Artboard behavior changed in 2.6.2 – objects now disappear when moved outside and require manual selection in Layers panel

[Braunihawk]

Hi there,

since updating to Affinity Designer 2.6.2, I’ve noticed some significant changes in how Artboards behave, and I’m wondering if this is intended or a bug:

1. Objects disappear when moved outside the Artboard, even though they’re still present in the Layers panel. In earlier versions, these objects remained visible outside the Artboard’s bounds until manually clipped or grouped otherwise. They also stay in the same Layer, before they just modes outside of the layer by itself, I guess. 

2. I can no longer click directly on an Artboard on the canvas to work inside it. I now have to manually select the Artboard in the Layers panel to activate it before I can draw or move things inside. This really slows down the workflow.

These two issues are making my day-to-day design work much more tedious than before. Up until version 2.5, this behavior felt much more intuitive and flexible.

Could you please clarify if this is an intentional change? And if so, is there a way to restore the previous behavior via preferences or a setting?

Thanks in advance!

[RE4LLY]

Make sure you have enabled the option "Edit All Layers" in the Layer panel.
It is the little stacked box symbol in the lower left corner of the panel.

Then both of your issues should be resolved.

[R C-R]

I cannot duplicate your first issue unless I keep the object as a child layer of the artboard (so that it is totally outside the bounds of the artboard). That I think is the expected behavior & for me works the same as in all previous versions.

For the second issue, check that Auto-select is enabled on the Move Tool context toolbar & set to Defaults or Objects.

[R C-R]

@Braunihawk, for issue 1 could you post a simple one artboard AD document with just 2 objects in it, one inside the boundaries of the artboard & the other completely outside its boundaries?

This might help (at least me!) understand what is causing this behavior for you but not for me.

[Bound by Beans]

3 hours ago, Braunihawk said:

since updating to Affinity Designer 2.6.2, I’ve noticed some significant changes in how Artboards behave, and I’m wondering if this is intended or a bug:

1. Objects disappear when moved outside the Artboard, even though they’re still present in the Layers panel. In earlier versions, these objects remained visible outside the Artboard’s bounds until manually clipped or grouped otherwise. They also stay in the same Layer, before they just modes outside of the layer by itself, I guess. 

In version 2.5.7, objects outside artboards also disappear. I seem to remember that I could change this with View → View Mode → Clip to Canvas? - but I can't do that in 2.5.7.

I also can’t click on an artboard’s canvas to select that artboard in 2.5.7; I have to click on a visible element inside the artboard. As R C-R says, this requires Auto-Select to be enabled. If you choose the Artboard Tool, you can select the artboard in 2.5.7.

To me, it looks like the behavior is the same in the 2.6.2 beta.

[R C-R]

18 minutes ago, Bound by Beans said:

I seem to remember that I could change this with View → View Mode → Clip to Canvas? - but I can't do that in 2.5.7.

AFAIK, Clip to Canvas is always enabled for artboards (& greyed out so it can't be changed). This behaviour is the same as in AD V1.

View > View mode > Clip to Canvas can be switched on or off for documents with a canvas (thus the name, I guess). Also the same as in V1.

[walt.farrell]

13 hours ago, R C-R said:

AFAIK, Clip to Canvas is always enabled for artboards (& greyed out so it can't be changed).

I would say it is disabled, because objects entirely in the pasteboard are always visible when the document contains Artboards. It's only objects that are partly on an Artboard and partly off the Artboard that are clipped.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I would say it is disabled, because objects entirely in the pasteboard are always visible when the document contains Artboards.

I said enabled because there is a checkmark next to that greyed out menu option, at least in the Mac versions, & because when an object is partially off the artboard it is clipped.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

I said enabled because there is a checkmark next to that greyed out menu option, at least in the Mac versions, & because when an object is partially off the artboard it is clipped.

But, when you have a canvas in Designer, and the option is enabled, an object totally in the Pasteboard is also clipped. So in that sense, since an object totally off an Artboard is not clipped, the option is disabled.

 

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

But, when you have a canvas in Designer, and the option is enabled, an object totally in the Pasteboard is also clipped. So in that sense, since an object totally off an Artboard is not clipped, the option is disabled.

Consider this artboard clipping.afdesign example:

EDIT:  Also try this with this file:

On the Layers panel drag the off-artboard rectangle back into the Artboard layer so it becomes a child of the artboard. Since it is in the artboard but off to the side, it becomes hidden (clipped).