Publish only 'canvas'

#1

Can I publish without the elements that I place outside the canvas- white area - of the prototype? In e.g. InDesign I can place elements outside the page for ‘temporary storage’ while working on the layout.

#2

If you have widgets on a page then they will be included when you preview or publish a prototype. As far as I know, there is no ability to select specific widgets for inclusion/exclusion. You can send an email to support@axure.com to suggest this feature, and get help and official word on this.

Of course, if widgets are not on the canvas they won’t be visible. So, as long as they don’t have automatic events (e.g., Loaded) that could affect other widgets, variables, performance, it shouldn’t matter if they are “there” or not. An exception I know about is If you have the default STYLE settings of Page Dimensions: Auto and Page Align: Center and any of your widgets are placed to the left or right of on-canvas widgets, it can mess up the “centeredness” of the on-canvas widgets and/or show an otherwise unnecessary horizontal scrollbar. It doesn’t seem to affect the mobile prototype player though (when you set Page Dimensions, e.g., “iPhone 8”.) Likewise, if any off-canvas widgets are placed below on-canvas widgets, the length of the page will grow accordingly. I’ve actually used this as a trick to ensure some whitespace padding at the bottom of a page.

I’m curious as to why you think this would be valuable. Maybe it’s just the way you work…?

The best workarounds I can think of would be to save a backup copy of the .rp file with all the extra widgets, then remove them from original file. Or, to keep things in one file, you could duplicate your page (right-click it in the PAGES pane), remove off-canvas widgets (if they really affect your prototype) on the original page, then deselect the duplicate page from being published:

  • Publish > Publish to… or Publish > Generate HTML files…
  • Click gear icon if needed
  • Pages > uncheck “Publish all pages”
  • Check the pages you do want to publish
#3

You could set them to hidden. (right click > Set hidden)

Still technically “there” in the html but won’t interfere with your design.