Request: Replace "Leading Override" with "Leading"

[loukash]

For the record – since comparisons are being drawn to InDesign in this thread:

^ It's a global preference option in InDesign (CS5.5 here, don't know about newer versions).
I, for one, always keep it on "apply to paragraphs".
When I'd need to override paragraph leading, I must disable the preference setting first, apply the leading, reenable the preference. Clunky.

For me, the Affinity "Override" solution is way better, more flexible and totally straightforward.

[garrettm30]

2 hours ago, Petar Petrenko said:

I agree with you, but if so what will remain to "paragraph" to control?

That was some time ago that I wrote that, so I don't remember exactly where I was going with it. I was surely not suggesting we have an additional line semantic in addition to paragraph and character level attributes. I do think the paragraph/character paradigm is the best solution. I was only discussing this "line-level attribute" to point out why in this case it is not necessarily clear whether leading should be a paragraph or character: because in actual printed results, it is not really either.

That is what I tried to explain in my original post:

On 7/23/2020 at 1:37 PM, garrettm30 said:

I point that out only to illustrate why it may be hard to settle on a definite way of thinking on this subject, because it doesn't fit the character->paragraph paradigm so neatly as other attributes. For my part, I tend to think of it primarily as a paragraph attribute with the option to "override" the paragraph default in specific (and even rare) cases.

I am currently satisfied with Publisher's implementation in this regard.

[loukash]

10 minutes ago, garrettm30 said:

I was only discussing this "line-level attribute" to point out why in this case it is not necessarily clear whether leading should be a paragraph or character

The "override" attribute moves with the character(s) it's been applied to. Not with the line.
So if you apply it only to the last character of a word, and the word hyphenates, the first part of the word on the line above won't be affected.

To me the current implemetation makes sense.
After I've figured out what that feature is about, that is. Originally coming from InDesign…

[garrettm30]

3 minutes ago, loukash said:

The "override" attribute moves with the character(s) it's been applied to. Not with the line.

I suggest we leave the old comment I made in the past, because I think it is only confusing in the present discussion. You say the current implementation makes sense, and I totally agree, and I am not in disagreement with what you added. My original comment was looking at a different angle.

[Mark Oehlschlager]

The leading override still makes no sense to me.

Leading (or linespacing) is a paragraph level attribute. In the Adobe apps, leading is included in the Character palettes in the recognition that designers think and create settings in terms of face, weight, point size and leading, and its just efficient to set all of those attributes in one panel.

As for leading override in the Affinity apps, it just invites errors that have to be hunted down later. If for whatever reason, one feels the need to get expressive, setting one phrase at 12/20 in a paragraph set at 12/14, one can just as easily establish a Character Style and apply that to the phrase.

[garrettm30]

1 hour ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

As for leading override in the Affinity apps, it just invites errors that have to be hunted down later. If for whatever reason, one feels the need to get expressive, setting one phrase at 12/20 in a paragraph set at 12/14, one can just as easily establish a Character Style and apply that to the phrase.

Are you suggesting the removal of the leading override from the Character Studio and instead advocating doing the same via a character style? That still means it is a character-level attribute (which is by nature what a character style does). Every attribute that a character style can apply should also be possible to apply or override at the local character level.

[Mark Oehlschlager]

Let's just say that the strict separation of character and paragraph attributes into separate panels (which forces an unnatural divorce of leading from face, weight and point size for the typesetter) creates a work inefficiency. So, while there is a theoretical logic to the separation, that logic does not acknowledge the practice of needing to quickly set a paragraph as Avenir Bold 12/14. The Affinity UI forces one to set the first part (Avenir Bold 12) in the Character panel, and then a switch to the Paragraph panel for the second part (/14). The Adobe UI includes leading in the Character panel recognizing the practical efficiency of setting face, weight, point size and leading in one panel. 

It appears that the Affinity developers were wedded to the idea of leading being a paragraph attribute and so therefore could not include leading in the Character panel, but instead decided to invent a Leading Override attribute. I still have no idea what the utility of the Leading Override field is here.

The Adobe model works. Why reinvent the wheel?

[loukash]

56 minutes ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

The Adobe model works.

Really?

Having deliberately chosen to apply leading to paragraph as per the preference setting, since 2003 I was intuitively and repeatedly trying to locate the Leading field in InDesign's Paragraph panel.
In vain.
So much for "[it] works" as a generalization.

[Mark Oehlschlager]

@loukash

Not sure what your trouble has been. In the Character panel, set your face, weight, point size and leading, tabbing through from one field to the next. Zip, zip, done.

[loukash]

1 minute ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

Not sure what your trouble has been.

Not important. Forget it.

[Petar Petrenko]

8 hours ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

In the Character panel, set your face, weight, point size and leading,

With leading you control space between paragraph lines, so it is paragraph attribute. Simple as that.

If I want to shift some characters up or down I use baseline shift, not leading override. In mine 25+ years career in this business I didn't have any need for leading overrides at all. I am glad that Affinity put leading to paragraph preferences. Do not expect that Affinity will remove leading override from characters settings, but it is removed in my mind for good.

BTW, Quark also sets leading as paragraph attribute only and it is quite enough.

[loukash]

3 hours ago, Petar Petrenko said:

I didn't have any need for leading overrides at all

I had, but rarely. Likely for working around some specific text flow or text wrap issues, I don't remember. Possibly in certain scenarios that involved complex InDesign span/split columns formatting that didn't flow exactly the way I needed.
It's good to have if you need it but not essential.

