Bug applying hyperlinks to text in tables

[SarahB]

MacOS High Sierra/Publisher 1.10.1

I am working on a document that has a number (200+) of websites in tables and I want to hyperlink all of them. I have a problem doing that when the website address is the only text in the cell.

My normal process would be to double click on the text to select all the text in that cell (called Cell A), right click, Interactive/Insert Hyperlink. However, double clicking on the text also selects the > hidden character (presumably that denotes 'next cell'), and therein lies the problem.

When I check the source of the hyperlink in the Hyperlinks studio the source is the two rows that contain Cell A, not the text I highlighted (Cell A is in the final column of the table). The resulting hyperlink can't be deleted from the Hyperlinks studio, nor from the Text menu which only has the option to insert a hyperlink. Rightclicking on the highlighted rows does not give any hyperlink options so I can't delete that way. Rightclicking on the originally highlighted text doesn't give me the option to delete the hyperlink. Deleting the two rows from the table and reinserting them doesn't work, this may be because the comes from a master page. The only solution seems to be deleting the entire table and starting again.

It seems that I have to zoom right in and carefully select the text using click & drag, to avoid selecting >. This seems unnecessarily fiddly, especially since I can select/copy the web address to use as the URL by double clicking with no problems. but the bigger pain is that the resulting hyperlink can't be deleted. In a couple of instances, in trying to delete it I've had two more appear, one whose source is the text in the cell to the left of Cell A, one whose source is the text in the cell below Cell A.

I say the hyperlinks are incorrect – they work in a pdf, obviously you can click anywhere in the two rows rather than just on the website text, but they are a mess in Publisher.

I've attached a single page of the document I'm working on that has this problem. To create the hyperlink, I double clicked on the web address in the second row down – the hyperlink has been applied to all the surrounding cells, but not that text.

 

Hyperlinks.afpub

[SarahB]

Incidentally, when I apply a hyperlink I choose [No style] from the Character style options in the hyperlink dialogue box, since the text already has the paragraph style I want. You can see in the file above that the styles for the web address are now Table body copy + [No Style] + Hyperlink. Why are [No Style] paragraph style and Hyperlink character style being applied when I choose [No Style] character style?

[SarahB]

No response to this at all from Affinity? Is it a bug, am I doing something wrong?

[Old Bruce]

On 9/12/2021 at 9:46 AM, SarahB said:

Incidentally, when I apply a hyperlink I choose [No style] from the Character style options in the hyperlink dialogue box, since the text already has the paragraph style I want. You can see in the file above that the styles for the web address are now Table body copy + [No Style] + Hyperlink. Why are [No Style] paragraph style and Hyperlink character style being applied when I choose [No Style] character style?

The actual text which looks like a web address "www.skinners.org.uk/atwell/individuals" that is in your document is not one of the three hyperlinks you have.

[thomaso]

Additionally to Bruce's hint (none of the 3 hyperlinks is assigned to the cell containing the link-text):

The UI indicates you have ambiguous styles applied, indicated by "+" symbol in the summary list of the Text Styles Panel and the "!" in the character style field of the Context Bar.

[thomaso]

Not sure if this is related: The according cell in the master page object appears to have a non-existing character style assigned:

Hyperlink Panel: Weird, I may delete only 2 of 3 entries in the Hyperlink panel, 1 remains un-deletable and is non-editable.
(Even more weird: After a while the 2 deleted entries appeared back in the panel, I can't even notice a specific user action triggering this.)

I can place the text cursor but can't edit or delete text:

[thomaso]

I suspect this topic is related to an earlier (2020) which appears not to be logged as bug nor tagged yet (but just seen by @Callum at one stage).

 

[thomaso]

For easier investigation I copied the affected table into a new document + deleted the master page + run "Delete Unused Styles".

v1101 _ hyperlink & table - can't delete.afpub

In the Hyperlinks panel occurs weirdness. Watch the unexpected re-appearance of deleted hyperlinks and the disability to delete a specific, apparently overarching multi-cell hyperlink, which auto-generates from initially 3 links (from the original .afpub) finally 5, one for each of the 4 cells of this area.

