Picture Frame does not work As Mask on Datamerge

[Fabricio]

Because Datamerge does not support Boolean fields to enable or disable objects I had the idea to use a mask to how or hide objects. But use a Picture Frame as a Mask with Datamerge create some unexpected behaviors as: the mask becomes empty and create other image objects on the hierarchy (before and after generate)

??? is the object created. And the mask that is a white image is empty

[Dan C]

Hi @Fabricio,

Thanks for your report and I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble!

I haven't tried such a workflow previously, so I'd like to request a copy of your files in order to investigate this further.

Can you please upload a copy of your .afpub file, both before and after performing the Data Merge, as well as a copy of your database file to the below link for me?

https://www.dropbox.com/request/008nWHfnWV6q3o8IaRFZ

Once uploaded, please reply here to let me know. Many thanks in advance!

[Fabricio]

Hi @Dan C, Thank you!

I upload the files. You can see that after the datamerge Affinity creates a new image instead of apply it to the mask. If I edit the original file with the preview activated It creates a image object when I double click to set the field to the mask picture frame 

on this Forum post I give some suggestions for the datamerge feature 

 

[Dan C]

Thanks for providing these for me - unfortunately I'm not really sure what you're hoping to achieve here.

I can see you have used the Picture Frame layers as Vector Masks to other layers, but I don't understand why you expect these picture frames to populate with images.
If you are using a Picture Frame as a vector mask, the contents would not be displayed, so the data merge would not merge an image into a 'Frame' that is not being used as a frame, but as a vector mask.

Can you please expand on what you're trying to achieve here?

[Fabricio]

I want a boolean filter with the Datamerge to hide elements of my design. On this case I was planing to use a mask to hide or show a special border on my design, that border has a meaning on my card game. The workaround now for me is to export the border and add a field on my spreadsheet to it

Here is a before and after activate the object on the layers panel. It was what I want to achieve with the mask

[Dan C]

Many thanks for confirming that for me, as far as I'm aware this isn't possible when using the DataMerge function in Affinity currently, my apologies.

I will be sure to log this with our developers to request this is improved in a future update to allow for this workflow.

I hope this clears things up