[Publisher 2.5.7][BUG][Fixed-position footnotes rule]

[Franz Rogar]

BASIC INFO

• App & version: Publisher 2.5.7
• OS & version: Windows 11 (up-to-date)
• Graphic card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (up-to-date)
• Hardware acceleration: On & Off
• Reproducibility: Always
• Affects new document?: Yes

WHAT HAS HAPPENED

The horizontal footnote rule position is fixed at the left side of the text-frame "rectangle" box, regardless of the actual text-frame shape (new) or if a text-wrap is affecting the text (already reported bug AF-3184).

WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED

The rule should be drawn inside the text-frame in its allowed position.

MINIMAL STEPS TO REPRODUCE

1. Open Publisher
2. Create a new document
3. Create three text-frame shapes:

• 1st: A text-frame including text with a footnote
• 2nd: Draw an isosceles triangle, convert it to text-frame (Layer > Convert to Text Frame) and copy&paste the text+footnotes. The rule is set to the imaginary "rectangle" (required to draw the whole triangle inside) left side.
• 3rd: A new text-frame with text-wrap (any shape) and move it over the other frames at the height of the footnotes. The footnotes rules do not shift with the text and remains at the "rectangle" left side.

BUG

The rule position remains fixed.

EDIT: Attached the sample text so you don't have to re-create it: fixed-position footnote rule bug.afpub

Edited January 22 by Franz Rogar
Cleanup the bug report to reflect a single bug

[Hangman]

Hi @Franz Rogar,

This is a known bug logged under AF-1600 currently awaiting a fix and relates to footnote positioning when text wrap is applied...

It's very easy to replicate... what is slightly surprising is that the footnote ruler isn't wrapped with the text...

[Franz Rogar]

2 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Hi @Franz Rogar,

This is a known bug logged under AF-1600 currently awaiting a fix and relates to footnote positioning when text wrap is applied...

It's very easy to replicate... what is slightly surprising is that the footnote ruler isn't wrapped with the text...

Ok, then the issue that is not covered on the other bug report is the rule not being inside the odd-shaped text-frame.

I'll clean up the OP to reflect only this case.

[Hangman]

Just now, Franz Rogar said:

Ok, then the issue that is not covered on the other bug report is the rule not being inside the odd-shaped text-frame.

I'll clean up the OP to reflect only this case.

No problem... someone from the Serif moderation team will then hopefully update the bug report to reflect the rule issue...

[MikeTO]

I believe the footnote rule issue is also known:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&tags=AF-3184

[Franz Rogar]

On 1/20/2025 at 3:56 PM, Hangman said:

No problem... someone from the Serif moderation team will then hopefully update the bug report to reflect the rule issue...

I was about to reply to the other thread that it is not. You wrote there that "With Text Wrap off, the footnote is positioned correctly.". I've never set "text-wrap" at all (in fact, it's set to "none" in the frame, but the text is way off.

EDIT: I was wrong and this is about the other bug previously reported alongside this one.

[Franz Rogar]

2 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I believe the footnote rule issue is also known:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&tags=AF-3184

Just the same, I've no text-wrap set at all, and the text-frames come from "master", so I can't "move them around" to check.

[MikeTO]

Can you share a test document? It doesn't need to include the text, just a single page based on this master page.

[Franz Rogar]

On 1/20/2025 at 4:05 PM, MikeTO said:

Can you share a test document? It doesn't need to include the text, just a single page based on this master page.

I've included it on the OP. Here it is with text-distance being zeroed from the master down, which wasn't in the previous file, (and both issues are still present): 

EDIT: I was wrong and this is about the other bug previously reported alongside this one.

[Hangman]

23 minutes ago, Franz Rogar said:

I was about to reply to the other thread that it is not. You wrote there that "With Text Wrap off, the footnote is positioned correctly.". I've never set "text-wrap" at all (in fact, it's set to "none" in the frame, but the text is way off.

I think by virtue of the fact that the curves have a text wrap outline applied to them despite no actual text wrap values being applied, effectively defines these as the same set of bugs...

[Franz Rogar]

On 1/20/2025 at 4:27 PM, Hangman said:

I think by virtue of the fact that the curves have a text wrap outline applied to them despite no actual text wrap values being applied, effectively defines these as the same set of bugs...

No, the "curves" were transformed into "text-frames" and the text-frames are set to no-text-wrap + no-distance-text:

And you can check the attached file in the OP and in a previous post too.

EDIT: I was wrong and this is about the other bug previously reported alongside this one.

[Hangman]

2 minutes ago, Franz Rogar said:

No, the "curves" were transformed into "text-frames" and the text-frames are set to no-text-wrap + no-distance-text:

My point here is that to achieve the text frame shapes you've had to edit the Wrap Outline even though no offsets have been applied and that in itself is exhibiting the same behaviour...

[MikeTO]

Note that the left side of your master has two copies of each text frame. Not an issue, but they are redundant.

It won't solve the issue of the rule being drawn in the wrong place, but the easier way to accomplish this layout would be to:

1. Replace the 2 irregular shaped text frames with one regular text frame of the same overall size but with two columns
2. Apply square text wrap with 5 mm offset to the centre text frame
3. Set footnote position to bottom of column rather than bottom of frame

[Franz Rogar]

11 minutes ago, Hangman said:

My point here is that to achieve the text frame shapes you've had to edit the Wrap Outline even though no offsets have been applied and that in itself is exhibiting the same behaviour...

