Switching between artistic text and text frame (split)

[Merchako]

Just for the devs: This is a major stumbling block to new users. 

• It's easy to make an Art Text box instead of a Text Frame because they both use the same keyboard shortcut, `t` (same as InDesign's text box). 
• The signifiers that differentiate the Artistic Text and Frame Text tools aren't strong enough. Same goes for the layer icons. Compare the Artistic Text 'A' to Microsoft Word's WordArt icon. Now that's differentiated! 
• The only thing that differentiates the boxes on the page is a single dot.
• The two behave the same until you try to resize them. 
• If you use the wrong one, the only way to fix it is to remake it. There's no conversion tool.

I just laid out masters, precise layout (Bringhurst's golden section on ISO), running headings, page numbers, sections, table of contents, and columns for a 46-page prospectus only to find out once I started putting in real content that I used the wrong kind of text box. This is not the kind of initial experience you want users to have. 

It'd be good for everyone if there were an easy way to convert Art Text boxes to Frame Text boxes.

[walt.farrell]

12 hours ago, Merchako said:

Just for the devs: This is a major stumbling block to new users. 

• It's easy to make an Art Text box instead of a Text Frame because they both use the same keyboard shortcut, `t` (same as InDesign's text box). 
• The signifiers that differentiate the Artistic Text and Frame Text tools aren't strong enough. Same goes for the layer icons. Compare the Artistic Text 'A' to Microsoft Word's WordArt icon. Now that's differentiated! 
• The only thing that differentiates the boxes on the page is a single dot.
• The two behave the same until you try to resize them. 
• If you use the wrong one, the only way to fix it is to remake it. There's no conversion tool.

I just laid out masters, precise layout (Bringhurst's golden section on ISO), running headings, page numbers, sections, table of contents, and columns for a 46-page prospectus only to find out once I started putting in real content that I used the wrong kind of text box. This is not the kind of initial experience you want users to have. 

It'd be good for everyone if there were an easy way to convert Art Text boxes to Frame Text boxes.

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

That's not really relevant to this topic (about multi-line TOC entries), and should probably have been made in the Feature Requests & Suggestions section, as Feedback, rather than here in the Questions part of the forum.

Possibly a moderator will move it for you, at some point.

They don't "behave the same until you try to resize them". When you create Artistic Text you get a bounding box around a single letter (A), and a text cursor as tall as the bounding box.  When you create a Text Frame, you have a completely different cursor while drawing, and you get (usually) a much smaller text cursor when you're done, or no cursor at all until you click in the frame. That's a very obvious difference, which you see immediately.

Another difference, at least in Publisher (which we are discussing here): A Text Frame has two linking triangles (upper left and lower right sides of the frame), in addition to the scaling handle that you mentioned.

And for the conversion between them: You'll find several suggestions related to that in the Feature Requests & Suggestions part of the forum already.

[Old Bruce]

You can change the default 'T' for all three tools (Art Text, Frame Text plus the Table tool) in the Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts > Tools.

I don't know what you mean by the term 'signifiers' in

16 hours ago, Merchako said:

The signifiers that differentiate the Artistic Text and Frame Text tools aren't strong enough

An aside;

16 hours ago, Merchako said:

... I just laid out masters, precise layout (Bringhurst's golden section on ISO) ...

Ah good old Bringhurst. My copy literally fell apart several years back.

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

That's not really relevant to this topic (about multi-line TOC entries), and should probably have been made in the Feature Requests & Suggestions section, as Feedback, rather than here in the Questions part of the forum.

It also is a duplicate of this reply, which while relevant to that topic still would be better if posted to the Feature Requests & Suggestions section.

[Patrick Connor]

Agreed R C-R, @Merchako I too think that this post is more of a request than a continuation of the discussion where it was posted, so I've split it here