Changing spelling language in several items at once

[LEB]

Hi,

I have noticed that if I select several objects including text frames (the frames, not the text inside) and change the spelling language, the language remains unchanged.

This is a different behaviour than changing the background colour of the blocks, which applies to each individual item in the selection.

Can this be improved?

LEB

NB: I have difficulties understanding when the behaviour occurs and when it does not.

 

[Callum]

Hi Leb,

If all of the text uses the same text style you could change the language settings of the text style it self which should in turn apply it to all of your text objects with that style.

Thanks
C

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, LEB said:

I have noticed that if I select several objects including text blocks

I'm not sure if you mean that you selected the Text Frames, or you selected the text within the Text Frames. 

Changes made via the Character panel would only affect text that is currently selected.

[LEB]

Hi @walt.farrell, I have clarified the report.

[walt.farrell]

Thanks. As I said, you must select the text itself, not the frames, to change the language of the existing text using the Character panel.

Edit: That's wrong, as mentioned below.

[MikeTO]

31 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Thanks. As I said, you must select the text itself, not the frames, to change the language of the existing text using the Character panel.

I should probably document this in my manual but:

If you select one or more text frames with the Move tool and change the spelling language (or any other character or paragraph attribute or text style), it will change the language of all text in all selected text frames. It doesn't matter if you selected other types of objects or if the text has applied text styles.

But note that if you select a text frame that is grouped with another object and do the same, it will have no affect on the text in the grouped text frame. Attributes are applied only to the text in selected objects, not to selected child objects.

[LEB]

@MikeTO, Is there a reason why Affinity would have chosen to apply the setting to the selected objects only and not to child objects?

And do you confirm that other style attribute behave differently?

[LEB]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Thanks. As I said, you must select the text itself, not the frames, to change the language of the existing text using the Character panel.

If you select several text frames (not grouped together) and change the spelling language, it will change.

[MikeTO]

46 minutes ago, LEB said:

@MikeTO, Is there a reason why Affinity would have chosen to apply the setting to the selected objects only and not to child objects?

And do you confirm that other style attribute behave differently?

In general, applying any change to a group transforms the group and not its child layers. For example, if I rotate a group, the rotation is applied to the group and not to the child layers. I think that applying attributes in the same way makes logical sense so it's a standard way to design illustration and layout apps.

While all text attributes and styles should work the same way, there is one notable exception - changing text colour and stroke will change text in child layers. I'm not completely surprised at this given that the Style Picker tool works in an odd way with text colour and stroke, but this is an inconsistency. I don't think Serif would categorize it as a bug, there is likely a reason it works the way it is, but IMO that reason isn't one that makes sense to me as a user.

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

In general, applying any change to a group transforms the group and not its child layers. For example, if I rotate a group, the rotation is applied to the group and not to the child layers. I think that applying attributes in the same way makes logical sense so it's a standard way to design illustration and layout apps.

I'm not sure that's completely true. Consider:

Before:

After setting the Fill for the Group:

[LEB]

I think that when a user selects layers containing text frames and changes the spelling language, he/she expects this to apply to the child layers.

The behaviour could reflect this expectation.

In addition, selecting each text fram individually can be very tedious, and ungrouping can also lead to errors.

 

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, LEB said:

In addition, selecting each text fram individually can be very tedious

That's part of the reason that one should use Text Styles.

[MikeTO]

@walt.farrell I should have written fill and stroke colour and not specifically text colour and stroke.

[MikeTO]

35 minutes ago, LEB said:

I think that when a user selects layers containing text frames and changes the spelling language, he/she expects this to apply to the child layers.

I understand your point. As Walt pointed out, this is a reason we should all use text styles.

I drew a complex map in Designer and didn't use text styles because I tend to use them in page layout apps and not illustration apps. It's rare that I create illustrations with enough text to justify the use of text styles. But this map ended up with hundreds of art text and frame text objects, so I started grouping them. Then I needed to change the font size so I encountered the same limitation as you.

I wasn't surprised by the limitation and just selected all the child objects, but I can see how this could be confusing for those who don't know why it works the way it does. So I will go ahead and add it to the next edition of my manual right now.

Cheers

[MikeTO]

One last point on this to clarify something:

• If you select one or more groups that include text objects, Publisher will disable the character and paragraph attribute controls
• If you select one or more groups AND one or more ungrouped text objects, Publisher will enable the character and paragraph attribute controls but will apply those attributes just to the ungrouped objects

 

[anto]

@MikeTO I think if you change the value autoselect to objects when selecting groups, it will work.

 

[anto]

Or use Select object--> Frame text

[walt.farrell]

One aspect of this that confused me, I realized, is that you can change the font for all the text in a Text Frame by selecting the Frame itself and using the Context Toolbar. But this only works if you do not have the text cursor somewhere within the frame. If the cursor is within the frame, then the change made in the Context Toolbar will not have any effect on the existing text in the frame, unless the text is already selected.

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

One aspect of this that confused me, I realized, is that you can change the font for all the text in a Text Frame by selecting the Frame itself and using the Context Toolbar. But this only works if you do not have the text cursor somewhere within the frame. If the cursor is within the frame, then the change made in the Context Toolbar will not have any effect on the existing text in the frame, unless the text is already selected.

You can change attributes for all text in a frame even if the cursor is not in the frame. I can't say this is true on Windows but it should be the same as Mac.

If a text tool is selected and the cursor is in a frame, and then you click on the page, the cursor will be removed from the frame. (You can confirm this by choosing the text tool again and then selecting the frame with the Layers panel - typing will not enter text at the previous cursor position.)

Once you've removed the cursor from the frame, choose the Move tool and select the frame - you can now change attributes.

Or are you talking about something else and I've misunderstood?

1 hour ago, anto said:

@MikeTO I think if you change the value autoselect to objects when selecting groups, it will work.

Agreed, but then you're selecting the objects. I was saying that you can't apply attributes to the objects in a group when the group is selected.

[LEB]

3 hours ago, MikeTO said:

One last point on this to clarify something:

• If you select one or more groups that include text objects, Publisher will disable the character and paragraph attribute controls
• If you select one or more groups AND one or more ungrouped text objects, Publisher will enable the character and paragraph attribute controls but will apply those attributes just to the ungrouped objects

 

I would say it is pretty obscure for the user. And I do not see the point of such complex behaviour.

[LEB]

2 hours ago, anto said:

@MikeTO I think if you change the value autoselect to objects when selecting groups, it will work.

 

 

This is a nice one! Thank you.

[MikeTO]

2 minutes ago, LEB said:

I would say it is pretty obscure for the user. And I do not see the point of such complex behaviour.

If the user selects a text frame and a shape, it's a best practice for an app to let the user change the attributes of the frame's text and to change the attributes of the shape, even though neither applies to the other.

A group isn't considered a text object in Affinity so when you select a group and a text frame, it sets text attributes only for the text frame and not the group's frame. So the issue is should Affinity let you change the text attributes of child text frames. Here's why I think Serif designed it the way they did:

• Consider a text frame with a footnote. If I select the frame as an object with the Move tool and change the font size, should the footnote font size change, too? It doesn't in Publisher because the footnote's text frame is a child of the main text frame.
• Consider a text frame with a group pinned inline made up of an image and a text frame used as a caption. If I select the parent frame as an object with the Move tool and change the font size, should the font size of the inline group's caption frame change, too? It doesn't in Publisher because the caption frame is a child of the inline group which is a child of the main frame.

I'm fine with it working any way because I'll understand the rules and can predict what my actions would do. But I can see the argument for it working the other way, that all changes should ripple down to child objects. Perhaps there should be a Context Toolbar option to do this?