I am baffled by the "content collector."

[Mobius Strip]

I've read the documenation here, which is pitifully inadequate to say the least. It also presents not one but two bad links that are supposed to take you to info about the Links panel or menu.

Opening this "tool" reveals a panel with a bunch of thumbnails on it. I may have loaded the "conveyor" with all items from a document in my first experiment with it. Clicking on the thumbnails on this conveyor does nothing. Selecting an item on a page and attempting to "load" the conveyor from the selection does nothing. There's no apparent way to remove stuff from the conveyor.

There does not appear to be any way to name any of the items in this thing. So, for example, if you have two reusable elements that are visually similar, there's no way to tell which one you're looking at in this row of dinky images.

There's no explanation of the numeral that appears on some thumbnails.

Switching to "content placer" and clicking on the page dumps a huge load of text that is apparently one of the items on the conveyor, but it doesn't resemble any of the thumbnails and there's no way to choose what gets dumped.

How is this thing useful?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

First two icons - you can switch between LOADING and UNLOADING - or you can press "B":

When you're in LOADING - object over which you'll hover your cursor - will be "highlighted"

To switch between active item:

Hover over those three - and you'll get tooltip what they are doing:

[Mobius Strip]

Thanks for the reply. I never see highlights in my conveyor. Also, the transport-style controls are always greyed out.

I have examined all the ToolTips, but the ones that exist don't answer the questions. For example, how do you remove stuff from the conveyor? Not "place and remove," just remove.

And there are still the unexplained numerals, and the fact that there's no way to name anything in this collection... so you can't find what you want to place.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

To remove an item, make sure it is active in the conveyor and hit the Escape key.

[Mobius Strip]

Thanks for the reply.

Well, since clicking on stuff in the conveyor does nothing, I don't see any way to make it "active."

And using the Escape key to delete stuff is just... ridiculous. Come on.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Well, since clicking on stuff in the conveyor does nothing, I don't see any way to make it "active."

By @Mobius Strip

You need to use those "arrows" - my 3rd screenshot.

[Barb Binder]

Hi @Mobius Strip:

I'll share an example of how this can be used below.

Before I start, please note that the Content Collector tool (it's also available as Edit > Place and Link) was introduced along with Alternate Layouts and Liquid Layouts for use in a DPS (Digital Publishing Solution) workflow, which was briefly included with InDesign before being removed and made available as only at the enterprise level. These three tools remained  within InDesign and while some people use them to create ads in various sizes, most people never use the Content Collector, Liquid Layout or Alternate Layouts.

We have image size limitations here so my little video is going to go by quickly. You might have to watch it a few times for it to make sense. I place the bleeding heart image at the top. The second occurrence is duplicated by Alt/Opt dragging so these two are not linked together. The third one is added with the Content Collector tool and I'll link it to the original.

There are two basket buttons in the lower left of the conveyor belt: the first one shows the arrow pointing in (add image to the conveyor belt) and the second shows the arrow pointing out (add image from the conveyor belt to the page). I add the top image to the conveyor belt, then click the 2nd icon to get ready to remove it. I enable Create Link and choose Remove From Conveyor to the right of Map Styles. When I place the image, it is removed from the conveyor belt. Also, check the Layers panel—the linked image looks a bit different.

Finally, I add a drop shadow to the original image. You will see the blue link on the last image change to an alert to tell me that the original was modified. Clicking it will update it. And this is the point of Create Link: you can place an image multiple times, but have all occurrences tied back to the parent item, so changing the parent item can update the others too. 

Finally, to remove your images from your conveyor belt, click the two buttons I'm pointing at below and click on the pasteboard to place each one. Once off the belt, you can just remove them from the page. 

~Barb

[Mobius Strip]

Thanks for taking the time to do all that and provide the background information.

So... a suggestion: Get rid of these basically undocumented vestiges of abandoned products or ideas. If Content Collector is any example, they're wasting the time of customers who look for the way to complete common use cases and are told by the product documentation that this is it... when in fact it's a defunct stump.

OR... fix and document them. But I don't really think Content Collector can be fixed. This design defies all UI convention, common sense, or even intuition. You can't remove items from the collection without performing a dummy placement and then having to delete it from the page? That's not a professional or production-worthy design.

Anyway, I'm not going to rehash the issues I already pointed out above. I sincerely appreciate your taking the time to describe the functionality though!

So... if one wants to create a collection of reusable elements that can be revised wherever they appear in the document, what is the intended (non-abandoned) method we're supposed to use?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

[...] 

So... if one wants to create a collection of reusable elements that can be revised wherever they appear in the document, what is the intended (non-abandoned) method we're supposed to use?

By @Mobius Strip

You have 4x options: 

1) Libraries - local or in the cloud, 

2) Snippets - drag&drop object to your drive, then rename, 

3) dedicated INDD file(s) - where you'll store your objects. 

