Cannot use the color sliders

[AlanPC]

I noticed yesterday with Publisher I seemed to be getting the completely wrong color when using the RGB sliders.

Today I try again with a different document and it's quite bizarre - situation - I want to use a client's basic background gray color (RGB 201, 201, 201). For this one it's very easy but they have other colors too, obviously.

When I try to set the background of a page (a style-guide I downloaded) it seems to be changing my input. I put "201" and as soon as I click the next number the 201 turns into something entirely different ("23").

If I go back and try that again.. again, just insists it's 23. If I try setting the next number down to 201... it changes to "36" as soon as I select the 3rd number.

What the heck? I thought the entire point of RGB is so you can color-pick a number and insert that exact number, via 3 little 3 digit numbers? Why am I just getting these random, 2 digit numbers?

And why is it on a little pop up that makes it impossible to click ANYTHING else, including screenshot software, without it vanishing? This was also an issue for other colors, trying to open Notepad and the color dialogue at the same time is impossible

 

[AlanPC]

Update - I think perhaps this selection is somehow locked? If I try moving the sliders they spring back to their original setting. So new question - how to unlock?

As an aside, I can fix my problem by selecting 'swatches' and then grayscale, but that doesn't help if I need to change the color)

[AlanPC]

Omigod this is so unintuitive... I've managed to change the background of one page to gray, other pages I cannot? 

I can see the background is "level 3", and the background goes white if I unselect level 3, so that's the right part of the page - but I cannot adjust the color? The color stuff at the top seems unrelated?

My goodness this is a headache

[Callum]

Hi AlanPc,

I'm not sure I fully understand your problem I'm afraid. If possible could you provide a screen recording that demonstrates this problem? This will allow me to investigate this further with you

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/110424-ive-been-asked-to-provide-a-screen-recording-how-do-i-do-this/

Thanks
C

 

[AlanPC]

OK have uploaded a vid... I guess the answer is 'RTFM' but I don't even know where to look or what such a thing would be called. 

Part of the problem is it seems to change by page, sometimes I can get to the color but it just bounces back to what it was and ignores my input (until I selected the grayscale option, then I could make it 20% black, which is OK). At one time I could move the colored rectangle around with my mouse - but still couldn't see anywhere to change the color? 

I just want to whizz through the document and change the page background colors. I feel this should be so simple, yet somehow here I am, banging my head on my desk again... 😅

[GarryP]

The thing you are trying to change in your video is the Stroke colour, not the Fill Colour.
Try clicking in the Fill swatch next to the Fill name on the Context Toolbar, or using the Colour Panel with the Fill swatch activated.

See attached video.

Note: You don’t need to put a Rectangle layer into a Layer layer, you can just add a Rectangle as a layer.

[AlanPC]

Thank you, that does help somewhat except I still don't seem to be able to select the rectangle to edit it. I can grab it with my mouse and move it around, but the only color thing I see is for some font ("Minion Pro")* not the rectangle, even though I can move and resize the rectangle I don't see where or how to change the color of it? 

I realized I had the text tool selected... So it seems to be a text box with a filled color? But again, how to change the color? There's no 'fill' option visible, even when I'm waving the thing around with the mouse.

*and changing the font color doesn't change the font color actually shown, to add to my bafflement)

If not the text tool, what to use? The move tool just moves the entire publication around. There does not seem to be a simple "Select the thing you click on" tool. There's a "Node" tool but I dunno what a 'Node' is, so I'm not touching that thing.

There's a grabbing hand tool for moving... wait, that's a 'view' tool? What? How...  Whatever. There's another arrow, bu.. no wait, the arrow tool, that's the 'Move' tool. ?? Srsly?

As I mentioned a while back, I work in user-experience and stuff; this is doing my head in. It honestly feels like it's designed to be difficult or obscure. Lemme try again... with the 'Move' arrow (with the crafty shortcut of V, because M would be too easy..).. Nope. no color selection other than a font, which doesn't actually change the font (also too easy I guess). I guess I'm changing a different page somewhere, cos nothing changing here?

So in desperation, cos it MUST be an arrow, I tried the 'Node' tool. Now I'm even more confused... with the Node tool I was able to 'node' the rectangle and then change the fill color. That worked. I go to the next page, cannot? I can 'move' the rectangle, and I can 'node' it, and I can 'view' it, but at no point am I seeing the option to change its color. I've been coming back to this thing all day, so far I've managed to change 2 pages, and can't really say how, as it seems to change from one page to the next.

