2014-04-11 20:35 GMT+02:00 mathog <mathog@...1176...>:
In this bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1243401
there is a discussion about whether or not the selectable area for a text object should include leading and trailing spaces. That is, for text objects 1 = " " and 2 = " a b " the old behavior was that the "arrow" or "+A" selection pointers would not detect object 1 at all and would move across the leading and trailing spaces of object 2 without registering a hit. The patch in that bug makes these pointers treat spaces like any other character.
The approach in all of Inkscape is that if an object is not visible, it is not selectable. To select invisible objects, you use the outline mode. Therefore, for consistency, whitespace must not be selectable.
Text that contains only whitespace (doesn't generate any paths) should be automatically deleted when it is deselected. This would be an extension of what happens when the user clicks on the canvas on the text tool but doesn't type anything; no object is created in that case. Similarly, when a text editing event results in the object containing only whitespace, it should be removed from the object tree and re-inserted once a visible glyph becomes part of the text.
Regards, Krzysztof