Artboard explanation please?

[moonliner]

I'm a little confused. Is the initial document not an artboard? If I open a new doc, then draw additional artboards, the entire screen turns white and the original document disappears. Why does the work area turn white? Is there a tutorial for this somewhere?

UPDATE. If I exit and go back in, the artboards show up, although the original artboard shows as #2. I would like to read a tutorial though.

 

Thanks

[R C-R]

A newly created Affinity Designer document is not an artboard unless you tick that option in the File > New window. Preferences > User Interface has a pair of sliders to set the background color separately for documents with & without artboards. When there are no artboards, everything is in one unnamed, invisible parent container in the workspace, simply called the canvas.

Artboards can be renamed, duplicated, etc., just like other layers.

If everything turns white when creating new artboards, it probably means you need to zoom out to see everything, or pan around or use the Navigator panel to find specific items.

[moonliner]

Thank you, that explains it. If I want to import objects and temporarily place them to the side of a document they disappear, so I create a second artboard to use as a holding area. Would this be the best way to do that?

[Alfred]

If all you want is a holding area there’s no need to use artboards. Simply toggle the View menu option ‘View Mode > Clip to canvas’ (for which the default keyboard shortcut is the backslash ‘\’) to show/hide objects that are not on the canvas.

[gafvert]

I find this very confusing as well, and was just going to start a thread asking if this was a bug. When we have the concept of artboards, I expect the document to be a an artboard. And that to resize the artboard is to resize the document in a one-artboard document. If I add another artboard I expect to now have two artboards, and a document with multiple pages/artboards that can have different sizes.

Currently it seems we have (at least initially) a document that has a size rectangle, but no artboard. This is a little inconsistent, but I guess it might make sense from some legacy point of view that doesn't need/want artboards. However, it becomes very confusing when you add a second artboard. Because this doesn't convert the existing document/pseudo-artboard to an actual arboard, instead it just removes this and now you only have the new second artboard you just created, with all of the initial document being outside. Since this also toggles from no-artboard mode to artboard mode it also changes the background color of the work area which may be confusing if you don't understand what just happened.

So ideally I'd wish that all documents had an initial artboard that was the document size. In other words no more no-artboard mode. But at least to avoid confusion it would be nice if adding a second artboard would convert the initial "no-artboard" document rectangle to an arboard instead of removing it.

EDIT: When going through all the presents in the new 1.8 "New file" dialogue the "create artboard" setting is enabled like I propose above, but only for the device (like iPad and iPhone) presets, and not for any of the print, web or other presents. I wonder why?

[R C-R]

11 minutes ago, gafvert said:

If I add another artboard I expect to now have two artboards, and a document with multiple pages/artboards that can have different sizes.

Isn't that what happens if you use the Artboard Tool? If not, how are you adding artboard(s) to your document?

BTW, artboards & pages are two different things. Only Affinity Publisher can create pages, & an Affinity document cannot have both artboards & pages -- it is one or the other but not both.

[moonliiner]

I have now made sure "Create Artboard" is checked on making a new doc which handles your request. The only benefit I can see from beginning without one is that I have accidentally moved an artboard in selecting items so must remember to lock it down.

[R C-R]

You can use Designer's "My Presets" feature to create custom presets that automatically create an artboard for new documents, so you do not have to do that as an extra step. You can also create custom templates that include multiple artboards, each one laid out, sized, & optionally locked or unlocked & named however you want in the workspace.

44 minutes ago, moonliiner said:

The only benefit I can see from beginning without one is that I have accidentally moved an artboard in selecting items so must remember to lock it down.

I am not quite sure what you mean by that -- if there is no artboard to begin with how could you accidentally move it?

[gafvert]

On 5/29/2020 at 9:47 AM, R C-R said:

Isn't that what happens if you use the Artboard Tool? If not, how are you adding artboard(s) to your document?

I'm adding artboards using the artboard tool. Here's what happens if you add an artboard in a newly created document. Like I described above, it removes the initial document area and now you only have the new artboard

 

[R C-R]

33 minutes ago, gafvert said:

Like I described above, it removes the initial document area and now you only have the new artboard

It does not 'remove' your document -- if it did the "My Document" text would be gone. It is just that after creating an artboard with the Artboard Tool, the text is now no longer in an artboard.

If you select the text, you should be able to drag it into the artboard. Since it is wider than the artboard, you won't see any of it that doesn't fit into the width of the artboard, so you can either resize the text or increase the size of the artboard.

[telemax]

This button first

 

[mrqasq]

@telemax Thank you! This one should be selected default!!

[thomaso]

10 hours ago, mrqasq said:

This one should be selected default!!

No. It allows to work without artboard. Then the "page" size is your document's dimensions, which you had set in the document preferences (and you may change any time). Like artboards also this area appears as a white rectangle placed in the nearly endless workspace. Different to artboards it has no name an no layer of itself.

[mrqasq]

I meant - when you click artboard tool, to insert your first artboard - that option should be default.
Or - if I still don't understand - what is the usecase scenario in which I want to add an arboard but DON'T want to have all my current work on artboard, can you provide such  example? Maybe than I will understand ? Thank you!

