[2.0.3] Pinned object easily deleted with double click text editing

[LCamachoDesign]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Pin an object to a word, especially at the start or end of a paragraph.
2. Double click the word
3. Press delete
4. Object is deleted along with the word

See attached video for a visual guide.

Expected behaviour would be for the pin to be impossible to select, and impossible to delete by text editing, especially this easily. Even if the whole paragraph were to be deleted, the pin should simply move to the next available position. If the entire text area is deleted, then the object should be unpinned, but kept on the page. double clicking to select only the text, and the object anchor.

As it is now it's almost impossible not to delete pins by mistake. The documentation also makes this the expectation, as the only way listed way to unpin is:

Quote

To unpin a floating or inline object:

Do one of the following:

• From the Toolbar, disable Float With Text or Inline In Text.
• From the Pinning panel, select Unpin.

Thank you!

 

[MikeTO]

Deleting pinned objects along with the text is standard in most apps and I'd hate for Publisher not to do this. If I select a range of text that includes a pin, the pinned object should be deleted with the text.

But I agree that there is a problem and thank you for pointing this out, I've been tripped up by it before but hadn't taken time to think it through. Double clicking a word to select it should not select any hidden control characters to its left or right, the user can't see that they've been selected and it leads to accidental deletion as you've experienced. Any control characters embedded in the word should be deleted even if they're hidden, they are then part of the word. This also applies to the new note references in v2 even though they're visible.

Publisher is selecting everything up to the space before the word and up to the space or punctuation after the word. I believe it should omit any control characters before or after the word. This is the way most programs work.

• <space><pin 1>Word<index mark><pin 2><footnote><space> - double click will select the red text but it should select just the word
• <space>Word<footnote>.<space> - double click will select the red text but it should not select the control character between the word and period
• <space>Test<pin>ing<space> - double click will select the green text - this is correct, it's a control character embedded in a word

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, LCamachoDesign said:

Expected behaviour would be for the pin to be impossible to select, and impossible to delete by text editing, especially this easily. Even if the whole paragraph were to be deleted, the pin should simply move to the next available position. If the entire text area is deleted, then the object should be unpinned, but kept on the page.

If the pin is in the middle of the word and the word is selected then I would think that the expected behaviour would be that the pin would be deleted. That happens. Double clicking selects the word and the pin. Placing the text caret before the t in the word "tristique" and holding shift and using the right arrow key you can select the 9 letters of the word and delete them leaving the pin. I guess the problem is the double clicking selecting the letters that make up the word, the pin is considered to be part of the word as it comes before the white space. Bear in mind that you can also select only the pin using the text caret and the shift + the left or right arrow key and delete it alone.

[LCamachoDesign]

8 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Deleting pinned objects along with the text is standard in most apps and I'd hate for Publisher not to do this.

I don't have InDesign installed right now, but if I recall correctly, you can't delete or remove anchors this way. You need to manually release them.

13 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Double clicking a word to select it should not select any hidden control characters to its left or right

That would work for me. I'd still prefer an option to make them impossible to delete without unpinning.

[MikeTO]

4 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

I guess the problem is the double clicking selecting the letters that make up the word, the pin is considered to be part of the word as it comes before the white space.

Yes, and IMO that is a bug, other apps don't work this way and it's an unexpected outcome. As I stated above, double clicking a word should not select control characters between the preceding space and the word and between the word and the trailing space or punctuation.

But perhaps another part of the issue is that Publisher doesn't provide UI feedback that a floated image is selected with the text. In Publisher, it's obvious that inline images will be deleted but it's not obvious for floated images, especially if you have Show Special Characters off. In other apps like Apple Pages, pinned images are highlighted with a bounding box when a range of text that contains their pins is selected.

I think if Publisher would show a bounding box for at least floated images and didn't select pins, index marks, and note references when double clicking words that the user experience would be improved.

Publisher (left), Pages (right)

 

[Old Bruce]

21 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I think if Publisher would show a bounding box for at least floated images and didn't select pins, index marks, and note references when double clicking words that the user experience would be improved.

I agree.

[LCamachoDesign]

On 12/21/2022 at 5:27 PM, MikeTO said:

Deleting pinned objects along with the text is standard in most apps and I'd hate for Publisher not to do this. If I select a range of text that includes a pin, the pinned object should be deleted with the text.

I stand corrected, that's indeed how InDesign does it (had to install for the project I'm working on anyway for other reasons). I still think the option to keep the object should exist, but that's just me. I've edited my post to match the corrected information. Thanks!

 

On 12/21/2022 at 5:27 PM, MikeTO said:

Double clicking a word to select it should not select any hidden control characters to its left or right, the user can't see that they've been selected and it leads to accidental deletion as you've experienced.

Again, checked with InDesign, that's how it works. It's easier to see this in action using the Story Editor. It would also be nice for Publisher to have a Story Editor, but that's a different problem.

 

On 12/21/2022 at 10:21 PM, MikeTO said:

I think if Publisher would show a bounding box for at least floated images

This is a pretty good idea!

[NathanC]

Hi @LCamachoDesign,

Many thanks for providing detail, I've been able to replicate this and logged it with the developers.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Double clicking and deleting a word with a Pin Before/After results in the Pin and Object being removed" (REF: AFB-7165) has now been fixed by the developers.
This fix is included in build 2.1.0.1706 (or later) which is already available as a customer beta and will be included in the next release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.

If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please make a new thread referencing this one.