Style Picker tool issues

[MikeTO]

I hadn't used Style Picker much until somebody asked about it today so I gave it a good workout and found a few issues with it and its help page: https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Tools/tools_stylePicker.html?title=Style Picker Tool

I apologize for including some general feedback with these bugs but I thought it might be easier to review it all together.

Mouse Pointers: the help page doesn't describe the pointers. Perhaps something like this could be added?

•  Unloaded - you have not yet picked up any styles or you have cleared the previously loaded styles
•  Loaded - you have picked up styles and the pointer is over a blank part of the page or an object that cannot contain text
•  Loaded - you have picked up styles and the pointer is over an object that can contain text, such as a text frame, artistic text, or table

I'm unsure why the T is shown in the pointer because it seems to have no impact on what will be applied. I thought it might be a cue to indicate it was applying styles to text and not to the frame or table but that doesn't seem to be the case. There is no P when it's over a picture frame.

Selected Objects or Text shortcut: When the Style Picker is selected, any objects that were selected are not shown as selected but picking up styles will immediately apply the styles to those objects. You can't deselect the objects so if you accidentally leave the target object selected you have to Undo, choose Move, deselect, and choose Style Picker again.

If a text frame was selected this shortcut applies the styles immediately to the entire frame as if Cmd was held down, you can't opt out of that.

Help doesn't describe what happens for a picture frame with this shortcut but you get different results if a picture frame is selected versus the picture layer itself so it might warrant documenting.

This shortcut works better for selected text – if text is selected before choosing the Style Picker tool it will still be shown as selected when you switch tools so it's less confusing. But if I've selected a text range, switch to Style Picker, and then click a different word in the same frame, it doesn't apply the styles picked up from that word to the selected text. This shortcut works only for text when the source and target are in different frames which seems like a bug.

Also, Publisher's nice feature that remembers what text was selected in a frame even if you switch to the Move tool confuses this shortcut. Put the text cursor in a word or select a text range, switch to the Move tool, and then switch to the Style Picker tool. Loading styles will apply them to the word that the cursor had been in or the text range even though a frame was previously selected with the Move tool. In fact, if you selected a text range it will show that as selected even though the frame was the last thing selected. You have to switch back to the Move tool, deselect the frame, select it again, and switch back to the Style Picker tool for loading styles to immediately apply to the selected frame.

I think it would be much simpler just not to automatically apply picked up styles to selected text and objects.

Context Bar tool settings: It might be helpful if the help page stated that it doesn't matter which settings are set when you pick up the styles. Help does state these settings control what is applied but at first I assumed the settings also mattered when picking up styles so I perhaps a more explicit explanation could avoid confusion.

Stroke and Fill: Since text stroke and text fill are character attributes and are applied when Character Settings is chosen I expected the Stroke and Fill settings to be for object stroke and fill and apply to the text frame. Applying styles with these settings just applies text stroke and fill to the text. If I hold down Cmd when applying it will apply the stroke and fill to the text frame but it also applies the text stroke and text fill. As far as I can determine, there is no way to apply the text frame's stroke and fill separately from the character's stroke and fill.

Object Settings: I thought that Object Settings would let me apply just the frame's stroke and fill, especially since Help states that it will apply "text frame settings". Applying styles to a text frame with this setting applies nothing unless you hold down Cmd and when you do it applies everything in the Text Frame panel except for:

• Text Frame > General: Fill, Stroke, and Ignore Baseline Grid
• Text Frame > Independent Baseline Grid and its related settings

This feels like a bug but perhaps there's a reason for it.

Tables: I don't think there is a way to apply stroke and fill to a table cell separately from the table because you can't choose a cell when applying, just a word, text range, or the table as a whole. Maybe another modifier could be added for this? If Cmd means apply to whole object perhaps Cmd+Shift could mean apply to a cell within an object?

Switching Tools: I expected to have no loaded styles when I switched to the Style Picker but it always remembered what I'd last loaded, even if it was an hour ago. While it's great that it doesn't unload when applying like MS Word does, perhaps it could unload automatically when switching tools? Or perhaps a setting for this and MS Word-like behaviour?

Switching Documents: You can't apply styles between documents. Since this works like copy/paste I assumed I'd be able to pick up styles in one document and paste them into another.

Text vs. Object Stroke and Fill: This is probably the root of the stroke and fill issues I mentioned above and I realize it's as designed, but it's confusing. Here's a screen recording for this test file in which I pick up the styles from the upper text frame and then apply the styles to the text frame, picture frame, and shape below it. I think most people would expect that all three objects would have thick red strokes and light blue fills but instead the green text stroke and yellow text fill is applied to the object stroke and fill.

test3.afpub

 

 

[walt.farrell]

17 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

•  Loaded - you have picked up styles and the pointer is over an object that can contain text, such as a text frame, artistic text, or table

I'm unsure why the T is shown in the pointer because it seems to have no impact on what will be applied. I thought it might be a cue to indicate it was applying styles to text and not to the frame or table but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I'm not sure what you mean, Mike. In this case the picked style is applied to the text, not to the frame.