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, mrqasq said:

I meant - when you click artboard tool, to insert your first artboard - that option should be default.

The default, if you want to call it that, is not to drag out a new artboard of whatever custom size & location you want but instead not to drag anything & just to click on the "Insert Artboard" button that @telemax showed outlined with the "Size" option set to "Document" preset. That creates a document sized artboard that automatically includes everything that was within the original document's dimensions.

Likewise, using the "Selection" size preset creates an artboard the size of whatever object(s) you currently have selected, sized just large enough to include that or those objects.

You only need to use dragging when you want to create an artboard of a specific size, which will include anything within the dragged out area or (as in your video) you want to reate one that excludes everything already on the canvas.

[Petar Petrenko]

11 hours ago, thomaso said:

No. It allows to work without artboard. Then the "page" size is your document's dimensions, which you had set in the document preferences (and you may change any time). Like artboards also this area appears as a white rectangle placed in the nearly endless workspace. Different to artboards it has no name an no layer of itself.

But, in Designer you can work with only one page. I don't know why they support pages in Designer at all. It's very confusing. Only artboards and they must be treated as pages in Publisher which means they must have their own panel, not to be located in layers panel because they are not layers.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Petar Petrenko said:

Only artboards and they must be treated as pages in Publisher which means they must have their own panel, not to be located in layers panel because they are not layers.

They can be converted to Pages in Publisher, or left as Artboards and behave exactly as they do in Designer.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Petar Petrenko said:

But, in Designer you can work with only one page.

Actually, if you have a document created in Publisher with pages, you can edit any or all of its pages (including Master pages) if you open it in Designer or in Photo. There is a small navigation bar to the left of the status bar that can be used to select which page to work on. You just can't create pages in Designer or Photo (although you can create templates that have pages in Publisher & open them in any of the apps for new work).

[Petar Petrenko]

8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Actually, if you have a document created in Publisher with pages, you can edit any or all of its pages (including Master pages) if you open it in Designer or in Photo. There is a small navigation bar to the left of the status bar that can be used to select which page to work on. You just can't create pages in Designer or Photo (although you can create templates that have pages in Publisher & open them in any of the apps for new work).

Thanks R C-R, but I'm talking about native Designer documents, not about imported from Publisher.

[walt.farrell]

9 minutes ago, R C-R said:

You just can't create pages in Designer or Photo (although you can create templates that have pages in Publisher & open them in any of the apps for new work).

You can create Pages in Photo, too, if you use a macro created in Publisher's Photo Persona  

But using a templace file would be easier. Even then, though, without the Spread Manager in Photo and Designer you have some serious limitations if you're working with Pages.

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

Thanks R C-R, but I'm talking about native Designer documents, not about imported from Publisher.

In that case, you would not have any pages because artboards are not pages. Among other things, one 'native' AD document can have many different artboards, each of a different size, some of which could overlap others or be children of other artboards. You can even rotate, skew, or reshape artboards (although I have yet to think of a good use for that).

For example, consider this Artboard insanity.afdesign file. The page metaphor is not particularly applicable to something like that.

[Petar Petrenko]

It's exactly what I say and want.

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

It's exactly what I say and want.

Insanity? 🤪

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

artboards, each of a different size, some of which could overlap others or be children of other artboards. (...)

For example, consider this Artboard insanity.afdesign file. The page metaphor is not particularly applicable to something like that.

Interesting what the nested child artboard 3 does cause when the .afdesign is opened in APub with converting each artboard to a page:

Then this child appears visually in the document main window for every of the pages (out- or inside), though it was a child of only 1 artboard. Also page 1, its mother artboard, looks odd: it is missing a 'page' (white 'paper') and its skewing. Also none of the pages can be deleted (icon is grayed out).

Child artboard 3, here on its mother, ...

... and its label also occurring outside another page:

... or on another page:

 

Whereas if the child board isn't placed on page 1 but for instance on page 6, then page 1 shows its 'white paper' and the child occurs differently for other pages:

In any way the child seems to prevent from deleting any page. (whereas I am able if a child artboard doesn't exist in .afdesign)
And always the skewing of artboard 1 seems to be ignored (... different to the curved artboard, here page 3, blue)

Maybe such insane options, like artboard deforming or nesting, should not be possible, simply to avoid complaints or bug reports, or even output issues.

Edited May 31, 2020 by thomaso
some text details corrected

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, thomaso said:

Interesting what the nested child artboard 3 does cause when the .afdesign is opened in APub with converting each artboard to a page:

First, I am getting only 5 pages when I open my AD file in APub & select "Convert Artboard to spreads." (I have no option to convert it to pages, if that makes any difference.)

6 hours ago, thomaso said:

Maybe such insane options, like artboard deforming or nesting, should not be possible, simply to avoid complaints or bug reports, or even output issues.

Maybe, but if they disallowed that in AD I am fairly sure somewhere out there (in both senses of the phrase) someone would complain about that restriction because they have relied on it in some strange workflow we have not thought about trying.

So perhaps it would be better to improve the 'convert' logic in APub?