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Global Symbols? A.K.A. Symbols shared between documents?


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The word 'Embedded', was in relation to to the original conversation about 'Symbols' - I'd rather not get in a discussion about the validity of word-play in what is meant to be an open and helpful community - you can come down from your high horse now. Thank you Sir.

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You might misunderstand my goal. The terms "embedded" and "linked" have specific meanings in Affinity. To understand what is meant + caused we need to handle the words in this Affinity way. It becomes even more complex if you choose for an embedded resource to make it linked. Then Affinity doesn't auto-link it to a possibly existing file on your computer (which you initially may have used to embed it) but may create a new file on your disk instead. That may cause confusion if you alter the "wrong" instance of this file.

A similar misunderstanding occurs occasionally in forums post when the terms "open" | "import" | "place" are written without differentiation.

It took me a while first to understand and then to accept the use of "current" in Affinity when I was trying to output a "current page", which in Affinity is, different than expected, not the page in focus of the main / layout window and even may be invisible there and also is not the page which is selected in the pages panel, indicated by a blue border.

Edited by thomaso

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Well, at least you can save your Symbols in the Assets Panel and use them any time you use the application...

And if you want to change the Symbol only for that Document, it'll work well and you'll always have your stored original Symbol available.

Best regards!

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5 hours ago, thomaso said:

It took me a while first to understand and then to accept the use of "current" in Affinity when I was trying to output a "current page"...

I am still not sure I understand the logic of this when a two page spread is selected (indicated by the grey border in the Pages panel) -- it seems that it is always the left (verso) or top (if arranged vertically) page that is exported, never the right (recto) or bottom one.

Am I missing something or is the current page always the lower numbered one of a two page spread, making it impossible to export just the higher numbered one?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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6 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Am I missing something or is the current page always the lower numbered one of a two page spread, making it impossible to export just the higher numbered one?

Yes, it seems that "current page" is always the lower-numbered page of the spread during Export. So if you want to export the higher-numbered one, you need to do it by specifying All Pages and the page number.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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6 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Yes, it seems that "current page" is always the lower-numbered page of the spread during Export. So if you want to export the higher-numbered one, you need to do it by specifying All Pages and the page number.

Thanks! I had forgotten about the All Pages + page number(s) option. I think it would be easier to understand/less confusing if there was a "Selected Pages" item in the Area menu & only if it was selected would there be an option to enter page number(s). As it is, it is possible to override "All Spreads" & "All Pages" by entering one or more page numbers with either one, contradicting the "all" in both of them.

I also think the either "Current Page" or "Current Spread" should be selectable, depending on if the document uses two page spreads or not, but never both choices selectable.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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25 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I am still not sure I understand the logic of this when a two page spread is selected

Yes, this issue still exists. It is a kind of linguistic magic that the term "current page" can never denote a right page solely if it has a left neighbor.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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5 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I also think the either "Current Page" or "Current Spread" should be selectable, depending on if the document uses two page spreads or not, but never both choices selectable.

Not true. You can enable yourself to output a current right page only: The condition is you must have something selected on this page.

The "all" problem could be solved by radio buttons which react with the pages field. Would also be simpler without the need to open a menu. The most weird wording occurs to me in the German version: While English distinguishes between pages and spreads, the Affinity UI says in German Seiten (pages) and Layoutseiten (layout pages), instead of Druckbögen (spreads). So it's not only meant to output a current single right page, its also not expected to layout a single page at all ;)

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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1 minute ago, thomaso said:

Not true. You can enable yourself to output a current right page only: The condition is you must have something selected on this page.

Thanks.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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8 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Not true. You can enable yourself to output a current right page only: The condition is you must have something selected on this page.

i was going to say that doesn't work for me but I realized I was testing on a document that only had Master page content on the pair of facing pages I was exporting. In that special case it doesn't matter what I select -- it always exports the lower numbered document page.

Yet another potential source of confusion.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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