Facing pages 0/0 origin

[Josan]

Hi. My english is very limited, sorry.

Working with facing pages how I can see left and right pages with X=0 and Y=0 (Affinity Publisher)?

Edited May 16, 2022 by Josan

[Old Bruce]

You can drag the 0, 0 to the centre of the spread. Use the Move tool to do this, just grab the intersection of the rulers and drag it to where you want it to be on the spread.

[Josan]

Thanks for your rapid support.

But doing that I lose the origin x=0 on the left page. I want to have both pages with an origin x=0 (like in InDesign)

[Old Bruce]

Just now, Josan said:

Thanks for your rapid support.

But doing that I lose the origin x=0 on the left page. I want to have both pages with an origin x=0 (like in InDesign)

Okay, Affinity Publisher cannot do that. I am fairly sure that it has been asked for

But seriously how often do you actually need the zero reference? Could you get by with changing to the right page then the left on occasion?

Myself I can count on the fingers of one no hand the number of times I have needed that setting in the last 30+ years of work. May be it is the way my brain has been wired or the way I work or the type of work I do but I truly do not understand the need for this. Should it be added? Yes, people want/need it.

[thomaso]

Affinity not only lacks in the ability to set the ruler on facing pages accordingly, also a custom set ruler applies only for this current spread while all others keep their standard setting. There are two related Feature Requests you could add your vote:

[Josan]

Quote

 

Old dog habits… This is how I worked in QuarkXPress 30 years ago and the same thing later with InDesign…

[MikeW]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

... But seriously how often do you actually need the zero reference?...

Aside from needing to use +XXX in the transform panel for setting an element to precise measurements manually, if/when Serif ever adds scripting, they will need to provide a method for a script to know if an element being placed and/or created is on a L/R side of a spread.

Which I suspect they will do rather than just correct a stupid, not well-thought out origin point for spreads.

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

...Could you get by with changing to the right page then the left on occasion?...

Really? Could you get by with such a hack?

[Old Bruce]

3 hours ago, MikeW said:

they will need to provide a method for a script to know if an element being placed and/or created is on a L/R side of a spread

If the x coordinate for 1 inch in from the left is +1.00 for both the left and the right page how is it going to be determined which is the left or right? +1.00 inches and +9.5 inches is kind of obvious as is - 7.5 inches and +1.00 inches.

 

3 hours ago, MikeW said:

Really? Could you get by with such a hack?

As I stated I don't actually use this stuff so .... Yes I could get by.

[thomaso]

5 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

how is it going to be determined which is the left or right?

It wouldn't need to. The page number is enough.

[MikeW]

10 minutes ago, thomaso said:

It wouldn't need to. The page number is enough.

When automating incoming data, one doesn't know upfront whether a specific element is placed on a right or left page of a spread. It's ludicrous to specify suggested units using the present zero point scheme. 

Unless such a script has access to the previous page number + 1, it won't know at build time. But that may suffice.

I'll have to see what can be done once an api is published. 

Oops. Part of that was to OB...but editing using my phone is a pita.

[thomaso]

27 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Unless such a script has access to the previous page number + 1, it won't know at build time.

If the document has more than 1 page the script must know a page number anyway. In the current ruler system an absolute x position is more cumbersome because for right pages one must tell or calculate the page width additionally.

[MikeW]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

If the document has more than 1 page the script must know a page number anyway. In the current ruler system an absolute x position is more cumbersome because for right pages one must tell or calculate the page width additionally.

As for the positioning, a script should  be able to obtain the page property and do the math. But that will likely have an impact on script speed as the script also has to figure out the left or right page too.

I'll await seeing the api before further comment. 

[PaulEC]

I suppose I'm being a bit simplistic about this, but I can't help feeling that if you're dealing with a 2 page spread, it makes sense to treat it as a single "entity" when it comes to measurements. If you want to treat each page as a single item, don't use 2 page spreads.

If you need a zero setting on each page (for placing objects etc) when using spreads, it's easy enough to drag the origin of the ruler across.

[lacerto]

22 hours ago, PaulEC said:

I suppose I'm being a bit simplistic about this, but I can't help feeling that if you're dealing with a 2 page spread, it makes sense to treat it as a single "entity" when it comes to measurements.

Me, too. It is of course convenient for the user to be able to choose whether they have spread origin or page origin but I guess that internally Publisher uses similarly as InDesign an absolute pasteboard coordinate system based on which the spread coordinate origin is determined, the default of the latter being in InDesign but because of importance of supporting IDML probably also in Affinity Publisher the center of the spread (though in the user's perspective it is by default in the top left corner of the spread).

So I think that it is kind of natural that the ruler coordinates only support spread origin at this stage. Perhaps the per page origin is sometimes added but I agree that it is easy enough to just drag the origin.