It's just bizarre.

 

 

 

[GarryP]

It sounds like you’re going down some kind of ‘infinite problem spiral hole’ because of frustration caused by a mistake early on.

It might help if you first extract the 'real' layers from the Layer layers – the layers of type Layer which have the “(Layer)” suffix – as you don’t need them, as far as I can see.

For example, on page 2 you have a Shape Text layer inside a Layer layer called Layer 3.
You don’t need Layer 3, you only need the Shape Text layer.
In the Layers Panel, drag the Shape Text layer slightly above the Layer3 layer and then drop it so the Shape Text Layer is above the Layer 3 layer in the stack, then delete the Layer 3 layer.
(Do this on a copy of the document.)
Do the same for the other layers which are inside Layer layers.

See attached video.

Simplifying the design in this way may help you to figure out what the problem is.

Edited July 27, 2022 by GarryP
Added video.

[AlanPC]

I really do appreciate the help.

Unfortunately I have given up, at least for now. I suggested earlier that the design of the UI was perhaps copying Adobe? Because I have never used Adobe, I just know they have subscriptions and I deeply despise subscriptions. I want to own things and be happy.

However out both curiosity and desperation I tried Adobe...

Would you like to see the video? 

[Pšenda]

44 minutes ago, AlanPC said:

Would you like to see the video? 

 

 

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, AlanPC said:

with the crafty shortcut of V, because M would be too easy

Why not set the shortcuts according to your preferences?

[AlanPC]

Sure, when I could get to it, but most of the time I'm just clicking around and cannot get to that.

One thing I notice is the Adobe version doesn't show any layers. I can just click on the thing I want to edit and go ahead and edit it, as expected. The Affinity version seems a mess of layers upon layers.

My impression at this point is that yes, Affinity CAN open Adobe-format files, but does so in a messy manner, while Adobe makes it much easier. Or just follows software conventions better, because it literally took me 30 seconds to figure out something that wasted most of my day with Affinity, and I STILL can't do it. 

Again, I do really appreciate the help and efforts you've made but for this project I'll use Adobe.

[Pšenda]

3 minutes ago, AlanPC said:

One thing I notice is the Adobe version doesn't show any layers.

As you can see in my video - I also don't need layers at all.

3 minutes ago, AlanPC said:

The Affinity version seems a mess of layers upon layers.

As GarryP already wrote - you create more and more layers completely unnecessarily, so don't be surprised that it's a mess of layers.

[AlanPC]

8 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Why not set the shortcuts according to your preferences?

Because I only fire up Affinity about once every other month. I want to love Affinity, and I do love the concept, the support and I know it's capable of pretty much anything, but time after time I find myself googling or coming back here for such basic stuff. 

I didn't have such problems with Pageplus, beyond learning basic concepts of publishing in the first place. I'm frankly shocked to find the Adobe version was exactly as I'd expect software to be. Tools on the left, edit on the right - I'd already done what I set out to do within seconds. No googling, no forums, just click it, edit the color, done. I was frankly nervous of even trying Adobe, yet it's easier?

Don't hate me, hate the message.

[AlanPC]

4 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

you create more and more layers completely unnecessarily

It's a template I downloaded. When I open it in Affinity it's a layer-cake mess. Same file in 'Indesign' and there's no layers (so far, maybe there are?) I can just click and edit things, as expected.

[GarryP]

If the template is an InDesign template which you have imported then extra layers may have been created by Publisher to try and replicate (as much as possible) something which is not fully supported in the Affinity software.

InDesign and Publisher have different file formats and internal workings so they do things differently and, as such, when you import from one to the other there are bound to be some things which don’t get translated quite as you might expect.

Telling us at the start that you were editing a template would have given us useful information.

All I can advise at the moment is, as mentioned above, to remove the superfluous “(Layer)” layers and then try and do what you want to do.

[AlanPC]

I agree

(though I did mention in my very first post that is was a document I had downloaded, I should have perhaps mentioned it was an Adobe template. Just the other day I was delighted to discover Affinity Publisher can use such files, but having tried doing so I'm now rather less excited).

Actually they're not exactly the same file. I notice in my download folder one file, an 'IDML' file, which I previously set my PC to open with Affinity, because I read it can open those and so shows the affinity icon, while the one I'm now using, I just tried clicking it after installing Indesign, which is an 'INDD' file.  I'm wondering if the L in IDML stands for layers? Mmm.

