Direct selection arrow bug in Indesign CC2017

[TheFrozenEgg]

Hi!

I have this very annoying recurrent bug with the direct selection tool (white arrow). When selecting multiple items (each of them being nested into different groups -that's he point of direct selection tool, to avoid ungrouping everything) after 3 or 4 items, one or several of them will unselect as I select new ones. For instance, I have:

A B C D E F G H

and I am selecting (bold):

A B C D E F G H

and I start 'loosing' some previous selected ones:

A B C D E F G H

as I continue it gives me more surprises:

A B C D E F G H

This is not a major problem but this is extreeeeeeeemely annoying when you work on a catalog with a lot of little tiny objects x.x

Does anyone have the same problem?

Thank you!

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

Have not heard of this problem.

Have you tried Trashing your Preferences: Troubleshooting 101: Replace, or "trash" your InDesign preferences

[DBLjan]

I can second that, and its an odd behaviour.

But I can explain, when this is happening:

When you select with the white arrow, its important, where you click your next object. If you click into a text frame, everything is working fine. If you (accidentially) click a corner-handle/bezier-handle, an before selected object gets unselected.

I find this odd. And I dont get, which object gets deselected, it seems like random. If I click A, B, C, D, and when i click E like i descibed, B and C are deselected.

[Laubender]

DBLjan  wrote

… But I can explain, when this is happening:

When you select with the white arrow, its important, where you click your next object. If you click into a text frame, everything is working fine. If you (accidentially) click a corner-handle/bezier-handle, an before selected object gets unselected.

…

Hi together,

I can confirm what Jan is saying.

The solution is to shift-click inside of the frame,

if you want to substract an already selected object from the selection.

Regards,
Uwe

[DBLjan]

Uwe,

ich schreibs mal auf deutsch:

So einfach it es nicht. Klar, weiß ich doch auch, dass Shift+Klick ein Objekt aus der Auswahl wieder subtrahiert, wenn es schon drin. Aber schau:

Mein Setup, 5 Gruppen.

Jetzt will ich nach und nach alle Textkästen anklicken, um zB die Schrift umzufärben. Würde ich das normale Auswahlwerkzeug nutzen, würde ich die ganze Gruppe verfärben.

Wenn ich mit weißem Pfeil vorsichtig mittig in die Textbox klicke, passiert es, wie vorhergesehn: Alle Textboxen selektiert.

Nun noch einmal:
Ich shift-klicke A, B, C, direkt in die Textbox.

…und beim Klick auf E treffe ich "zufällig" nicht die Textbox, sondern den Rahmen der Textbox, und es passiert folgendes:

Man kann es kaum sehen (weiße Eckpunkte), aber B ist plötzlich nicht mehr dabei…

Riddle me that

[Laubender]

Hi Jan,

yeah that's exactly the faulty behavior everybody here in this thread is going crazy about.

How to workaround?

You exactly described this in reply 5.

So we have a correct solution, I think.

FWIW:

I can confirm your experience.

Every bit.

Regards,
Uwe

[DBLjan]

It might have something to do with this limitation of ID:

You have a group of 3+ Object. Now, istead of using the white arrow, just doubleklick onto one object with the black arrow. Now you have selected that object within the group – and youre able to add with shift+click another object to your selection.
But if you try to pick a thrid object, the whole group gets selected again…strange behaviour, isnt it?

Setup:

Doubleclicked one, shift+clicked another:

And while you try to shift+click number 5, the visual bounds of the group get overlayed…

and if you actually click onto 3, the whole group gets selected again.

There seems to be a limit of 2 object, which can be selected within a group. But i dont get the intention behind this, assuming both behaviours are bugs.

[jane-e]

I am trying to figure out your workflow:

• You have multiple groups and need to select a few item in each group?

• In your example, ABDG might be in one group, CF another, and EGH the third. And you need to select ADFG?

Might I ask why you need to select items in different groups? And how deep is your nesting?

You might open your Layers panel and select with the selection indicators to solve the problem. But first simply watch the panel as you select to see at what point you are losing the selection.

[TheFrozenEgg]

Hi Jane-e, thank you for your answer!

Yes I have multiple groups and wish to select one item in each ; the problem happens even though there is no nested groups, and the groups don't overlap. Using the layer panel is actually longer, it defeats the purpose of the direct selection, and my problem still occurs....

I am working on catalog pages, here each of my groups contains: 1 pic, 2 text boxes with paragraphs, and 3 boxes with a reference#, a price, a line etc.. So that whole group is my unit, and let's say I have 25 of these units aligned on my page, and for whatever reason, after finishing my lay out I need to give all my pictures a fading, I'd rather directly select them all without ungrouping and apply the effect once, it's just to save time... My projects actually often include last-minute changes and I live for every minute I can save

Thank you

[jane-e]

How do you fade your pictures—by dropping the transparency? I am wondering if you can do it with an Object Style?

Select one picture and create a new Object Style based on the formatting of the image. Then edit the style and uncheck anything you don't want for all the pictures. In this case I left Text Wrap, Transparency, and a Drop Shadow.

Apply the style to all photos.

Now all you need to do is edit the style and all objects that use the style will update. The don't have to be selected.

Will this work?

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

There's a little-kown tool in InDesign that might be helpful here in selecting multiple object within a Group. It's a tool that also exists in Illustrator, the Group Selection tool. The reason its little-known in InDesign is its not in the Tools panel.

If you select the Direct Selection tool and hold down your Option (Alt) key, the White Arrow will have a Plus Mark to it lower right. This is the Group Selection tool. While holding down your Option (Alt) key, click on the first object in your Group. To select multiple objects, press Option (Alt) + Shift to add to your selection.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

Another thought! Would it help to select your objects in the Layers panel?

Select your first object in the Layers panel by clicking on the selection square to the right of the object's list. Shift-click on the selection square of other listings in the panel to select multiple objects even if they are within multiple Groups.

[DBLjan]

Hi Jeff,

the problem is not how to get the stuff selected. I assume the OP temporary ungroups, like I do, to get the desired object within the group or uses the layers window.

But one must confess: The Direct Selection tool behaves odd.

The method youre describing to alt+click to get a plus – thats what I describe using doubleclicking deep into the group (the tool switches to Direct Selection tool automatically). But the same limitations are applying: You only can select 2 objects like you describe.

But thats lika a sideeffect in this thread. The randomly auto-deselecting of already clicked objects (when you click on the object bounds instead of into the frame) is whats rubbish.