Description:

I have multiple files open at once.

When finished working on the first, if I close it, InDesign will skip to the last file that was opened, rather the next file in the order.

See attached - I closed “untitled 1” and it skipped to “untitled 5” rather than going to “untitled 2” which is next in line.

Why this would be valuable:

This interrupts an expected workflow to InDesign's usual left to right UI direction.

InDesign allows users to reorder the file tabs to suit their needs. Skipping to the end file in unexpected behaviour and switching back to the next file in order can be particularly annoying when you have a lot of files open and you need to select the one you want through the dropdown list.

This has also lead to problems for me in the past when lot of the files look the same, and I've started to edit the wrong file.

I just got back an InDesign document that someone else had edited, and I needed to point it towards my own copies of the links. I spent about 3 hours trying to figure out why InDesign would seemingly crash every time I tried to update the links (it would put up the "Spinning Rainbow Pizza Wheel of Death" cursor and "Force Quit Applications" would say that the program was "not responding.") I finally figured out that it was just taking 10-15 minutes to process all the images in the folder, but not putting up any information or a progess bar. I mean, this feels like 1984, Adobe! (Obviously, we are talking about the MacOS version of InDesign, both v. 2020 and v. 2021).

I work with a lot of guides and need to use a lot of cross-references in my files. When these files later get used as a base for new files and saved under different names, or content is copy-pasted from one file to another, the cross-references point to the old (wrong) destination. I know you can select a cross-ref and change its destination document from the palette menu, but first you need to know that there is such wrong reference, but it is difficult when the cross-reference colour indicator is green and you think everything is fine. I would love to see an option in the cross-ref panel where you can show the destination document, the same way you can show the chosen folder level names in links menu. This would give a really good quick overview of whether you need to re-link the cross-references or not. In standalone guide it doesn’t make any sense for cross-references to open a different document. I would love to be able to disable it completely and limit all cross-references to the document they sit in. Or at a minimum, I would love to be able to set a pre-flight profile to give a warning if cross-references are pointing to another file.

Thanks!

Add On for Organized ID Files:
Search function for Master Pages and character/Paragraph... styles. In addition to the suggested folders, a search function would be great.

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/36775030-sub-folder-grouping-master-pages

Edit 1.1.2021:
For very large Indesign files and especially for accessibility productions, it would be an immense advantage and make work easier if you could find the sample pages as well as the format templates (paragraphs, characters, tables, etc.) more quickly using the search function.
A folder structure for the sample pages would also be an advantage. For the format templates, the function of After Effects would be great if you could simply drag references to each other.

Scenario: The client needs content changes after approving design/form process -- that means I scrap all of my acrobat calculations in the form fields to make the changes in InDesign.

It would be great(!) if InDesign supported either a "round-trip" editing process or has all of the features of Acrobat forms. I really don't care to edit in Acrobat, because InDesign is far superior for layout of complicated forms, with more editing tools, master pages, layers, etc.

As a side note, I think a really great feature would include a "form cell" style, for both character and paragraph. It is really tedious to edit in Acrobat a cell, one at a time, for alignment, type (i.e. number), size, etc.

Thanks for listening. Becki

Swatches Window:
There is space at the bottom of the swatches menu to have buttons for the swatch types rather than grouping them into drop down menu. It takes more clicks and mousing around than it did in CS versions...

Same goes for Rotating spreads. I need to do this often - It used to be in the root of the pages menu, now it's nested under page attributes. Less efficient...
A drop menu at the bottom of the pages window might make sense for this feature?

New CC Libraries menu... it looks nicer I guess but now I have to click back and then click the Library when before I simply clicked a drop down... less efficient!

Note: I'm still on Indesign 2019, so I don't know if this feature has already been added. If not, then:

Whenever I want to test different stroke colors on a picture with a border, I have to select it, which shows as cursor frame on top of the stroke (even in preview mode). Problem with this is that if the stroke is 1 or 2 points, it's hard to see the colors you're choosing because the cursor covers the stroke. So I would have to select the frame, change the color, de-select the frame to see how the stroke looks, then select it again to test another color, etc.

Same with text, if you want to change the color /font of a word or paragraph you've already written, you have to highlight the text to be able to make changes to it. Unfortunately, when highlighted, it's impossible to see the real colors you are choosing.

For that reason, I'm requesting a toggle to be able to turn off the cursor frame and highlighting for when someone wants to test different colors.

I know I could use the text editor to circumvent the highlighter part, but that's not a user-friendly option for something that could easily be a toggle.

Thanks!