Render Canvas objects inside Canvas

Feature requests
1

Use case or problem

When I put a canvas object inside canvas, I only see an empty frame.

Proposed solution

  1. A preview should be given with a miniature preview of the structure.
  2. It would be great to have a popup feature like it exists with notes: a small version of the respective canvas opening as overlay. It would be great to be able to navigate inside this little window.
  3. Ideally, this would be size-adjustable.

Current workaround (optional)

None as far I know.

13 Likes
5

How exactly do you put a canvas inside a canvas - even if it does have an empty frame!?

I can’t work this out!

6

Great idea! Even if it weren’t size adjustable, if it allowed you to zoom in thus revealing the detail of the “embedded” canvas, that would be good too. But, of course being able to scale up the preview of the embedded canvas would be even more helpful. Thanks.

7

@TheHunch
I just dragged the canvas file from the explorer to a new canvas and it embedded it. It also opens the embedded file when you doubleclick it.

4 Likes
8

That’s interesting- maybe that’s an indication that actual rendering of the canvas will be coming. There’s probably many UI details to be worked out, such as pulling items from parent canvas to into child canvas, and vice versa. Also the ability to create a new child canvas inside the current canvas (I just tried creating ‘test.canvas’ but it actually creates ‘test.canvas.md’.)

For now, I am pleased with the flexibility of the feature, that I can at least link to other canvases inside a canvas as a means of ‘nesting’ (or drag a canvas from explorer and just have an empty frame for now.)

They’ve done an amazing job with the basic feature set, so the future looks really bright here.

2 Likes
9

I’m happy to see that I can already link to another canvas from within a canvas. A few more ideas related to sub-canvas support.

  • It might be nice if when I right click on a card on a canvas I had the option “Convert to Canvas” as well as the current option “Convert to File”
  • It might be nice if I could drop cards onto a sub-canvas to move them to that sub-canvas.
  • Rendering a preview of the sub-canvas would be very nice! Alternatively, the option to set a cover image for the canvas would be useful.
4 Likes
10

Not only right-clicking on a card, but right-clicking a selection of multiple items and converting to a canvas would be great as a nesting technique. On the current canvas, there could be a card with a link to the new canvas (or an actual canvas embed if that feature is added later.)

All of this can be reasonably easily accomplished with simple cut and then paste into a new canvas, but would be nice for working with canvases.

1 Like
11

A wireframe preview will be implemented 1.1.5

5 Likes
13

Two aspects of the canvas within canvas discussion and feature requests come to mind:

  1. treating canvasses as graphical property laden layers
  2. treating them as multidimensional objects with embedded relational notes, sections, and blocks.
14

dope!

15

when you navigate into the embedded canvas, is there a way to see in which canvas it is embedded? Something like incoming links… but it doesn’t appear anywhere.

It would be great if one could easily navigate “down” like it is possible now but also “up”…

16

It would be cool if a canvas inside another canvas simply looked the same as a “Group” inside a canvas. In other words, it’s rendering all the objects as if it were part of the same canvas, but has a border around it like a group.

Work-around could be a script when opening a canvas to temporarily swap out the embedded canvas

{“id”:“8afb3ddca6ce3040”,“x”:-583,“y”:-902,“width”:831,“height”:503,“type”:“file”,“file”:“My board.canvas”}

with the coordinate/scale adjusted items from the other canvas file, wrapped in a “group” box. Then swap them back when you “save”. Or if it’s a read-only view that’s much easier to just run a one-way copy

2 Likes
17

If you think about a Canvas not as a canvas but as a frame, you can put a canvas inside a canvas. This would solve the problem of the canvas not having frames without creating confusion.

18

Wireframe preview gives an idea of the general cards layout - but beyond that it’s just a link (speaking functionality wise).

If we can at least get the card-labels (or the first-header in case of a non-file card) that would make it much more useful - for the present.

Another improvement, looks wise - if we can get a scaled-down “screenshot” of the canvas instead of just the layout.

The long-term expectation remains first-class, editable, nestable canvases.