Find and Replace Empty Frames

[Halfling Caravan Games]

I'm working on a game project, and am data merge generating cards. I'm looking to see if there is a way for find-replace to find empty text frames so I can then delete the frames or hide them. I would love it to be fully automated, but I doubt that is possible.

Example:
To get the text box effect there to work as I want, I'm using a text layer with a background fill decoration containing datamerge fields acting as a mask (e.g. as the text lengthens, the paragraph lengthens, which causes the mask to extend up and reveal more of the gradient rectangle underneath).
However, a good number of these cards have empty fields, and rather than putting nothing in the field, it creates an empty line which then extends up the box. If you have one line of text, you get the same mask height. What I am hoping is that I can find all of these empty text frames, and then delete them or hide them as a bulk action.

[NathanC]

Hi @Halfling Caravan Games,

Hopefully I'm wrong but I as far as I can tell this isn't something that can be automated. I've not identified a way to select empty frame content via the FaR panel (maybe Regex?), but even if there is this would select/edit the text content of the layer rather than the layer itself, meaning you'd still need to manually select the text frame layers per page and delete them.

[carl123]

14 hours ago, Halfling Caravan Games said:

I'm looking to see if there is a way for find-replace to find empty text frames so I can then delete the frames or hide them.

There would need to be something unique about those empty text frames (e.g. Length) compared to those with text in them

Without the document it may be hard to discoverer a way to do this

[Halfling Caravan Games]

1 minute ago, carl123 said:

There would need to be something unique about those empty text frames (e.g. Length) compared to those with text in them

Without the document it may be hard to discoverer a way to do this

They are totally empty. The only 'character' in them is the 'section' character, and nothing else. So even with it there, the paragraph style will still force the empty text box to adjust the mask. (Screen grab below)

[thomaso]

7 minutes ago, NathanC said:

I've not identified a way to select empty frame content via the FaR panel (maybe Regex?),

As V1 user I am not experienced with the new V2 selection options but your search idea (FaR) makes me wonder if "Select Same Name" would identify empty Text Frame objects by their default layer name "(Frame Text)" whereas frames with content get their first letters as layer name.

Quote

To select all layers sharing the same name:

• With a layer selected, on the Layers panel, -click and choose Select Same Name from the pop-up menu.

https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Layers/selectEditLayers.html&title=Selecting and editing layers

[carl123]

4 minutes ago, thomaso said:

makes me wonder if "Select Same Name" would identify empty Text Frame objects by their default layer name "(Frame Text)"

No, default names are not selectable by select same

It would still be useful to see a sample of the document with at least 2 empty frames and 2 with text, all generated by the data merge

[Halfling Caravan Games]

7 minutes ago, thomaso said:

As V1 user I am not experienced with the new V2 selection options but your search idea (FaR) makes me wonder if "Select Same Name" would identify empty Text Frame objects by their default layer name "(Frame Text)" whereas frames with content get their first letters as layer name.

https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Layers/selectEditLayers.html&title=Selecting and editing layers

I would probably end up having to rebuild the frames, because I am pretty sure they're all named rather than 'unnamed'.

[Halfling Caravan Games]

Just now, carl123 said:

No, default names are not selectable by select same

It would still be useful to see a sample of the document with at least 2 empty frames and 2 with text, all generated by the data merge

The two examples above show the ones without text. Examples with text, and the layer setup.

[carl123]

Select one of the empty text frames in the layers panel

Then do...

Select > Select Same > Shape

Does that select the empty text frames in your document?

[Halfling Caravan Games]

1 hour ago, carl123 said:

Select one of the empty text frames in the layers panel

Then do...

Select > Select Same > Shape

Does that select the empty text frames in your document?

Only on any one page.

[carl123]

It should select all empty text frames on any page

Which in my text document it does

zoom out to see what it is selecting on each page or hit the delete key immediately afterwards to see if it has deleted the empty text frames

Trying to navigate to another page to check it can result in the selection resetting 

[Halfling Caravan Games]

Looks like it worked, even though it really isn't obvious that it is selecting them across multiple pages (e.g. if you use the page-up-down buttons under the Page Ribbon).

[carl123]

What I did not realise before is that if you have the Move Tool selected you can see how many empty text frames it found (and selected) immediately after you do the Select > Select Same > Shape command