The Hyperlink Properties Window No Longer Includes The Option To Edit Character Styles

[Hangman]

The Hyperlink Properties window no longer includes the option to edit Character Styles...

V2.1.1

 

V2.2.0

[MikeTO]

I think you meant to write "select" and not "edit".

But I'm unable to duplicate this. Does it happen after restarting Publisher and a new document?

[Hangman]

This is after creating the initial Hyperlink, you can indeed 'select' a Character Style when initially creating the link, but you can't then 'edit' the Character Style when selecting 'Edit Hyperlink' in the Hyperlinks panel, though strangely the option 'is' available when right-clicking and selecting 'Edit Hyperlink'.

Create Hyperlink

 

Edit Hyperlink (from the Hyperlinks Panel)

[MikeTO]

2 hours ago, Hangman said:

This is after creating the initial Hyperlink, you can indeed 'select' a Character Style when initially creating the link, but you can't then 'edit' the Character Style when selecting 'Edit Hyperlink' in the Hyperlinks panel, though strangely the option 'is' available when right-clicking and selecting 'Edit Hyperlink'.

I still can't duplicate it, even with a char style with a hyphen in it like you're using. I also tried US vs. UK English just in case.

Maybe upload a test document that exhibits the issue?

[Hangman]

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

I still can't duplicate it, even with a char style with a hyphen in it like you're using. I also tried US vs. UK English just in case.

It could quite easily be operator error but, it happens specifically when trying to Hyperlink items in an index... Here I am looking to apply a style to certain page numbers in the index that are hyperlinked so it's perhaps more obvious to the user that they can click the page number in question to take them to the relevant page/anchor.

So while hyperlinked text using Type: Anchor in the main body text provides the option to select a character style in the Hyperlink Properties panel and likewise when editing the Hyperlink via the Hyperlinks panel, applying a Hyperlink to Index text (whether the page number of the associated index text) using Type: Anchor again allows me to select a character style when creating the hyperlink but not when editing it via the Hyperlinks panel but the option is available when right-clicking the source text...

[MikeTO]

That's odd, I still can't duplicate it but maybe it has something to do with applying a character style through the Hyperlink panel to text that already has a character style applied from the index.

[Hangman]

Quite possibly, I'm really unsure but trying to work out if it's something I'm doing incorrectly or if it's a possible, 'bug', my money's on the former...

I've attached my test document if you want to have a play... The font used is Avenir Next Condensed...

Alice.afpub

[MikeTO]

Okay, I see it now and I can duplicate it if I hyperlink my own book's index numbers.

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Okay, I see it now and I can duplicate it if I hyperlink my own book's index numbers.

In other words, you create a Hyperlink for something that is already a Hyperlink?

[Hangman]

36 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

In other words, you create a Hyperlink for something that is already a Hyperlink?

I'd stupidly not realised the page numbers were automatically hyperlinked because the links don't appear in the Hyperlinks panel and because I'd not tested them in an exported pdf so that might explain it, operator error...

[Hangman]

Though how about adding a hyperlink to the index text itself in addition to the page number, this exhibits the same issue and the index text isn't automatically hyperlinked...

[walt.farrell]

On 8/6/2023 at 4:08 PM, Hangman said:

Though how about adding a hyperlink to the index text itself in addition to the page number, this exhibits the same issue and the index text isn't automatically hyperlinked...

Sorry, but I'm not seeing that. Maybe it's an issue only on Mac?

Not in Index:

In Index:

I am curious about something else, though. Both you and @MikeTO are showing Hyperlink dialogs that have the Data Merge info showing:

I never see those (as shown above in my first 2 screenshots in this post).

Is that a Windows problem?

 

[Hangman]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I am curious about something else, though. Both you and @MikeTO are showing Hyperlink dialogs that have the Data Merge info showing. I never see those (as shown above in my first 2 screenshots in this post). Is that a Windows problem?

It shouldn't be a Windows problem, the Data Merge option should appear in the Insert Anchor and Hyperlink Properties panels as per @Ash’s  update to the Data Merge feature post... Obviously only selectable if you have selected a data file to merge via the Data Merge panel, otherwise you can't select the option but it should still be visible.

 

 

Regarding the other issue, does that mean if you select index text (rather than the associated page number) and apply a Hyperlink to that Index text and give it a style from the same Hyperlink Properties panel, you can still see the character style dropdown when selecting Edit Hyperlink from the Hyperlinks Panel?

[Sean P]

On 8/6/2023 at 8:43 PM, Hangman said:

I'd stupidly not realised the page numbers were automatically hyperlinked because the links don't appear in the Hyperlinks panel and because I'd not tested them in an exported pdf so that might explain it, operator error...

I'm not sure its operator error as such - you're using the same 'Edit Hyperlink' option called from two different areas - one gives the option, the other does not. However what I'm not sure is whether this should actually appear, as Updating the index will regenerate it and remove any additional formatting that might have been done to it. That said it doesn't stop you from applying styles elsewhere to it, so maybe it should still let you?

I will get it logged as there is definitely something misbehaving as you've noted.

16 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I never see those (as shown above in my first 2 screenshots in this post).

Is that a Windows problem?

 

The 'From Data Merge' only appears for certain valid Hyperlink Types: Anchor, Email, File and URL. So what your screenshot shows is correct  

[Hangman]

Hi @Sean P,

Thanks for your feedback on this... What doesn't seem to make sense to me in particular is that while the index page numbers are hyperlinked by default the associated text isn't so you can apply a hyperlink to index text, e,g,. Maps and pictures...

In doing so the the option to apply a Character Syle to the hyperlink is provided in the Hyperlink Properties panel...

However, selecting Edit Hyperlink in the Hyperlinks Studio Panel, doesn't show the Character Style option...

But, right-clicking the hyperlink index text and selecting Edit Hyperlink from the context menu, does show the Character Style option...

If the settings are edited via the right click option, e.g., the Anchor and Character Style are changed, the change of Anchor is reflected in the Hyperlinks Studio Panel when selecting Edit Hyperlink but the Character Style option is missing so it's not possible to edit the Character Style via the Hyperlinks Studio Panel...

So there seems to be a basic difference between selecting the same option via two different methods..., i.e., Edit Hyperlinks via the Edit Hyperlinks Studio Panel vs Edit Hyperlinks via a Right Click and selecting the option from the Context Menu...

Hopefully that all makes sense...

[Sean P]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

Hopefully that all makes sense...

I believe so!

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

Hi @Sean P,

Thanks for your feedback on this... What doesn't seem to make sense to me in particular is that while the index page numbers are hyperlinked by default the associated text isn't so you can apply a hyperlink to index text, e,g,. Maps and pictures...

Do you mean hyperlink the word in the document page the index is referring to? Or are you referring to hyperlinking the text in the index? Unfortunately this wouldn't work either way. Index markers are essentially zero-spaced special characters that are associated with a specific entry. The index itself, will show the name of the Index Entry (as set out in the Index Panel) and then display which pages the associated index markers fall on. Therefore each marker doesn't have a concept of a 'word/multiple words' that it could generate a hyperlink too. 

If it was the latter, this also wouldn't work, as indexes often have multiple pages to link to it wouldn't make sense to hyperlink the words to just one of those entries, when there are many possible results. This sort of hyperlinking however does work for ToCs as you would expect.

The hyperlinks themselves are special/dynamic ones that are created by the program and not user created. These are updated dynamically when the Index or ToC is updated, so to show them in the Hyperlink Panel would also be unpleasant to a user who made changes to them because they were listed in the panel, only to learn that their changes have been lost when they updated the index. Obviously this can still be done, but not listing them in the panel mitigates it somewhat.

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

However, selecting Edit Hyperlink in the Hyperlinks Studio Panel, doesn't show the Character Style option...

But, right-clicking the hyperlink index text and selecting Edit Hyperlink from the context menu, does show the Character Style option...

If the settings are edited via the right click option, e.g., the Anchor and Character Style are changed, the change of Anchor is reflected in the Hyperlinks Studio Panel when selecting Edit Hyperlink but the Character Style option is missing so it's not possible to edit the Character Style via the Hyperlinks Studio Panel...

So there seems to be a basic difference between selecting the same option via two different methods..., i.e., Edit Hyperlinks via the Edit Hyperlinks Studio Panel vs Edit Hyperlinks via a Right Click and selecting the option from the Context Menu...

This is the part I want to log, as the same behaviour is obviously different. I'll also mention it appearing in the Hyperlinks Panel after editing - I suspect thats because its now marked as User Created rather than automatic. Worth noting that an update of an index will then remove this.

[Hangman]

Hi @Sean P,

5 hours ago, Sean P said:

Do you mean hyperlink the word in the document page the index is referring to? Or are you referring to hyperlinking the text in the index?

I was referring to the text in the index but your detailed explanation as to why that wouldn't work makes perfect sense, thank you...

5 hours ago, Sean P said:

Therefore each marker doesn't have a concept of a 'word/multiple words' that it could generate a hyperlink too.

Is this why when clicking an index page number it only takes you to the specific page rather than scrolling to the actual index marker, like standard hyperlinks and endnote links do when viewing a pdf file in full page width view?

Thanks for logging the differing behaviour when editing hyperlinks using different methods, though your explanation for this also makes perfect sense...

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Hangman said:

Is this why when clicking an index page number it only takes you to the specific page rather than scrolling to the actual index marker, like standard hyperlinks and endnote links do when viewing a pdf file in full page width view?

A standard hyperlink has several forms. If it's a hyperlink to a page (as these index hyperlinks are) you go to the top of the page. You only go to a specific spot on the page if it's a hyperlink to an anchor.

One could argue that an Index Mark is effectively an anchor, but the difficulty with that is that a page might have several occurrences of a term, all marked with Index Marks. Which one would the singular link go to?

[Hangman]

Thanks @walt.farrell,

That all makes perfect sense, thanks for your explanation...

I had been looking at the attached Nikon manual which was created in FrameMaker also using Index markers but their Index Markers seem to act like Publisher's Anchors in that when clicking a page number in the Index it does scroll to the actual on-page Index Marker which visually makes a lot of sense when viewing a pdf in full page width mode.

In Publisher doing the same feels a little odd because always going to the top of the page means you then have to visually search for the reference by scrolling the page.

Nikon D750 User Manual.pdf

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, Hangman said:

In Publisher doing the same feels a little odd because always going to the top of the page means you then have to visually search for the reference by scrolling the page.

Thanks for the example PDF.

Yes, it might be an improvement if Publisher's index entries worked that way. At a minimum, the implicit anchor could be on the first usage of the index term on the referenced page.

[Hangman]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Yes, it might be an improvement if Publisher's index entries worked that way. At a minimum, the implicit anchor could be on the first usage of the index term on the referenced page.

Well we already have the option to choose which instance of a reference to use on a page when there are multiple references to the the same term so I think that’s really just a case of prioritising the most relevant marker.

But equally I guess when you do want to reference multiple instances on the same page you could adopt a sub entry index structure for the term, each with its own unique index link.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Edit Hyperlink dialog can fail to show Character Style dropdown when editing Index entry hyperlinks" (REF: AFB-8184) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.2.0.1951".
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer 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 reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us.

[kaffeeundsalz]

Even though the above @Serif Info Bot message post suggests that the the issue is fixed, the problem still persists in the most recent Publisher Beta. So just to make sure that this gets fixed correctly in the final 2.2 release: The reason why the Character Style dropdown sometimes doesn't show up in the Hyperlink Properties dialog is that the window can be resized to hide the option but then not resized again. Here's the dialog in Publisher 2.2 Beta (1971) in its standard state:

Then when you drag the window up from the bottom edge, the dialog height decreases, hiding the Character Style option:

The problem is that from here, there's no way to get the window bigger again because resizing doesn't work anymore. The window contents also don't scroll, meaning that the Character Style option is stuck in an off-canvas area of the window that can no longer be reached. The only way for me to get the dialog back to its original size is to do a program reset by holding Ctrl during Publisher startup.

EDIT: Looking closely at the initial post, it seems that the original bug was of a different nature. It's obvious from the screenshots by @Hangman that other than in my example, the dialog height is sufficient to show the Character Style option. So maybe the problem I've run into is different and should get its own ticket number.

[walt.farrell]

57 minutes ago, kaffeeundsalz said:

So maybe the problem I've run into is different and should get its own ticket number.

That does sound like it could be different, but if it is related to the earlier problem that has been fixed, the instructions in that post announcing the fix said to tag @Serif Info Bot if we think it's not fixed.

[kaffeeundsalz]

Thanks @walt.farrell, I've updated my post to include the tag, too.