[MikeTO]

42 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I'm not sure what you mean, Mike. In this case the picked style is applied to the text, not to the frame.

Maybe it's different on Windows but that's not the case on macOS. Even if the only setting chosen is Object Settings and you've picked up styles from a rectangle, we get a loaded cursor with a T when hovering over a text frame. Nothing will be applied if we click on the frame normally but if we hold down Cmd then the frame properties will be applied. No text attributes are applied in this scenario.

[walt.farrell]

18 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

No text attributes are applied in this scenario.

Did you try clicking inside the frame, on the text?

[MikeTO]

15 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Did you try clicking inside the frame, on the text?

I tried clicking on the frame border, inside the frame in a blank area, on a word, and dragging a text range. It doesn't matter though because if Object Settings is the only thing selected then it's not pasting text attributes.

[Callum]

Hi Mike,

From what I can see from my tests here the style picker should work fine when applied to text with the T appearing to show that the style will be applied to text however I did have to double click the actual text itself and not the frame. If possible could you provide a screen recording demonstrating the two bugs you have mentioned as I'm struggling to recreate them and from what I can see in your screen recording the tool seems to be working as expected. I can also see you are using the beta, does this also occur in the release build?

Thanks
C

[MikeTO]

2 hours ago, Callum said:

From what I can see from my tests here the style picker should work fine when applied to text with the T appearing to show that the style will be applied to text however I did have to double click the actual text itself and not the frame. If possible could you provide a screen recording demonstrating the two bugs you have mentioned as I'm struggling to recreate them and from what I can see in your screen recording the tool seems to be working as expected. I can also see you are using the beta, does this also occur in the release build?

These issues also occur in the release build. Here are some screen recordings. In this first one, I change the Style Picker to just Object Settings so it's not picking up any text attributes from the rectangle. Then I apply those object settings to a text frame but there aren't any applicable object settings for a text frame (since stroke and fill are omitted) so nothing happens. But the mouse pointer shows a T when over the text frame. I'm unsure what the T is trying to communicate, it's not in a position to apply any text attributes because none are loaded so the only thing it is communicating is that there's a text frame underneath. It's not a big deal, I just don't see the point of the T because it only tells you it's a text frame, not whether or not text attributes will be applied.

 

This screen recording contrasts the automatic application of styles for selected objects and text:

1. With the bottom left text frame selected with the Move tool, I choose Style Picker and click the top left text frame. If the bottom frame hadn't been selected it would have just loaded styles but because there was a previously selected frame it loaded styles and applied them to that frame. This is as designed and is a shortcut but there's no way to know what's going to happen because there's no indication that an object is selected. You'd have to switch back to the Move tool to check.
2. I then undo that and select the text in that bottom left frame. I do the same thing, clicking in the top left frame which loads styles and then applies them to the selected text. This is also as designed and it's fine, there's no issue with it. I'm just contrasting selected text with a selected object. There's a visual cue that text is selected so you can tell what's going to happen in this case.

 

This next screen recording illustrates the issue with what the shortcut is applying to.

1. I edit the text in the bottom left frame. The cursor is in a word when I choose the Move tool. Publisher keeps track of the cursor position, just like it does for a selected text range. I then move and scale the frame and forget where the cursor is. I switch to Style Picker and when I load styles from the top left frame it applies them to the text with the cursor in it. That's not what I wanted, I wanted the styles to be applied to the frame and there was no visual indication that it would do this.
2. So I then have to undo, switch to the Move tool, deselect the frame, re-select the frame, switch back to Style Picker, and then load styles to have them applied correctly to the frame.
3. I think this scenario is a tough one to solve. I love that Publisher keeps track of selected text ranges and cursor position when switching from Text to Move but this shortcut is very confusing because you can't tell what it's going to do for selected objects or the text cursor position. Only for selected text ranges is there a visual indication that it's going to do more than load styles. IMO, this shortcut is more trouble than it's worth because the solutions aren't pretty. You can't show size handles for the selected object or the user will use them. You could show disabled size handles but that would be a new concept. For the text cursor you could show a non-blinking cursor. But that would just solve the visual cues, the user would still need a better way to escape from having loaded styles automatically applied to things other than to switch to Move, deselect the object, and switch back to Style Picker. So the Context Bar would need another option, perhaps Apply Styles to Selection when Loading.

 

This screen recording which uses test4.afpub loads styles from the right frame and applies only the object styles to the left frame with Cmd held down. It illustrates that the baseline grid settings are not applied to the left frame and that text frame stroke and fill are not included in object settings. If these attributes can't be included with Object Settings then the help page should note this case because it's a bit confusing.

test4.afpub

 

 

 

 

[MikeTO]

Each time I use the Style Picker tool I make mistakes because the lack of interface feedback makes it feel unpredictable. It works fine if text is selected in a frame or if the text cursor really isn't in a frame when switching to the Style Picker.

