Reading Order Panel

[MikeTO]

Add multiple selected objects: If more than one object is selected, the Add Selected Object icon will be disabled. It would be nice to be able to add multiple objects at once. Also note that ID allows you to Cmd/Ctrl+click the icon to add all objects on the page at once.

That's the end of it. Thanks!

[fde101]

20 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Auto article names: The auto names are the biggest issue.

I wonder if a paragraph style could be designated as indicating an article title?

Then articles would be identified as starting with paragraphs using that style, and the text of the paragraph becomes the article name?

At least, for the automatic/default creation...

[Hangman]

There appear to be several anomalies and some erratic behaviour concerning adding objects to the Reading Order Panel...

Master Page Content

1. Adding non-linked empty text frames to a Master Page doesn’t add the Text Frame names to the Reading Order Panel
    
2. Adding linked empty text frames to the same facing page of the default Master, Master A doesn’t add the name of the Text Frames to the Reading Order Panel
    
3. Adding linked empty text frames that span both pages of the default Master, Master A adds the name of the left Text Frame to the Reading Order Panel
    
4. If a facing page document starts on the Right and Master A contains empty linked text frames, the Reading Order Panel will include the Left Text Frame name, i.e., Frame Text/1 in the Reading Order Panel
    
5. If a facing page document starts on the Left and Master A contains empty linked text frames, the Reading Order Panel will include the Right Text Frame name, i.e., Frame Text/2 in the Reading Order Panel
    
6. Switching a facing page document which starts on the Right with Master Pages containing empty linked text frames to start on the Left doesn’t switch the name of the Text Frame that appears in the Reading Order Panel
    
7. Linking two Text Frames located on the Left page of Master A and then moving the second text frame to the Right page doesn't add the name of the linked text frame to the Reading Order Panel

Expectation

Linked Text Frames spanning both pages of the default Master, Master A shouldn't appear in the Reading Order Panel in the same way non-linked text frames, artistic text and table names positioned on a Master Page don't appear.

Removing Publication Page Content

1. Deleting text from non-linked Publication Page Text Frames based on a Master Page and linked Text Frames based on the default Master, Master A fails to remove the Text Frame name from the Reading Order Panel. The only way to remove the name of the Master Page Text Frame name after deleting the text it contains is to reapply the Master to the Publication Page with Content set to Clear
   
   If non-live filler text is deleted from the associated Publication Page/s the name of the Master Page Text Frame is added to the Reading Order Panel, i.e., <Filler Text> or <Filler Text/1> depending on whether the text frames are linked and the filler text added to the Master and Frame Text or Frame Text/1 if the filler text is added to the Publication pages
   
   If live text is deleted from the associated Publication Page/s the first 21 characters of the now deleted text are added as the Text Frame name to the Reading Order Panel if the text was added to the Master. Text added to the Publication Pages once deleted will add Frame Text/1 to the Reading Order Panel

Expectation

Deleting text from Publication Pages using associated Master Pages with non-linked text frames should remove the text frame name from the Reading Order Panel

Tagged Images

1. Adding a Tagged Image to a Master page incorrectly adds it to the Reading Order Panel
2. Adding a Tagged image from a Master or Publication Page unnecessarily expands all closed Articles when the Alt Text Source is selected from the Tags Panel
3. Deleting a Tagged image from a Master or Publication Page unnecessarily expands all closed Articles when the Alt Text Source is selected from the Tags Panel

Reordering Objects

1. It’s not possible to move an object that has been manually added to the Reading Order Panel so it appears at the bottom of an Artice list if there is another Article below it containing objects automatically added to the Reading Order Panel
    
2. It’s not possible to correctly reorder objects that have been manually added to the Reading Order Panel if contained in an Article when an Article appears below it containing objects automatically added to the Reading Order Panel

General

1. With an Article Selected in the Reading Order Panel, it would be nice when adding objects if they were added directly to the Article rather than having to move them manually afterwards

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

1. Adding non-linked empty text frames to a Master Page doesn’t add the Text Frame names to the Reading Order Panel
2. Adding linked empty text frames to the same facing page of the default Master, Master A doesn’t add the name of the Text Frames to the Reading Order Panel

There are definitely some anomalies but IMO these two points aren't bugs. Empty frames can't affect the reading order and really shouldn't be added until you put text in them.

