what happens with linked documents when modified via StudioLink?

[woefi]

I made a graphic in afDesigner and then placed it on a afPublisher page as linked.

When I double-click to edit it the changes I make are immediately synced and displayed in the Pub-document. Cool! There is no save, I can only close the edit-window.

So far-so good. But, the changes are not saved back to the linked file.
It's more like it is an embedded copy of the original graphic I created.
But most of the time, I want to write the changes back to the original file, like I had done the modification directly in Designer, so it updates in all documents in which this graphic is placed/linked.

plus: I don't know why the colours do not match in the preview - like it's RGB and not cmyk?

 

[Pauls]

I've reported the non colour managed preview

 

We have an outstanding issue with the Edit Document functionality. At the moment I would advise editing the source document if you want the changes to be picked up in other documents/places.

[abfdesign]

23 hours ago, woefi said:

I made a graphic in afDesigner and then placed it on a afPublisher page as linked.

When I double-click to edit it the changes I make are immediately synced and displayed in the Pub-document. Cool! There is no save, I can only close the edit-window.

So far-so good. But, the changes are not saved back to the linked file.
It's more like it is an embedded copy of the original graphic I created.
But most of the time, I want to write the changes back to the original file, like I had done the modification directly in Designer, so it updates in all documents in which this graphic is placed/linked.

plus: I don't know why the colours do not match in the preview - like it's RGB and not cmyk?

 

I had wondered about this myself for a while. Mostly, I edit original to be safe and replaced it, but I just assumed that changes made within Publisher were changes just for that document, with the more made within, the file size may increase with the stored memory of these elements?

Andy

[woefi]

22 hours ago, Pauls said:

We have an outstanding issue with the Edit Document functionality. At the moment I would advise editing the source document if you want the changes to be picked up in other documents/places.

Well, don't get me wrong. StudioLink with in-place editing is already incredible useful.
But It also has very rough edges at this stage. For sure there is ongoing talk/developing/reshaping in the af team meetings.

But I think what I need, would be an official explanation, guideline, or "workaroundflow" if you will, from Serif, on HOW to use this in the meantime until there is a cleanup of the whole concept.

 

I can imagine there are MANY things going on regarding an iPad-version of AfPub and the challenge of how to deal with linked assets on a mobile device without access to the filesystem they were linked from originally...

Hopefully dealing with linked files gets smoothed also from the other side, by Apple, with iOS 13 and support of SMB-servers or better handling of external storage/thumb drives.

[clamnuts]

For big issues like this you could add a tooltip or modal to explain that it is a known issue or coming feature. 

[bergdesign]

I just ran into this edit-linked-file-within-publisher issue, and fortunately this issue was already acknowledged here. Adding my two cents, Publisher is already maintaining changes made within Publisher (via StudioLink) to a linked document, so the issue seems to be solely with how Publisher's interface incorrectly reflects the updated status of the document to the user and does not break the link to the previous external document.

For example, with a linked vector PDF, when you double-click on the document to edit it, the new document tab is titled "Embedded." This "feels" correct since I'm beginning to make changes to a linked document and these changes have to be stored somewhere, so it makes perfect sense that my linked document will become embedded and my changes will be stored within the newly embedded document. Of course it would be good to alert the user to this change when beginning to edit the linked document from within Publisher. However, after making the changes, the resource manager still lists the changed document as linked, and any external changes to the linked document will overwrite the changes made internally within Publisher. The changes are not "safe" because the link to the external document is maintained and it seems to take priority over the changes I made internally within Publisher.

So if I choose to embed the linked document from the resource manager, it embeds the content from the linked document and not the changes that I made within Publisher. To work around this issue when I inadvertently make a change without remembering this issue/bug, I found that I can double-click to edit the document within Publisher, copy my changed graphics, switch to the resource manager and embed the document, then edit it again from within Publisher and paste my changes back into the embedded version.

[nwhit]

I agree that this needs to get sorted out better. Really a remarkable capability, but has some very rough edges that make using it a bit dangerous as bergdesign said. I'm just now testing the newest beta 442 and was wondering iof this has been resolved, but it hasn't. Using Studio Link to edit a linked APh file does not change the original APh file, nor does it create a new, embedded version for "safety". 

I would think this should have a preference where you could select (maybe per document) if edits in SL update the original file. But if it doesn't update the original file, it does need to embed a new version so that edits don't get lost.

[Patrick Connor]

We have made improvements to this area (Edit Document and Linked Documents) of the program in the latest Affinity Publisher beta. If you would like to try these changes the beta software is available in the forum posts listed below. Once Affinity Publisher has been through a full beta process the change will be released in a future free 1.8.0 update to all customers.

The 1.8.0 builds are in links at the top of these forum posts

• Affinity Publisher 1.8.0.502 for Windows
• Affinity Publisher 1.8.0.502 for macOS

[DavidMalcolm]

13 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

We have made improvements to this area (Edit Document and Linked Documents) of the program in the latest Affinity Publisher beta. If you would like to try these changes the beta software is available in the forum posts listed below. Once Affinity Publisher has been through a full beta process the change will be released in a future free 1.8.0 update to all customers.

