Page Layout settings don't stick

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LarryCarey
Propeller Head
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Jan 24, 2019 11:48 am

Page Layout settings don't stick

Post by LarryCarey »

I have a topic in my project that wants to use the wrong page layout, every time I open it. Not a biggie since I can easily switch to the desired page layout manually, but I wonder why it keeps using the wrong page layout setting.
If I right-click the TOC entry to open the Properties dialog, I see that I have the topic set to "Chapter Break", and the Page Layout selection is correct (indicating the page layout that I want to use).

Once I open my topic (and it opens using a different unwanted page layout), I just go to Page Layout and manually select the correct page layout (the same one named for "Page Layout" and in "Stylesheet") to get on track.
The question is, why does the topic open using the wrong page layout every time?
PS: The topic does consistently use the same (wrong) page layout, it's not random or anything.
NorthEast
Master Propellus Maximus
Posts: 6359
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:33 am

Re: Page Layout settings don't stick

Post by NorthEast »

The first thing to note is that a topic is not linked to a particular page layout - it's the TOC item that's linked to the page layout, not the topic.

So you could use multiple different page layouts for the same topic, by inserting the topic multiple times in a TOC, or in multiple TOCs. So you can see in that scenario, Flare can't be sure what page layout to pick.

Flare does have some logic to guess which page layout to use in the editor. Usually the editor defaults are based on whatever settings are used in your current primary target, which is certainly true for target-level settings like the medium. But the page layout is different because although it does has a default setting in the target, it can also be specified for individual instances in the TOC. Anyway, the primary target does seem to have some affect on the page layout in the editor - e.g. I will see different default page layouts for a topic if I switch primary targets, which reflect the page layout used for that topic in the current primary target's TOC.
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