel, image, pre-populated vector, & text layers.

It is not every time I create a new document.  It is every time I would call on a template with the hope of saving time and redundancy at the onset of a type of project I frequently work with.

When I think "template" I think about all the stuff that I could avoid doing over and over and over again.

Back to the audio media analogy. I have templates for duets, rock bands, bluegrass ensembles etc. etc. I spend quite a bit of time making a template when I first work with the musicians and on subsequent sessions I just open a template file and hit record and all the fist pass volume adjustments, equalization curves, sound effects, and mix routing have already been established by the template definitions. All I do is open the template, hit R and they are free to start creating content.

Now, picture a 4 frame comic strip template, maybe for reasons I can't explain I like each frame to be a group. When I open a template for that I'd love to have the frame one group open, with the "line art" layer selected and active, and my favorite first pass brush (for this particular type of work) ready to go, so all I have to do is start drawing.

That does not seem too crazy... does it?

You are fixating on the group, but that it is only one tiny aspect of my interest. I would enjoy having every aspect of my template set up and ready to go in the same exact state everything was in when I exported the template.

And... I could have other templates for other sorts of jobs when I was not always working on the type of job I described above.

I have given up on the idea.

Thank you!

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16 hours ago, Otto Manuel said:

When I open a template for that I'd love to have the frame one group open, with the "line art" layer selected and active, and my favorite first pass brush (for this particular type of work) ready to go, so all I have to do is start drawing.

That does not seem too crazy... does it?

Doesn't sound crazy to me. I also think the idea of having a favourite or most useful tool and brush selected would be cool. Just to note that I myself would most likely never ever use this functionality but it would be good to have for some people doing some types of work.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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