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What do you do when you have a symbol that is a solid red line everywhere and no matter what you do with the sync button none of you changes start syncing with the symbol again? This has been a weird pain point for me for some time now. It seems like a bug but if at, what seems like, any point in time I try to add something to a symbol, with or without the sync button checked, it has a broken red line on the new layer and does not sync with the rest of the artboards where I am using that symbol.

This causes me incredible frustration because as much as I read about how to use symbols in Affinity Designer it should just work. It's not that difficult. Yet I find myself accidentally removing things from a symbol when I thought it was unsynced, and I can't seem to add things to a symbol when they are synced.

OSX, latest version. No I cannot share the file. #venting

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Hi @frankstallone,

 

A broken orange line means that some features are not synced. If you need to see what features, hover your mouse over the element with the broken line and it will tell you what it is. It's hard to tell what's synced and what's not in your file without seeing it. 

 

I suggest you watch this video to understand how symbols work:

 

Thanks,

Gabe.  

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I've made a symbol that pretty much has everything you can add to a symbol in AD and the damn thing still continues to sync, I've got adjustment layers, images, shapes, gradients, pencil lines, groups, fx, text and transparency, what the hell am I doing right? ;)

 

Joking aside, Frank can you drop the offending symbol into another Document; firstly to see if you can duplicate and sync and secondly to help GabrielM to help you, I'm sure he would give you their dropbox link so they can take a quick look for you, they delete all files received after they have worked out what's wrong and it doesn't come onto the forum.

 

Sometimes you have to give a little to get a lot.

 

#Advice

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Thanks guys. I am seriously tired of watching that video at this point though lol. I think I have seen in 10 times since it was made.

On the contrary it's pretty easy to see what is synced and what isn't synced IMHO. Type happens to be what ends up with the dashed lines. Almost every time. I know it's not synced because it's always got a dashed line. I cannot get it to be a solid line. That's my gripe here.

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I tried braking it as well and still no luck. At this point @frankstallone it would be helpful if you could share the broken symbol with us so we can have a look. You can use the link below to upload the .afdesign file. It would be an internal access and only staff can see the content.However, if you decide not to share the file, there is little we can do to replicate the issue, and therefore little we can do to help you solve it. 

 

https://www.dropbox.com/request/rpDVfLVADO8XGEaWA3tb

 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

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4 hours ago, frankstallone said:

Type happens to be what ends up with the dashed lines.

Okay so maybe it's a font or text issue?

  • What "type' are you using Artistic Text, or Frame text Tool and what font?
  • Have you tried changing the font to a system font or just a different font?
  • What are the parameters of the text?

Symbol with all manner of settings: Uber Symbol.afdesign 

5ae1fc88e1aaa_ScreenShot2018-04-26at17_21_09.png.dab9408d7b55f1cdc19568d805ae6534.png

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I think I've replicated Franks problem.

  • Turned off Sync
  • Rotated the text from 0º to 15º on Symbol 1
  • Turned Sync back on
  • Rotated the text back to 0º on the Symbol 1 and none of the text on the other symbols moved.
  • Rotated the text on the other symbols and all of the symbols with the same angled text moved.

So, if you edit a Symbol when sync isn't on, it effectively detaches that Symbol from the rest, Realigning the text back to 0º does not effect the sync i.e. it does not attach it because its back to being the same. This is kind of a forced detach.

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17 minutes ago, frankstallone said:

It seems like any type form in a group that I create a symbol out of, the type automatically has the orange dashed line.

Yes I was just playing with the uber symbol and if I rotate say the png image in the centre they all rotate, so the symbol itself isn't detached just the text. If I turn sync off and move the png and then turn sync back on the png doesn't sync, so it's not just text.

 

BUT... Whatever you edit while the sync option is turned off will not sync when the sync option is turned back on but all of the other options will move in sync. So now it's like a partial detachment within the symbol but the symbol as a whole is still attached and in sync with all the other symbols. Putting the objects back in alignment with the rest of the symbols will not recover the sync option for the unsynced objects. The only way to regain that as far as I can work out at the moment is to drag another symbol onto the artboard.

 

You cannot resync a previously unsynced object.

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5ae2230beb1ed_Symboltrouble.thumb.gif.232b04bb9cc1dd4ac648337974fe7bb4.gif

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@firstdefence is absolutely right. Once you turn the sync off and make an adjustment, it will break the line and the sync for that adjustment. Once it's broken, it cannot be re-synced. Just as in the above video, even if you come to the original value, while the sync is off, you will still not be able to re-sync it. So, the software behaves normally. 

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13 hours ago, firstdefence said:

You cannot resync a previously unsynced object.

You cannot re-sync a previously un-synced attribute of an instance of a symbol. The built-in help & the video tutorial are not very clear about this. The Symbols help topic does say this:

Quote

A key feature of symbols is that you can edit object attributes independently of each other—this means that, when unsynchronized, a specific attribute (dimension, fill, effect, font, etc.) can be edited while the remaining attributes will still retain symbols functionality.

... but it also says this:

Quote

Synchronization allows editing across all symbols, while unsynchronization means all future editing is restricted to the current object and no longer affects the other symbol instances, until synchronization is enabled again.

