On 6/11/06, Gijsbert Stoet <stoet@...679...> wrote:
AND THEN THE STRANGE THING HAPPENS: all the clones seem to move to some RANDOM positions.
First, they are not really random. What happens is, you move a clone AND the original of that clone too. Per SVG standard, a clone inherits from its original its position too, besides other properties. So in this case, the clone gets moved twice, and if it is rotated or scaled, the size and direction of different movements are changed correspondingly too. And if you have a long clone-of-clone chain, it gets worse with each step.
So what to do? Rule number one: Never use clones of clones. If you need many copies of one object, make ONE clone and then duplicate (not clone) it. This will give you many clones of the same object instead of a clone-of-clone chain.
And for single-level clone depth, I spent a lot of time working around and compensating the weird SVG behavior. As a result, the behavior in this case is completely predictable and even configurable. Go to Clones tab in Inkscape preferences and make sure that "When the original moves, its clones and linked offsets: Stay unmoved" (this is the default). With this setting, if you move only the original, the clones will stay put, and if you move them together, they will move together as if they were independent objects. (What actually happens is that for each clone, a compensatory move is calculated and applied so it moves as expected without cutting the link to the original.)