[Josan]

"

"(...)If you want to treat each page as a single item (...)". In other programs this has been possible for more than 30 years and is what I am used to.

[MikeW]

5 hours ago, lacerto said:

Me, too. It is if course convenient for the user to be able to choose whether they have spread origin or page origin but I guess that internally Publisher uses similarly as InDesign an absolute pasteboard coordinate system based on which the spread coordinate origin is determined, the default of the latter being in InDesign but because of importance of supporting IDML probably also in Affinity Publisher the center of the spread (though in the user's perspective it is by default in the top left corner of the spread).

So I think that it is kind of natural that the ruler coordinates only support spread origin at this stage. Perhaps the per page origin is sometimes added but I agree that it is easy enough to just drag the origin.

ID uses the preference setting as shown in @Josan's screen shot. Every script I've seen that needs to obtain Zero per page, sets the document preference to see Zero per page then restores the user's preference when the script is finished.

QXP only uses Zero per page (as far as I recall). I depend on it when creating items during tagged text import.

Viva Designer only uses Zero per page (as far as I recall). I've never mucked around in preferences to see if that is changeable. I do use a script that utilizes positioning based on Zero being per page.

[thomaso]

6 hours ago, PaulEC said:

If you want to treat each page as a single item, don't use 2 page spreads.

Hm? You seem to misunderstand the use and the technical requirement of facing pages. It is definitely not just to create layouts in shorter or wider width. 😉

6 hours ago, PaulEC said:

easy enough to drag the origin of the ruler across.

6 hours ago, lacerto said:

easy enough to just drag the origin.

How do you know? Though many roads lead to Rome the OP of this thread goes via the ruler for orientation on the landscape while driving the layout. Thus it doesn't make sense to respond "You don't need" or "Why Rome?".

So, if a workflow wants to use the information given by the ruler – as commonly known in other apps – it appears at least confusing up to useless if the values have their own understanding ("I don't see 2 pages") or change their direction in the middle. Imagine you want to position objects on left page like those on the right one. The expected app behaviour would allow to use for both the same ruler value, for instance 20, 100 or 220 – but Affinity insists to think different …:

The negative counting on the left page wouldn't even be helpful to layout a document with an RTL language (e.g. Arabic) on the left page because it is the ruler only which is turned but not e.g. the positions of the object anchors in the transform panel (which then would indeed result in identical values for left and right objects).

[PaulEC]

 

46 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Hm? You seem to misunderstand the use and the technical requirement of facing pages. It is definitely not just to create layouts in shorter or wider width.

No, obviously there are more considerations than just the width of the layout! 

46 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Imagine you want to position objects on left page like those on the right one.

Imagine you want to position objects the same distance from the centre (or outside edge) of facing pages so that the pages are "mirrored" (which is quite common in facing page spreads); then the way APub does it, with "0" at the centre with the ruler measuring outwards, makes much more sense!

I can see that it might be handy to have the choice of how the ruler works, and that the setting could be "sticky", but I certainly don't think it should be changed just so that it is same as in ID.

[lacerto]

1 hour ago, MikeW said:

QXP only uses Zero per page (as far as I recall). I depend on it when creating items during tagged text import.

At least version 2018 QXP has spread origin as an option (even if page origin is the default). We typically use spread origin in InDesign (I am not sure but I think it is the default), and only in special cases the page origin. With mirrored margins spread origin (moved to center when necessary, to behave like spine origin) has felt natural in most cases.

But we all have our preferences and that's just fine. My point was that there is nothing inherently wrong or stupid about the spread origin. With ID scripts when e.g. writing transforming routines it is possible to select from four coordinate systems (the absolute pasteboard, spread, page and inner coordinates, and additionally parent coordinates) so we are not dependent on page origin by any means.

[Josan]

"(...)My point was that there is nothing inherently wrong or stupid about the spread origin.(...).

I agree with this, but I miss the option to choose the origin of the rules.

[thomaso]

12 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

Imagine you want to position objects the same distance from the centre (or outside edge) of facing pages so that the pages are "mirrored" (which is quite common in facing page spreads); then the way APub does it, with "0" at the centre with the ruler measuring outwards, makes much more sense!

Not really, as long as APub does not also switch the object anchors in the Transform panel. Currently only the ruler is mirrored, but not the anchors, which exactly forces these strange value pairs like -77 | 20 for actually according positions in a mirrored layout.

[lacerto]

54 minutes ago, thomaso said:

How do you know?

Did you ask how I know that I agree that IMO it is easy enough to drag the origin when needed, instead of changing the coordinate system from the Preferences? I'm not making any statements against page origin, and I agree that it would be nice to have this option also in Publisher. But for me it is not crucial. I can understand that it is for someone else.