I tested available builds back to the end of December, they're all broken. So probably this was never fixed except on linux. I don't know if it's
worth
trying to fix this particular bug, or perhaps we should work towards Pangofication instead, which will likely fix this and other font problems
on
windows.
I think it would be valuable to have it fixed. It means that many characters currently unavailable could be used and in turn these can be used for pattern making via stomping. This is what led me to the bug in the first place. For example the alt+0149 character is a small round dot. Very handy for generating rock fills.
Thanks for that fix on the error message. I could not quite tie down when it was happening but it appeared to be related to changing default fonts--but not always. :-)
As a matter of interest, why does Inkscape not use alt+number for special characters? Several other programs that I've used do this and it makes for usability.
vellum