Box Style frame skewed

[thetasig]

See the screen shot. This Box style is the built-in version with just a change in font color to black. The problem with this is several-fold. For one, the outline frame often does not match the actual "box" in size or alignment. This is especially difficult when first laying out the box. Then there is the distance from the frame versus the distance from the actual "box" - which are different. There is no way that I can see to select an accurate distance for the visible "box" - distance is only displayed for the misaligned frame. The last bit is just more of a question - is there a way to change the background color of the box itself. After spending lots of time going through the various Text Styles editors, I can find no way to change it from the light gray to another hue. Thanks!

[walt.farrell]

The background color of a Text Frame is controlled in the Text Frame studio panel (View > Studio > Text Frame).

That's also where you would specify the inset values that control how much the text is inset from the bounding box.

[thomaso]

... and your dimension calculation issue might be a setting of your boxed-style. Could use text frame boarder instead.

Might have happened that you haven't looked at the Text Frame panel > fill and stroke at all before posting your bug report.

[thetasig]

Actually, I did look at the Text Frame panel > fill and stroke - many times. For the box style (Text Style) I chose to use in the frame, the box background is gray and has its own, separate frame. In the Text Frame panel for that box, the Fill and Stroke are NULL. The Text Frame and the Box Style are two different objects as I can see when I fill the Text Frame with color and it fills but is behind the box style object. So, I am still looking to control the Text Style known as "Box". I have to assume that it is somewhere in the editing of Text styles, but I cannot locate the default gray color to make a change.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, thetasig said:

So, I am still looking to control the Text Style known as "Box". I have to assume that it is somewhere in the editing of Text styles, but I cannot locate the default gray color to make a change.

[thomaso]

@ thtasig, I am not sure but it sounds to me that you don't want fill or stroke done with text style at all – but text frame style instead.

Besides Walt's hint: you also find the box text style in the paragraph panel > Decorations:

[thetasig]

Many thanks, Walt. Again, not intuitive in the interface. When I opened the Decorations on the default Box style earlier, it was NOT enabled. So I ignored it thinking that there was nothing there to change - nothing active. As I see it now, when Decorations is NOT enabled, the box has a default gray Fill (out-of-the-box AFPUB) and indent settings of -2.1, etc.,  (that are active on the object that uses the Box style). When enabled, then you can make changes.

thomaso: Both Text Frames and the Box style have separate "fill" colors. And both have insets/indents to keep text away from the frame edges as needed. The Box Text Style has some interesting features that I may use in future - so I wanted to give it a whirl and see what it can do. One feature, for example, is that you can choose the "Indent" for the top edge to be relative to Cap Height; bottom edge relative to Descent, etc. This allows more freedom than the "inset" feature found in the Text Frame. My point is that each has useful but different features and implementation.

Now, there is still the matter of deciding how to get the proper distance from the Box Text Style edges to nearby neighbor objects. The displayed distances as you move the text frame are not correct for the Box edges - ever. And I still have no clear/easy way to make that work the same way as other Text Styles work inside a Text Frame.

What I would have expected from the programming, however, is that the displayed distance would show the "actual" distance of the box edge to the nearby object (regardless of the Indent values). Caveat - the Indent values can be set to positive numbers, moving the text outside the box. See the screenshot of the original text frame with Box style with example text frame with Body style. These two frames are exactly 7.mm on the left from the object on the left. But the gray box extends out closer to the left-hand object due to the negative Indent value. So to set the correct distance for the box, you have to add/subtract the Indent value of an edge to the displayed text frame distance as you move it. For a 7mm distance with a -2.1mm Indent, you have to manually set the distance to 9.1 to get the box edge 7mm from the nearby object. It seems like the software could do that for you. At least there is a workaround if you don't mind doing the math.

[thetasig]

sorry  - forgot the image

[thomaso]

The box of your box text style exceeds the frame because you have set it to do it that way.

Note that a box text style can be used with other, non-box styles for various paragraphs within one text frame. Therefore it is not possible to get one (1) correct distance to other frames for boxed AND non-boxed text – but instead for their common frame only.

To avoid this behavior you might use different settings than in your screenshot for the text style decoration box indent + the text indent. If you use a same value for text indent and box indent (negative) then your box will not exceed its frame. Without need for math.

[thetasig]

Thanks, thomaso - very helpful.

It seems to work fairly well and I can simulate using a "box" by using the Text Frame instead. There is one tiny nit to pick. The frame itself is the "box" edge, for all practical purposes (using a standard "Body" style). And the Insets work well for left and right edges of the frame - keeping the text 2.1mm away from the edge in this case. However, the top and bottom edges (also set to 2.1mm each) of the frame can be extended way beyond the beginning and end of the text (that is the top edge and bottom edge can be visually, for example, 8mm away from the text or 0.5mm close). So the Inset is not being respected and needs to be "eye-balled" for the distance. So one problem is solved - the distance to nearby objects is easy using the Text Frame. I've traded that ease for a not-fixed Inset for top and bottom edges. Overall, I think I prefer the box style as it enforces the 4-edge Indent settings.

While I was testing this out, I discovered that (purposely or not) accents above or below characters are not kept at the Inset/Indent distance. I'm guessing that this is "normal" behaviour and not an accident.