Hi Hans,
Am 14.02.2017 um 00:35 schrieb Hans Carlson:
Also, it's kind of difficult to SEE the stacking order of objects especially when they're placed right on top of each other. Is there a way to see if there's anything below an object? ie, object A is a 10px circle and object B is a 20px circle right above it. How do you know object A is even there?
- There are a couple of ways to find that out, let's see what I can come up with:
Main option: use Alt+Mousewheel to see what's in the stack below the mouse cursor
Others: - use View -> Display Mode -> Outline (only works if objects have different outlines) - use the Objects dialog (in 0.92) - use Alt+Click and watch if the bounding box that you see changes (if objects have different sizes)
In other words: The point of each object that will be attached to the path is determined by the center of the group. If the center is outside of the object, then the object is put at a distance from the path.
So, if I understand you correctly, the center of the objects being placed is not based on the objects themselves, but rather the center of the group containing the objects?
- At least that's what fits my observations best. I haven't looked at the code. It might even be useful for some cases, if you want to add some 'random'... who knows. At least it can be influenced by what one does.
That seems kind of odd. When Scatter is used the with "Pick Group Members" option, the GROUP is essentially just a way to hold the objects... it's just a container, a bucket. It seems to me when placing the actual objects on the path, the center point for each object should be used, not the center point of the container that it came from. And assuming that was the case, then I wouldn't think it would be necessary for all the objects to sit on top of each other, which would make things a little easier to deal with. The stacking order would still need to be correct, but the objects wouldn't need to be directly over top each other.
This leads into the "well mostly" comment above. I suspect the gap between the objects on the path is also determined by the width of the containing group?
- Yes, that seems to be right. I don't find that too useful, because there's nothing you can do to influence it.
So I updated my previous test to better match what I actually want to do. I added a 3rd object which is a 10px wide X 30px high oval:
- simple path (15 nodes that curves around a bit). - small 25px diameter solid blue circle with "1" in the middle - made that into a group of it's own. - second 25px circle with "2" in the middle, into a group. - 10px wide X 30px high solid green oval with #3, group. - set the stacking order: circle #1, circle #2, oval #3 - aligned objects over each other: circle #1, circle #2, oval #3 - grouped the 3 objects together. - opened Scatter with the 2 circle/1 oval group and the curved path. - used 5 for the "Space between copies" and then Preview.Now I see the gap between the 2 circles is correct, about 5px. But the gap between the #2 circle and #3 oval is about 12px, then the gap between #3 oval and #1 circle is also about 12px. Math wise, that suggests Scatter uses the width of the container group (25px) regardless which object is being placed. Wouldn't it make more sense to use the width of the actual object being placed?
- Maybe having an option for that would be better - people might actually want to have objects put at the exact same distance from object center to object center, no matter how big the single objects are.
Seems we're collecting feature requests here - in the forum, there's a similar thread going on: http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=31789
Regards, Maren