Global layers

[Thane5]

The new layer states in affinity photo 2.0 would have been a good alternative solution (Beeing able to toggle layers based on tags/names). I just don't understand why Publisher does not have this feature.

[Thomas Geist]

Big disappointment for me to see that this feature hasn't made it into 2.0, even though it's been in the talks for so long and reportedly Affinity was "working on it".

I rely extremely heavily on this and now my hopes to ever fully transition to Affinity Publisher have been shattered for the time being. I have a feeling that global layers aren't a feature that would be introduced in an intermediate update.

I opened a new "Global Layers" thread in the v2.0 discussions here.

[TonyB]

50 minutes ago, Thomas Geist said:

Big disappointment for me to see that this feature hasn't made it into 2.0, even though it's been in the talks for so long and reportedly Affinity was "working on it".

I rely extremely heavily on this and now my hopes to ever fully transition to Affinity Publisher have been shattered for the time being. I have a feeling that global layers aren't a feature that would be introduced in an intermediate update.

It's a big piece of work that requires major reworking of rendering and DOM structure. It will happen but will take time. It's high on our internal feature board.

[prophet]

21 minutes ago, TonyB said:

It's high on our internal feature board.

Good to know.

[StewH]

I'm also disappointed to see that there is still no "Global Layers" support in Publisher v2. I bought Publisher v1 when it first came out and it didn't even cross my mind that DTP software would not have a global layers concept. I was so excited when I heard about the v2 release as I thought global layers would have been included for sure this time.

I am a big fan of the Affinity Suite in general and I am very grateful to Serif for providing an excellent and cheaper alternative to Adobe. I switched to Affinity when my CS6 apps would no longer run on macOS when 32-bit support ended. I have some complex documents that have multiple layers that I need to be able to switch on and off across the whole document. Global layers is the one thing I'm missing and then Affinity would be perfect for all my needs. I'd even be prepared to pay double the price for just this feature!

Having read the posts on this thread, the Master Pages suggestions just won't work for me unfortunately.

So, if it is going to take a long time to implement global layers fully, would it be possible to add the following simple feature...

Right-click on a layer in the list on any page and select an option that says something like: "Hide Layers Globally By Name" and "Show Layers Globally By Name".

As the titles suggest, this feature would switch on/off all layers in the document that match the name of the one clicked on. This would be fine for my documents, which have imported ok into Publisher with all my layers intact, but I just need to be able to switch the layers on/off on every page with one action as they contain hundreds of pages.

If that feature could be quickly added it would really save the day for me as I just can't delay my projects much longer waiting for full global layer support, and I can't afford Adobe or Quark subscriptions.

Many thanks,
Stewart

[thomaso]

On 11/10/2022 at 5:02 AM, StewH said:

something like: "Hide Layers Globally By Name" and "Show Layers Globally By Name".

Interestingly (or ironically?) APhoto v.2 got a feature "Layer States" with options to hide/show layers by name, name snippets and layer colours and save certain combinations as states, easy to activate / deactivate and affecting all layers with 1 click, even a "smart" option is available ...

Unfortunately, this exists for APhoto and single pages only, not for an entire document with several pages.

[StewH]

A big thank you to Serif for adding the "Select Same Name" option when you right click on a layer in Publisher 2! This works perfectly for me as I can now right click on a layer on one page, choose "Select Same Name" which selects all the layers with the same name across all pages in my document, and I can then click the visibility toggle to hide/show all those layers at once. A great Christmas present, many thanks!

Wishing a Happy Christmas/Holidays to all! 

All the best,
Stewart

[loukash]

53 minutes ago, StewH said:

adding the "Select Same Name" option when you right click on a layer in Publisher 2!

That was already in v1, although I don't remember since when.

[StewH]

You're right loukash that the option is there in Publisher v1. I just reinstalled v1 to test it as I either didn't remember the option being there, or didn't think it worked. Sure enough, the option does not work the way I've described for v2 above in v1. It doesn't select the same layer across all pages by name when I tried it, whereas it does in v2. I did a search on the forum for "select same name" and I can see other posts suggesting that the function has changed its behaviour recently in Publisher, although I haven't read all the posts. I'm pleased with the change so I hope it stays!

Stewart 

[loukash]

2 hours ago, StewH said:

I can see other posts suggesting that the function has changed its behaviour recently in Publisher

Hm… wasn't there a bug in v2 that Select Same Name also selects all unnamed objects? Which would be per "logical" definition the "same name" as well…  

[carl123]

3 hours ago, StewH said:

I can see other posts suggesting that the function has changed its behaviour recently in Publisher

In 2.0.3 Select Same Name "changed" to...

• Select Same Name should only select objects with user supplied names

[thomaso]

19 hours ago, StewH said:

"Select Same Name" option when you right click on a layer in Publisher 2! This works perfectly for me as I can now right click on a layer on one page, choose "Select Same Name" which selects all the layers with the same name across all pages in my document, and I can then click the visibility toggle to hide/show all those layers at once.

