P: Update text layers after selecting collapsed groups, last group properties aren't updated

[GabrielTotoliciu]

Let's say I have these groups and layers.

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I want to update all the text layers' color when the groups are collapsed.

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If the groups are collapsed, the last group's text layers don't get updated.

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[GabrielTotoliciu]

This also happens if you try to update all the text layers' colors after selecting only one collapsed group.

[Brett N]

I see what you mean. I think what's really going on is that the group is selected separately from the layers with in them. Just because they are collapsed doesn't mean you can pretend that the selecting of layers will behave any differently than if they were expanded (expanded and collapsed is only a visual thing, it doesn't change any behaviors). So, looking at your first screen shot, if you select Group 5, and then Shift select Group 1, text 5 and 6 are outside the selection range.

The workaround, of course, would be to extend your selection. So if you select from Group 5 to the Background layer, all text layers will be selected, you can change the color and the background is not effected.

Things can get really bizarre if you start expanding groups after you've created your selection. So if you have groups 1-5 selected, then expand, say, group 3, all layers within that group will be selected (this is as expected with my description above). But if you expand a second group, it's layers are not selected, and if you change the font color you will find that only the layers from group 3 are changed (expanding a second group seems to unselect all layers in the other groups besides the first expanded, although it doesn't seem to effect the layers outside of groups).

So I'm going to have to chalk this up to expected behavior. That collapsed groups, and the layers within them, are selected no differently that if they are expanded.

[J453]

Gabriel, good find. We were able to repro it. Thanks for reporting this.

[David Mohr]

Howdy Gabriel,

Great bug. I've gone ahead and logged it in the bugbase. Thanks very much for letting us know about this and great catch. 8-)

Oh, and as a work-around, if you have a text layer that's NOT in a sub-group (same level as Background, for instance) and it's selected too, then nothing is left out. Not an ideal solution, but at least it's a work-around until we can get this fixed!

Thanks,
David

[David Mohr]

Oh, and as a work-around, if you have a text layer that's NOT in a sub-group (same level as Background, for instance) and it's selected too, then nothing is left out. Not an ideal solution, but at least it's a work-around until we can get this fixed!

Thanks,
David

[GabrielTotoliciu]

@Brett N
(As a side note: i tried replying to your comment but it doesn't have the "Add Image" button)

"if you select Group 5, and then Shift select Group 1, text 5 and 6 are outside the selection range."

If you do the same selection when the groups are collapsed, you can move all the layers, including text5 and text6.
I think it's fair to pretend that this behavior should be applied in the same way when changing the text color by using collapsed groups. Or at least it was the same behavior I was expecting.
Ah, but I see what you're saying about the bizarre thing when expanding the selected collapsed groups and how this affects moving layers in a different way from changing text colors.

But, even when expanding the selected collapsed groups, the behavior isn't that consistent:

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If you expand any non-last group (for example group 2) for the first time, the expanded group's layers are selected.
This is expected.

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If you expand another one (except the last group, for example group 3), the group's layers are not selected.
This actually confuses me.

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While I understand that groups are just a visual thing, I don't expect that users would understand this behavior.

I propose a new behavior:
If you select an expanded group, you just select the group and not it's layers.
If you select a collapsed group (either by only selecting one group or a range of groups), all the layers inside the collapsed groups must be selected.
This way, expanding any collapsed selected group would expand selected layers. I think that is a natural behavior.

I'm not sure if this will affect Photoshop's scripting API, but this is something that I would expect in the layers panel.

[Brett N]

Fair assessment, it would make sense for the layers within a collapsed group to be selected automatically. I just wanted to make the point that wasn't technically the case. When you select a group only (which is the same as selecting a collapsed group) it is like selecting multiple layers that have been flattened. In a way, you can think of a group as a Smart Object, the internal information is editable, but you have to go internal to edit it. The objects in a group share certain attributes, like position and scale, so just selecting the group only will allow you to edit these shared attributes. However, internal objects must be selected to change attributes not shared with the group (that is, the group itself doesn't have a text color, even if all layers in the group are text layers).

I'm not trying to justify he current behavior, just explaining how it works behind the scenes and why we see this behavior.