guides from master page shift when scaling layout page

[4dimage]

Publisher Windows, Version 1.8.4.693

Hi,

i use publisher the most time for webdesign. This means i typicaly prepare some master pages for the common viewport widths, e.g. fullhd, tablet, mobile, ...

When designing the content pages i have to scale the layout pages to different heights, to filll them with demo content. E.g. a layout page that shows mobile content will be a very long "strip" which is 360px wide, but 3000px in height. Every content page has an individual height depending on the demo content in it. This height changes always during the design process.

But of course typical page items like header bar with logo and navigation elements are part of the respected master pages.

 

PROBLEM

Together with typical design elements that appear on every content page (e.g. header bar) i set some guides in the matser page to see typical heights in the layout pages that relay on this master page. This might be 2 guides which set the the max height of a page hero or something else.

What i expect is, that the quides from the master page always remain at their original position when scaling a layout page relative to the upper left corner. The Elements in the layout page should NOT be resized. I only need more height to add additional content at the bottom of the layout page.

 

But, after scaling the layout page using these settings the giudes that derive from the master page are shifted verticaly in the layout page. I set the transform origin to the upper left corner. But this doesn't work as expected.

 

Instead it becomes more weird, when using the other layout scale method.

Then the guides from the master stay intact but of course the whole content of the layout page is scaled unproportionaly. This is of course nothing that anybody needs 😞

 

 

[4dimage]

THE REASON

ok, i guess i got it.

Publisher seems to manage the master page contents as symbols in the background layer of each layout page. After scaling the layout page from the upper left corner with fixed content method, the other content elements in the layout page are neither scaled nor moved. That's how i expect it to work.

Nonetheless the master symbol IS moved downwards in this case. And the guides contained in the master symbol of course move with it:

 

After moving the master symbol to the upper layout border the contained guides move with it in the expected position:

 

This workaround works but is not really self-explanatory. After all the master symbol is a content element like all others on the layout page - isn't it ?

 

[Gabe]

Hi @4dimage,

I'm sorry but I can't replicate this here. Can you attach a screen recoding of your workflow, or the document in question?

[4dimage]

Hi Gabe,

here is a simple test file which reproduces the behaviour: bug-demo_layout-scale_master-page-shift_1-1.afpub

The master symbol in the layout page is always shifted to the vertical center of the layout page although the scale method (transform anchor) is relative to the upper left corner.

By the way: it's so annoying during every day work to always have to unlock proportional scale and set the anchor again every time one opens this layout scale dialog again. Why not at least remembering the last used settings ? To my mind there is little use of scaling the contents of a layout page together with the new page height because this will distort the layout content. In most cases this is not the intended behaviour (unless the new page size is proportionaly scaled up or down, e.g. from one DIN format to another). As far as my work is concerned in almost all cases i need to extend the layout page height to add more page content at the bottom.

 

My workflow is as follows:

[Gabe]

This is expected. That checkbox works for elements you have on the page that are not part of the master. When you apply a different size masterpage to a normal page, it will centre it. There is no option to choose where the masterpage content goes when you apply it. 

[4dimage]

Hi Gabe,

this might be an expected behaviour from a developers point of view. But i guess this behaviour is counter intuitive because the master symbol can be moved like any other object in the layout page. So why should it behave in a different way when it comes to layout scale? When i set the transform origin to the upper left corner and layout fix method (in german: "Auf Seite verankern") activated i expect that all elements in the layout stay unscaled at their orginal position - including the master page symbol. Only the layout page boundaries should resize to right/bottom.

And mind the impact on my daily work (screendesign - not print). I have to export dozens of screenshot JPG/PNG for customer approval.

Almost after every context change in a layout page (new text, additional images, ...) i need to change the page height. This is because i don't want to have a huge blank space at the bottom of a screenshot. A customer might think this is an intended part of the screendesign ! As a consequence i always have to correct the page height so that the screenshot shows a realistic webdesign from header to footer.

Now count the seconds and minutes per day only to fix the master layout shift by always manually repositioning the master symbol to the upper page border again.

Sorry - but these endless workarounds are really time consuming...

[Gabe]

I already logged this as an improvement .

[4dimage]

Thanks