Frame edge highlighting

[Jeremy AB]

A new feature in InDesign CS5 is Frame edge highlighting. I find it quite annoying and can't find a way to disable it... anyone know how?

[ukdesign1]

I'm currently designing an ad for a national magazine in ILLUSTRATOR to avoid the frame edges!!!!!!!

Simon Gamble

Managing Director

S Gamble Design & Web Ltd

Calls4u Network www.calls4u.net

Registered in England No. 6017927

[designerdave72]

Awwww, how do you sleep at night?!

[ukdesign1]

i don't terrible nightmares involving indesign frames

the crazy thing is, we can turn them off in illustrator!!

the lack of shortcut for 'place' in illustrator (a 10 year old problem!) is now BUGGING ME!!! and I HATE bridge!

ok rant over, back to work!

Simon Gamble

Managing Director

S Gamble Design & Web Ltd

Calls4u Network http://www.calls4u.net

Registered in England No. 6017927

[Kris Hunt]

the lack of shortcut for 'place' in illustrator (a 10 year old problem!) is now BUGGING ME!!!

You can change that, you know. Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts. I did a couple versions ago.

[Jeremy AB]

designerdave72 wrote:

C'mon people, it's not THAT bad a hindrance.

It's enough that it slows me down a little. At first I though I could get used to it but now I am noticing it getting in the way.

[ukdesign1]

I agree, very annoying

I turned it off in Illustrator, in the preferences 'object highlighting'

However I guess a totally different team, probably in India worked on Indesign, and didn't add the same preference option!!!

[Jeremy AB]

I sent this in as a feature request... the option to disable Frame Edge Highlighting. Wasn't sure if it should go as a bug report, cause really it could be either.

[Kris Hunt]

I hate this "feature"! I'm not an idiot; I know how to see a frame if I want to. I don't want my document going schizo every time I pass my cursor over it!

I particularly love this gem from Adobe's help site:

InDesign now temporarily draws the frame edges as you use the Selection tool to hover over items on a page... This feedback is especially helpful when working in Preview Mode or with Hide Frame Edges selected.

Showing frame edges is helpful for people who have expressly chosen to hide frame edges? Note to Adobe: if people know how to find the Hide Frame Edges command, they also know how to find the Show Frame Edges command when they need it. Morons.

[ukdesign1]

This frame edge highlighting is really ******* me off today. I'm working on a job and it is SO irritating when all I do is move the mouse when looking at the design and keep seeing flashes of blue lines....

Adobe really messed up here, god I hope they get rid of it soon or give us the option to turn it off before I do something bad.

[designerdave72]

Although I feel the same, I'm used to them now and even find it a help sometimes. You could change the colour to white (Layers palette) as suggested earlier in this topic. Not a complete fix but it may help unless of course you use the colouring for layer recognition.

[Jongware]

"Swap places script"? One of mine?

[designerdave72]

Yep. Brilliant.

[Jongware]

Thanks (I think -- anything from a year or longer ago is in Long Term Storage).

Uhm, what did that script do? Perhaps it can be adjusted (but I need to know what it ought to do first).

[designerdave72]

Off-topic but it replaced any item with another. As in, if there were two photos in frames on a spread (or page), located on opposite columns and in different positions and they needed to be swapped - just hit 'swap places (or swap images)' without doing it manually. Don't know why InDesign doesn't have this feature as a default. Works in CS5 too

[ukdesign1]

Changing to white or any colour doesn't help on multi page documents which have different background colours or images in rows etc.

Also we are opening up different jobs all the time as clients call, and sometimes have several jobs open at one time. We can't keep switching the guide colours.

Thanks for suggestion though

[designerdave72]

Ditto. Maybe we live in hope that Adobe are taking note... or still fighting with Apple!

[Peter Spier]

Here's a suggestion for all of you who hate frame edges (and I tend to agree that this should be a user choice), file a feature request on the official form.

It might not get changed for this release, but maybe for CS6.

Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form

[ukdesign1]

done

about 20 times for this and dreamweaver kinks too

[Jeremy AB]

P Spier wrote:

Here's a suggestion for all of you who hate frame edges (and I tend to agree that this should be a user choice), file a feature request on the official form.