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

1. Adding linked empty text frames that span both pages of the default Master, Master A adds the name of the left Text Frame to the Reading Order Panel

If you add some spreads to the document and draw frames on both sides of the master, there are no articles which I think is good. Otherwise, if you had 100 pages you'd now have 100 articles which would be insane.

Link the master frames and you will get an article named Frame Text/1 which IMO shouldn't exist.

Unlink the frames and you get an article named Frame Text (there's no longer a 1 in the name) which shouldn't exist.

Delete the left frame and the article disappears even though the right frame remains.

I'll leave it there, there's a lot to sort out here.

[Hangman]

22 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Auto article names: The auto names are the biggest issue. Everybody who uses the reading order panel should be using master pages and every text object from a master page will have a placeholder name even if the text object has real text on the document page:

• "<Filler Text>" - if the text object has filler text on the master
• "Frame Text" or "Art Text" or "Table" or "Shape Text" or "Curve Path Text" - if the text object is blank or has a space on the master
• "real text" - if the text object has real text on the master

Master Page items shouldn't appear in the Reading Order Panel until populated on the Publication page. Currently, the only way to manage and organise placeholder names is to name the respective Layers using Edit Detached...

Note: There is a bug specific to the default Master, Master A, detailed in the previous post resulting in linked Master Page text frame names appearing in the Reading Order Panel when they shouldn't. This also impacts deleting items from a Publication Page not clearing items in the Reading Order Panel.

 

22 hours ago, MikeTO said:

I also think that the names such as "Frame Text" should be in <> or something else to differentiate them from named articles to help make named articles easier to pick out of a long list.

I assume this is to maintain parity with the Layers Panel naming conventions.

In the context of the Reading Order Panel, there seems to be some confusion... we are adding Objects to the panel which can be grouped using Articles. It feels as though the Go to Article button should be named Go to Object since as you've mentioned, you can't double-click an Article to jump to it because the button is greyed out when an Article is selected, you can only double-click an Object to jump to it.

 

22 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Note also that short table names will have |'s separating the empty table cells so you might get "Testing|||||||" as a table name.

Table naming shouldn't inherit its Reading Order Panel name from the table content but should use the same naming convention used when populating a Master Page table on a Publication Page where it's added to the Reading Order Panel using the name Table so this does look like a potential bug...

 

22 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Can't rename articles: We can only rename articles we create manually, the automatic ones cannot be renamed.

Reading Order Panel objects can be renamed using Edit Detached in the Layers Panel if Master Page items or directly by renaming the Layer in the Layers Panel if added directly to the Publication Page. However, it would perhaps be helpful if they could be renamed directly from the Reading Order Panel...

 

22 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Selected article bug: If I click in a text object on a master page, the article is not selected in the panel like it is for an object on a document page. This makes it very difficult to figure out which of the auto names corresponds to the article I'm editing.

I think this in part relates to the bugs mentioned in the previous post, i.e., Master Page items shouldn't appear until populated on a Publication Page... The only way to select the text objects on the Master is to use Edit Detached in the Layers Panel...

 

22 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Duplicate articles with split masters bug: I haven't reproduced this with a test document yet, but With split masters in a 2.5 document, I have a spread in 2.6 with 2 frames and 4 articles. Going to 2 of the articles selects the frame on the page and in the Layers panel. Going to the other 2 frames selects the same frame on the page but nothing in the Layers panel. I assume this has to do with having applied facing-page masters to left and right sides of a spread in 2.5 and 2.6 tidying up and hiding the duplicate frames but still creating articles for them.

This again is partly due to the bug with the default Master and the fact that deleting text from text frames doesn't correctly clear the Reading Order Panel so some of the entries shouldn't appear at all...

In your sample file the text frame on the ghost page before page 1 along with the Master Text frame on Page 3 appear in the Reading Order Panel, the latter of which is wrong because Page 3 has no associated Master Page...

Yes, there's definitely some sorting out to do...

[Hangman]

20 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

There are definitely some anomalies but IMO these two points aren't bugs. Empty frames can't affect the reading order and really shouldn't be added until you put text in them.

