For 0.48 and 0.91 some of the suggestions in this thread on the forum might help to achieve a similar effect to selection sets:

http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=18483

In particular, the extension I attached to that thread sounds like it comes close, though the workflow for just showing and hiding some objects-serving-as-guides possibly isn't worth the effort.

Mark (Xav on the forum thread)




On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 2:08 PM, Tavmjong Bah <tavmjong@...206...> wrote:
On Sun, 2016-01-17 at 21:31 -0700, Brynn wrote:
> Thanks Tav.  I'm not familiar with "selection sets".  Where can I
> find more 
> info?

Sorry, they are only in trunk (under the "Objects" menu). I forgot that
they aren't in 0.91.

Tav

> I don't see anything on this page: 
> http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Select.html although I m
> ight 
> have overlooked something.
>
> brynn
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Tavmjong Bah" <tavmjong@...206...>
> Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2016 5:13 AM
> To: "Inkscape User Community" <inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net>
> Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] guides by layer? or guide profiles?
>
> > On Thu, 2016-01-14 at 04:05 -0700, Brynn wrote:
> > > Oh, thanks for the info, Marc!
> > >
> > > What about something like "guide sets" or "guide profiles" which
> > > would be
> > > distinct sets of guides which could be hidden/displayed
> > > individually?  They
> > > wouldn't be associated with groups or layers, or anything.
> > >
> > > TA  :-)
> >
> >
> > You can effectively do this already by creating regular SVG paths
> > that
> > are tagged as part of a selection set. Create guide paths for each
> > layer in that layer and then create a selection set for them. You
> > can
> > also create a selection set for all the guide paths in the
> > document.
> > Using the Selection Sets and Objects dialogs you can quickly toggle
> > locking and hiding each set. Make sure to enable "Snap to paths"
> > rather
> > than "Snap guides"
> >
> >
> > Tav
> >
> >
> >
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