Assets question

[Phil_rose]

Hi all, I am starting a project with 60 pages and several hundred images. I would love to be able to get them all into the Assets panel and then drag them onto pages from there but, when I go to Place and grab a load of images, it demands I add them all right away. If I could get them into Assets first and then drag them on from there, that would be a great way to ensure they don't get added twice, if you see what I mean. Is this in any way possible?

[v_kyr]

53 minutes ago, Phil_rose said:

when I go to Place and grab a load of images, it demands I add them all right away

For images (aka PNG/JPG ...) try to drag them from Explorer directly onto the assets panel inside some before created (sub)category.

[Bit Disappointed]

39 minutes ago, Phil_rose said:

Hi all, I am starting a project with 60 pages and several hundred images. I would love to be able to get them all into the Assets panel and then drag them onto pages from there but, when I go to Place and grab a load of images, it demands I add them all right away. If I could get them into Assets first and then drag them on from there, that would be a great way to ensure they don't get added twice, if you see what I mean. Is this in any way possible?

Dragging these files from your file manager into the assets panel should do the trick. But be aware that assets are intended for smaller and fewer items that are used across projects. With so many images, you start to move into an impractical scenario, but mostly if you think so yourself. 🙂

In Affinity, when you add assets, they are actually embedded into the application’s data (not linked and cannot be linked), which results in a permanent storage of a massive amount of data for a singular purpose. Affinity may store these images in a format that takes up a lot of space. Makes sense in some scenarios (logo, symbols, icons), not so much in this case. Embedding a large number of assets, like 60 large JPEG images, leads to a significant increase in the file size. This could also impact performance and memory usage, potentially slowing down the application and affecting overall system efficiency.

Personally, I would be perfectly fine with dragging them in from the thumbnail view in my file manager directly onto the page (ad hoc), and also having set "prefer linked" in the document setup.

You risk using hundreds of megabytes or even a gigabyte of data on this, depending on the project and image sizes, not to much use after all.

[v_kyr]

Jip, huge bitmap images as assets do need a bunch of disk space. Your assets file will be pretty huge afterwards, which in turn can lead to overall much slower loading and a slowdown for using the assets panel operations itself afterwards.

[Phil_rose]

14 hours ago, Bit Arts said:

Dragging these files from your file manager into the assets panel should do the trick. But be aware that assets are intended for smaller and fewer items that are used across projects. With so many images, you start to move into an impractical scenario, but mostly if you think so yourself. 🙂

In Affinity, when you add assets, they are actually embedded into the application’s data (not linked and cannot be linked), which results in a permanent storage of a massive amount of data for a singular purpose. Affinity may store these images in a format that takes up a lot of space. Makes sense in some scenarios (logo, symbols, icons), not so much in this case. Embedding a large number of assets, like 60 large JPEG images, leads to a significant increase in the file size. This could also impact performance and memory usage, potentially slowing down the application and affecting overall system efficiency.

Personally, I would be perfectly fine with dragging them in from the thumbnail view in my file manager directly onto the page (ad hoc), and also having set "prefer linked" in the document setup.

You risk using hundreds of megabytes or even a gigabyte of data on this, depending on the project and image sizes, not to much use after all.

This is exactly the answer I was looking for. I hadn't noticed that bringing things in via the assets panel would embed and obviously, I can't be doing that! It's a shame that's not an option. I seem to remember that CorelDraw allowed it as an option to have them be linked.

So, my solution seems to be to grab three or four in Zoner (my asset manager of choice) label them all with a black flag to show they have been added and drag them onto a page. Not as elegant as I would like but yes, embedding all those images isn't an option.

Thanks so much!

Phil

[Phil_rose]

14 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Jip, huge bitmap images as assets do need a bunch of disk space. Your assets file will be pretty huge afterwards, which in turn can lead to overall much slower loading and a slowdown for using the assets panel operations itself afterwards.

Jip? I don't know that word. What is that? Thanks!

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Phil_rose said:

Jip? I don't know that word.

I think it is a sort of Germanized version of "yes" or the like, but it's only "real" English meaning is a cheat or to cheat, in the sense of swindle, so probably not what was intended.

[v_kyr]

2 hours ago, Phil_rose said:

Jip? I don't know that word. What is that?

[Phil_rose]

1 minute ago, v_kyr said:

Ah! Thanks.

[PaulEC]

Just as a point of interest, why would you be less likely to duplicate images if you drag them from the Assets Panel rather than from a file folder?

[Phil_rose]

6 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

Just as a point of interest, why would you be less likely to duplicate images if you drag them from the Assets Panel rather than from a file folder?

Well, as you drag images from the assets folder (after you have brought them in via Place) they are removed from the assets panel but I now realise that that would not be the case if I drag them from Zoner into the assets panel. You have to be placing them all at once via place (well, one at a time but in one go, if you see what I mean!