These were meant more as a comparator to highlight the incorrect behaviour when adding linked text frames to a Master Page Spread so weren't intended as bugs...

 

20 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

If you add some spreads to the document and draw frames on both sides of the master, there are no articles which I think is good. Otherwise, if you had 100 pages you'd now have 100 articles which would be insane.

Link the master frames and you will get an article named Frame Text/1 which IMO shouldn't exist.

Unlink the frames and you get an article named Frame Text (there's no longer a 1 in the name) which shouldn't exist.

Delete the left frame and the article disappears even though the right frame remains.

Those were the exact points I was trying to make... The Reading Order panel seems quite buggy at the moment...

[Sean P]

Auto article names: 

The names for objects are generated by the objects name in the Layers Panel. If you want to give it a more meaningful name in the Reading Order Panel then simply just renaming the layer will be sufficient. For example I can rename by Table to 'Sales Figures Table' and the name in the Reading Order Panel will change from '|Year|Amount|2024|$10000|||||' to 'Sales Figures Table'

Can't rename articles: Again as mentioned above this is done by giving the layer a meaningful name.

Selected article bug: I've logged this.

Duplicate articles with split masters bug:

This one I found that when I opened the file I had two frames present. As mentioned when editing I get three frames which is incorrect so I will log that. The Undo does then correctly go back to 2 frames listed as I would expect.

---

Auto scroll: Thanks, I've passed this on as improvement feedback.

Incorrect drop zone highlighting: Thanks - this appears to only affect macOS and iPad. I've logged this.

Icons: Thanks! This is something we're already aware of and already logged.

Question (about grouping front matter): This is correct.

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Automatic article creation: I'll pass this on as an improvement. Related to this it should really toggle multiple items at once if you have them selected when toggling (similar to the Layers Panel when you toggle visibility for multiple selected objects).

 

Add Article doesn't auto scroll: Thanks for that. I've also passed that on in your first auto scroll suggestion.

Double-click: This seems to be working for me. If you're still getting this feel free to drop a video and file and we can take a look!

---

Add multiple selected objects: Thanks, I've passed this on as improvement feedback.

[MikeTO]

Renaming articles: Thanks, but:

• That doesn't work for master page frames. The articles named "Frame Text" and "<Filler Text>" from master frames have actual auto names in Layers taken from their text. The problem is that the RO panel is looking at the contents from the master instead of the contents from the document page like Layers does. Users will now have to override the auto names in Layers just to make the RO panel usable.
• I think it's confusing that we can rename some articles in the reading order panel but not others. Ideally, renaming it in RO would override the layers name, or at least change it in both places. But if not, it might be good to add a visual cue so you don't keep clicking trying to rename a fixed name.

54 minutes ago, Sean P said:

Double-click: This seems to be working for me. If you're still getting this feel free to drop a video and file and we can take a look!

I think you already logged that for macOS as AF-4844 although I don't know why it's prefaced with iOS (same for 4843).

New stuff: These screenshots are for my Publisher manual (left) and history book (right). I'm posting these to show what real documents look like in this panel when opened in 2.6 and because I'll refer to the left one for the issues below.

 

Shape Text + auto article creation: When you click a selected shape with a text tool it will be converted to shape text. In Designer the shape's fill and stroke disappears so you know you did it accidentally and can undo but it's not obvious in Publisher. As a result, when I open my Publisher manual in 2.6, the first article is "Shape Text" so obviously I accidentally converted a rectangle on the cover page one day. Perhaps I noticed it but it didn't hurt anything so I left it but now in 2.6 I have an article. Fortunately, it's the only one I have but I imagine there are going to be users who have done this frequently and will have many empty shape text articles in the panel. Since we can't turn off the auto article creation feature, we might need a "delete empty articles" command.

Title page text frames: Fortunately, I have just two real text frames on the title page of my manual. If I were writing it with ID, I wouldn't skip these and let the natural order take over but since they were created for me with Publisher I have to deal with them. I imagine everybody is going to need to create a front matter section to declutter the panel.

Split master ghost frames: The next article for my manual is "Frame Text/1". Going to it selects a frame that doesn't exist in the Layers panel. The spread has split masters for the copyright page on the left and TOC on the right. The TOC page master had a ghost frame in 2.5 that is fortunately hidden in 2.6 but that hidden frame still shows up as an article in the RO panel. The next article is real and the third article is the ghost frame for the left page. This issue is repeated with every chapter's title page since they use split masters, so lots of extra ghosts.

