Sections and Page Folders

[MrMurfMan]

I would like to see the "Pages" view on the left hand side enhanced into a hierarchical structure to support sections and page grouping. The purpose of this request is to increase usability and scalability. With a 200 page book, being able to logically group pages together would enhance navigation and moving things around as a group.

Specifically, I would have two types of folders including section and page folders. Section folders would control the section settings for everything contained in the folder. Page folders would be for users to pull relavent pages together like a chapter in a book. The user can create a section folder and access the section settings by double clinking on the folder. Section folders would eliminate the need for the "Start on page" field in the section dialog. Section and page folders could be nested within each other allowing for enhanced layouts.

The current implementation of sections obfuscates what pages are affected by each section. Applying a visual representation to sections clarifies the scope of sections and this makes it easier for users to navigate and manipulate their document.

 

[Old Bruce]

2 hours ago, MrMurfMan said:

Applying a visual representation to sections clarifies the scope of sections and this makes it easier for users to navigate and manipulate their document.

I am not too sure if I agree* with your folders idea, I fear it would complicate things but a not too little §-1, §-2, etc in the pages studio/pane/panel/palette would be welcome.

* I am also frequently wrong with my initial reactions and I could become a huge fan of that idea if if were to be implemented.

[fde101]

For sections, why not have a narrow bar along the side of the pages list that shows the section number and is broken up into the various sections but allows the sectioning to be changed by dragging the line between the sections?  It could open the section manager to the identified section when double-clicking on the bar.

Something kind of like this, but with more time spent on the visual design (I just did this quickly to convey the idea) - maybe add disclosure triangles to collapse the display of sections of pages not currently needed:

 

 

Rather than having the "page groups" you could do "subsections" within the sections and present those as a second bar to the right of the main one, further breaking down the sections to allow for chapters and the like...

Maybe allow sections to be re-ordered by dragging the bars?

 

Just some ideas that came to mind... possibly bad ones, but tossing them out there anyway.

[MrMurfMan]

Quote

Rather than having the "page groups" you could do "subsections" within the sections and present those as a second bar to the right of the main one, further breaking down the sections to allow for chapters and the like...

Page folders would be a generic container for the end user to organize the document as they see fit and allow them to quickly rearrange the document. Section folders would have attributes associated with them that would affect their content. A user could embed page folders within a section folder and the other way around. This would provide the maximum flexibility and usability. So the two folder types serve different purposes. Scrivener has a similar concept and it works pretty good. What Scrivener lacks is advanced layout capabilities and Affinity Publisher lacks flexible document organization. I guess what I am looking for is the child of Affinity Publisher and Scrivener.

[MrMurfMan]

Another way to implement this feature request is to use the “Layers” pane as the model. You can then add section attributes to the to the group as one would add “Layer Effects” in the layer pane.

[kamiC]

On 12/1/2018 at 12:25 AM, MrMurfMan said:

Page folders would be a generic container for the end user to organize the document as they see fit and allow them to quickly rearrange the document. Section folders would have attributes associated with them that would affect their content.

I really like MrMurfMan's idea of a hierarchical structure to support sections and page groupings and to be able to duplicate a group as well. Can we please get Serif to add this to Affinity Publisher? I agree on the last sentence from MrMurfMan from his other response: I am looking for the child of Affinity Publisher and Scrivener. Yes, Yes, and Yes!

[skmwrp]

I am stunned that Publisher doesn't give you the ability to do this, to group pages by Section so you can show only the pages you're currently working on rather than scrolling a very long list of pages.

It doesn't even indicate when you've moved from one section to the next. At least, not as far as we can tell.

Two years now? Disappointing.

And you can't even use the Section Manager to jump to a section? Or bookmarks to give you a quicker way to navigate a long document? Is it really just scrolling at this point? Are we missing something?

[fde101]

On 4/9/2021 at 12:31 PM, skmwrp said:

Or bookmarks to give you a quicker way to navigate a long document?

You can actually use anchors for this (the same ones that are used as the target of hyperlinks).

There is an Anchors studio panel which lists the anchors placed in the document, and a button along the bottom of that panel allows you to jump to a particular anchor location, effectively treating them like bookmarks.

[skmwrp]

23 minutes ago, fde101 said:

You can actually use anchors for this (the same ones that are used as the target of hyperlinks).

There is an Anchors studio panel which lists the anchors placed in the document, and a button along the bottom of that panel allows you to jump to a particular anchor location, effectively treating them like bookmarks.

Thank you! This is a lifesaver!

Now just need to figure out how to make anchors. (We know…now.)

Except now we see the Anchor panel sorts only in alphabetical order. Not in the order they are in the document? WTF? Are we missing something?

[dominik]

5 hours ago, skmwrp said:

Except now we see the Anchor panel sorts only in alphabetical order. Not in the order they are in the document? WTF? Are we missing something?

Suggestion: name them starting with a number, e.g. 100_intro-section, 200_chapter-one, 300_images, etc.

By doing so you can insert multiple anchors later by giving them a respective number inbetween.

d.

[skmwrp]

36 minutes ago, dominik said:

Suggestion: name them starting with a number, e.g. 100_intro-section, 200_chapter-one, 300_images, etc.

By doing so you can insert multiple anchors later by giving them a respective number inbetween.

d.

Thanks, but we'd rather they sort themselves in document order.

[dominik]

1 minute ago, skmwrp said:

but we'd rather they sort themselves in document order.

Well, then you'll have to wait until it get's implemented this way. I think its worth the suggestion, though.

Cheers,
d.

[skmwrp]

12 minutes ago, dominik said:

Well, then you'll have to wait until it get's implemented this way. I think its worth the suggestion, though.

Cheers,
d.

Not to slight your suggestion, but we've already fallen for the "number-em-to-keep-em-in-order" trap before with another app, and it quickly got messy, because we are continually moving parts around.

For now, we're just chucking anchors aside and fighting on.

Thanks, though.

[skmwrp]

56 minutes ago, skmwrp said:

For now, we're just chucking anchors aside and fighting on.

Shoot! Shoulda said "…chucking anchors away…".

[fde101]

If the anchors have meaningful names I would think that alphabetical would be easier to work with anyway, but I guess it does kind of depend on your specific use case.

[skmwrp]

Just now, fde101 said:

If the anchors have meaningful names I would think that alphabetical would be easier to work with anyway, but I guess it does kind of depend on your specific use case.

Yes, not in our case. Everything named the same basically. Though, as pointed out, it didn't even sort them alphabetically as Section 1 is stuck at bottom.

The more desired approach, which appears half-implemented, is to be able to sort them manually. They can be dragged & dropped, but just return to their own order

[MikeTO]

This wouldn't help for page organization, but there is a hack for navigation. Add something like "c1", "c1"... in a text frame at the start of each chapter and then turn off the frame's visibility so it won't print. Then to jump to chapter 7 just press Command+F, type c7 and press Return.

[skmwrp]

9 hours ago, MikeTO said:

This wouldn't help for page organization, but there is a hack for navigation. Add something like "c1", "c1"... in a text frame at the start of each chapter and then turn off the frame's visibility so it won't print. Then to jump to chapter 7 just press Command+F, type c7 and press Return.

That's actually kind of a slick idea. Thanks.

[Philicare]

It would be nice to reach a section simply by double-click on its title in the Section Manager.

Thanks

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, Philicare said:

It would be nice to reach a section simply by double-click on its title in the Section Manager.

Thanks

Or a button which will take you to the selected section.