Text time savers

[Matthias]

First time saver:

Make text blocks convertible between Art Text and Frame Text. A little clickable square at one point of the bounding box, say on the upper left, will do the trick. This would even make one of the two text tools redundant.

If you would start a new text box by just clicking somewhere an Art Text box would be generated, if you’d start by clicking and dragging it starts out as a Frame Text box.

 

Second time saver:

Clicking anywhere outside a text box while using the text tool switches text tool to pointer tool. No more accidentally produced empty Art Text boxes, way more handy than having to hit the escape key (even twice when the blinking cursor is in the actual letters).

 

Third time saver:

Doubleclicking a text box should always change the actually chosen tool to text tool, not only when the pointer tool is the active one.

 

Matthias

[Ash]

Sure Dave will comment on the feasibility of this, but I like all these suggestions - other than I like the way with the art text tool you can drag the size of text you're starting with and we'd lose that if dragging always created a frame.

 

To be honest I quite Photoshop functionality for text frame vs art text - basically if you've got the text tool selected then resizing a text object resizes the frame as though it was a text frame object (with text flowing accordingly).  With the pointer tool it always scales the text as if it were art text.  Particularly notice it when you've got a text frame multiple selected with another object - I think it's rare if you resize the two things together you actually want just the text frame to get bigger, rather than the text itself as well...

[Dave Harris]

First time saver:

Make text blocks convertible between Art Text and Frame Text. A little clickable square at one point of the bounding box, say on the upper left, will do the trick.

The main difference between Art and Frame text is that Frame text wraps. Converting paragraphs of Frame text into Art text wouldn't be useful because it would produce very long lines. Are you creating one type of text and then wanting to switch to the other after you've typed a few words but before you've typed more than one line? Or is it more as Ash suggests, that you want to scale Frame text as if it were Art text?

[Matthias]

Hi Dave, I’m on vacation right now. Will explain asap.

[Matthias]

Ok, I will try to explain:

When setting a headline I want a text box to be exactly as wide as the text itself is. Growing with more and shrinking with less letters. When I’d want two or more lines of text I’d use a line break.

 

FreeHand provides the possibility to make a text box growing  and shrinking with the actual text content in two directions sepearate from each other: Horizontally and/or vertically. When the box is only vertically flexible hyphenation works just as in a non-flexible box. For me it is very convenient to just write along without ever having to adjust the text box lengthwise. Also, this way I can be shure the box isn’t larger as needed plus there is no overflow text hiding. When I need the text to flow into another column I just click on the little square in the bottom middle of the bounding box, adjust the size of the text box and connect it with the next one.

AI_FH_UI_and_Features (verschoben).pdf

[Dave Harris]

What you describe for headlines sounds like what Art text does.

 

Frame text is effectively fixed width but flexible vertically. We don't hide overflow text. We also don't have flowing between frames in Designer; that will be a Publisher feature.

 

So now it sounds like your concern is not scaling Frame text, but sometimes creating the wrong kind of text and wanting to switch between them rather than retype?

[rui_mac]

Actually, I find having two types of text rather redundant. In FreeHand we just had... Text. No need to toggle between modes. If we wanted, we would resize the text box. Optionally, we could resize the text box AND the text.

The same happens in inDesign. It is just a box of text and we can have it behaving like Art text or Framed text.

What is the real big advantage of having two text tools?

[TonyB]

The two biggest advantages of Artist Text are;

 

• When you drag to create Artistic Text you drag the size of text you want. This can be a big time saver.
• When you scale, stretch or shear Artistic Text it always applies to the Text and not the frame.

If we give you the ability to also optionally scale text when you size frame text then will that solve your problem? 

[rui_mac]

YES!! :-D

[Dave Harris]

If we give you the ability to also optionally scale text when you size frame text then will that solve your problem? 

 

This has now been done. With today's beta, Frame text has an extra handle which will scale the text as well as the frame, as if it were Art text. It's aspect-ratio constrained by default; hold shift if you want non-square text.

[rui_mac]

Oh, yeah!! :-)

[Ash]

Works great Dave, nice one.  Any chance of having the second handle available if you've got a multiple selection or group which includes a text frame, as more often than not with a multiple select I definitely do want to scale the text rather than the frame?  Would love to see something similar with additional handles to scale the text frame's height or width but rather than text flowing it's kerning or leading is adjusted appropriately to fill the frame's new dimensions...

[Dale]

I managed to miss this earlier today working on other things but I wonder would a sexy little usability tweak like this be any good for scaling lines & effects with objects?

[Dave Harris]

Any chance of having the second handle available if you've got a multiple selection or group which includes a text frame, as more often than not with a multiple select I definitely do want to scale the text rather than the frame?

OK, that will be in the next beta.

 

Would love to see something similar with additional handles to scale the text frame's height or width but rather than text flowing it's kerning or leading is adjusted appropriately to fill the frame's new dimensions...

I was thinking more along the lines of a "Fit text to frame" option, as a frame attribute. This would adjust the text to fit the frame as you resize the frame through the normal size handles. It will probably be an Affinity Publisher feature first. 

[rui_mac]

That, and a Fit Frame to Text.

Could be done by double clicking the text frame handles.

[Ralph]

As far in the past as 2014, Dave Harris was envisioning a "Fit text to Frame" tool.

Any chance of an update Dave as to when this might happen?