Running Headers Exclude Fields

[Hangman]

I'm trying to assess whether this is a bug since by design doesn't seem right...

If a Running Header Includes any Field value that Field value is excluded from the Running Header, yet the same Field value is included in both the TOC and a Cross-Reference...

[MikeTO]

IMO it's an oversight that a field in a running header doesn't show the value. As you pointed out, it works for the TOC and cross-references and IMO it should work for a running header.

But I don't think you can include a field in an index. When you add an index mark before a field, the default field name is <field name> in plain text which isn't a bug although IMO it would be better if it ignored the field and used the following characters. So the index will never include a field value.

Here's a sample document.

test.afpub

[Hangman]

30 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

But I don't think you can include a field in an index. When you add an index mark before a field, the default field name is <field name> in plain text which isn't a bug...

Personally, I see little reason why the <field name> is displayed in the index rather than its actual value as it is in the body text, more so when you consider the purpose behind custom fields...

30 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

IMO it would be better if it ignored the field and used the following characters. So the index will never include a field value.

I'm not overly bothered that the field name is displayed, at least that provides a hint rather than just showing a solitary page number but it seems to slightly undermine the use of Fields in this context...

[MikeTO]

24 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Personally, I see little reason why the <field name> is displayed in the index rather than its actual value as it is in the body text, more so when you consider the purpose behind custom fields...

It's possible to design a system for an index topic name to be a dynamic value but it's a bit of a mess. For example:

<field 1>The field is the created date

<field 2>The field is the same created date field with the same settings

If you insert an index mark before field 1, you want the index topic name to default to <field 1>'s dynamic value, let's say "Dec. 13, 2023". Then if you do the same before field 2 you want it to have field 2's dynamic value. Even though both are the same date, they would be separate index topics.

If you insert the index now, you'd expect both index marks to be referenced under the same topic, so Publisher would need the ability to merge index topics if their resulting values were the same.

Then if you edit field 2 and change it from "Dec. 13, 2023" to "10:15 AM" which is possible with a date time field, and update the index, you'd want the two index topics to be unmerged.

I think it's something that could be done but it doesn't seem like a particularly useful feature except perhaps for custom variables where you might be swapping product names. I'd far rather have the missing index features such as dynamic page ranges based on style changes and multi-topic indexing.

[Hangman]

16 hours ago, MikeTO said:

I think it's something that could be done but it doesn't seem like a particularly useful feature except perhaps for custom variables where you might be swapping product names.

This is very much the context I'm seeing this in... if you imagine a product manual for a new product that has numerous references to particular product features appearing on various pages throughout the manual...

We're putting together the manual for the new product before final confirmation of the feature names from the marketing department so we insert Field placeholders allowing the marketing department to sign the artwork off pending final approval of feature names.

The manual includes an Index where various features that currently use placeholder Field Names are indexed.

To me, the logical approach here would be that instead of <Custom Field> appearing in the Index, the actual placeholder text appears using its Field Name in the same way it does in the body text.

Once the feature names have been approved the Custom Fields are updated in Publisher and the fields are expanded.

Currently, because the Field isn't live in the Index, expanding the Fields doesn't update the Index which means that every Index Marker relating to a placeholder Field in the body text has to be deleted and re-inserted to allow the Index to be updated to include those topics.

If the placeholder Field was also a live Field in the Index, it wouldn't even be necessary to expand the Fields in the Body Text would allow you to simply click the Update button in the Index panel which in turn would update the Index accordingly.