The 1.8.0 builds are in links at the top of these forum posts

• Affinity Publisher 1.8.0.502 for Windows
• Affinity Publisher 1.8.0.502 for macOS

Thanks for the update, what will happen with old files that have updated copies in them? I've got a graphic novel I'm working on in Photo and Publisher, and I'm 7 pages in ... which doesn't sound like a lot, but there's between 5-7 separate detailed art assets on each page. I've been updating them in Publisher after the initial draft is done in Photo. (Often to clean up certain things once I see them all on the same page together. But none of the changes have been saved back. Plus my Publisher file is now like three gigs...

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, DavidMalcolm said:

Thanks for the update, what will happen with old files that have updated copies in them? I've got a graphic novel I'm working on in Photo and Publisher, and I'm 7 pages in ... which doesn't sound like a lot, but there's between 5-7 separate detailed art assets on each page. I've been updating them in Publisher after the initial draft is done in Photo. (Often to clean up certain things once I see them all on the same page together. But none of the changes have been saved back. Plus my Publisher file is now like three gigs...

I have an answer (see the end) but first I want to make sure you understand the problem they've fixed. So please bear with a somewhat long explanation. It's important to understand that linked image files (JPG, TIFF, PNG) have been working differently from linked document files (PDF, SVG, EPS, .afphoto, .afdesign, etc.). The image files are truly linked, and if you use Edit Image and make changes, you save them back to the original external file (Save) or to a different file (Save As).

The problem we're discussing has been with the document files, not the image files. So it affects you if you're linking .afphoto files, but not if you're linking JPG, TIFF, or PNG files.

For linked document files there have been at least two behaviors; I'll consider only 1.7.3 and the 1.8.0 beta.

1. In the stable retail version (1.7.3) when you have a linked document file (such as a .afphoto file) then it is a hybrid somewhere between linked and embedded. That is, it is embedded, but if changes are made to the file externally to Publisher you can be notified of the changes, or the Publisher copy can be updated automatically, as though it were linked.
   
   When changes are made to the file within Publisher via Edit Document, they are saved in the Publisher file, but not in the external linked file. When you close and reopen the Publisher file the changes are still there, but could be overwritten by changes made externally since they were saved only locally.
    
2. In the 1.8 beta (prior to .502) the linked document files are truly linked; no embedded copy (as far as I can tell).
   
   However, when changes are made to the linked document file via Edit document, the changes weren't really saved anywhere. If you used Edit Document, then closed the Publisher document and reopened it, the changes were not there. Nor were they in the external linked file.

In beta .502, it appears that linked document and linked image files are handled consistently. When you use Edit Document and make changes to the linked file, you must either Save or Save As to have your changes saved, and they are saved in the external (original) file and updated automatically in your Publisher document.

One thing this means for your workflow is that you won't be able to make changes to the linked .afphoto file that remain local to the Publisher document via Edit Document. You can make some local changes by simply using the Photo Persona in Publisher and operating on the .afphoto file's layer directly.

Now, for your question: If you use 1.8.0.502 to open a document made in 1.7.3, everything remains the same until you Save it. When you Save it, if any Linked document file that you have in the document has been changed externally and not yet Updated in the Publisher document, it is immediately updated, losing any local changes you may have made. If the linked file has not been changed externally then the changes you've made remain local to the Publisher file. But they will be lost if the external file is ever updated and you allow Publisher to update the linked file (second paragraph of bullet 1 above).

 

[DavidMalcolm]

Ugh this is annoying. Part of me understands why they'd do this... but part of me is like... WHY!? My goal isn't to have two copies of all my documents and thus waste two times as much space on my SSD. By the time this project is done I suspect the final file size will be impractically large. I wonder if Publisher will start choking on it once I've got 150 pages. (Actually given that it takes a long time to open the file now that it's less than ten pages I suspect I'll have to export the linked files as jpegs or tiffs or something, and then I'll have to rebuild the whole document in a new file and just keep an editable working copy that runs in 20 page chunks or something...)

It makes sense to me that Publisher might not want to be making a round trip to the linked documents every time, or they might be trying to prevent people from losing track of their resources and breaking their documents. But this all just feels like it isn't really being handled in a way that makes sense. The app literally calls it 'linked document' in the layers panel. When really it should be embedded document. (Which I realize is made clear in the name of the document when you've got tabs...) Whatever, it's still nicer than trying to do this project in InDesign.

[walt.farrell]

57 minutes ago, DavidMalcolm said:

The app literally calls it 'linked document' in the layers panel. When really it should be embedded document. (Which I realize is made clear in the name of the document when you've got tabs...) Whatever, it's still nicer than trying to do this project in InDesign.

As I mentioned, things are changing in 1.8 (and you can see the current state in the 1.8.0.502 beta) and the files are truly linked.

 

[woefi]

I can confirm, that at b502 the behaviour is: reopen a bloated .afpub from 1.7.3 with linked .afphoto and saving it in 1.8.0.502 beta the file size stays as big (138MB).

but:

making a NEW document in beta 1.8.0.502 and dragging the .afphoto into it and copying all text boxes from the 1.7.3 and saving it results in 2MB file size!

So there is at least progress!

 

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, woefi said:

I can confirm, that at b502 the behaviour is: reopen a bloated .afpub from 1.7.3 with linked .afphoto and saving it in 1.8.0.502 beta the file size stays as big (138MB).

Be sure to do a Save As using a new file name. If you only do a Save then you might not see a space reduction.

[woefi]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Be sure to do a Save As using a new file name. If you only do a Save then you might not see a space reduction.

Nope. Only saving as does not change the file size. 

But what I now tried was "relinking" .afphoto file in the resourcemanager and now the filesize is 2.5 MB.