Unable to change or remove adjustments layers in publisher once I have added them

[cTHULHU]

I have a simple master page with one picture frame. I create two pages from the master and apply different images. In layers for the page I add a B&W adjustment to the first image and a posterize to second image, i leave the third image unadjusted. I now cannot remove or change these adjustment layers. Also the visibility toggle for the adjustment layer also doesn't work. Why is that? Example attached.

NoAdjustment.afpub

[thomaso]

Quite likely it's because they are inside their Master layer. If you select that, right-click and choose "Edit Detached" you will be able to edit the adjustments and their layer options.

[cTHULHU]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

Quite likely it's because they are inside their Master layer. If you select that, right-click and choose "Edit Detached" you will be able to edit the adjustments and their layer options.

Thanks I though it might be some weid mode like that but couldn't find it in help, worked a treat. The edit detached is a toggle on the top level master layer.

What is confusing is, why can you add the adjustment when its linked? It unlinks the picture frame (dotted green line on layer) when you add the adjustment. But then you can't change it without unlinking everything - why can't I change the now unlinked picture frame again - for me the user model doesn't make logical sense. If the layer is marked unlinked then I should be able to change it.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, cTHULHU said:

 If the layer is marked unlinked then I should be able to change it.

The layer is not unlinked. Selected attributes of the layer are unlinked. If you hover your mouse over the layer name field you'll see the unlinked attributes listed. Those attributes will not be changed if you change them on the object on the actual Master Page.

But the layer is still inherited from the Master Page, and certain things about it can't be changed unless you use Edit Detached or Edit Linked.

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, cTHULHU said:

What is confusing is, why can you add the adjustment when its linked? (…) But then you can't change it without unlinking everything

Good question. If the adjustment layer's thumbnail doesn't have a 'master'-marker it should be fully editable – but instead such a layer is not editable in any way.

There are a few bug reports since about 4 years for this issue, which got logged & tagged as  AF-1532.

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

If you hover your mouse over the layer name field you'll see the unlinked attributes listed. Those attributes will not be changed if you change them on the object on the actual Master Page.

Good tooltip hint, I never noticed. – Does it work for you as described? The tooltip mentions visibility/opacity as beeing unlinked – but I can't edit opacity nor visibility (both are grayed out). –  What does work is that a reduced opacity set for this adjustment layer on the actual Master Page is not transferred to the edited document page.

[walt.farrell]

11 hours ago, thomaso said:

Does it work for you as described? The tooltip mentions visibility/opacity as beeing unlinked – but I can't edit opacity nor visibility (both are grayed out).

As I mentioned, you will still need to use Edit Detached, even though those attributes are unlinked, because the layer is still part of the Master Page data on that document page.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

As I mentioned, you will still need to use Edit Detached, even though those attributes are unlinked, because the layer is still part of the Master Page data on that document page.

It wasn't clear to me that "certain things" includes the attributes that are labeled as "Unlinked".

Isn't it misleading to call them "Unlinked" if they can't get edited? The tooltip could be more clear if it says "Modified" for instance… which also includes the fact that changes done to an object's style or contents on the actual Master Page generally don't get transferred to the child objects on document pages.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

Isn't it misleading to call them "Unlinked" if they can't get edited?

Unlinked is a Symbol term, and Master Pages are based on Symbol functionality.

Yes, I could have been clearer. 

The Unlinked here means that those aspects of the object will not be changed if the base object on the Master Page is changed, just as it would mean with Symbols.

[cTHULHU]

Interesting overview thankyou everyone - the Symbol analogy also helps. I can find nothing in the help files on this - I haven't looked at the vidoes in depth yet, its a very obscure hard to understand sub-system with no real in depth explanation. Nothing I could find in the publisher help explains in depth the dotted lines - searching on the obvious terms. The link to  AF-1532. was very helpful too - exactly the same level of confusion I had in that report. 

from AF-1532

The bug is that the same restriction is wrongly applied to an Adjustment that is a child of the unrestricted Content object of the Picture Frame, not a child of the Picture Frame itself. The child of the unrestricted Content object should be as unrestricted as its parent, but it isn't.

Exactly

The worst thing is that it all too easily adds an un-removable/un-togglable adjustment unless you know the Edit detached trick. This can really muck up your work. I had to use Undo to get past it in my case. Its basically a pit trap for the unwary.

[Dan C]

Thanks for your report @cTHULHU & sorry to hear this caused issues in your workflow!

As you've found, this bug is currently logged with our development team - therefore I'll be sure to 'bump' this with your report now to bring it to their attention once again.

I hope this helps