Cross References

[Hangman]

2 hours ago, MikeTO said:

• Copy the text to the clipboard
• Create a cross-reference
  1. The target can be anything, it's irrelevant
  2. Clear the text from the Text field and paste in the copied text - there will be no page number or paragraph body, just the static text you wanted to apply two styles to
• Choose one of the character styles from Style Override
• Turn off Generate Hyperlinks and Limit Subfields. Click OK
• Apply the other character style to the inserted field - now there are two character styles applied to it

I couldn't get that to work, step 5 simply changes the entire cross-reference text to the newly applied, second style.

[MikeTO]

3 hours ago, Hangman said:

I couldn't get that to work, step 5 simply changes the entire cross-reference text to the newly applied, second style.

Maybe it depends on the style's attributes?

I did two tests, one with just strong and emphasis. Apply one via the text styles panel and one via cross-reference. Here's a test doc showing this. The text style panel shows it's just emphasis but the cross-reference also applies strong.

test.afpub

I also tried it with my book project in which I want to apply two character styles to all of the dates. It worked fine but I'd never do it myself, I'd have hundreds of extra cross-references cluttering up the CR panel and I'd have to type all the dates into the CR dialog rather than typing them directly. It would be too confusing in practice but it worked when I tried it.

Cheers

[Hangman]

Hi @MikeTO,

The difference here though is that only one word of the four forms part of the 'true' cross-reference. The remaining three words are just normal text which explains why you can apply two styles, so this isn't really any different to the example posted on the previous page where 'See', 'on, 'for more information' is normal (non-cross-reference) text and 'A Little Glass Box' and 'page 4' are two individual cross-references...

You could equally style the three, non 'cross-reference' words in any way you like...

Ultimately it comes down to how much of the 'cross-reference' text itself you want the user to be able to click on so that it hyperlinks to its target... Another option would be to use a mix of cross-references and hyperlinks, so the non-cross-referenced text here uses hyperlinks and the highlighted text uses cross-references, all pointing to the same target. Obviously, the two options provide differing target options...

What would be nice and what I believe you were alluding to originally was the ability to apply multiple styles to actual cross-reference text via the 'Insert Cross-Reference' dialog window, allowing the free-from text to be styled differently to the text attributes...

[Hangman]

19 hours ago, MikeTO said:

One more note on this part of cross-references that isn't working. When a cross-reference is out of date it will be listed in Preflight. Double-clicking will take me to the cross-reference in the document but it doesn't select the cross-reference in the panel. I assume the selected cross-reference is supposed to be listed in the panel.

It might also be good if we could right-click the cross-reference and choose Edit because if you see one on the page it can be difficult to find it in the panel, especially if page numbering restarts after front matter and the page numbers don't match what is displayed on the page.

I agree the cross-reference isn't highlighted in the cross-reference panel but you do have the option to right-click the cross-reference on the page and select 'Edit Cross-Reference'... Is that what you were referring to?

[MikeTO]

I found a repeatable crash with cross-references, although it's not something people will do often.

1. Create a new doc, draw two frames on page 1, type Apples in the first frame, and cross reference the Apples paragraph in the second frame.
2. Cut the second frame.
3. Paste the frame onto a master page. After a moment Publisher will crash.

Affinity Publisher 2 Beta-2023-09-03-090225.ips

@Hangman Ah, the missing Edit Cross-Reference context menu command is a bug. If the cross-reference is in a text frame on a master page layer you'll get the context menu shown below on the left, if it's in a frame on a document page you'll get the context menu shown below on the right. Find in Layers Panel is also disabled for master layer cross-references. I've attached a test document to illustrate the problem.

xref test.afpub

  

[Hangman]

39 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I found a repeatable crash with cross-references, although it's not something people will do often.

1. Create a new doc, draw two frames on page 1, type Apples in the first frame, and cross reference the Apples paragraph in the second frame.
2. Cut the second frame.
3. Paste the frame onto a master page. After a moment Publisher will crash.