[SarahB]

You have described exactly the problem that I am calling a bug. I applied a hyperlink by highlighting the text www.skinners.org.uk/atwell/individuals, right-clicking and so on. The hyperlink was actually applied to the four cells that are highlighted in your video, the hyperlink that you can't delete. The other two hyperlinks in my example document appeared in much the same way as the extras that you ended up with in your video. If I try to delete them, more appear.

On 10/2/2021 at 4:45 PM, Old Bruce said:

The actual text which looks like a web address "www.skinners.org.uk/atwell/individuals" that is in your document is not one of the three hyperlinks you have.

I know, as I mentioned in my initial post and hence me logging this as a bug in the first place. "When I check the source of the hyperlink in the Hyperlinks studio the source is the two rows that contain Cell A, not the text I highlighted (Cell A is in the final column of the table)."

[SarahB]

On 10/2/2021 at 6:03 PM, thomaso said:

Not sure if this is related: The according cell in the master page object appears to have a non-existing character style assigned:

 

 

Thanks for pointing that out, I'll fix that. It doesn't explain why [No Style] paragraph and Hyperlink text styles are applied to the text when I apply the hyperlink though as I mentioned in my second post;

 

On 9/12/2021 at 5:46 PM, SarahB said:

Incidentally, when I apply a hyperlink I choose [No style] from the Character style options in the hyperlink dialogue box, since the text already has the paragraph style I want. You can see in the file above that the styles for the web address are now Table body copy + [No Style] + Hyperlink. Why are [No Style] paragraph style and Hyperlink character style being applied when I choose [No Style] character style?

 So the Hyperlink text style is being applied to the web text, even though I don't choose it and even though none of the hyperlinks are applied to the web text!

[thomaso]

38 minutes ago, SarahB said:

It doesn't explain why [No Style] paragraph and Hyperlink text styles are applied to the text when I apply the hyperlink though as I mentioned in my second post;

The way the UI handles this silently with the prefix "!" is confusing indeed. But it could be planed "by design" as a feature, meant to prevent from creating a hyperlink without a visual difference making it appearing at all. Note, aside "![No Style]", the default offered character style "Hyperlink" which would get auto-created by APub if not existing when this menu option gets selected.

Additional confusion might get caused, by the entry "+ Hyperlink" in the Text Style panel's summery . This seems not to refer to a style with this name but rather to an assigned link: This entry remains if the irritating "![No Style]" got fixed by reassigning "[No Style]". 

[SarahB]

4 minutes ago, thomaso said:

The way the UI handles this silently with the prefix "!" is confusing indeed. But it could be planed "by design" as a feature, meant to prevent from creating a hyperlink without a visual difference making it appearing at all. Note, aside "![No Style]", the default offered character style "Hyperlink" which would get auto-created by APub if not existing when this menu option gets selected.

Additional confusion might get caused, by the entry "+ Hyperlink" in the Text Style panel's summery . This seems not to refer to a style with this name but rather to an assigned link: This entry remains if the irritating "![No Style]" got fixed by reassigning "[No Style]". 

 

Thanks for clarifying that. If the '+Hyperlink' in the Text Styles panel summary means that the text has an assigned link (rather than hyperlink style), it suggests that the website text in my original example file does have a link assigned to it, even though it it is not the source of any of the hyperlinks in the Hyperlinks panel.

Either way, there are a lot of bugs when trying to apply hyperlinks within a table and I wish someone from Affinity would take notice!!

 

 

[SarahB]

On 10/2/2021 at 6:08 PM, thomaso said:

I suspect this topic is related to an earlier (2020) which appears not to be logged as bug nor tagged yet (but just seen by @Callum at one stage).

 

I'd forgotten I posted that bug last year!

[thomaso]

8 minutes ago, SarahB said:

I'd forgotten I posted that bug last year!

Unfortunately Serif's bug report system doesn't offer a bug overview to the users, possibly even not to the moderators. Instead unfixed bugs seem to require getting "nudged" by moderators here and there, with no transparency of plans to fix a bug – now, soon, anytime or never – nor of the used tags (like "afb-4991" for this thread).

[SarahB]

Just bumping this a year later, working on the same project and the bug is still there – applying a hyperlink to text in a cell applies it to surrounding cells. No comment or update from Affinity.