I see that the question of the first bullet being a different colour has been raised before. I've tried all sorts of work-arounds and had lots of problems.

But today I've noticed that the first bullet is set up using different parameters to the rest. The reason appears to be that an SS bullet list is referencing the text size and colour from the *page* settings.

Having changed the default to the same font size and colour (as well as I could as there isn't the usual range to choose from) all of my text objects with bullet lists miraculously corrected!

I was over the moon as it saved me an awful lot of work - but why is it that bullet lists have this problem? Is it a bug?

Many thanks

mccifa

I have seen a different color bullet but only on the workpage or text editor -- not in preview or publish. So maybe that is a different problem to what you are having.

I guess you are using SS 2.70f?

Can you provide a little test project that illustrates the problem that you see? Or a series of steps that would allow anybody (VM in particular!) to recreate it. If you like, email me the test project -- I will test and pass it on to VM.

Hi Bruce

Yes, still on 2.70f as shown on the avatar. (I will upgrade...soon...unless another big project comes along!)

Have a look at this video, which I hope shows the problem.

Make sure you don't hit the 'play button...hit the square one underneath it or you won't see the screen.

Once finished, press Esc to exit.

VM SS2.70f bullets problem

HTH

mccifa

It does look like a bug. I'll have a play around and see if I can recreate it.

Normally I would remove the bullets, apply all the formatting changes, then reapply the bullets. Don't know if that workaround would work in this case....

Hi Bruce

I just changed the default settings to the same as the text in the bullet lists and then all bullet lists were OK. But it does mean I can't have bullet lists in different fonts or colours.

Thanks for your help.

mccifa

I think I have extracted the essential elements from the video:
1. SS 2.70f
2. Fresh project
3. In the Page Editor > Links, Fonts tab, set a largish default colored font -- I used Verdana 14pt, red.
4. Start a fresh text object in Arial 8 point font, black
5. Using the text editor, make a list of three short items. The actual text and number of items is not important.
6. Use CTRL + A to select All, then click the Text Editor numbered list button. I suggest this method only because if you do it differently you may get different results.
7. Select all the text by dragging your mouse over it -- NOT CTRL+A to select all.
8. Change the color to orange

Now in the Text Editor, the orange has "stuck" except for the last number which is still in black (Bug 1)
On the workpage, the text is all orange (OK)
Preview, and the first number is in the large default font and color (Bug 2)

You may need to change the color twice -- I have seen some variability.

I also tested SS 2.90Beta 'b' and SS Pro 2.91c and although the minor Bug 1 is still present, the major Bug 2 is fixed.

In SS 2.70f, as Mccifa has found, one workaround for Bug 2 is to change the Default font to match your numbered list font. I tried a few (to me!) more obvious workarounds and none of them worked.

Bruce,

Does removing the bullets, changing the color, then adding the bullets back fix the problem? Every time I have seen this bug reported, it has always been as a result of a <font> tag being improperly closed - a result of a bug in generating the HTML code.

It is my opinion that VM needs to look at the way the HTML code is being generated to ensure the tags are placed in the correct order. I also feel this problem is also the cause of the bug with the centered text bug in SS Pro.

quote:

Does removing the bullets, changing the color, then adding the bullets back fix the problem?

No. Even 'Paste Plain Text' into a fresh text object, then applying the numbers/bullets does not help.

Hi Bruce

When selecting the text by dragging from the top of the list down to the bottom there is no probem. But when selecting from the end of the list and dragging up, the last bullet doesn't change colour.

That wasn't my original query (it was the first bullet point being in the same font and colour as the default setting) but as I found it when experimenting, I included it in the video in case it had a bearing on the other possible bug.

Hope that's not as clear as mud!

mccifa

The problem with the bullets in preview (i.e. Bruce's bug #2 - color of the number on the first line is not correct) was a problem with the HTML that was produced in version 2.70. One workaround is to add a blank, non-bulleted, line above the bullets, select all and set the color. That works if you can tolerate the blank line.

As Bruce mentioned, this has been fixed for version 2.9x. So that will not be a problem once you have 2.9x. (which will be available soon (I hope). You can request the beta until then)

The other problem (Bruce's bug #1 - color of the number on the last line is not changed after selecting all text and changing the color) is in the text editor. It seems that the number (or bullet) is actually selected by selecting the space after the bullet text – not the space before the text as your might expect.

So if the last line of text is bulleted, then the only way to select the bullet itself is to put the cursor at the end of the line, press and hold the SHIFT key and then press the right arrow key to select the space that exists after the apparent end of the line (you select it with the mouse too). Once it is selected, you can change its color and that will change the color of the bullet.

This seems to be a quirk with the Windows' text editor control (which is used for the main window in our text editor). We will have to try and see if we can come up with a way to work around that in our code. In the meantime, the workaround is to use CTRL+A to select everything or make sure you are selecting the space beyond the end of the text when selecting a bulleted line.