Already ahead of you on that one!

[Frank Cotela]

have just finised a 200 page magazine and this "new feature" seriously gives me the shits. i could tolerate it on small jobs but not big ones arghhhhh!!!

please please please make an update with the ability to turn this OFF!!!

[Eugene Tyson]

I agree it should be turn-off-able.

But Mike Rankin at InDesignSecrets posted an interesting thing.

The frame edge highlighting only occurrs with the selection tools. Not the Text Tool or any other tool.

If you don't want to the frame edge then turn to another tool and use the modifier keys to switch back and forth between the selection tool.

The other thing is, if the layer is locked the frame edging won't show at all. So if you've a structured layered document and don't want your graphics layers to be frame highlighted or even selected, go ahead and lock that layer. Now none of that is even selectable and the frame highlighting won't occur for that layer.

Adobe's reasoning according to the help files is that

" Path and point highlighting

When you hover over a page  item with the Direct Selection tool, InDesign displays the path and display the path points. This  feedback makes it easier to view the path point you want to manipulate. You no longer have to select the object with the Direct Selection tool and then select the path point. You can simply drag the point you want."

Well - I have to say, I don't accidently want crooked text frames or graphic frames by accidently selecting a path with the selection tools? That seems like a backward move to me. I want to intentionally select frames and paths to move, not have InDesign decide that for me.

[Jongware]

I bet Micheal Ninness had a room full of people who all shouted in unison "Oh YES! Finally!"

It irritated the hell out of me (the frame edge highlighting, that is) when it was added to Illy a couple o' years ago, but, strange as it may sound, you can turn it OFF there! Adobe must have some serious incompatibilités des humeurs between the programmers of the different parts of the Suite.

[Peter Spier]

Eugene Tyson wrote:

Adobe's reasoning according to the help files is that

" Path and point highlighting

When you hover over a page  item with the Direct Selection tool, InDesign displays the path and display the path points. This  feedback makes it easier to view the path point you want to manipulate. You no longer have to select the object with the Direct Selection tool and then select the path point. You can simply drag the point you want."

Well - I have to say, I don't accidently want crooked text frames or graphic frames by accidently selecting a path with the selection tools? That seems like a backward move to me. I want to intentionally select frames and paths to move, not have InDesign decide that for me.

As far back as I checked this morning (CS3), it has always been possible to select and move a single point with the direct select tool, if you can find it, without first selecting the path. The difference is that now hovering over the path highlights where the points are making them easier to locate. Before you had to watch the cursor and look for the little open square, or select the path to all the points.

I personally love this new behavior, and as far as I can tell it does not add any additional risk of moving a point accidentally. In fact, I'd say it reduces the risk since now you can clearly see that you are about to drag a point instead of a segment or move the entire object. If you are accidentally making crooked frames you are either using the wrong tool for selecting, or you are not paying attention to the cursor. Hollow square next to the direct select arrow means you will move a point, slash means you'll move a single segment, solid square means you'll move the entire path as a unit, just as before.

[Eugene Tyson]

Peter, those are valid points. My concern was not for myself but for colleagues not used to the program and use it. There's nothing worse than opening a file someone else has edited and finding your frame at a slight angle lol.

But the feature is useful and troublesome at the same time. So a switch is preferred here not a forced change that you have to put up with.

[Peter Spier]

I think you are off the mark here on this one. I can see how users would be annoyed by frame edge highlighting (though I am not), but path point highlighting occurs ONLY when you have the direct select tool active and hover over a path in such a way that clicking would result in a potential change to the path, and there is NO CHANGE in tool function. It's kind of like the high-mount brake lights that were introduced on cars a few years back -- it puts the visual cue in your line of sight.

I think it boils down to you can't please all of the people all of the time, and if you change a feature at least some people will complain, but you can't realistically make everything a preference item or you'd never get the prefs set. I'm sure there are pleny of people who don't like the way single grouped object selection or persistent selection of "hidden" objects work now, but these are requested features that many more people think are very useful. Maybe it's my age, but I think we need to accept that not all interfaces are going to be our own personal perfect choices, but we do need to learn to use them and get on with our work.