Feature request: highlight spans of character local styling

[sfriedberg]

I request a display mode (similar to Text >Highlight Fields) which puts a highlight over all spans of characters styled with anything other than the assigned paragraph style.  In particular, I'd like to be able to quickly scan for spans of "No break" or manually adjusted tracking without having to move my cursor through the entire body of text.

If the assigned paragraph style is Body, and the context toolbar reports Body+, the character at the cursor should be highlighted.  But it should also be highlighted if any of the Character panel attributes have non-default values (e.g., Auto, 0, 100%, Off), like "No break" or adjusted tracking.  These generally do not add the "+" to the style reported on the context toolbar, but should be highlighted.

[garrettm30]

Yes indeed, this kind of feature would very much interest me. Back toward the end of the public beta, I commented on it:

For me, the first step would just be to highlight all text overrides, which would already be a big win, but the feature could be expanded to be more powerful. In another post, I even claimed that it "would be the kind of whizz-bang new feature that could motivate me to immediately purchase version 2 whenever it might eventually come out." But as I added even then, I am pretty sure I will buy the next paid version of Publisher on day 1 regardless.

[A_B_C]

Thank goodness that there are a few other users who feel the same. This is such an essential feature, and I’m just sorry that I haven’t searched the forum more extensively before posting my own feature request. 🥺

On 3/23/2021 at 7:33 PM, garrettm30 said:

… would be the kind of whizz-bang new feature that could motivate me to immediately purchase version 2 whenever it might eventually come out.

I cannot agree more. 😀

[garrettm30]

Until such time as some kind of advanced highlighting comes available, you could apply your no break attribute via character style, and then when you want to "turn on the highlighting", you can temporarily edit the Hightlight attribute of the text style (it is under Color & Decorations).

My idea of an advanced highlighting interface would be to turn on and off highlighting (when not in preview mode) for different things such as:

• Local overrides
• No break
• Font substitution (or missing fonts)
• Extremes of justification (something like ID's H&J Violations)

Three of the four above are examples of options that I would use on a regular basis.

[loukash]

3 hours ago, garrettm30 said:

apply your no break attribute via character style, and then when you want to "turn on the highlighting", you can temporarily edit the Hightlight attribute of the text style

Yep, see also: