Edit Linked (master page)

[MikeTO]

I've read the help files and searched this forum for Edit Linked and I don't understand the purpose of this command. If I edit linked, the changes are applied to all pages based on the master. But I could just edit the master if I wanted to do that so what's the benefit of edit linked? Why not just choose View Masters or click Toggle Master View, make the changes, and choose it again. It's the exact same number of clicks either way.

I saw a couple of posts talking about using edit linked and then using Move to Front for the master layer (menu only, not the layers panel) so that the master layer would be brought to the top of the layer stack on all pages based on the master but that seems to be the only possible benefit for the command and that's a really obscure way to do that.

PS: if you try that tip there's a minor bug you will encounter. Let's say you have Master A and B applied to every page and B is on top. Right click the Master A layer in the Layers panel for any page and choose Edit Linked. Choose Move to Front from the menu. It will be changed on every page just like the tip suggested but the page thumbnails will not be redrawn for any page other than the current one. This isn't new in 2.1 or 2.2, it was this way in 1.10 as well.

[R C-R]

I think it was just intended as a way to remain on the document page while editing (possibly one of its) master page(s) instead of having to switch to a master page to do that.

[walt.farrell]

If you stay on the document page and use Edit Linked it is (a) simpler than switching to the Master Page and (b) it allows you to see the effect of the change on a populated page, rather than working on the relatively empty Master Page.

[carl123]

Edit Linked will also allow you to drag Master Page items/layers out of the Master page and onto a regular page and to drag Layers from a regular page to the Master page affecting all other (linked) pages

[thomaso]

10 hours ago, MikeTO said:

that seems to be the only possible benefit for the command and that's a really obscure way to do that.

As long as there is no other way to customize the layer hierarchy for an entire document (e.g. "Global Layers"), the existence of this option feels like an requirement rather than an "obscure" offer. – The option "Edit linked" is a necessary consequence of the ability to apply more than 1 master to a document page, which on the other hand is a necessary consequence of the missing global layers.

To me "obscure" is more the way how "Edit linked" + "Arrange …" actually gets executed by APub: In the V1 example below it appears to rename Master layers if the get their hierarchy changed this way. And, apart from your mentioned pages thumbnails confusion, it appears more weird  (-> buggy imho) what happens if you Undo this action. It seems to result in a mixture of setup properties that don't correspond neither with the initial master page layout nor the master layers hierarchy on the document pages.

Note in the video the master page names + the differing page layouts before + after "Edit linked" & "Arrange …" and compare it with the final document state after Undoing all actions. The attached documents are before/after, while the "…order" .afpub was saved with history after recording this video.

Before:   v1105 master A-B.afpub   –>  After:    v1105 master A-B order.afpub

[MikeTO]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

If you stay on the document page and use Edit Linked it is (a) simpler than switching to the Master Page and (b) it allows you to see the effect of the change on a populated page, rather than working on the relatively empty Master Page.

I don't think it's simpler than switching to the master and back. It's two clicks either way (toggle master + toggle master vs. edit linked + finish).

But you're right that you get to see the effect of the change on a populated page. Good point.

3 hours ago, carl123 said:

Edit Linked will also allow you to drag Master Page items/layers out of the Master page and onto a regular page and to drag Layers from a regular page to the Master page affecting all other (linked) pages

Agreed. Just to clarify. Edit Linked allows you to drag master layers onto the page - this removes the master layer from all pages based on the master but only the one you're editing has the object on the regular page. The other pages lose the layer. If you drag layers from the regular page onto the master layer while editing linked, all pages based on the master get the layer.

I was mainly playing with Edit Detached because it's more like ID's overrides feature than its detached feature. I just expected Edit Linked to work differently. I thought Edit Linked would make changes to all the pages based on the master without changing the master itself.

@thomaso Maybe instead of obscure I should have written workaround. While it does let you move the master layer to the top, it won't stay on the top when you add more objects on the page so it's a temporary workaround.

While I want global layers, too, there is an easy way to address the "master page objects on top" requirement without global layers being added. The Spread Properties dialog for a document page just needs an option to Show Master Pages: In Front/Below/Do not Show. This would pin the master page layers to the top or bottom and the user couldn't change their order without going back to Spread Properties. This would be done at the page/spread level so you could select all your pages or just some or one of them to effect the change.

[thomaso]

57 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

The Spread Properties dialog for a document page just needs an option to Show Master Pages: In Front/Below/Do not Show. This would pin the master page layers to the top or bottom and the user couldn't change their order without going back to Spread Properties. This would be done at the page/spread level so you could select all your pages or just some or one of them to effect the change.

This seems to request Global Layer features stepwise / through the backdoor 🦄

Your option could also be available for the original Master Pages. Why shouldn't for instance a page-number or a background-colour master not by default be placed in foreground or background but require to get set for all document pages? (... and again and again for every page that gets added?) – Also the Layers panel could be more cooperative with Master layer handling. Why is the "detached" mode auto-quit if I switch to another page? Why do I need to select the parent Master Page layer to activate "detach", and can't do it with the layer selected that I want to edit? Or why do I need to activate this mode + its orange bar + vertical layout offset at all … and can't access the wanted layers via pressing a modifier key or pressing a Layers panel button for instance?

I think it would help to know / understand what in particular prevented Serif from their realisation in the V2 upgrade – since Global Layers appeared to be planned about 1 year before V2 became released.