Table panel isn't working correctly

[Jeremy Bohn]

ISSUE 1:

The increments used in the Table panel when using Picas is too large of an amount. Clicking the up and down arrows, the increments are 1 pica which is way too much. It should be p1, not 1p. I have set the nudge distance in Preferences to p1 and 1p with the modifier key but the Table panel ignores this and does basically the opposite: 1p and p1.2 with the modifier. When in inches, the increment is a lot smaller, more logical amount. 

ISSUE 2:

In build 238, macOS Mojave, the little up and down arrows have stopped working correctly in the Table panel, as follows:

INSETS: left and top up arrows do nothing when you click them, right and bottom up arrows work. Down arrows appear to work for all.

CELL: width up arrow does nothing, height up arrow works. Down arrows work. Inset left and top up arrows don't work, right and bottom do work.

So basically, all the ones on the left of that panel don't work, and the right ones do. And in general, ALL of the arrows in that panel require a lot more precise click than they did in the previous build. Even on the arrows that are working, I found I had to click more than once for it to register properly.

ISSUE 3:

Clicking and dragging to select the text in the measurement boxes is flakey if you drag right to left. For example, if you click and drag on on the text for Inset Left, drag from the left to the right and it selects the measurement text. But try dragging right to left and you get random, unexpected results, for any of the measurements in that panel. Sometimes it doesn't work the first time. Sometimes you have to click in the box first before dragging. Sometimes clicking in one box causes the adjacent one to highlight. In the cell width box, often dragging on that box causes the cell height box to highlight and drop to zero, only to return to normal once you let go. If you just keep randomly clicking and dragging in those boxes you might see what I'm seeing.

[Jon P]

Hi Jeremy,

Apologies for the late reply,

This studio panel has had a good bit of work done to it since this was posted, and I'm not able to reproduce any of the behaviour you've explained in the recent build. If you still are encountering any issues with this on the latest beta let me know.

Thanks!

[Jeremy Bohn]

I just did a quick test and Issues 2 and 3 appear to be gone, but Issue 1 is still there.

[Jeremy Bohn]

Issue 1 from my first post is still there. I hope it's at least on the list to be looked at.

When working in Picas, clicking the up or down arrow in the Table panel increments the value in 1p increments which is way too huge an amount. But it works properly when you switch to inches... the increments are small .01 amounts.

[thomaso]

@Jeremy, you can influence these incremental steps via the Decimal preference in "User Interface".

[Jeremy Bohn]

It doesn't seem to understand Picas correctly... there isn't a way to tell it to increment Picas by one point. If I change the decimal places of Picas to 2, then the increments are now p1.2 which is quite silly! I think the problem is that Picas doesn't really work in decimals.

[thomaso]

The 1.2 don't seem silly and less a matter (bug) of Afpub if you consider the kind of duodecimal nature of Pica: 1 Pica = 12 pt or 1 Pica = 1/6 inch.
Similar to hours, minutes, where 1/10 hr = 6 min, – whereas we don't think in parts of 6 minutes but rather 5 or 10.

[Jeremy Bohn]

I'm a long-time Indesign user and in theory, Publisher's way of doing increments is better than InDesign because you can set different increments based on the unit of measurement. However, what I like about InDesign is you put in an exact amount, not a decimal place. So in InDesign the keyboard increment is 1pt and it's 1pt no matter if I'm in inches or centimetres or picas. There are benefits to both ways of doing it. Perhaps if Publisher added the option to set an exact amount instead of a decimal place, or in the case of picas retool it so it understands how picas are made up of 12 points.

Really, I think the best way is to just make that setting do the increments by points instead of Picas.

[Alfred]

5 minutes ago, Jeremy Bohn said:

in the case of picas retool it so it understands how picas are made up of 12 points

It seems pretty pointless (sorry!) to have picas implemented in any other way.

[Jeremy Bohn]

Never apologize for a good pun!

[thomaso]

5 hours ago, Alfred said:

5 hours ago, Jeremy Bohn said:

in the case of picas retool it so it understands how picas are made up of 12 points

It seems pretty pointless (sorry!) to have picas implemented in any other way.

It appears to respect the pica system correctly if you don't use the incremental arrows but type manually, for instance...

typing "1.5p" results in "1p6" (= 12pt + 6pt)