cropping canvas to selected object's size

[toltec]

10 minutes ago, R C-R said:

A phone is a device, not a program.

Ah, that might be why my designs are such rubbish 

[Alfred]

21 minutes ago, R C-R said:

A phone is a device, not a program.

If you’re left to your own devices, aren’t you left to follow your own program(me)? 

[toltec]

20 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Nope. The main "currency" of an Affinity document is either a canvas or one or more artboards. This is equally true for both Affinity apps because while Photo cannot create artboards it supports ones made in Designer. "Page" really is mainly relevant only for end uses like printouts or maybe web page mockups.

If that is so, it does sort of make me wonder why Designer refers to "Page" so much.

 

Maybe it should be renamed Anchor to Canvas ?

[hujikoda]

2 hours ago, MEB said:

Note there's a known bug when creating artboards from selections that prevents the artboard from being tightly created as it should. This is being looked into.

Well I guess that's it as I really tried everything. I'll upload my file anyway if that can be of any use. About the layers, I don't find them practical as I always tend to move everything around, with artboard I'm sure that I export what I want. Especially when the main file I work on as so many little to move and export due the the numerous option for the clients

 

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

But there are what appears to be a few oddities, like one S shape showing as an unfilled shape & an extra "m" & "e" curve in the "memories" text block. I am not sure if that has anything to do with the extra margin, but like @toltec I cannot duplicate your results with any of my files, so maybe it is something unique to yours that is causing this.

Sorry I don't get what you mean, it just says curve to me..

[R C-R]

9 minutes ago, toltec said:

If that is so, it does sort of make me wonder why Designer refers to "Page" so much.

It's just a metaphor. I think "Document" probably would be a better one but I guess they thought "Page" would be more familiar to many users.

@MEB, is the known bug something that is only present in the Windows app? I ask because for me on my Mac it always seems to trim tightly.

[R C-R]

27 minutes ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

If you’re left to your own devices, aren’t you left to follow your own program(me)? 

Yes, but my version of meOS is an old one, never fully debugged & not all that stable. Sadly, my hardware is too old & underpowered to support an upgrade. 

[toltec]

32 minutes ago, R C-R said:

It's just a metaphor. I think "Document" probably would be a better

No. Sorry.

When I think of "Document"  I think of multiple pages. In professional litho printing terms, we always referred to a "Page" as one side of a "Leaf". The document was the whole thing.

In fact, there are even terms for which page you read first,  the side of a leaf one reads first is called the recto page, and the back side is called the verso page. And of course, Pagination concerns laying out the sides of the leaf (aka pages) into order.

I think if anybody ever wants to get anything professionally printed, getting the terms right is a good start to avoid potential disasters. And surely, one of the main professional uses of Designer will be designing for print ?

It's no good talking to a print shop and using terms like "Canvas" "Document" or "Artboard" when you actually mean "Page", which any professianal printer will instantly understand !

Just my thoughts !

 

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, toltec said:

When I think of "Document"  I think of multiple pages.

That is not going to work very well for many Affinity Photo documents, or for any app that creates media for which the page metaphor is not applicable, like videos or 3D visualizations. It isn't all about printing -- in fact, these days it is increasingly less about printed or any other physical media than about virtual ones.

For that matter, even in the virtual realm familiar terms like "files" are becoming less applicable since web pages may be generated interactively on-the-fly & augmented reality ("AR") is likely to become the next Big Thing.

Admittedly, it isn't perfect, but I am not sure there is a better choice than "document." The dictionary built into the Mac OS defines the word as "a piece of written, printed, or electronic matter that provides information or evidence or that serves as an official record," which is the same definition I get from a Google search on "definition of document" & from the online Oxford 'living' Dictionary. So at least in the sense of "electronic matter" it works reasonably well.

[Pšenda]

35 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Admittedly, it isn't perfect, but I am not sure there is a better choice than "document."

For new file formats (audio, video, image), is often used term "container".

[R C-R]

40 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

For new file formats (audio, video, image), is often used term "container".

I thought about suggesting that but decided it would be too easily confused with layer container types like groups or the capital L "(Layer)." 

[F_Z]

I found a way to crop the canvas (or whatever we want to call it) to the size of the contained objects:

1) Select all (Ctrl + A)

2) Create artboard with size = 'Selection' as shown here:

On 5/25/2018 at 8:25 PM, imfastrnu2 said:

3) In the 'Layers' tab, delete the created artboard. The following dialog will come up. Choose 'Keep objects'.

 

Note that the crop is not flawless; I assume this is related to the mentioned bug:

On 6/20/2018 at 10:52 AM, MEB said:

Note there's a known bug when creating artboards from selections that prevents the artboard from being tightly created as it should. This is being looked into.