Export setting by artboard is difficult to manage

[dbraphael]

Hi Velara,

This plugin has a ton of potential. I have been experimenting with it and overall I like what it can do.

What is difficult is having to create settings for every art board. If I have 50 art boards for a complex web app I don’t want to set 50 settings. I want to do it once. The global checkbox doesn’t work the way I would expect it to. I read but didn’t understand this post.

I think the nuances built into the export are great. Do you have any plans for a simpler global settings panel that a user can “set and forget” to manage larger projects?

Best,

Doug

PS. I have some ideas on how to tweak the current UI to incorporate this if interested.

[webmaker]

Thank you. For a history lesson, the reason the way it is the way it is is at one time the API was limited. So all settings were written to a txt file. Later each node / artboard received its own plugin data values where you could store settings. But there was no global settings for the entire project. There was no design view plugin data. So that’s when a global settings was made but it too was based on the selected artboard.

After a time I would receive notes that it was too complicated and the feature was not working as expected. At about the same time I realized if you select no artboard then I could use the first artboard as a global settings. Simply click off of any artboard and then open the Export dialog. The first artboard would always be selected. So this is the recommended way to export now. Or you create an export artboard that you use for project settings but you do not export that artboard itself (put none in the file name). There are multiple examples that do this.

But if you have multiple art boards that you want to be exported then what you do is select one artboard and then choose All Artboards or Selected Artboards. Notice the “s”. When you export the selected artboards or all artboards they will use the selected artboards settings or they should.

https://velara-3.gitbook.io/web-export/export-artboard-dialog

I just noticed there is no information in the guide on this property. I’ll see if this can be updated.

Non selected artboards inherit properties from the selected artboard. It is sort of like CSS. Cascading style sheets. If an option is selected in the selected artboard the other artboards inherit it if they don’t have changed from the default.

For example, if you have 10 artboards and you want to scale all artboards, select one of the artboards, enable scaling, select export all artboards and single page application and then click export.

If you are exporting each artboard to its own page then artboards do not inherit the settings of the selected artboard. You have to set the export settings on each artboard. This is because each artboard is treated as its own independent page while if you export as single page you would expect artboards to behave, look and feel the same way.

I’ll see if I can get a video created on this. Just list the titles on what you want the video to accomplish. For example, something like, “Export 50 artboards to one page with single set of settings”.

I think you can post UI suggestions if you grant them use if they are ever used. Some features may or may not already be planned and this would be to avoid any issues.

[dbraphael]

Thanks for getting back to me.

Are you still actively working on the plugin?

[velara]

Yes a new version is nearly complete.

[velara]

For exporting multiple artboards at the same time check out this guide:

https://velara-3.gitbook.io/web-export/export-artboard-dialog/export-type

And this video:

[AVTPJ]

This is really tedious when you’re exporting 50 artboards as their own pages and there is no GLOBAL option for that batch of exports.

What I’m currently trying to achieve is to set a stylesheet template for 50 artboards and export as separate pages. Am I understanding correctly that there is no way to set the export settings for all those 50 pages I’ve selected, because I’m exporting them as separate pages?

So the only solution is to open the export dialog for each of the 50 pages, add in the stylesheet template and then select all and batch export each as page.

But what if I need to change that stylesheet template on all 50 artboards? I assume I have to manually again open each artboard export dialog and update each one?

Maybe having a checkbox in the batch export dialog to use the settings in THAT artboard to override all selected artboards for this current batch export only. So not override the actual 50 artboard settings permanently, just for this export.

[velara]

Hi AVTPJ, Welcome to the forums!

A few things. Export settings are inherited in some export types. For example, if you select 10 artboards and export them to the same page then all the export options will apply to those 10 artboards.

If you are exporting to separate individual pages then currently for some options you have set the options manually with the export artboard dialog open.

You can use the next and previous artboard to move between each option:

Next and previous buttons:

Multiple selection support was added in version 5 or version 6. It was relatively recently. In this case, you would select multiple elements and then change the properties in the Element Properties Panel and it will apply to all selected items:

There is a stylesheet template, JS template and html template buttons in the Properties Panel but I just tested it and these properties do not support multiple selection yet. This is bug. If it worked you could set the template properties of multiple artboards at the same time.

However, this area is being upgraded to support macros feature with a new release soon. I’ll see if this can be fixed for this next release.

The issue about setting the artboard export properties of multiple artboards has not come up often but I’ve thought of putting those things into the Element Properties Panel for the artboard.

The issue in the past is that the export buttons in the properties panel are pushed down outside of the view. I think it might have conflicted with some Adobe plugin design guidelines at the time but XD property panels on the right side show scroll bars when form items are beyond the height of the application.

I don’t think it would be a problem to move some of the Export options to Properties Panel. Doing this would allow you to set the export options of multiple artboards at the same time.

Would doing that address the issues? What properties would you want to see carried over first?

[velara]

@AVTPJ

Maybe having a checkbox in the batch export dialog to use the settings in THAT artboard to override all selected artboards for this current batch export only. So not override the actual 50 artboard settings permanently, just for this export.

I’ll look into this

[webmaker]

There is a Copy settings from selected item to other items macro that may help with this