Anyway, for my needs - which is 'grab a suitable template and modify it to suit the project/client' - it looks like Adobe Indesign is the most suitable option for me. It's great that Publisher can open such files, and I'll try again next time, but for sure with this file it made a multi-layered mess which just led to frustration.

 

[Alfred]

13 minutes ago, AlanPC said:

I'm wondering if the L in IDML stands for layers? Mmm.

No, it stands for ‘Language’ (cf. HTML, SGML and XML).

[GarryP]

Telling us that you have downloaded something doesn’t give us any usable information, support-wise, if you don’t also tell us where you downloaded it from and/or what the file type was. (You called it a “style guide”, which may have caused some confusion.)

For the difference between INDD and IDML, see here: https://www.highlander.co.uk/blog/saving-idml-files-when-and-why

If you need 100% compatibility with a certain file type then you should be using the application(s) which created that file type.
Importing, especially into software which is developed by a different company, will often require some ‘loss of fidelity’.

[iconoclast]

As far as I see it is a text frame you are trying to recolour, right? So go to the Text Frame Panel and try it there.

Sorry, I was wrong.

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

No, it stands for ‘Language’ (cf. HTML, SGML and XML).

... after all, how easily and quickly friend Google advises 🙂

https://fileinfo.com/extension/idml

[iconoclast]

The obvious difference between Layer 3 on side 2 and side 3 is that on side 2 there is a Shape Text Layer instead of a Rectangle. As far as I see, Publisher doesn't have Shape Text. I don't know what Shape Text is in InDesign, because I always worked with it in German language only. Maybe something similar to Artistic Text in Publisher? But for some reasons it seems to be called "Shape Text" even if you open it in Publisher. So there seem to be in fact reasonable differences between InDesign and Publisher that cause problems with this file.

At least the way Publisher handles Layers is different to InDesign. Publisher is very layer based and creates new layers for every object, while I often didn't even need a second layer as I worked with InDesign. In InDesign all objects can be on only one layer.

[thomaso]

18 hours ago, AlanPC said:

One thing I notice is the Adobe version doesn't show any layers. I can just click on the thing I want to edit and go ahead and edit it, as expected. The Affinity version seems a mess of layers upon layers.

Can you show the Layers panel in ID?

I assume their are Global Layers in use. Those aren't supported by Affinity but get converted with an IDML import as Affinity Layer layers (which are not global).

In ID Global Layers may be mostly collapsed in the layers panel because ID works different with layer hierarchy. It is sufficient to activate a Global layer to maintain a certain layer order, e.g. make text appear in front of a background object by selecting the according Global layer. This way layers in ID may occur less confusing because you don't need to unfold all collapsed layers as you rather need to in Affinity. If you unfold all layers in ID you will see that each object has its own layer, too, like in Affinity. Just less obvious or 'disturbing' if its Global layers are collapsed.

Additionally Affinity may irritate if you confuse Global layers with Master page layers: while ID sorts Master page layers simply in its Global layer hierarchy, Affinity places master layers as separate layers on each of its document pages.

• Simplified "work-modus" on a document page: in The layers panel all Global layers are collapsed / no Master Page layer is listed (but indicated in the layout by a slightly dashed/dotted bounding box):

• Unfolded Global layers on a Master Page <– versus –> • Unfolded Global layers on a document / layout page:

<-->

[AlanPC]

Does this help?

In this file there are 3 layers shown, which I think are to do with master pages, as there's an A, B and C master page

 

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, AlanPC said:

Does this help?

In this file there are 3 layers shown, which I think are to do with master pages, as there's an A, B and C master page

This is exactly the misinterpretation I assumed.

As your selected ID spread / page 6-7 shows in its thumbnail corners, there are 2 master pages assigned (left "B" | right "A"), while the spread shows 3 layers (1, 2, 3). These layers are ID's Global layers. And, as mentioned before, there are no such Master Page layers in ID's layer panel as they are in Affinity, which may increase possible confusion. Instead in ID master page objects are sorted within the Global layer hierarchy and thus appear as sub-layers of Global layers.

I guess if you unfold layer 3 or 1 you will find three footer layout items as single master page layers: 1 horizontal line + 2 text frames for each page of this spread.