Page(s) vs artboards in Designer

[Petar Petrenko]

As we know Publisher uses pages, Designer -- artboards and Photo -- page/artboard = ?

But, if Designer uses artboards, why when creating a new document it is set to create a new page instead of artboard. Yes, I know there is a checkbox for artboard creation, but it is not the point. Lets say you created a new page. After that there is no option AFAIK to add a new single or facing page(s) and when you select "Create Artboard" tool -- the page vanishes.

So, what is the purpose of the (only one) page you can create? Why this option is not removed and let Designer works only with artboards as it should be?

NOTE: Not intereseted in setting "Create Artboard" as default.

[prophet]

I always think of an Artboard as the highest level of container and only use them if I need that sort of organizational element. For most of my work, just working on a single page is sufficient.

I think an "on creation" preference setting of Page or Artboard could work, but since we can already set our own preset to include the "create artboard" checkbox, it's already there really.

[Old Bruce]

9 minutes ago, NNN said:

But, if Designer uses artboards, why when creating a new document it is set to create a new page instead of artboard. 

Actually Designer and Photo make a "canvas" not a page like in Publisher. Designer can subsequently make one or more Artboards. All three use the word Page for the Width and Height of a new document, it is perhaps inaccurate to use that word.

Here is one dictionary's definition of Page: Computing a section of stored data, especially that which can be displayed on a screen at one time. 

I am posting this in a Web page on a web site. The page starts out small in area but it will grow as more content is added.  I find that the English language is sometimes confusing.

[prophet]

1 minute ago, Old Bruce said:

Actually Designer and Photo make a "canvas" not a page like in Publisher.

Semantics. Whatever it is in Designer/Photo, it appears as a Page in Publisher, so they are really the same thing. Artboards are a completely different animal.

[Petar Petrenko]

3 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Actually Designer and Photo make a "canvas"

Actually, there is no "canvas" in Designer. When you create a new document you can set page width and height.

[Petar Petrenko]

2 minutes ago, prophet said:

Semantics.

I don't think so. Page is usually a piece of paper for writing/printing or a web page. Canvas is used by the artists to paint on them with brushes and other materials.

[prophet]

5 minutes ago, NNN said:

I don't think so. Page is usually a piece of paper for writing/printing or a web page. Canvas is used by the artists to paint on them with brushes and other materials.

But can't I write on a canvas and paint on a piece of paper?

The point being, whatever the software calls it, the thing is the same in all 3 apps. Publisher shows it to us in a special panel and allows for their creation/deletion. The other 2 allow for navigation between them, but not for additional creation or deletion.

[Dan C]

42 minutes ago, NNN said:

As we know Publisher uses pages, Designer -- artboards and Photo -- page/artboard = ?

As confirmed above, Affinity apps will create a 'Canvas' for single spread documents in Designer/Photo.
You then have the option to convert this canvas to an Artboard (if not selected when creating the document) in Designer, where you can then add multiple more Artboards, as required.

Publisher is the only app that supports 'Pages' & in Publisher this is always a 'Page', whether there is one or multiple, due to the other features of Publisher that require this naming scheme, such as master pages.

42 minutes ago, NNN said:

So, what is the purpose of the (only one) page you can create? Why this option is not removed and let Designer works only with artboards as it should be?

Put simply - choice.

Some users of Designer may never use Artboards as they only require one 'space' in the document for their work, and therefore use a singular canvas. Being in tech support I would say that the number of Designer documents I receive that are only a single Canvas and not multiple Artboards is roughly in the 60-70% range.

Removing the option for a single canvas in Designer provides no benefit to either Canvas or Artboard users, it would simply reduce the available choices in the app