I see the same crash though only when the two frames are linked, is that how you have it set up as well?

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

Ah, the missing Edit Cross-Reference context menu command is a bug. If the cross-reference is in a text frame on a master page layer you'll get the context menu shown below on the left, if it's in a frame on a document page you'll get the context menu shown below on the right. Find in Layers Panel is also disabled for master layer cross-references. I've attached a test document to illustrate the problem.

Is this not by design, as in, when the text frame for the associated page appears on the master page it behaves like any other text frame in as much as you need to select 'Edit Linked' from the Layers panel to edit it. Once 'Edit Link' is enabled, right-clicking on the cross-reference then shows the 'Edit Cross-Reference' option, when the frame is locked it shows the 'Insert Cross-Reference' option which makes sense to me...

[MikeTO]

21 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I see the same crash though only when the two frames are linked, is that how you have it set up as well?

It happens with unlinked frames for me.

 

21 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Is this not by design, as in, when the text frame for the associated page appears on the master page it behaves like any other text frame in as much as you need to select 'Edit Linked' from the Layers panel to edit it. Once 'Edit Link' is enabled, right-clicking on the cross-reference then shows the 'Edit Cross-Reference' option, when the frame is locked it shows the 'Insert Cross-Reference' option which makes sense to me...

IMO it's an oversight. I can expand a field in a frame on a master layer, I just can't edit it. I can edit a date field on a master page layer, just not a cross-reference field.

[Hangman]

44 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

It happens with unlinked frames for me.

Okay, I see that now, before my Cross-Reference appeared in the first frame linking to a Paragraph Body element in the second frame but as soon as I add the Cross-Reference to the second frame, cut and paste to the Master I get the crash as well...

44 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

IMO it's an oversight. I can expand a field in a frame on a master layer, I just can't edit it. I can edit a date field on a master page layer, just not a cross-reference field.

Fair point and yes, it would make perfect sense to be able to edit 'Cross-References' in the same way you can with Fields...

[Affinity Info Bot]

An issue raised in this thread ("Crash when pasting cross-reference from a page to a master") has now been reported to the developers by the testing team (Ref: AFB-8288). Thank you very much for reporting this issue to us.

[Affinity Info Bot]

An issue raised in this thread ("Missing context menu items for cross-references on master layers") has now been reported to the developers by the testing team (Ref: AFB-8291). Thank you very much for reporting this issue to us.

[Hangman]

The Cross-Reference Panel doesn't refresh correctly when initially changing the 'Link to' dropdown from Paragraph to Index Mark. This is only noticeable when there are fewer Index Marks than Paragraphs in the document or filtered list.

For example, if there are ten Paragraphs and five Index Marks, changing from Paragraph to Index Mark in the Cross-References Panel overwrites the first five entries in the list, incorrectly leaving the second five Paragraph entries.

Clicking the 'Link to' dropdown and hovering over the Paragraph entry and then back to Index Mark correctly clears the list of extraneous Paragraph entries.

[Affinity Info Bot]

An issue raised in this thread ("Above/Below for Cross References can't find Above/Below strings ") has now been reported to the developers by the testing team (Ref: AFB-8294). Thank you very much for reporting this issue to us.

[Affinity Info Bot]

An issue raised in this thread ("Selecting a cross-reference field does not select it in the panel") has now been reported to the developers by the testing team (Ref: AFB-8295). Thank you very much for reporting this issue to us.

[MikeTO]

A minor but confusing bug in beta 1986.

1. Create two cross-reference presets, #1 with hyperlink and #2 without.
2. Create a xref and choose #1. Click OK.
3. Edit that xref and choose #2 - hyperlink won't show as disabled. Click OK
4. Edit that xref again and it will show as disabled which is good. Choose #1 - hyperlink won't show as enabled. Enable it and the preset will show as modified even though it's not modified. Click OK.
5. Edit that xref and hyperlink will show as enabled and the preset won't show as modified.

