I really like using the outliner, which I use even more than the corkboard to arrange my material.
However, despite having checked “save outliner and corkboard settings” in the layout manager, I find that every time I come back to my work, the outliner columns have either disappeared off the right of the screen or have disappeared altogether. I’m aware that this is a known issue, but is there anything else I should be doing? Thanks.
Hello Bee,
I am also a fan of the outliner. Mine seems to save okay, but remember to hit the use button as soon as you have arranged it otherwise if you forget and close the program, it re-opens next time to how it was before your arrangement.
There is a bug where a sequence of steps can cause the title column in the outliner to push the others off the right edge. You can fix it by dragging the column edge back to where it should be, or by applying a saved layout. Here’s how you’d do that:
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First, arrange your project window the way you want to restore it, with all the outliner columns, etc. The layout includes the whole window, so whether the inspector is open or closed, whether the editor header is visible, whether there’s a split, etc. Get all that how you want it.
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Open Window > Layouts > Layout Manager…
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Click the “+” button to save the current layout and give it a name
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When you want to restore this layout, e.g. after you’ve reopened the project and the title column is pushed off the edge, open the Layout Manager again and select the layout saved in step 3, tick the box to “Save outliner and corkboard settings” and then click “Use”.
The settings for the two checkboxes are remembered, so you could just tick that before closing the layout manager back after step 3, and load the layout directly from the Window > Layouts menu without reopening the Layout Manager. You can also add a button for the layout manager to the main toolbar so you can pop that open quickly and see all your layouts and options.
I am experiencing a very frustrating problem with Layouts and Outliner columns. I have created and saved layouts with a number of columns of custom metadata, and checked the two checkboxes. However when I now apply these layouts I don’t get the previously saved set of columns.
Initially, the problem was that when I switched layout that it didn’t provide me with the original set of columns, but seemed to provide the common columns across both layouts (that is an intersection set not a union). After switching layouts again, I got no outline columns at all. In a third layout that uses the editor as well as the outline view, I still get the correct columns. However, when I now switch back to either of the other first two layouts, they display no columns.
This is not a display issue - the columns are not selected under {View: Outliner Columns}. They certainly were when I saved the Outline. And there is no way that I saved the blank outline over the correct layout.
Is this a known bug? Is there a way to prevent this happening?
I’m not aware of an issue with this. The “Save outliner and corkboard settings” option should be checked when you apply the layout in order to use its saved columns; if it’s deselected, the window layout will change but your current columns in the editor will remain.
Could you share the steps for reproducing the problem with the two layouts?
I haven’t tried to reproduce the problem. I deleted the layouts, and started from scratch, but haven’t had a chance to do very much with the new layouts yet.
The steps I followed are as outlined in the previous post. The only other thing that might be relevant is that I was doing some work trying to organise the metadata and columns to be most useful. So I added, re-ordered and deleted metadata fields, and I re-ordered the columns in the outliner view. Unfortunately I did bits and pieces of these at different times before settling on what I wanted, so I can’t give you a clear order of the steps I followed.
However, I definitely didn’t adjust the metadata or outliner view when switching layouts. And I was unable to return to the layout I had spent an hour entering data into (data is not lost of course).
I have the same problem with the outliner column settings disappearing. I have created master layouts, with all the columns I need selected, and:
Sometimes, all my columns are there when I return.
Sometimes, they are past the right edge of the page, and I can retrieve them.
Sometimes, they are gone, but I can access my master outliner column template and retrieve them.
Sometimes, I load my outline layout master, but there are no columns but the title, and I have to start all over.
Outliner is my favorite feature, but it’s not reliable.
No idea what triggers this. Though in writing this post, it’s possible that the problem might progressively get worse, in the order I have listed above in my “sometimes” statements. I wish I could tell you a specific way to reproduce the problem because it would be lovely to have it fixed.
In the interim, it would really be nice if there were a quick way to reset my outliner column settings. Using the current “Outliner Columns” selector (under View), I can’t select all the fields I want in one session. I have to re-access the pull-down list for every additional column. That’s when this problem really gets frustrating because it’s not a quick fix.
Thanks.
There are sequences I know of that can cause the “Title” column in the outliner to expand to the width of the editor, with the other columns pushed off to the right: switching from the corkboard mode after viewing a single document in a group view, and loading the outliner for the first time when there is custom meta-data in the project. Until we’re able to resolve the bug, it should be fixable by either reloading your saved layout via Windows > Layouts or just dragging the right edge of the “Title” column header to the left, to make the other columns visible. In the later case with the custom meta-data, just switching to another view and back should fix it for the rest of the session.
The OP here was, as I understand it, talking about a problem where columns aren’t restored when loading a saved layout (assuming here the layout was created in the same project, so all the custom meta-data etc. is the same). This is the one I can’t reproduce and haven’t had any other reports on. I’d be grateful for any steps to reliably recreate the problem, if you come across a trigger.
Just chiming in because I don’t think I’ve seen this mentioned yet: sometimes when I load a project, all the correct columns are there, but they’re in the wrong order.
I usually have it as Title, Synopsis, Custom Metadata 1, CM2, CM3, CM4, Word Count, Total Word Count.
But sometimes it shows up as Title, Synopsis, Word Count, Total Word count, CM 1, CM 2, CM 3, CM 4
Seems to be an even chance between that happening, or the Title column filling the whole width, or it just working correctly. I’m not sure if there’s anything different that I’ve been doing, I’ve gotten good at just putting it back how it should be and getting on with stuff.
This does not always work 