Just puzzled about canvases and such...
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Did anyone ever used any canvas hierarchies in their project? There are so many questions to ask.
Let's focus on Reference Canvases. (The same story goes for Parent and Artwork Canvases but let's just pick one of them.)
In the Canvas & Artboard Panel (CAP), by default, you have a Reference Canvas at the top, which has a child called Reference, which has a child called Artboard 1. (So Reference Canvas > Reference > Artboard 1)
The top level canvas (Reference Canvas) can have a role. However, its child, the Reference can also have a role. So in the CAP menu, assign "Shape" as the role for the Reference Canvas, and assign "Symbol" to the Reference. Now you have one role for the parent and another for the child canvas. I could ask things like "why", but I'm just puzzled at this point.
Furthermore, bring up the properties of "Reference" (not the Reference Canvas but its child). In the Canvas Options dialog, for Parent Canvas, it say "None". Well, it clearly does have a parent: Reference Canvas. So why does it say None? Is this another bug due to the not needed complexity of things?
Let's take it one step further. Select Reference Canvas, bring up its properties, and for Parent Canvas, select Parent. First of all, what is "Parent" refers to? Is that a non-existent canvas? Where is "Parent"? I don't see it. You can have only 2 choices in the dropdown: None or Parent. The tooltip text says "Select the parent canvas for this canvas." But there's no "Parent" canvas, yet I can select it.
But whatever. Before we go insane, select "Parent" and close the Canvas Options dialog. This action just created a new "Artboard 1" for Reference Canvas. Not sure why. I did not select to create a new artboard. I just set the "Parent Canvas" dropdown of the Reference Canvas to "Parent". Which created a new artboard. (...are you lost yet...?)
Now, select Reference and bring up its properties. For the "Parent Canvas" popup, it says "None". Why? It clearly has a parent, which is "Reference Canvas".
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@pentool Just some observations:
first of all, this multiple canvas thing stored hierarchically in a document for a drawing app is a new thing, so yes there are some unusual features here.The hierarchical organization of canvases is just that an organization, there is no other relationship induced by this hierarchy except storage. It is easier to work with multiple canvases if they are in a hierarchy.
The concept of "Parent" canvas is misleading a bit here. This was named "Master" canvas a few builds ago, but it seems that the big guys are changing the terminology so I keep up with the times (think of Master pages)
The canvases inside the Parent canvas folder (formerly Master canvas) are used as master canvases (or template canvases) for regular artwork canvases.
An artwork canvas can have any of canvases from the Parent canvas folder as a "Parent" (or Master) canvas, to use its content as a template.I think this "Parent" (renamed from Master) terminology is not working, would "Template" be better?
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Before we get to discuss which name is better, an example or two with
real use cases of Master/îParent canvases are needed.I'll try with one here:
If you need to create a set of business cards for a company, each business
card needs to have the company logo in the same location.In this case editing the artboard under the Parent Canvas — placing the logo
there then setting the 'Parent Canvas' of 'Canvas 1' to 'Parent' makes the
logo show up on the artboard of 'Canvas 1' (on the "normal" artboard").
Here's a short clip: https://recordit.co/5TdsFw321T
What I don't know is how to make the same logo show up on all duplicates
of the "normal" artboard, because as you can see in the video above, if I
duplicate it (the artboard) the linked logo reflects the edits only on the first
artboard.Is this a bug here, a limitation or something I don't understand about
Master/Parent Canvases?
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@b77 I opened a bug on this one and will try to figure out what happens.
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The concept of "Parent" canvas is misleading a bit here. This was named "Master" canvas a few builds ago, but it seems that the big guys are changing the terminology so I keep up with the times (think of Master pages)
I think this "Parent" (renamed from Master) terminology is not working, would "Template" be better?
The reason the “big guys” changed the terminology was for political reasons due to an overreaction/over-correction to supposed racial issues a few years ago. I don’t see why it can’t go back to “master” as it has nothing to do with that
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I don't think it has to do with terminology.
As @VectorStyler said, this is a new concept that is not found in any drawing/graphical/design app. So I'm trying to think like when a new user (beginner or advanced or whatever background) test drives this application and finds this "multiple canvases" concept with parents and children and reference and artwork and roles and so forth.
As someone (the new user) who never seen the existence of such feature, how will they react to this? Say, on a scale of 1-10 how easy it is not only to understand but also to apply and use what multiple canvases offer in practice?
Let's say they open the Canvas & Artboard Panel and they see "Reference Canvas" and you were to ask them "What do you think this means? What does this do? Why is it called reference? Does it reference something, if so what?" What would they say? How easy it is to guess what the role of a reference canvas is? People who come from the world of Adobe, Affinity, Autodesk, Maxxon, or any other products that has a document, canvas, artboard, and layers, how easy it is for them to understand the concept?
Not to mention the world of "roles" that can be attached to the canvases.
The way I see it, there are two options:
- They dig in and try to understand
- They don't understand, get confused, and one way or another they give up because they don't care.
Now, let's assume there are bugs lurking in the various canvases and their roles and options. If people find all this confusing and they don't dig in and try to understand how all this will be beneficial in a design, the bugs will never be discovered. You will only discover bugs if you start using it in a project. But if it's confusing, you don't understand, or just don't care, then you will never use it. If most users will never use it, then what's the point having it? Just to have it there?
Is there anyone who is actively using this application in the past 2+ or so years took advantage of these multiple canvases and their roles and hierarchies in a project?
Look at @b77's question above. I assume he is using this app for awhile and yet he still has questions for not understanding certain concepts about it. If something is overly complex, does it encourage users to use it? I read the manual about multiple canvases and roles and many things are still not clear.
Anyhow...just thinking out loud.
