Publisher for Windows (1.8.2): deselection oddity

[MikeA]

As I'm learning Affinity Publisher I'm getting accustomed to one of two ways to deselect an object: press Control+D, or press the Esc key twice. I can also click with a tool outside, say, a selected text frame—but I prefer to use the keyboard when I can.

I've run into a situation where neither method works.

Start with: facing master pages that will be the masters for a book. Each contains a text frame.

On the document pages created from the master pages: Once I've selected these boxes with the text-frame tool, I can no longer de-select a text frame by pressing Control+D or by pressing the Esc key twice. And in the Select menu, the "Deselect" menu item is inaccessible ("greyed out").

But if I draw another object onto the page—say, a text frame (that is, a frame that isn't derived from a master page), then pressing Control+D and pressing Esc twice both work, and Deselect is accessible again in the Select menu.

Is that working as designed?
 

[GarryP]

Interesting.
I have been able to quickly confirm that this is indeed the case on Windows 10.
I wonder if it is the same on OS X.
I also wonder if it’s happening because the text frame on the master page isn’t actually on the ‘normal’ page and, since it’s not on the ‘normal’ page the software thinks there’s nothing to deselect. In other words, there’s nothing selected on the page so nothing can be deselected.
P.S. Using “Edit Detached” on the master page allows deselection by the normal methods.

[MikeA]

Glad you could confirm it—thanks. And thanks for the reminder about 'edit detached.' Yes, that does enable easy deselection of the text frame.

>> the software thinks there's nothing to deselect.

Makes sense—except that when you click within the locked text frame, its contents are still editable. So to that extent it is selected.

I first thought that to restore 'un-detached,' you should right-click the master page entry in question (in the Layers palette) and select 'edit linked'. That doesn't 'lock' the text frame, however. I've tried all of the items in that part of the context menu, but none seems to undo the 'edit detached' command. Perhaps it can't be done there?

I did restore the "complete" connection to the master page when I clicked the page's thumbnail image (in the "Pages" panel) and re-attached its master page there. At that point the text frame in question became locked again and once again Control+D (etc.) stopped working.

[GarryP]

The contents of the master page text frame are still editable but the selected frame is actually on the master page rather than the ‘normal’ page, which is where I think the confusion (whoever’s confusion it is) may be. It’s probably more of a ‘philosophical’ question: “When is a selected layer not selected? When it’s on a master page but you’re not editing the master page itself.” Or something like that.

The Edit Detached command should open a red ‘banner’ at the top of the canvas window which has a “Finish” button which lets you go back to the page, see attached image. "Detached" in this case can be thought of as a temporary detachment as only some of the properties of the master page layer are being detached during editing.

[MikeA]

Ah, the Finish button. I'm at no risk of anyone's accusing me of being observant — I keep not seeing that button and must have clicked away to go to some other page (at which point the 'detachment' is switched off, of course).