Hidden frames + auto article creation: I use hidden frames on the chapter titles of my manual to generate TOC entries with different text than are visible on the title pages. I named these frames "Hidden Heading 1 for TOC" in the Layers panel so that's what they're named in the RO panel. But they're hidden and I don't need them listed as articles. This is another flaw with auto article creation - you have to include them because people may turn layers on and off as they work, but what about frames like this that I will never want included? I know I can deselect all of these but I'm pointing out that of the dozens of articles that Publisher created for me, only a few are actually real articles and it would have just been easier for me to create them manually.

[Sean P]

22 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Renaming articles: Thanks, but:

• That doesn't work for master page frames. The articles named "Frame Text" and "<Filler Text>" from master frames have actual auto names in Layers taken from their text. The problem is that the RO panel is looking at the contents from the master instead of the contents from the document page like Layers does. Users will now have to override the auto names in Layers just to make the RO panel usable.
• I think it's confusing that we can rename some articles in the reading order panel but not others. Ideally, renaming it in RO would override the layers name, or at least change it in both places. But if not, it might be good to add a visual cue so you don't keep clicking trying to rename a fixed name.

I think you already logged that for macOS as AF-4844 although I don't know why it's prefaced with iOS (same for 4843).

Yeah this is a separate issue, it doesn't seem to be picking up the updated content and is instead using the Layer's name from the Master Page. I'll get this logged.

As far as I'm aware, it should only be Articles created using the 'Add Article' button that can be renamed in the panel (and that is because they don't appear anywhere else). Are you suggesting there are others? To me it seems it would become messy and confusing to start giving items different names throughout the app. What is wrong with naming in the Layers Panel? (Other than the master page issue)

I did indeed log that and it was fixed in 2.6.0.2831, so I was surprised to hear it was still an issue for you. Would be interested to see what is happening! AF-4844 and 4843 are clones of the original issues (AF-4784 and AF-4787 respectively) that have been found to also affect another OS and get prefixed, so thats why they may appear slightly oddly named.

Shape Text + auto article creation: The reason Designer turns everything clear is that it doesn't have the Text Frame panel so text frame stroke and fills wouldn't be able to be cleared otherwise. The idea is that empty text objects are not automatically added, so the bug here is that an empty Shape Text frame is being incorrectly added.

Title page text frames: I'll pass the feedback on, but as far as I'm aware that is intentional based on the current design. However it is worth noting that text in groups is not considered for inclusion, so if you want to omit items to avoid clutter you can potentially just group them providing your design allows for it.

Split master ghost frames: The naming is down to the issue mentioned above with Master Pages. However are you able to narrow it down to a simpler test file you could attach? There is a lot of back and forth with many different issues in this thread that its starting to become difficult to see the wood for the trees!

Hidden frames + auto article creation: Again I will pass your feedback on regarding this design, however as mentioned you could always group things to remove them.

[fde101]

31 minutes ago, Sean P said:

it doesn't have the Text Frame panel

Typing of which, while I get the omission of that panel from Designer, those particular properties can also be accessed using the Gradient tool in Publisher, so it seems solidly arbitrary to have limited access to them in Designer when using that tool (and ideally making them accessible from the Appearance panel also), so wondering if this might be an opportunity to ask that this rather curious omission be reconsidered?

For the Appearance panel, I would suggest having it control text appearance when using a text tool or the Gradient tool targeting the text, and having it control the frame when using any other non-text tool or when using the Gradient tool targeting the frame.

Just to point it out, it is possible to use the Appearance panel, and to target the text frame using the Gradient tool, when using the Designer persona within Publisher, which presents an inconsistency in the behavior of the persona between the two apps - though there seems to be a bug, in that when you switch between text and frame within the Gradient tool, you need to actually click on something in the Appearance panel to get it to refresh and show the current properties of the selected object - and even then they are not always right (such as seeing a stroke width of 0 pt listed on the Appearance panel directly but when popping up the stroke with it shows the correct non-zero width).

