How Can I make a Picture Frame appear on the master page?

[World View]

I am using picture frames to place images as somehow the place image tool doesn't work for me without picture frames.

On a master page, I can see the text frames and all form elements so I can see the shapes of the elements.

Except the picture frame. I have to click into it to show its outline.

Is there a way to make the picture frame appear like the text box outlines and the other shape elements so I can better judge the appearance of the form elements?

 

thanks!

[fde101]

They do show up for me, as long as they are empty.

[walt.farrell]

They show up for me, too.

Here's a Master Page with two empty picture frames, one selected and one not:
 

[World View]

I found the problem.

 

I have selected the master page with a rectangle tool as the presenter demonstrated here: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/tutorials/publisher/desktop/video/286534891 

 

So, basically, I'm drawing a picture frame within a rectangle made by the rectangle tool. 

This hides all the picture frames.

As soon as I deleted the rectangle, all the picture frame rectangle reappeared. They had been hidden behind the selection of the page.

 

Is there a better way to change the color of a page than using the rectangle tool? Doing this like the presenter did, hides all the picture frames when not clicking on them.

 

 

 

 

[walt.farrell]

5 hours ago, World View said:

Is there a better way to change the color of a page than using the rectangle tool? Doing this like the presenter did, hides all the picture frames when not clicking on them.

Move the rectangle below the other Master Page content, by dragging it in the Layers panel.

[fde101]

6 hours ago, World View said:

They had been hidden behind the selection of the page.

 

40 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Move the rectangle below the other Master Page content, by dragging it in the Layers panel.

Or select it and use Send to Back... both methods do the same.

[World View]

11 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Move the rectangle below the other Master Page content, by dragging it in the Layers panel.

Thanks, but when I do that, the picture frames are again hidden.

I drew in on. It only shows when I click directly on top of it.

screen shot frame.tif

[World View]

10 hours ago, fde101 said:

 

Or select it and use Send to Back... both methods do the same.

I did that. It doesn't help. The gray background is hiding the picture frames. (please see document in previous post)

[fde101]

I just tried this - the picture frame outline changes its color based on what is behind it, making itself dark on a light background or light on a dark background, but there seems to be a "sweet spot" at 25% gray where the color of the frame outline matches the color of the background, making it seem invisible.

Try making your rectangle anything other than 25% gray and the picture frame should show up.

Only Serif can speak to whether or not this is something they will try to account for in a future update.

[World View]

1 hour ago, fde101 said:

I just tried this - the picture frame outline changes its color based on what is behind it, making itself dark on a light background or light on a dark background, but there seems to be a "sweet spot" at 25% gray where the color of the frame outline matches the color of the background, making it seem invisible.

Try making your rectangle anything other than 25% gray and the picture frame should show up.

Only Serif can speak to whether or not this is something they will try to account for in a future update.

Thank you, that was it. 

It was hiding in plane sight by perfectly blending in. 

SOLUTION FOUND:

I was able to make the picture fame visible by changing the stroke color to red - I'll choose a different color, but for now it can't be visible enough  (picture frame tool context menu)

I also increased the width to the stroke (the 0.2 pt was a challenge anyway)

 

EDIT:

Here's one thing Serif should change:

 

Rectangles via rectangle tool and picture frames have the same stroke color. 

But you should be able to select different stroke colors for each of them. - so you can take them apart.

And I'd like rectangles blend in more and picture frames stand out more. 

Because if you like to change the background of a page with the rectangle tool you want the box to blend in - you don't want a frame around the whole document. Too distracting.