But it's confusing if the text cursor is in a text frame because there is no visual cue that clicking to load formatting will also apply it to the word containing the hidden cursor. ID doesn't do this, if text isn't selected it will not apply formatting when loading attributes. But with Publisher:

• If the text cursor is in a word and I switch to the Style Picker tool, Publisher will hide the text cursor but keep track of it. Clicking on the source word loads its text formatting and applies it to the word containing the hidden cursor.
• If the text cursor is in a word and I switch to the Move tool, move shapes for 10 minutes, and then switch to the Style Picker tool, Publisher will still have kept track of the text cursor position even though I forgot about it. Same outcome as above.
• If the text cursor is in a word and I press Esc to remove the cursor and then switch to the Style Picker tool I'll have the same outcome because even though Publisher removed the cursor it wasn't really gone.

I think it would be best not to use the word containing the text cursor as the automatic target. But if it's going to work this way the target should be highlighted - could the word containing the cursor be shown as selected like selected text when the Style Picker is chosen?

The second issue is that Publisher doesn't show objects as selected when the Style Picker tool is chosen so again there is no visual cue that loading formatting will also apply it to an object. ID solves this by showing selection handles which maybe isn't a great idea if you can't manipulate objects but perhaps non-editable X handles (in the accent colour?) could be shown.

A third issue is that the Style Picker doesn't unload attributes when switching tools, so if I come back hours later and don't notice the loaded pointer it will apply attributes when I try to load them. I believe ID unloads the attributes when switching tools.

EDIT: I almost forgot the fourth issue. Text stroke and fill, which are character attributes in the Character panel and Text Styles panel, are not considered Character Settings for the Style Picker and are instead Stroke and Fill attributes. I was confused.

Edited October 20, 2023 by MikeTO
Corrected

[MikeTO]

Another issue I hadn't previously noticed is that applying paragraph formatting works only if you apply it to the target paragraph's paragraph marker.

If you load attributes from a paragraph that is Heading 1 and apply it to a paragraph that is Body but just click anywhere in the paragraph, the Heading 1 character attributes that are different than Body will be applied to that word, such as "Body + Font weight: Bold; Font size: 20 pt".

To actually apply paragraph attributes, you must select the marker at the end of the paragraph. This is tricky for most users even with Show Special Characters enabled, but with it off, you have to know to select past the last character as shown in the screen recording. With MS Word and I believe ID, clicking anywhere in a target paragraph will apply the loaded paragraph formatting, just like applying a paragraph style to a paragraph works.

[UPDATE: the fact that you must select the paragraph mark means you can't apply a loaded paragraph style to the last paragraph in a story without creating a blank line below it, and you can't apply a paragraph style to an art text object]

 

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by MikeTO
Added Update note for the last line in frame

[MikeTO]

Help states:

• Object Settings—when selected, currently loaded miscellaneous style attributes will be applied (where suitable) to objects and text ranges you interact with. When deselected, these attributes will not be applied.

I think "and text ranges" is a copy/paste error because the object settings can't be applied to text.

I'm not really sure of the scope of object settings since Help only states miscellaneous. I thought it would include object-specific attributes, rotation, and layer effects but it didn't apply any of the ones I tried except for Text Wrap and Pinning.

[MikeTO]

I added a note to my post from yesterday about having to select the paragraph mark to apply a loaded paragraph style.

Needing to select the paragraph mark means you can't apply a loaded paragraph style to the last paragraph in a text frame or to an art text object, unless of course you press Return to add a blank line.

[EDIT - removed the report about not being able to apply it to an art text object. While it's true that clicking an art text object won't apply it, you can Cmd+click to apply it to the whole object.]

Edited October 20, 2023 by MikeTO
corrected

[walt.farrell]

19 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I think "and text ranges" is a copy/paste error because the object settings can't be applied to text.

Are you sure about that?

 

[MikeTO]

@walt.farrell I was referring to "Object Settings" which doesn't include line and fill. Deselect everything but Object Settings in the context bar.

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I was referring to "Object Settings" which doesn't include line and fill. Deselect everything but Object Settings in the context bar.

Sorry; didn't understand that distinction.

[garrettm30]

On 10/19/2023 at 3:51 PM, MikeTO said:

To actually apply paragraph attributes, you must select the marker at the end of the paragraph.

Thanks for mentioning that. I found it very unintuitive, and I gave up trying to make paragraph attributes work and came to this forum. Even after learning it, I spent another 5 before I finally managed to get it to work.

Now that I know how it works, I still find it cumbersome to apply the style to other paragraphs. Once paragraph formatting is loaded, it should apply to other paragraphs just by clicking them, or at least by selecting anywhere in the target paragraph. I ended up not using the style picker tool, because I found faster to just keep applying the change I wanted to each paragraph.

[Catshill]

As a format painter user in MS applications, I thought the style picker was going to be a game changer when it was introduced. Unfortunately I find it cumbersome and unintuitive so I don’t use it.