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Hi,

I'm a longtime user of 4, I took a peek into 5 and after fumbling around, I'm going back to 4. I posted this as a thread to collect what other people are thinking....

Reasons:
- Can't understand how to edit master canvases anymore. They don't seem appear in the canvas list, but now appear as layers for canvases. This seems akward compared to the arrangement in 4.
- Can't seem to understand where the page numbers that used to appear in the utilities drawer. I used this information all the time when printing out selected pages.
- The removal of print scale from the canvas drawer is crazy. I know I can set this up in page setup, but I used to do this at a page by page level - some drawings were bigger than others in the document and I set this on a page by page level.
 
You can edit a shared layer on any canvas that it's on, there is no separate location for shared layers as layers pretty much need a canvas to be on and display. The benefit here is that you can have more than one shared layer on a canvas, and they can be re-ordered in the list of layers so objects on them don't always have to be at the back.

We removed the page range display per canvas as you can now just print the selected canvases, it's the last item in the File Menu, "Print Canvas".

As for the removal of print scale from the Canvas Size Inspector, here's a lengthy response from another thread:

That print scale input field was just another way to perform the same operation that's found in the Page Setup dialog. The convenience was its easy access from the inspector as well as the Fit button. We had imagined this feature to facilitate the printing of very large canvases (ones that would normally tile to many pages on printout) to one page, following these steps:

- One would resize a very large canvas to one page by one page, with a good portion of the diagram or document falling well off the printable area of the canvas
- Clicking the Fit button would change the print scale such that all the content would appear smaller, and fit on the canvas for printing purposes

(a quick side note about how print scale works -- a one inch square is still considered to be one inch in OmniGraffle regardless of the appearance onscreen when the print scale is changed)

So, in OmniGraffle 5 we've removed the print scale field in the Canvas Size Inspector and replaced it with the "Print canvas on one printer sheet" checkbox. This setting will allow any overly large canvas to display at normal size yet still print out to one page. It works in combination with the "Auto-adjust the canvas size" checkbox, so you can just add content to your document as you'd like, the canvas will grow to accommodate it, and so long as it's set to print to one printer sheet it will fit to a single page on printout.

(you can also un-check the "Size is multiple of printer sheets" checkbox to get your canvas to grow in a more rational manner instead of adding a new page and a lot of white space)

What we did not take into account were users that made use of print scale and the Fit button to continually re-size content down to fit on a single set canvas size regardless of whether they were going to print or not. The issue here is that the legacy print scale percentage is lost on opening up in OmniGraffle 5. If you go into the Page Setup dialog and enter in the percentage that was showing in the Canvas Size Inspector in version 4, your document will go right back to the way you expect it to be.

I have opened up discussion to maintain that print scale when opening up documents saved in earlier versions of OmniGraffle, I am of the opinion that's the correct approach here.

Lastly, another very important reason we removed the print scale field from the Canvas Size Inspector is that it could conflict with the use of ruler scale and cause a great deal of confusion.
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Hi,

Recently I started using omnigraffle 5 and am enjoying it! Unfortanetly i am also a bit confused by the shared layers. I have 2 questions:
1. If i edit one shared layer, do all the shared layer with that name change?
2. how do i copy a shared layer, do i have to copy the whole canvas to achieve that?

Cheers!
 
1. Yes, editing a shared layer in any spot puts those changes to every instance of the shared layer.
2. Just drag the shared layer from one canvas to any other you want the shared layer to go to.
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"Vroom! Vroom!!"
 
This shared layer is really not cutting it for me like the master canvas did... It feels like far more work than the master did AND when I click the shared layer to add more items to it - it will not let me - it just creates ANOTHER layer on the current canvas...

This is confusing right now :-(

I'm a huge fan of Graffle version 4 - wish I had it on this machine as I would go back to it - PLEASE bring back the master canvas!!!!
 
The shared layer thing instead of master canvases is awful. its so confusing and difficult to manage - master canvases is such a simple and well understood metaphor - why get rid of it? My omnigraffle 4 documents always started with 7 master canvases. I would simply select which to use depending on what sort of page i was wireframing, now when I open a project all the unused ones have disappeared, i've got no idea how to create a new page using a master canvas (or shared layer) that i'd created in omnigraffle 4 but hadn't used in a actual canvas yet!

Also is it possible to get a refund on the upgrade to 5 and switch back to 4?
 
I for one, love the new Shared Layers. However, one change that really irks me in OG 5 (Pro) is the increased difficulty of navigating between canvases and layers.

First, the lack of page numbers in the Utility drawer makes it much harder to synch up with printed docs. I make extensive notes on the printouts during meetings, then go back and edit the OG 5 version by jumping to those pages by referencing the page number. There is no way to do this except by looking at the Variable page # on the doc itself, but this is often hidden due to page zooming/sizing. PLEASE MAKE PAGE NUMBERS VISIBLE, AT LEAST WHEN HOVERING OVER CANVAS ICON.

Second, where did the canvas/layer dropdown lists in the lower toolbar go? Those little menus in OG 4 made it easy to see what canvas/layer you're on without having to open the Canvases tab AND open the current canvas's disclosure triangle. Very clumsy. Also, it's really hard to tell which canvas and layer is currently selected: The highlighting effect is way too subtle.
 
I second the comments above. I need page numbers in the canvas list! When someone says "page 43" what a PITA it is to find now!

In fact, I held off buying OmniGraffle 5 specifically because of this and only upgraded because I had to for file compatibility.
 
This is my first day using OG5 since upgrading. Didn't take me long before I googled "Omnigraffle 5 page numbers" and arrived here.

PLEASE! Bring back page numbers in the Canvases sidebar! It has become an absolute nightmare for me to quickly get to correct page in a 65-page document when someone mentions a page number.

What are the chances of fixing this in a beta update any time soon?
 
After another day using OG 5, may I add a few more complaints? I hope Joel is still watching this thread (it seemed more appropriate to add it here than start a new thread.)
  • Why change the zoom shortcuts from the easy chord Cmd-Ctrl-+/- to the difficult chord Cmd-Alt-Shift-+/- ?
  • Why change the document switch shortcut from the easy chord Cmd-/ to the difficult chord Cmd-Shift-/ ?
  • Like the original poster, I also prefer the old master canvases to the current shared layers, but I guess I could get used to it
  • OG seems to be slower than it used to be. It's not unusual for a simple PgDn to take 2 seconds to show the next canvas. (I'm on a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook.) All page and zoom changes now have an annoying lag.
 
 


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