3. Artboard 1 uses a Reference Canvas. Now what?

Artboard 1 uses a Reference Canvas. Now what?

  • P

    I'm slowly churning through the manual and still having lack of understanding about Reference/Parent/Artwork canvases.

    From the manual (https://www.vectorstyler.com/documentation/canvas/canvas/) :
    "In a default VectorStyler document, canvases are organized into three categories: Reference for styling, Parent for sharing and Canvas for regular artwork."

    When you create a new document and you look in the Canvas & Artboard Panel, you'll see the default Artboard 1 has an Artwork Canvas as a parent. But Artboard 1 also has a Reference Canvas as a parent.

    I am creating artwork on Artboard 1 so it has an Artwork Canvas as a parent. Got that.
    But Reference canvases are for styling and Artboard 1 also has a parent as a Reference Canvas, so what/where and how I'm referencing styles?

    I don't understand what all this means.

    When I rename the artboard "Artboard 1" under the Artwork Canvas section, the "Artboard 1" artboard is not getting renamed in the Reference section. So...what does that mean? Are they different artboards? In that case why are they having the same default names? If they are the same artboards then why the one in the Reference canvas section doesn't get renamed? I also cannot delete the "Artwork 1" artboard from the Reference section, so I'm guessing it has some sort of significance but I have no clue what.

    Would be nice to have some tutorial or example on these canvase types. What and how exactly are they referencing? Are these like clones? And what exactly can I do with a Parent canvas - like with an example. How do I use a Reference canvas to reference something in a project, etc.

    0 1 Reply
  • administrators

    @pentool Each top canvas has its own canvas hierarchy, and each of those canvases have separate artboards.
    Each canvas contains different layer hierarchy.

    In this case the "Artboard 1" label is just a synthetic default name for different artboards.
    Each artboard can be renamed and of course these will be different

    Now about Reference canvases: these are like the other canvases, except the Canvas Options view now has a Canvas Role button.
    Selecting some roles for the canvas (multiple roles can be selected, and there is the More Roles option for a longer list), will make the content of this canvas to act like style definitions.
    For example, selecting the "Color Style" role for a reference canvas will create a "virtual" color style from the color of every object on that canvas. Make sure you name those objects, for better visibility in the Styles panel.

    These styles will show up in the Styles panel and can be used as regular styles. But they always remain linked to the object on the "Reference" canvas. So if that object changes its color, all colors in the document are updated.

    The "More Roles" option in the role list contains all the possible roles objects on a reference canvas can take.

    This "Role" feature is available for any object, not just on the Reference canvas (see Object Options), but the ones on the Reference are better automated.

    Will create some tutorials sometime later.

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  • P

    Thank you! I will digest this and try some experiments.

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  • P

    Ok, so I was trying follow these instructions and assign the "Color Style" role to the reference canvas.

    Then I created an object on the reference canvas, assigned a red color to it, and named it "red_color". This color indeed showed up in the Styles Panel.

    Selected the artboard (of the Artwork Canvas), created a shape and assigned the color style from the Styles Panel to it (the one from the Reference Canvas).

    Then went back to the Reference Canvas and changed the object's color. The color was correctly updated in the Styles Panel, but the object's color on the artwork canvas was not updated.

    What did I do wrong that this doesn't work? Thanks.

    Video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Fy9FQRjP8

    VS 1.1.099

    0 1 Reply
  • administrators

    @pentool The reference canvas has a Symbol role and this defines symbols.

    When using Color Style role, a "Color" folder should be visible in the Styles panel (you have a Symbol folder in the video).

    Here is an example with color style on the reference canvas: 0_1691823591659_colorstyle1.vstyler

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  • P

    Ok, thank you! Now it works.

    However, I think there's a glitch somewhere in the process. In the video you can see what I do step by step. Just look closely.

    As soon as I draw the shape, it's not the Color Style that is being created in the Styles panel but the Symbol (0:11). And you can see that because the Styles panel is open. Then, at 0:18 I verify that the canvas does indeed has the "Color Style" role assigned to it.

    So even though the canvas is marked as "color role", a "symbol" is created instead.

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  • administrators

    @pentool Yes, I see the glitch. I will try to figure out what happens here and fix it.

    Can you send me the file in that video.

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  • P

    No, it was just an empty document with a circle and a star in it. I don't seem to be able to recreate it at this point, but when it happens, I will save it.

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