Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Column Rules Missing


Recommended Posts

7 hours ago, fde101 said:

The Column Rules section of the Text Frame panel is missing for some reason on my computer.

Publisher Beta .502, macOS 10.13.6, OpenGL.

Same for me except that I am using the Metal display option on my iMac running 10.13.6. Compared to what @walt.farrell posted here in the announcement topic, with identical text frame settings I do not see Column Rules below "Balance text in columns."

163267233_BetaTextFrame.jpg.2f736c033dbbf192a7f4b00a039bbd50.jpg

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, fde101 said:

I don't see that section on my MacBook Pro (10.14.6) either.

Strange I don't have that problem on my MacBook Pro 2017 with Metal enabled and Catalina installed.

2017 27” iMac 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 • Radeon Pr 580 8GB • 64GB • Ventura 13.6.4.

iPad Pro (10.5-inch) • 256GB • Version 16.4

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I tried switching to OpenGL but the Column Rules section of the Text Frame panel is still missing on my iMac running 10.13.6.

I also noticed another issue with the Text Frame panel when using OpenGL. When it is docked in a panel group, sometimes a white line appears below the Width & Gutter headers, like as shown below. If I place the mouse pointer over the panel & try to use the scroll wheel, the width & Gutter numeric values flicker, as if they are being updated/redrawn in th panel. These things do not happen if I use Metal.

482490811_TextFramedocked.jpg.d999074c33fdd326dcb5adab3998983d.jpg

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, fde101 said:

This is a new feature in 1.8 so it obviously won't show up in the retail version.

I thought it might be so, but I could not find it in the 1.8.0.502 update listing at first. Now I see that the text frame improvements I was reading were limited to the IDML import, and that this one was further down on the list...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Jon P said:

After a bit of poking, this is because the translations are missing and it's preventing it from displaying. If you change the app language to English UK it should appear.

OK, that does work, but it highlights (no pun intended) a usability issue I have with the popup for setting the width of the dividing line. Part of it is that with the Dark UI it is just about impossible for me to see what I am entering if I put the text cursor in that field:

1832338827_Columnrulespopup.jpg.9facbb1a566ee3491edeaaa6c1420d1b.jpg

The other part of it is with a document set to inches, while the column width & gutter values default to incrementing in hundredths of an inch (either using the size arrows or the scroll wheel feature), the width of the dividing line defaults to integer inch increments using the scroll wheel, which is way too coarse to be useful. Even with the Option key held down for 'fine' scroll wheel control, it increments by tenth inch steps, which is often still too coarse to be of much use.

I do know that the step size is not much of an issue if the 'show Text in Points' preference is enabled, but I often don't want to use that, & it is a bit weird that even with it enabled if the document units is set to inches the width & height of the dividing line is still in inches instead of points.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, fde101 said:

Why wouldn't it be?

The dividing line is not text...

But it is an element of a Text Frame

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I apologize for not explaining this better but what I want is for the slider or scroll wheel to offer finer control of the width of the column rule without having to set the app User Interface preference to show lines in points or the document units to points.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

I apologize for not explaining this better but what I want is for the slider or scroll wheel to offer finer control of the width of the column rule without having to set the app User Interface preference to show lines in points or the document units to points.

If you want to work in inches then 1 tenth of an inch is what you'll get with the modifiers. Different types of finer control would be great for those of us who use Picas, ie twelfths and with inches it should be powers of two (set it to quarterss or 16ths). The rulers give pretty much useless bizarre divisions of centimetres to millimetres for the metrical inclined.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

If you want to work in inches then 1 tenth of an inch is what you'll get with the modifiers.

I want finer control than that, something similar to the gutter & column widths.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

I want finer control than that, something similar to the gutter & column widths.

Bizarre behaviour over here too.

Do you have the same coarse behaviour with the Stroke for the Text Frame itself. I wonder if it is because there are no increase/decrease arrows on them.

I have to admit to being very frustrated by the whole column rules thing. I can't get a top and bottom offset to stay at what I have set if I resize the text frame. And sometimes I can't use the arrow keys to adjust anything in a numeric input well more than once.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Do you have the same coarse behaviour with the Stroke for the Text Frame itself.

Yes. 

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi, I am not experiencing any of the issues that you are all having, hopefully the Devs will get this fixed soon.

Just for info that might help to get it fixed, I am running Sierra on a touchbar MBP,  I also have UK set on the Mac as my region & English UK as the native language, with all Affinity apps defaulting to this.