[PaulEC]

1 hour ago, Phil_rose said:

Well, as you drag images from the assets folder (after you have brought them in via Place) they are removed from the assets panel but I now realise that that would not be the case if I drag them from Zoner into the assets panel. You have to be placing them all at once via place (well, one at a time but in one go, if you see what I mean!

Thanks, but I think one of us is getting confused between the Asset's Panel and using Place with multiple files!

[walt.farrell]

14 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

Thanks, but I think one of us is getting confused between the Asset's Panel and using Place with multiple files!

Or possibly between the Asset panel and the Place panel.

[Bit Disappointed]

4 hours ago, Phil_rose said:

Well, as you drag images from the assets folder (after you have brought them in via Place) they are removed from the assets panel but I now realise that that would not be the case if I drag them from Zoner into the assets panel. You have to be placing them all at once via place (well, one at a time but in one go, if you see what I mean!

As usual, I lose track of what on earth people are discussing in here, but here is my understanding of your needs, @Phil_rose, and it is at least my recommendation, if:

Starting point:

• You HAVE images stored locally
• You WANT to insert them into a Publisher document
• You DO NOT wish to have the images embedded/stored in assets or embedded the document
  (This is a massive amount of data and even duplicate data I never desire. I always select linked unless I have have a specific reason not to.)

Method:

• Create a document to the desired specifications
• Choose prefer linked
• Place the images
• Monitor that they are linked in Window -> Resource Manager

Result:

• A document of a reasonable size where the images as data are not unnecessarily duplicated in assets, which only makes sense if you intend to use the images in multiple documents - and often - and otherwise is not a good idea, because assets are not an image library as such. Hence the name assets, which leans more towards logos and frequently used symbols and the like. Embedding the images in the document itself is also not meaningful, unless you need to transport the document to another computer that does not have access to the images locally.

Document properties 

Resource Manager

[Phil_rose]

On 2/7/2024 at 3:31 PM, Bit Dissapointed said:

As usual, I lose track of what on earth people are discussing in here, but here is my understanding of your needs, @Phil_rose, and it is at least my recommendation, if:

Starting point:

• You HAVE images stored locally
• You WANT to insert them into a Publisher document
• You DO NOT wish to have the images embedded/stored in assets or embedded the document
  (This is a massive amount of data and even duplicate data I never desire. I always select linked unless I have have a specific reason not to.)

Method:

• Create a document to the desired specifications
• Choose prefer linked
• Place the images
• Monitor that they are linked in Window -> Resource Manager

Result:

• A document of a reasonable size where the images as data are not unnecessarily duplicated in assets, which only makes sense if you intend to use the images in multiple documents - and often - and otherwise is not a good idea, because assets are not an image library as such. Hence the name assets, which leans more towards logos and frequently used symbols and the like. Embedding the images in the document itself is also not meaningful, unless you need to transport the document to another computer that does not have access to the images locally.

Document properties 

Resource Manager

 

[Phil_rose]

Sorry for the slow reply. This is almost what I wanted and led me to what I did want. I create a new doc as per your instructions, dump all the images into it, open the file I want to add images to, Cut the images in batches per page and paste them onto my document.

Thanks!

[Alfred]

On 2/7/2024 at 6:03 PM, R C-R said:

I think it is a sort of Germanized version of "yes" or the like, …

“Yep” is probably the closest common English form.

On 2/7/2024 at 6:03 PM, R C-R said:

… but it's only "real" English meaning is a cheat or to cheat, in the sense of swindle, so probably not what was intended.

That’s usually spelled “gyp”, isn’t it? And it’s only American English, as far as I’m aware. The British English word “gyp” means “pain” or “trouble”, as in: “Perhaps I should give up running. My knees have been giving me gyp lately.”

[v_kyr]

2 minutes ago, Alfred said:

The British English word “gyp” means “pain” or “trouble”, as in:

"Some forum postings." 😉

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, Alfred said:

That’s usually spelled “gyp”, isn’t it?

FWIW, from the built-in macOS American English dictionary:

gyp1 | jip | (also jip) informal

Also see https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jip (3 different possible spellings there).

Or here, about ½way down. 

Just guessing from that last reference, the "jip" spelling is an effort to avoid the negative "gypsy" connotations.

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, Phil_rose said:

This is almost what I wanted and led me to what I did want. I create a new doc as per your instructions, dump all the images into it, open the file I want to add images to, Cut the images in batches per page and paste them onto my document.

Alternatively, and a possible shortcut, you can keep the layout and the 'image library' in 1 document: If you use a master page (of any wanted dimension) to store the images you can use the "toggle" button in the bottom left corner to temporarily click-switch to this master page, pick images (copy or cut) and go back with 1-click to the current documents page to paste the resources.

[Bit Disappointed]

12 hours ago, Phil_rose said:

Sorry for the slow reply. This is almost what I wanted and led me to what I did want. I create a new doc as per your instructions, dump all the images into it, open the file I want to add images to, Cut the images in batches per page and paste them onto my document.

Thanks!

🙂