I don't understand what you're trying to say. If you open the file I provided, you'll see (1) there's no wrap-stype, no-distance-from-text & the "wrap-outline" reset button is grayed because I didn't change it...

17 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Note that the left side of your master has two copies of each text frame. Not an issue, but they are redundant.

It won't solve the issue of the rule being drawn in the wrong place, but the easier way to accomplish this layout would be to:

1. Replace the 2 irregular shaped text frames with one regular text frame of the same overall size but with two columns
2. Apply square text wrap with 5 mm offset to the centre text frame
3. Set footnote position to bottom of column rather than bottom of frame

I've done it the way you indicated (single text-frame with overlapping text-frame+5mm), and BOTH issues are still active (empty-bottom & floating rule), being the result page indistinguishable from the original one:

[MikeTO]

I know it wasn't going to solve the issue, I built the template that way first, but it's just a simpler way to build the page.

I don't think there is any workaround for the issue.

[Franz Rogar]

What I find odd with stating the underlying issue here is with the text-frame outline is that, if you do NOT link to another frame/jump to next column, the footnotes are properly placed "at the bottom of the frame", as shown in the picture:

So, my polite guess, it's not an issue in the outline calculation, but on the "split the text to next frame/column" code.

EDIT: I was wrong and this is about the other bug previously reported alongside this one.

[Hangman]

19 minutes ago, Franz Rogar said:

I don't understand what you're trying to say. If you open the file I provided, you'll see (1) there's no wrap-stype, no-distance-from-text & the "wrap-outline" reset button is grayed because I didn't change it...

Only that in creating the curves with the indents and converting them to text frames you have automatically created a "text wrap" of sorts, i.e., you've edited the Wrap Outline so I believe Publisher is treating them in the same way as having applied a text wrap to an object regardless of whether any physical offset is applied. The footnote behaviour in both cases appears identical to the previously reported bugs. It looks as though someone in the moderation team has assigned the same bug references to the thread...

My assumption (rightly or wrongly) is that a Wrap Outline ≅ Text Wrap... i.e., one implies the other...

[Franz Rogar]

On 1/20/2025 at 5:44 PM, Hangman said:

Only that in creating the curves with the indents and converting them to text frames you have automatically created a "text wrap" of sorts, i.e., you've edited the Wrap Outline so I believe Publisher is treating them in the same way as having applied a text wrap to an object regardless of whether any physical offset is applied. The footnote behaviour in both cases appears identical to the previously reported bugs. It looks as though someone in the moderation team has assigned the same bug references to the thread...

My assumption (rightly or wrongly) is that a Wrap Outline ≅ Text Wrap... i.e., one implies the other...

Thanks for your replay and assumption. As far as I know, there's no "wrap outline" nor "text-wrap" in my file (first design) as none of the shapes overlap any other because there are real empty spaces between the shapes, so only placing-text-inside-the-frame code should be running.

In the previous post to your last one, I pointed/guessed that the issue might have nothing to do with "wrap outline" nor "text-wrap" nor wrapping at all but with the code that splits the text between frames/columns miscalculating the space required by the footnotes. This would also explain the other issue I had with the "floating" rule that, even tough it was in the proper horizontal line, it was not placed in the proper vertical alignment, indicating there's something amiss with the positioning of footnotes.

EDIT: I was wrong and this is about the other bug previously reported alongside this one.

[Franz Rogar]

I'm truly sorry for all inconveniences I might have created when misidentifying this issue due to my own ignorance. Thus I've left the only part that seems correct from my statement about the rule placement.

DID NOT FOUND THE TRIGGER

I've found the trigger and, as I suspected, it has NOTHING to do with NEITHER any wrapping whatsoever NOR with the shape of it (except the rule position which does). Here's what the program is really seemed to be doing wrong.

• 1st stage (first pic): it calculates the required space needed for the 1st frame as a SINGLE frame.
• 2nd stage (second pic): when linking the text-frames, it flows the text to the 2nd frame alongside the footnotes, which triggers:
  • Bug #1 (red): the "height" space required for the footnotes (no longer pressent in the 1st frame) is ADDED to the bottom of the 2nd frame (where they will be) instead of REMOVING it from the 1st frame.
  • Bug #2 (blue): the "total height" of the 2nd frame (footnotes+wrong expanded space) is COPIED-OVER to the 1st frame, forcing new text to shift between the text-frames. The images are placed on the same position, you can see "1st stage" footnotes rule are at a lower position before linking to the 2nd text-frame.
  • Bug #3 (green): the "horizontal offset" of the rule is set to the min-x OF THE FRAME instead of the 1st footnote position, because it checks the "square" text-frame limits (a square shape) instead of checking its current position (any shape).

 > 

Edited January 22 by Franz Rogar
Correction of wrong assumptions

[Franz Rogar]

I've cleaned up this report to reflect a single bug (the rule placement), which adds another new scenario (odd-shapes) to a previous report (AF-3184). So I don't know if it'd be more appropriate to erase this thread and move just the information of the first post to the other one.

The other bug (text-wrap) that was mentioned alongside (AF-1600) won't be mentioned here again by me in this. I'm truly sorry, @Hangman & @MikeTO, for all the inconveniences or headaches I might have caused you for mixing two issues on a single thread and not realizing how wrong I was about the underlying issue.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Text frames with overflowing text and text wrapped objects can cause footnote positioning to behave erratically" (REF: AF-1600) has been fixed by the developers in the latest beta build (2.6.0.3089). The fix is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Affinity Info Bot to notify us.