 

[Hangman]

A very minor issue...

When invoking the Cross-Reference panel the Limit Subfield options are greyed out even when a relevant preset is the default selection in the Preset dropdown. This means you have to click the dropdown and select the preset again before the Limit Subfield options become active...

[MikeTO]

2 hours ago, Hangman said:

A very minor issue...

When invoking the Cross-Reference panel the Limit Subfield options are greyed out even when a relevant preset is the default selection in the Preset dropdown. This means you have to click the dropdown and select the preset again before the Limit Subfield options become active...

I tried to duplicate this one, thinking it might be related to the preset issue I reported yesterday, but haven't been able to duplicate it yet. I created an identical preset, used it, and when I created the next xref it was the default. But limit subfield wasn't disabled for me. Strange.

[Hangman]

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

I tried to duplicate this one, thinking it might be related to the preset issue I reported yesterday, but haven't been able to duplicate it yet. I created an identical preset, used it, and when I created the next xref it was the default. But limit subfield wasn't disabled for me. Strange.

Hi @MikeTO,

Thanks for checking... this is what I'm seeing consistently...

[Hangman]

Beta build 2.2.0.1994, Release Candidate 2

Quote

Bugs affecting Desktop (Windows and macOS)

• Cross reference - Above Below field not functioning

Below now appears to be working for both Anchor and Paragraph Links but Above doesn't where I still see a 'Cross-Reference has no string for language' error message...

[Pauls]

what language is the text set to ?

maybe the relevant text has not been defined via the Cross references panel

[Hangman]

32 minutes ago, Pauls said:

what language is the text set to ?

Hi @Pauls,

34 minutes ago, Pauls said:

what language is the text set to ?

English (United Kingdom)...

 

33 minutes ago, Pauls said:

maybe the relevant text has not been defined via the Cross references panel

I've tried this with several documents now and I'm seeing the same issue, i.e., it works for 'Below' but not for 'Above'. In the screen recording the Cross-References are using Anchors of which there are only the two shown.

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, Pauls said:

what language is the text set to ?

maybe the relevant text has not been defined via the Cross references panel

There does seem to be a problem.

If you create a xref without setting language in the dialog then it will work fine. If you edit this xref and set language in the dialog then the above/below string will not change.

If  when creating a xref you set the language then the above/below string will be blank.

[EDIT - this isn't quite correct, see my next post for details and a test doc]

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by MikeTO
corrected

[Hangman]

5 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

If you create a xref without setting language in the dialog then it will work fine.

In the screen recording, there is no change of language between setting the two Above or Below x-refs so I can't really see any reason why below would work and above wouldn't...

When I change the language to None it makes no difference, I'm still missing the 'above' reference...

@MikeTO, is the below x-ref working for you?

[MikeTO]

19 minutes ago, Hangman said:

@MikeTO, is the below x-ref working for you?

Yes, I can't find any difference between above and below for me. Here's a quick test doc. In the left column, the Character > Language was set to EN Canada, French, and None. It worked as expected - None is blank but that's okay because the default strings for None are blank.

In the middle column, the Character > Language was set to EN Canada for all of them but the language was set in the xref dialog. All of them were shown in English, presumably, EN Canada, even None, which shows that the xref language setting has no effect.

In the right column, the Character > Language was set to None and the language was set in the xref dialog. All of them were blank, again showing the xref language setting has no effect.

ab.afpub

 

[Hangman]

I figured out the problem, it turned out to be user error but as @MikeTO mentions above there is an issue where the 'above' and 'below' strings in the Edit Strings... dialog don't correctly reflect the language when editing leading to an initial false belief that the strings are incorrectly set for the respective language...🤔

[Intuos5]

Are there no keyboard shortcuts for cross-references in 2.2.0? I can only find the item to open the cross-reference panel in Windows 10, but there is no entry to insert a cross reference, for instance.