Next Styles does not work properly

[VarrusKane]

Hello everyone!

Publisher is chugging along very nicely.

Whenever I try to apply a style to the body copy and use Next Style to indent all the following paragraphs' first lines it works fine, for the first time. When I try to edit the indent style—for example have 6pt instead of 3pt indents—it does not work. Upon checking to make sure, these paragraphs don't even have the mentioned "first line indenter" style applied, instead they have the general Body style.

This approach works fine if you have a Style The Next Style applied to your text box before you start typing.

I'm attaching a sample file that you might want to look at.

And sorry if this problem has been posted already, I did not find anything while searching the forums.

next-style-problem.afpub

[GarryP]

I have been having similar problems with Next Style but didn't know if it was just me using it wrong.
It certainly doesn't seem to work the way I would expect it to work.

Workflow to re-create:
* Set-up a new paragraph style "First", based on Body, with Initial Words set to 2 using the Strong character style;
* Duplicate "First", calling it "Next", remove Initial Words formatting and add a First Line Indent;
* Edit "First" to make Next Style "Next";
* Create a text frame.
* Add text to frame - at least three paragraphs - and select the frame (not the text within);
(Situation A)
* Apply "First" style, either from the Text Styles studio or the context bar, it doesn't matter which;
* All paragraphs are formatted with "First", and none with "Next";
(Situation B)
* Edit the text adding a new paragraph after the first (or second) one;
* This new paragraph takes on the formatting of "Next".

I would expect (Situation B) but not (Situation A).
If I have the text frame selected and apply a paragraph style with a Next Style I would expect the Next Style to be applied to all but the first paragraph, but this isn't happening (by default, but see below).

[ @TamasC I think this might be a solution you can use. ] I know I can right-click the "First" style in the Text Styles studio and choose "Apply ... Then Next Styles" to get what I want but I'm confused as to why I should have to do this. Surely the Next Style should be applied by default instead of the user having to remember to specifically apply it in a special way which is only available from the studio and not the context bar where a lot of users will apply it from?

In other words, I would have expected that, if I have deliberately set-up a style to have a Next Style, then that would be applied by default rather than me having to specially select a context menu item from the Text Styles studio. I think the "Apply ... And Next Styles" function should be changed to a "Apply ... Without Next Styles". How it is now seems to be the wrong way round to me but, as I've said, I may be looking at it the wrong way round.

[VarrusKane]

6 minutes ago, GarryP said:

[ @TamasC I think this might be a solution you can use. ] I know I can right-click the "First" style in the Text Styles studio and choose "Apply ... Then Next Styles" to get what I want but I'm confused as to why I should have to do this. Surely the Next Style should be applied by default instead of the user having to remember to specifically apply it in a special way which is only available from the studio and not the context bar where a lot of users will apply it from?

In other words, I would have expected that, if I have deliberately set-up a style to have a Next Style, then that would be applied by default rather than me having to specially select a context menu item from the Text Styles studio. I think the "Apply ... And Next Styles" function should be changed to a "Apply ... Without Next Styles". How it is now seems to be the wrong way round to me but, as I've said, I may be looking at it the wrong way round.

To be fair, InDesign works the same. You need to Apply the Next Style too, not just click the style that contains this rule. Although, I agree, that most of the time it would be more useful if it would be the default setting. Maybe add a checkbox beside the setting Use Always?

Also, it would be awesome to have a folder system in the Text Styles studio, similar to the Layers studio or in InDesign. It gets pretty chaotic if you have more than a few styles.

[GarryP]

I'm not sure that an extra checkbox would be the best solution as I think it would add extra complication.
From my point of view, if I have specifically said that I want a Next Style then that's what I should get, unless I specifically choose to apply the style differently from the default somehow. Defaults are, after all, what you want normally.
I would guess that most users coming from things like word processors and web editors - rather than InDesign - would expect to be able to apply the style - as it is set-up, in full, with the Next Style also being applied - from the context bar (where there's no option for "And Next Style") as that is what they have told the software to do. I think the default should be "apply it as I have told you to apply it until/unless I tell you otherwise". That just seems simpler to me but if someone can give me a good reason otherwise then I might change my mind. Maybe I just "don't get it" at some higher level.

I agree that the Text Styles studio could be better organised but I couldn't say what would be better in real-life usage. There have also been discussions elsewhere on the forum about organising styles by master pages so you only (or by default) get the styles that are applicable to the spreads defined by them, which sounds nice, but, again, I've no idea how this could be done in a user-friendly way. Maybe something for version 1.8 or later perhaps? A nice idea though.

[VarrusKane]

3 minutes ago, GarryP said:

I'm not sure that an extra checkbox would be the best solution as I think it would add extra complication.
From my point of view, if I have specifically said that I want a Next Style then that's what I should get, unless I specifically choose to apply the style differently from the default somehow. Defaults are, after all, what you want normally.
I would guess that most users coming from things like word processors and web editors - rather than InDesign - would expect to be able to apply the style - as it is set-up, in full, with the Next Style also being applied - from the context bar (where there's no option for "And Next Style") as that is what they have told the software to do. I think the default should be "apply it as I have told you to apply it until/unless I tell you otherwise". That just seems simpler to me but if someone can give me a good reason otherwise then I might change my mind. Maybe I just "don't get it" at some higher level. 

I agree with you. I'm confident that Affinity will come up with something that none of us would have predicted or maybe they'll use your suggestion, I don't know. They already fixed a lot of things that came up in the beta phase, so no worries.

3 minutes ago, GarryP said:

I agree that the Text Styles studio could be better organised but I couldn't say what would be better in real-life usage. There have also been discussions elsewhere on the forum about organising styles by master pages so you only (or by default) get the styles that are applicable to the spreads defined by them, which sounds nice, but, again, I've no idea how this could be done in a user-friendly way. Maybe something for version 1.8 or later perhaps? A nice idea though. 

This would be a real challenge to implement I think, but it I can see how it might be useful on big projects. For now a simple folder system or anything that is a similar, visual organization system. I love the "Show Samples" feature! Except when using indents in styles, then it looks like it's another style's substyle which is confusing on first glance.

[GarryP]

I didn't even realise there was a "Show Samples" option so thanks for mentioning that.
There's also a "Show Hierarchical" option which I will need to look into later.
Anyway, here's hoping that someone has a look at the Next Style thing and can either explain how it's supposed to be used or fixes it.

[Chris_K]

To apply the style and next you need to select that option from the context or right click menu from the text style itself

There is a known issue we are aware of however that when the next styles are applied  they are currently being applied as the original style + the other attributes as local formatting on top of that base style instead of just applying the other styles

[VarrusKane]

1 minute ago, Chris_K said:

To apply the style and next you need to select that option from the context or right click menu from the text style itself

There is a known issue we are aware of however that when the next styles are applied  they are currently being applied as the original style + the other attributes as local formatting on top of that base style instead of just applying the other styles

Great to hear! Thanks for the feedback Chris!