 

EDIT: I created a separate thread for a set of apparent bugs in the appearance panel as mentioned above, one of which seems to be new with the beta.

[MikeTO]

21 minutes ago, Sean P said:

As far as I'm aware, it should only be Articles created using the 'Add Article' button that can be renamed in the panel (and that is because they don't appear anywhere else). Are you suggesting there are others? To me it seems it would become messy and confusing to start giving items different names throughout the app. What is wrong with naming in the Layers Panel? (Other than the master page issue)

I wasn't suggesting there are others but I think it's a usability issue if you can't tell which ones you can rename until you've clicked a couple of times.

Fixing the master page issue (and the ghost article due to split masters) will make it much, much better, I wouldn't bother renaming most layers if they had usable names.

21 minutes ago, Sean P said:

Split master ghost frames: The naming is down to the issue mentioned above with Master Pages. However are you able to narrow it down to a simpler test file you could attach? There is a lot of back and forth with many different issues in this thread that its starting to become difficult to see the wood for the trees!

Here you go. There are only two text frames in the layers panel but 4 articles.

split master.afpub

Auto articles and spread layouts: Those who lay out their documents as individual spreads may not be candidates for the RO panel but the panel will be unusable for them due to the automatic creation of articles. For example, the old cookbook template bundled with Publisher at one point has about 26 text objects per recipe. If a cookbook had 160 recipes then you'd have over 4K articles. There isn't a good solution for this type of document other than to structure your documents in a different way, but if users could turn off auto creation or at least delete all of the automatically created articles, then they could use the panel.

[Hangman]

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

Here you go. There are only two text frames in the layers panel but 4 articles.

This is because of the bug mentioned earlier where adding Linked Text Frames to a Master incorrectly adds an entry to the Reading Order Panel. If you repeat the exercise but don't link the text frames on the Master you should only see two entries in the Reading Order Panel...

[MikeTO]

13 minutes ago, Hangman said:

This is because of the bug mentioned earlier where adding Linked Text Frames to a Master incorrectly adds an entry to the Reading Order Panel. If you repeat the exercise but don't link the text frames on the Master you should only see two entries in the Reading Order Panel...

This is the split master bug I was referring to.

[Hangman]

Just now, MikeTO said:

This is the split master bug I was referring to.

Likewise...

[Hangman]

Drag and Drop object re-ordering fails when the objects are contained inside an Article in the Reading Order Panel

Steps to Reproduce - Scenario 1

1. Create a publisher document
2. Add objects to the Publication page that automatically create Reading Order Panel entries, e.g., Text Frames and/or Tagged images or add objects manually
3. Re-ordering objects on the Publication page correctly re-orders the objects in the Reading Order Panel

Steps to Reproduce - Scenario 2

1. Create a publisher document
2. Add objects to the Publication page that automatically create Reading Order Panel entries, e.g., Text Frames and/or Tagged images or add objects manually
3. Add an Article and nest the objects in the Article
4. Re-ordering objects on the Publication page no longer re-orders the objects in the Reading Order Panel within the Article

Expectation
Re-ordering objects on a Publication page within an Article should re-order objects within the Article...

[Hangman]

Selecting Objects (Articles) within Articles to omit them from the Reading Order of an exported PDF file highlights incorrect objects within the Reading Order Panel...

[Hangman]

On Windows, objects nested inside an Article don't display the object's check/cross marks so subsequently can't be visually or physically excluded from the Reading Order when exported to PDF...

[bbrother]

@Sean P There is no way this will work for me in this form.

I would prefer to start with a blank panel and have full control over what objects are added and be able to remove them at will, especially in the case of a longer publication. Maybe it would be worth adding an option to choose between manual or automatic addition of text and other objects. Now in the case of a longer publication the panel is cluttered with elements that are unnecessary, which makes it difficult to manage articles.

I would love to see an improvement where after clicking Alt+[Add Article] the selected entries in the panel would be moved and grouped under the newly created article.

What I also don't like:

• The blue lines indicating the new position when dragging to change the order are too thin thus barely visible.
• The check mark and cross icon are too large compared to the height of the entry. The color (too intense and bright) and style (bent/twisted) of the check mark icon do not fit the UI style, to put it mildly.