Since we can change layer visibility across all pages of a document in V1 for master page layers already – without a need to name them first:

Are there in V2 more changes you can apply to objects with a same name that made you choose this "Global Layers" thread to post your compliment for "Select Same Name"?

[StewH]

Thanks loukash and carl123 for explaining the progression of the "select same name" feature which has culminated in a workable compromise for me now and hopefully others.

3 hours ago, thomaso said:

Are there in V2 more changes you can apply to objects with a same name that made you choose this "Global Layers" thread to post your compliment for "Select Same Name"?

As explained in a previous post, like many others who have wanted to adopt Affinity Publisher coming from Adobe InDesign, we've been hampered by the lack of global layer support. I have a number of documents that have hundreds of pages with separate layers for different content, such as the original scan of a document on one layer, the transcription of the text on a second layer, an English translation on a third layer etc. I need to be able to switch each layer on and off on all pages across the whole document at once. I've always been able to import the document into Publisher but until now there has been no way I could show or hide each existing layer across the whole document with a couple of clicks. So after over three years of owning Publisher it is only now capable of doing what I need it to do, which is why it is a big deal to me but I understand why others may not be as excited, and of course proper global layer support would be ideal.

Using master pages is not a solution that has or will ever work for me. At least now I have a way I can continue to work on my documents from InDesign in Publisher, but I still look forward to the day that we get proper "global layers".

To answer your exact question quoted above though: I don't want to change anything on pages globally, each page is unique (different typefaces, sizes, colours etc), which is why master pages are not a solution. However, if I wanted to, having used "select same name" to select all my layers with the same name on every page, I can change properties such as opacity, colour etc. The reason InDesign and other desktop publishing software has "global layers" is to have grouped content across pages that can be switched on and off, reordered and locked/unlocked. Now in Designer I can switch the layers on/off and lock/unlock across the whole document, I just can't reorder the layers globally. Again, this is now a workable compromise for me, and I expect others, until layers finally become truly global.

[loukash]

2 hours ago, StewH said:

I need to be able to switch each layer on and off on all pages across the whole document at once.

You guys are aware that you can stack multiple master page layers on your layout pages as you see fit, right?

1. set up your "to-become-global" layer(s) on (a) separate blank Master Page(s)
2. apply the "Global Layer(s)" master page to all your pages; do NOT replace existing master page(s)!
3. add content to the global layer(s) either on the master page, or individually on pages while temporarily detaching the parent master
4. go to the corresponding master page to disable the layer(s) globally, be it 4 or 400 pages…

Of course I've been using "global" layers in InDesign for almost 2 decades as well (hm, there was nothing else but global layers, and sometimes I thus hated them). Multiple languages, yada yada. I still can't think of a global layer scenario that I wouldn't be able to reproduce in Publisher by use of the method outlined here. But since the Affinity master page concept is so flexible, you have to plan carefully.

Example (in Publisher 1, as I'm not at my Catalina MacBook):

As you can see at the end, usually you wouldn't necessarily want to enable or disable your parent "Global Layer" while editing the master page content detached. It will then disconnect from its "global" attribute. But you can always undo.  

[StewH]

Thank you loukash for taking the time to explain this master page stuff again. I can probably work with this convoluted concept on a new document, although I really don't need master pages for anything I do. However is there any way to import an idml exported from InDesign into Designer and somehow set up what you describe easily without having to edit every page? For example I have a 250 page document with 8 layers. It would be nice to be able to reorder the layers, which is the only thing I can't do now that I can use "select same name". I'd be grateful for any advice you can give as I really can't face having to recreate that document from scratch.

[thomaso]

13 hours ago, StewH said:

I need to be able to switch each layer on and off on all pages across the whole document at once. I've always been able to import the document into Publisher but until now there has been no way I could show or hide each existing layer across the whole document with a couple of clicks. So after over three years of owning Publisher it is only now capable of doing what I need it to do

Indeed, it sounds helpful for .IDML imports and their names of global layers. But it appears cumbersome for a pure APub document which would require first to create the Layer layers and/or rename them manually, right?

10 hours ago, loukash said:

(hm, there was nothing else but global layers, and sometimes I thus hated them)

You didn't have to use them. Similar to AD where you can work with or without separate artboards you can work with 1 Layer layer only (= 1 global ID layer) which will contain all objects without any global hierarchy amongst them.

10 hours ago, loukash said:

I still can't think of a global layer scenario that I wouldn't be able to reproduce in Publisher by use of the method outlined here.

Concerning layout / look that's true … and can get achieved with many other apps and quite less features.

But in terms of efficiency – for which both Global layers & Master pages were developed – the need to detach multiple times and repeatedly page by page for individual, non-master-like objects during the layout creation process in APub makes this statement rather untrue. Even worse, if you use master pages as a substitute for global layers, the efficiency / advantage of such a layer handling shrinks massively as the complexity of the layout increases – quite the opposite of using Global layers.