Which reminds me: Possibly it could be of some use for some of my "fake span columns" workarounds.

[Petar Petrenko]

In InDesign Leading is a character attribute, so is Leading override. But, it is wrong because leading override deals with rows just as Leading does -- which is a paragraph feature -- and not with selection.

Affinity treats Leading as a paragraph attribute -- which is absolutelly correct -- so Leading override must be treated as well and must be reallocated into paragraph section just bellow Leading.

[walt.farrell]

33 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

 so Leading override must be treated as well and must be reallocated into paragraph section just bellow Leading.

No, because Leading Override does not affect the paragraph. It affects only the lines it is applied to, via the Character panel.

[Mark Oehlschlager]

Ridiculous. No one can demonstrate the need for a "leading override" attribute. And though leading (line spacing) is logically a paragraph attribute, insisting on placing the leading attribute field in a separate paragraph panel just creates workflow inefficiencies for typesetters who think in terms of Face, Weight, Point Size, and Leading. Remove the Leading Override field from the Character Panel, or convert it to a proper Leading field.

[loukash]

14 minutes ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

Remove the Leading Override field from the Character Panel

If have no need for it, don't use it.
It's really that simple.™

For example, I don't recall that I would have ever needed a character function like Shear. Yet it's there. Remove it already! I don't need it and that's what counts! Right? Right?!

14 minutes ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

convert it to a proper Leading field.

Paragraph panel > Spacing > Leading
Et voilà, lookahere, there's your "proper Leading field" at your service.

And why stop there?
My goodness! What could this be?

[sbe]

I have to agree with @Mark Oehlschlager It’s totally confusing to have that semantic learned icon for "Leading" with almost the same name right next to the font size. 

But.. I think the problem is not only having 2 options, its also having the two options are not clearly differentiable. Sometimes I need a manual override. Thats fine. But I would like to have that displayed when I did that.

So I made a video, which demonstrates the problem quite well. 👉 It becomes complete chaos at some point. Especially when different people are working on the same document. I have no control over what has actually been set.

 

[Petar Petrenko]

Maybe a Master leading override should be added (for more fun) into Text Frame panel  that will override the standard leading and the leading override?

[loukash]

Whatever. 

I don't know how about y'all, folks, but whenever I'd engage in complex text formatting experiments, Text Styles are my friends.
If I mess up, I'd simply reset to the previously saved P- or C-style. Or I create a new style variant and continue from there.

[Petar Petrenko]

I just wonder why leading has this privilege to talk about its counterpart -- leading override? We have plenty of them and we don't even notice or mention them. Just look at "Paragraph", Character" and "Character styles". Everything we change with them is an override. Change local kerning or tracking and you have an override. Change the font or its size with character style and you have an override again. Why aren't they renamed as overrides?

Leading override is a bad habbit because it creates an unpleasing gap between the rows on a beautifully layouted page. It must be avoided by using fixed leading (not auto) or by separating the distacting elements on a new line.

If you want to keep it on the same line with the body text and it creates bigger leading on that line even if you use fixed leading, it is time to report a bug, not to use leading override.

[loukash]

3 hours ago, Petar Petrenko said:

why leading has this privilege to talk about its counterpart -- leading override? […] Why aren't they renamed as overrides?

Because Leading the only attribute that appears in both panels.
It gives you a choice.

Compared to InDesign where it's "all or nothing", dictated by a deeply buried global preference setting.
I like to have a choice.

3 hours ago, Petar Petrenko said:

Leading override is a bad habbit

Then: Don't. Use. It.
Problem solved.

In Affinity, so far I haven't had any use for this feature either. So what?
But I, for one, have a precise idea for a few scenarios where this very feature can be useful.

[Petar Petrenko]

3 minutes ago, loukash said:

Because Leading the only attribute that appears in both panels.

Well, font name, font size, kerning, tracking... they all appear in other panels, too.

[Petar Petrenko]

5 minutes ago, loukash said:

Then: Don't. Use. It.

I've never used it for my 25+ years.

[loukash]

32 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

font name, font size, kerning, tracking... they all appear in other panels, too

1. They don't appear in other panels, they appear in other UI elements.
2. Wherever they appear, they do the same thing.

Not so Leading Override. It does not do the same thing as Leading.

At best, you could perhaps somewhat compare it to Tracking vs. the ill conceived "Desired Letter Spacing". They also do a somewhat similar thing, the former character based, the latter paragraph based.

31 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

I've never used it for my 25+ years.

And that's perfectly okay.
For example, I haven't had any use for the "Index" feature for as long as I can remember doing DTP, starting in 1989 with PageMaker 3; no idea if it was already there, or when/where it first appeared.
So what.

Anyway.

Here's an example off the top of my head, something that I remember wanting to do in InDesign a few times but I couldn't figure out how because I forgot that I'd need to disable that stupid global preference setting first. (And then you need to remember enabling that setting again!)
A very specific situation that you can achieve with Leading Override only:

 

Yep, there's a catch. You have look hard to even see it. I don't want to make too easy for you all, folks.

Edited April 30, 2021 by loukash

[Mark Oehlschlager]

@loukash I have no idea what you're arguing for or against. And your screenshot illustrates nothing. Are you just a contrarian troll?