Restarted work in a file created yesterday and drew a fresh rectangle. Spent half an hour trying to fathom why it had no fill or stroke despite all my manipulations of those settings. Eventually realised Opacity was zero in both. Testing revealed that the settings used are apparently those used in the previous session, yes?
In my case I'd been experimenting and had presumably made an object transparent. I'll hopefully remember that in future.
But is the general approach by experienced users to always open templates, or what?
By default, inkscape uses the settings of the last use of fill color, stroke color and style and opacity. This works from one tool (for example rectangle tool) to another (bezier tool for example).
To me, this last used style is independant from any save, template or wathever. It's just the last setting you used when you used a tool.
Two solutions :
- Get into the habit of adjusting the four main settings (fill color, stroke color, stroke size and object opacity) bottom left of screen before using any tool : this will prevent any mistake and loss of time spent to understand why things go wrong.
- You can alter, for each tool this behavior : draw the shape / path and set it the right settings, and leave it selected, right clic on tool icon and click on take from selection button
One of my pet peeves that causes non-stop issues with new and veteran users alike. Last style used should only be used during that session. On startup - Inkscape should use default styles or the ones you can set in the tools default style. Then if you change the style during the session then Inkscape uses that until you change it again.
Same concept in display modes. If you last session was outline mode, then the new session will start that way and you will drive yourself insane trying to figure out why you can't change that empty rectangle to purple.
One of the ways I have overcome this is to load up Inkscape. Set the styles I want, display mode I want and any other setting that I wanted. Close Inkscape. Then in Windows go to the directory of the preference file and set the file attribute to read only. I was expecting non-stop crashes doing this but was plesantly suprised that it works. No clue if this will work on MacOS or Linux.
A "normalized' preferences.xml file can be saved in another location and be placed into the user profile to reset many of the tools. I do this when setting up multiple machines for teaching Inkscape in a classroom setting.
That said, it is not unusual to leave one's tools with previously used styles, and to assign new styles on the fly... there are common reasons why objects are not visible, and these become easy to check as one becomes more familiar with the program.
Terry - just remember to change the read only attribute of the preferences file if in the future you decide to change. Of course change it back to read only when finished changing your preferences.
Also - take in account that this may not work in future versions of Inkscape.
Beginners' Questions Defaults for Fill and Stroke
Inkscape.org
Restarted work in a file created yesterday and drew a fresh rectangle. Spent half an hour trying to fathom why it had no fill or stroke despite all my manipulations of those settings. Eventually realised Opacity was zero in both. Testing revealed that the settings used are apparently those used in the previous session, yes?
In my case I'd been experimenting and had presumably made an object transparent. I'll hopefully remember that in future.
But is the general approach by experienced users to always open templates, or what?
By default, inkscape uses the settings of the last use of fill color, stroke color and style and opacity. This works from one tool (for example rectangle tool) to another (bezier tool for example).
To me, this last used style is independant from any save, template or wathever. It's just the last setting you used when you used a tool.
Two solutions :
- Get into the habit of adjusting the four main settings (fill color, stroke color, stroke size and object opacity) bottom left of screen before using any tool : this will prevent any mistake and loss of time spent to understand why things go wrong.
- You can alter, for each tool this behavior : draw the shape / path and set it the right settings, and leave it selected, right clic on tool icon and click on take from selection button
Thanks David, appreciate your advice and intend to follow it.
One of my pet peeves that causes non-stop issues with new and veteran users alike. Last style used should only be used during that session. On startup - Inkscape should use default styles or the ones you can set in the tools default style. Then if you change the style during the session then Inkscape uses that until you change it again.
Same concept in display modes. If you last session was outline mode, then the new session will start that way and you will drive yourself insane trying to figure out why you can't change that empty rectangle to purple.
One of the ways I have overcome this is to load up Inkscape. Set the styles I want, display mode I want and any other setting that I wanted. Close Inkscape. Then in Windows go to the directory of the preference file and set the file attribute to read only. I was expecting non-stop crashes doing this but was plesantly suprised that it works. No clue if this will work on MacOS or Linux.
Thanks, pleased to find I’m not the only one victim of this. May try your work around too.
A "normalized' preferences.xml file can be saved in another location and be placed into the user profile to reset many of the tools. I do this when setting up multiple machines for teaching Inkscape in a classroom setting.
That said, it is not unusual to leave one's tools with previously used styles, and to assign new styles on the fly... there are common reasons why objects are not visible, and these become easy to check as one becomes more familiar with the program.
Terry - just remember to change the read only attribute of the preferences file if in the future you decide to change. Of course change it back to read only when finished changing your preferences.
Also - take in account that this may not work in future versions of Inkscape.