Hi,
I’ve been using the development version of Inkscape for a few days now and am really excited about some of the new features that have gone in. Looking at the material one the website and in the archives of this list I’ve been able to piece together what most of them do, but I’m struggling to make any sense of the “selection sets”. I think know in theory what it’s supposed to do - resolve the ages old “how do I group across layers” problem, but I can’t make the UI do anything useful. Is it incomplete as it stands in trunk, or am I just missing something very obvious? Happy to be pointed at a link/video/whatever if there’s one out there that gives more detail, my cursory searches didn’t reveal much unfortunately….
Cheers, and thanks for all the hard work on a great piece of software - I’m still very much learning to use it and every day that goes by I still get a few “Wow, that is *so* cool!” moments :-)
Lucian
-- Lucian Holland Sent with Sparrow (http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/?sig)
On 2015-05-30 15:26 (+0200), Lucian Holland wrote:
I’ve been using the development version of Inkscape for a few days now and am really excited about some of the new features that have gone in. Looking at the material one the website and in the archives of this list I’ve been able to piece together what most of them do, but I’m struggling to make any sense of the “selection sets”. I think know in theory what it’s supposed to do - resolve the ages old “how do I group across layers” problem, but I can’t make the UI do anything useful. Is it incomplete as it stands in trunk, or am I just missing something very obvious? Happy to be pointed at a link/video/whatever if there’s one out there that gives more detail, my cursory searches didn’t reveal much unfortunately….
The selection set feature was ported from Ponyscape (inkscape fork); in the fork the feature was originally called 'Tags'. The name was changed when porting to Inkscape because it conflicts with other more common use cases for the term 'tag' related to managing (shared) resources (e.g. palettes, color swatches, gradients, patterns, etc).
Selection sets in Inkscape are basically lists of object ID references (you can inspect the content via 'Edit > XML Editor' - the each selection set is an element node in the <defs> section, defined in Inkscape's namespace). An object can be referenced in multiple selection sets.
Example:
<defs id="defs4"> <inkscape:tag id="Set 2" inkscape:expanded="true"> <inkscape:tagref xlink:href="#rect3336" id="tagref3352" /> </inkscape:tag> <inkscape:tag id="Set 1" inkscape:expanded="true"> <inkscape:tagref xlink:href="#path3338" id="tagref3345" /> <inkscape:tagref xlink:href="#path3340" id="tagref3347" /> <inkscape:tagref xlink:href="#rect3336" id="tagref3350" /> </inkscape:tag> </defs>
Usage: ======
Creating a selection set: 1) open 'Object > Selection sets' 2) click on the '+' button at the bottom of the dialog. the name of a selection set can be changed the same way as a layer name in the 'Layers' dialog (double-click the list item)
Adding objects to a selection set: 3) select object on the canvas 4) in the 'Selection sets' dialog, in the list of selection sets, click on the '+' button to the left of the just created selection set
Using a selection set: 5) deselect any existing selection 6) click on the selection set in the 'Selection sets' dialog --> all items of the selection set are selected on-canvas
Removing an item from a selection set: 7) expand 'Items' of the selection set in the 'Selection sets' dialog 8) select item on canvas or in the Items list in the dialog 9) click on the 'Delete' icon (trashbin) to the left of the selected item in the selection set's Items list
Removing a selection set: 10) select select set in the 'Selection sets' dialog 11) click on the '-' button at the bottom of the dialog
Related feature requests filed so far: * “Take canvas selection into account when adding selection set” https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1369221
hth, V
Adding objects to a selection set: 3) select object on the canvas 4) in the 'Selection sets' dialog, in the list of selection sets, click on the '+' button to the left of the just created selection set
D’oh! I’d tried this but I obviously never managed to click on the ‘+’ as opposed to the text of the selection set (which obviously deselects what you currently have selected). That makes a lot more sense now. Could I perhaps suggest that some sort of hover state for the + symbol (maybe only when there’s an active selection?) might be helpful to indicate that it’s a separate button to be pushed? That seems to be the convention elsewhere in the app as far as I can see. Very happy that I can now maintain selections across layers - thanks guys!
Lucian
Thanks su_v,
this was a good explanation.
Was there a reason we didn't use svg classes to tag elements? That way our css support would be greatly improved... as it is, the design is our of the svg namespace and doesn't provide any standardised benefit.
Martin,
On 31 May 2015 at 09:08, Lucian Holland <lucian@...3245...> wrote:
Adding objects to a selection set: 3) select object on the canvas 4) in the 'Selection sets' dialog, in the list of selection sets, click on the '+' button to the left of the just created selection set
D’oh! I’d tried this but I obviously never managed to click on the ‘+’ as opposed to the text of the selection set (which obviously deselects what you currently have selected). That makes a lot more sense now. Could I perhaps suggest that some sort of hover state for the + symbol (maybe only when there’s an active selection?) might be helpful to indicate that it’s a separate button to be pushed? That seems to be the convention elsewhere in the app as far as I can see. Very happy that I can now maintain selections across layers - thanks guys!
Lucian
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su_v