Symbols visibility

[hunter_sk]

Symbols are great feature in Designer. I'm using them a lot. When considering multiple choices of using some symbol (e.g. different transform), I want to hide only some versions. I'm doing that by creating a group with that symbol and set group visibility to off.

It would be much convinient to just turn visibility off on any version of a symbol. But it also set visibility on other versions of a same symbol.

Can not find a usage of this feature. If I want to hide all versions of a symbol, I can group all objects in symbol and turn off visibility of that group.

I think that layer/object visibility property should not be a part of a symbol properties. Am I alone with this?

[NotMyFault]

+1

[Old Bruce]

36 minutes ago, hunter_sk said:

I think that layer/object visibility property should not be a part of a symbol properties. Am I alone with this?

No you are not, when I need to hide a single instance I will group that single one on its lonesome and hide that one group.

For the life of me I am unable to figure out the reason for not being able to hide a single instance of a Symbol. When you consider that we are able to alter the size and aspect ratio of an individual Symbol it just strikes me as odd that we can't hide one.

  All of these are the same symbol.

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, hunter_sk said:

Am I alone with this?

This implementation nonsense has been discussed here for many years - unfortunately without success.

[NotMyFault]

The twin concept of linked layers in Photo allows to choose which aspects get synched. 
Linked layers and symbols are another example of good ideas implemented below standard in two illogic versions.

[Bound by Beans]

Agreed. This is clearly an example of both a UX design problem and a UX copywriting problem.

Unfortunately, this reflects a broader pattern seen throughout Affinity. 

[hunter_sk]

Yes I have searched the topic before posting and found that was mentioned in 2021 also:

But digging this again just in case maybe the devs spotted and re-think this feature.

[Alfred]

9 minutes ago, hunter_sk said:

I have searched the topic before posting

I’m curious as to why you created a new thread instead of waking up the other thread by posting to it. As things stand, we have a discussion about a single topic split between two threads, making it harder for everyone to follow.

[Pšenda]

19 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

For the life of me I am unable to figure out the reason for not being able to hide a single instance of a Symbol. When you consider that we are able to alter the size and aspect ratio of an individual Symbol it just strikes me as odd that we can't hide one.

It is even possible to change the rotation of a symbol instance without synchronizing it to other symbols.
I think that what is applied locally "outside" the symbol to its individual instances, and what is applied globally "inside" the symbol (which is of course synchronized to all other symbol instances) is incorrectly implemented. Changing the position, size and rotation is local, but visibility and fx should also be local - they are applied to one specific/local instance of the symbol. Today, visibility and fx are incorrectly synchronized "inside" the symbol. This is simply a mistake, if I wanted the fx to be part of the symbol and synchronize across all its instances, I would add it "inside" the symbol, not "outside" the symbol instance. In my opinion, it is exactly the same as if I use a quick shape (for example, a rectangle or a circle), and when I deactivate one, all the others are deactivated - 🤪