4) placeable files - images, vectors, INDD files. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

>>Get rid of these basically undocumented vestiges of abandoned products or ideas. 

InDesign is strewn with hafe-vast features. 😂

[Barb Binder]

BTW, @Mobius Strip —I went to report the broken links you mentioned but only found the one on Using the Links panel. We would like to get these fixed but I'm not seeing a second one. Can let me know where it is?

Thanks in advance, 

~Barb

[Mobius Strip]

Thanks for following up to fix that! Here's a screen shot.

[Barb Binder]

Hi @Mobius Strip :

There are people who still use these features, just not many. If Adobe pulled the features, the users who do rely on them would be insensed. I'm a user like you, but I'd say they will continue to function as is.

That said, the documentation should be correct. The second link you pointed out isn't wrong, per se, but it is confusing. Remembering that the Content Collector tool and Edit > Place and Link are two ways to access the same feature, the information that appears is correct because it is explaining how the conveyor belt works. I did submit a request to clarify the heading because I can see the confusion. 

As for this question: So... if one wants to create a collection of reusable elements that can be revised wherever they appear in the document, what is the intended (non-abandoned) method we're supposed to use? I'd choose CC Libraries.

You can create assets in Illustrator and Photoshop and use Place Link in the CC Library panel to add a linked copy to your InDesign files. If you edit the Library item, it will update all copies in all files that were add using Place Link. However, this only works with assets from Illustrator and Photoshop, we are not yet able to use Place Link for InDesign assets. This is a limitiation for sure (for now, anyway) but Libraries are very powerful and a lot of my clients are using them very successfully. For more details, see https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/creative-cloud-libraries-sync-share-assets.html.

~Barb

[Mobius Strip]

Thanks for that, Barb. I need to save all necessary files together on a local server at our company where everyone can access them. Therefore, as far as I know, CC libraries are not a viable solution. Plus the aforementioned inability to put InDesign elements in there.

@Robert at ID-Tasker had some helpful ideas up above, but I don't know how the described "snippets" function.

Here's an example of something I was trying to do today: Create a common page header, and then create a link to it on the facing page that was shifted toward the outer margin (mirroring its position on the other page). The header comprises a single-row, three-column table and then a separate line as a rule underneath that.

I used "Place and Link" to copy the header, which seemed to work... but then I discovered that

1. The linking instance of the item has the same name, and there's no indication in the layer list that it's a link. Not even a little "chain" icon. Not even "(linked)" appended to the name. So you have to manually rename every link, to keep track of which one's the master. Otherwise you have no idea which one is the master that you need to change in order to percolate the change through the whole document. Seriously?
   
   
2. The instances do not update automatically when you change the master. Once in a while you might see a yellow triangle on each now-out-of-date instance, or you might see an error flag in the status bar. Then you have to manually approve each update. This defeats much of the purpose of linking in the first place.

Am I missing something here, or is this design bungled?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

[...] 

Am I missing something here, or is this design bungled?

By @Mobius Strip

For the ones that has been updated - you need to check Links pallet.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Sorry, it was middle of the night and I had a bad headache.

I've checked it again - if you make some copies - ORIGINAL is always at the top of the "food chain":

Green lines - copies. 

Then - first option in the context menu on the copy - gets you to this copy:

Then there is "Go to source" option - for each copy:

And then each copy has it's own info:

With Page number and Layer.

Then, if you are on Windows - free "browser" functionality of my tool:

(best would be to open this image in a new browser's window)

And after changing fill color of the "source" to green:

[Thomas_Calvin]

Thanks for that! But... the "original" doesn't even show up in my Links panel. Only links do.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Thomas_Calvin

What do you have set in Links panel options? 

And can you post a sample screenshot of your Links panel. 

[Thomas_Calvin]

I tried toggling the "collapse links" option but nothing much happened.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Thomas_Calvin

Maybe you should reset preferences? 

[Thomas_Calvin]

Well, I know that has been a favorite workaround in Adobe products for decades, but this is a fresh installation on a new system... barely a week old. I have done very little messing with preferences. Is there even a preference for not showing parents in the Links panel?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Thomas_Calvin

Preferences are easily corruptable - even during a minor update.

Can you, just in case, confirm platform, OS and InDesign versions? 

[Thomas_Calvin]

Sure, InDesign 20.2 on Windows 11.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Sure, InDesign 20.2 on Windows 11.

By @Thomas_Calvin

Can you share a sample document - with a few objects that you've duplicated using content collector? 

Please click my nickname if you prefer to send it privately. 

[Thomas_Calvin]

Thanks, I really appreciate the offer. I think I'm out of time for this inquiry though. Even if the sorting in the Links panel worked differently, the feature seems to be too limited to make use of in our case.