Data merge allows fields to set URLs, File locations, Emails and Anchors

[Komatös]

44 minutes ago, Germain said:

It would be great to be able to toggle the visibility of a layer from a data merge field (TRUE/FALSE). Right now I have to use a "hack" with an image field containing a mask.

Hello and welcome to the forums.

I don't understand your admission. If a data field contains no data it remains empty (false) if it contains data it is visible (true). Affinity Publisher is not a relational database program where you can change fields or their values based on conditions.

[Germain]

53 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Hi @Germain and welcome to the forums,

At what point in the Data Merge process do you wish to toggle the layer visibility, when previewing or after the Data Merge and is it selected layers or all layers you'd like to be able to toggle at the same time?

A screenshot would be helpful so we can better understand what you're looking to achieve...

53 minutes ago, Komatös said:

Hello and welcome to the forums.

I don't understand your admission. If a data field contains no data it remains empty (false) if it contains data it is visible (true). Affinity Publisher is not a relational database program where you can change fields or their values based on conditions.

Thank you

Sometimes it can be useful to hide or show entire groups of layers, based on a true/false value in a data field.

I am not inventing the concept, it's a feature I was using in Adobe Illustrator :

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/data-driven-graphics-templates-variables.html#:~:text=Visibility variables

For example, for a card game, I needed a text bubble with a different aspect depending on the number of characters of the text. In my document I've made 3 groups (short_bubble, medium_bubble and long_bubble) all linked to a visibility variable. In my Google sheet I've made 3 columns (show_short_bubble, show_medium_bubble and show_long_bubble), they were automatically assigned through a formula with true or false depending on the number of characters of the text.

It's a complicated example, but sometimes you just want to hide something or not as an option in the document without managing a path to an external file in the Google sheet.