@R C-R My line width is in points with my document settings set in either inches or millimetres. The display is fine in dark mode. The pressure & arrows all work fine.

@Old Bruce The column rules keep the top & bottom settings when I resize the text box.

I appreciate how frustrating it is when things don't work correctly, fingers crossed that all will be good for you in the next beta. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Murfee said:

R C-R My line width is in points with my document settings set in either inches or millimetres. The display is fine in dark mode. The pressure & arrows all work fine.

I think your line width is in points because in Preferences > User Interface the "Show Lines in points" item is ticked. As I said, I usually do not want line widths to be displayed in points, so I leave that item unticked.

In dark mode, if you click on the width text entry box in the Frame Stroke dropdown (so you get a flashing white text entry cursor) instead of selecting (highlighting) any part of it, does the text remain white & easily visible like it does in the other text fields (like for setting column & gutter widths, top & bottom gaps, etc.) or does it turn black, making it very difficult to see against the almost same black color background?

For me, it turns black, & now that I have experimented with this a bit more, I notice the same thing happens in every text entry field (width, mitre, & arrowhead percents) in the Frame Stroke drop-down for both the Column Rules stroke & the General frame stroke.

There is yet another possible issue with column rules I just noticed. If the text frame includes insets, there appears to be no way to set the column rule to extend all the way to the top & bottom of the text frame's stroke:

2049738866_Columnrulegapissue.jpg.7990d6cc66b943ef926aa6138e3b7aa9.jpg

column guide beta issue.afpub

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi 

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

In dark mode, if you click on the width text entry box in the Frame Stroke dropdown (so you get a flashing white text entry cursor) instead of selecting (highlighting) any part of it, does the text remain white & easily visible like it does in the other text fields (like for setting column & gutter widths, top & bottom gaps, etc.) or does it turn black, making it very difficult to see against the almost same black color background?

Yes it stays white 

I have changed my settings to match your file as much as I can see. It is very strange that your column rule does not extend to the top & bottom of the inset in your file.  I have matched my file to yours as much as I can tell and my column rule extends to the top & bottom of my insets....a bit of further testing and when I resize the text box height it does affect the column rule position. I don't normally use insets in text boxes so resizing had no effect on the position when I resized.

It does seem like a bug that the rule is dependent on the original frame height when adding insets

Edit: This also happens without insets, I just did a quick test by adding a 3mm gap at the bottom without any insets, I added a 3mm high rectangle to line up between the bottom of the rule & the frame. I grouped this with the text frame & doubled the heigh of the group, the checked the rectangle...it was now 6mm as was the gap between the bottom of the rule & the frame. O.o 

The rule should respect the frame size & insets at all times.

Screen Shot 2019-11-27 at 12.38.41.png

Edited by Murfee
Added Comment
Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, Murfee said:

Yes it stays white 

FWIW, I figured out why it goes black for me. It is caused by a Mac System Preferences > Accessibility setting:

1559541032_SysprefsAccessibility.jpg.e8e739e6b8e2d07227accd5f05479ad7.jpg

I should have figured this out a lot quicker because it has been a longstanding issue with some other parts of the Affinity UI as well, one I first reported back around the time AD version 1.5 was released. I guess I just have to learn to live with it. :(

57 minutes ago, Murfee said:

I have changed my settings to match your file as much as I can see. It is very strange that your column rule does not extend to the top & bottom of the inset in your file. 

Could you post your version to a reply, or at least a screenshot like mine showing both the Frame Text panel & the text frame on the page? It might help me figure out why I cannot get the rule to extend as it should to fill the gap.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Could you post your version to a reply, or at least a screenshot like mine showing both the Frame Text panel & the text frame on the page? It might help me figure out why I cannot get the rule to extend as it should to fill the gap.

Sorry R C-R but I closed the file without saving.

The only way that I could get the rule to fill the gaps is by not changing the frame size at all, just leave it as it is drawn out. The rule seems to be dependent on the original frame size...this definitely needs sorting out by Serif. 

If there are no gaps & no insets then it sticks to the frame edges, as soon as any space between the rule top or bottom by using gaps or insets, then resizing the frame increases the space proportionally.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@R C-R I have attached a screenshot for you.

The upper text frame has not been resized, it is exactly as I drew it out, the rule extends to the bottom of the inset.

I duplicated this layer and moved it down to line up below the original, I then stretched it down just a small amount to increase the height, I did not change anything else. You can now see that the rule has moved down a small amount in relation to the frame height change. 

Screen Shot 2019-11-27 at 15.03.40.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.