It still needs a lot of work to make sense😉

[Hangman]

Horizontally aligned objects are sorted Y, X instead of X, Y in the Reading Order Panel

Steps to Reproduce

1. Add a series of objects to a Publisher page (text or tagged images)
2. Align them horizontally from left to right so their order is top to bottom in the Reading Order Panel
3. Adjust the size of each object independently
4. The object order is incorrectly automatically adjusted in the Reading Order Panel based on object height

[bbrother]

On 11/8/2024 at 1:40 PM, Hangman said:

Horizontally aligned objects are sorted Y, X instead of X, Y in the Reading Order Panel

@Hangman What you think? Maybe it's not a bug but a limitation of the method they use?🤔.

First, the Y value is taken into account, the lower (closer to 0) the higher the position in the order. If there is no resolution, e.g. two or more elements with the same Y value, then the X position is the deciding factor, the smaller the position, the higher the position of the object in the order.

When you changed the size of the letter C, its Y position value became the smallest of all the letters and it jumped to the first position. Then you increased the size of the letter B even more and now its Y value is the smallest of all, which means the first position in the order. There were also no cases of disputes about the same Y value among the elements.

You've probably noticed the above, but the question arises: how would the program know which method to use Y, X or maybe X,Y in a given case? What factor would decide? Your example is simple, you have the letters arranged in alphabetical order and you know in advance what order is appropriate.

In any case, I would be happy to learn more from the staff about the logic used to determine the order based on what happens on the canvas.

[Hangman]

2 hours ago, bbrother said:

What you think? Maybe it's not a bug but a limitation of the method they use?🤔.

Basically, yes, you are correct... the current methodology is to favour Y over X as evidenced in the screen recording...

I think inevitably, with certain layouts there will always be an element of manual tag re-ordering though it might be nice if the Reading Order Panel included an option in the Panel Preferences to choose between:

• Top, Bottom, Left, Right
• Left, Right, Top, Bottom

When you have a layout like this for example where the intent is to read the Title followed by the three advisories from Left to Right in the top row followed by the three advisories from Left to Right in the bottom row followed by the Learn More link at the bottom the objects are added to the Reading Order Panel in the reverse order based on the Y X logic but even if the option to select Left, Right, Top, Bottom were available objects would still need to be manually re-ordered for the reading order intent of the layout to be honoured...

[bbrother]

4 hours ago, Hangman said:

I think inevitably, with certain layouts there will always be an element of manual tag re-ordering though it might be nice if the Reading Order Panel included an option in the Panel Preferences to choose between:

• Top, Bottom, Left, Right
• Left, Right, Top, Bottom

I agree, you're right. Such options would allow you to choose the method that would give you the most desirable order depending on the layout, which would ultimately minimize the amount of manual reorganization.

What also would be nice to have an option in the panel preferences named like for example `Order by position`. 

It could work somewhat like that:

1. You select several objects on the page or select several entries in the panel.
2. In the panel preferences, change the preferred method if you need it (your suggestion)
3. Click `Order by position`.
4. Viola! the tags are sorted in order based on position on page and with respect to the method.

[Hangman]

When objects are added to an Article sometimes the disclosure triangle for the Article is non-functional and sometimes closing the disclosure triangle for one Article closes a different Article...

It's quite unpredictable which Articles will be affected... I'll update this post with a sample file if I can find some sort of formula but hopefully, the screen recording demonstrates the issue...

[Hangman]

Adding an Article to the Reading Order Panel places it at the top of the panel or directly below the previously created Article unless an object has previously been manually re-ordered in the Reading Order Panel...

After manually re-ordering an object, adding an Article will position the Article at the bottom of the panel which is a pain, more so when you have a very long list of objects in the panel since it means having to:

1. Scroll to the bottom of the panel every time an Article is added because the panel doesn't currently auto-scroll
2. Manually drag the Article to the top of the panel or at least below the previous Article which is incredibly tedious

Note: This doesn't happen if the Object is re-ordered on the Publication page...

Expectation

Adding an Article to the Reading Order Panel will place it at the top of the panel or directly below the previously added Article to maintain the intended reading order regardless of whether any objects have been manually re-ordered.

[Hangman]

The Reading Order Panel fails to scroll on Windows when attempting to move objects higher or lower in the reading order if the list length exceeds the panel height...