The "until synchronization is enabled again" part implies turning sync back on for a symbol instance would re-sync all its attributes but obviously that is not how it works.

 

IOW, while synchronization is disabled on any specific symbol instance, a change to any of its attributes is permanent & cannot be undone by reenabling synchronization. As you mentioned, the only way to do that is to replace that instance with a new one from the Symbols panel.

 

It might be useful to have a forth "Resync" button in the panel to do that....

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49 minutes ago, frankstallone said:

So can I get NEW text to replace the old text in a symbol that stays synced? I swear I am running into instances where immediately after I hit the Create Symbol button on a group of layers that include text, everything is solid orange but the text.

It seems to depend on if it is Art or Frame text, but the dashed red line for Art text doesn't actually indicate that the text is not synced. For this text in a symbol.afdesign test document, the canvas & Layers panel looks like this:

5ae310e82bbdf_textinsymbols.png.6390a1ca79691b4ac8762ba40bc9913c.png

The Layers panel shows the Art text ("Art text also synced!") as not synced, & hovering over either instance in the Layers panel says "Unlinked attributes: Text Frame." But that doesn't make any sense to me, particularly since editing either instance of that Art text's bounding box changes it in both instances, just like happens for the Frame text.  O.o

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1 hour ago, owenr said:

 

The line is the same orange when dashed or solid.

 

orange.png.55ab44932f53b0c6594643826ccf0bde.png

 

R C-R's called it red, I am just trying to be consistent. I don't care what color it is I am concerned by when something is solid, dashed and what they mean.

 

1 hour ago, GabrielM said:

Dash - Some elements are not synced ( hover the mouse over the layer name, it will tell what's not synced)

Solid - Element fully synced

Yeah, I know what the docs say. There seems to be some inconsistencies here that R C-R is outlining well.

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Why would you turn off Sync, alter an instance of a symbol and expect that altered symbol to sync back to the parent symbol in its entirety when syncing is turned back on?

 

By turning sync off while you edit an instance of a given symbol you are effectively creating a new "Child" symbol, so, the child symbol still retains some of the Parent symbol's characteristics but it also has its own characteristics.

 

I think what should happen is if you alter an instance and effectively make a child symbol, that symbol should automatically be created in the Symbol Panel with an indication that it is a child symbol of another parent symbol, possibly in the same way layers and child layers work?

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23 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Why would you turn off Sync, alter an instance of a symbol and expect that altered symbol to sync back to the parent symbol in its entirety when syncing is turned back on?

 

By turning sync off while you edit an instance of a given symbol you are effectively creating a new "Child" symbol, so, the child symbol still retains some of the Parent symbol's characteristics but it also has its own characteristics.

 

I think what should happen is if you alter an instance and effectively make a child symbol, that symbol should automatically be created in the Symbol Panel with an indication that it is a child symbol of another parent symbol, possibly in the same way layers and child layers work?

Great question! In my situations I am not turning off syncing. I am creating symbols with text that is already unsynced. Let's say font size is 12px and I want to move it to 13px. I cannot do that, consistently.

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4 hours ago, owenr said:

The line is the same orange when dashed or solid.

Curiously, on my iMac it is orange but not quite the same orange as in your screenshot. Typically, I get this:

orange.png.5d3de55fdc0d13211b5b6c8c0a835b5e.png

My Layers panel is detached & floating, & it also varies a bit depending on where on the screen it is placed, with the H value going as low as 17. This may be because in System Preferences > Accessibility > Display I have "Increase Contrast" and "Differentiate without color" enabled. Those settings cause at least one other oddity (which I reported as a bug long ago), that being the disclosure triangle & circle next to parent layers in the Layers panel always being a very dark, almost pure black grey in the Dark UI.

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23 minutes ago, frankstallone said:

In my situations I am not turning off syncing. I am creating symbols with text that is already unsynced.

How are you doing that? If you create a symbol from a group or layer that includes text objects, or from a simple ungrouped Art or Frame text layer, it is created with sync enabled for all attributes (except for Art Text for the "unlinked attribute: text frame" thing, whatever that means.)

 

So unless you disable Sync for one of that symbol's instances, you should be able to change the font size of any one instance & all the other instances should change as well.

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How can you have an Unlinked attribute: Text Frame on an Artistic Text Layer that isn't in a Text Frame? Or is it?  

I assume the Artistic Text is actually in a text frame of sorts, either way it syncs fine if size is adjusted just the same as the Text Framed text does.

 

What would have to happen for the unlinked text frame to show it's "unlinkedness"

 

I have created symbols from Text, both artistic and framed and in each case the symbols have behaved as symbols regardless of the "orangey red" dashed lines being present

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On 27/04/2018 at 8:12 PM, firstdefence said:

How can you have an Unlinked attribute: Text Frame on an Artistic Text Layer that isn't in a Text Frame?

That is what I would like to know! It clearly is Art Text because the thumbnail icon is the unframed capital A, yet it has the "orangey red" dashed line & the popup says its Text Frame is an unlinked attribute. Changing the bounding box changes all instances of the symbol it is in, so text frame must mean something else, but I have no idea what.

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