Hello, I don't know if I'm alone in this, but the mask/clip options in vers x.x are very hard to use. The results are hard to predict. Colours of objects will change (depending on fore/back ground order etc). Also, the difference between clip and mask is not clear.
I come from a (distant) background in Macromedia Freehand and in that world they had a concept called "Paste Inside". 1. Now that made perfect sense and was perfectly predictable. One did not have to setup a bunch of "tests" on the side. 2. You could select items within the mask, and easily edit/move them.
In Inkscape 0.44, I get the feeling that those items are new and experimental, perhaps they will get a better user interface - I'm not sure where the coders are at now, I know they move really fast on a thousand fronts.
Anyway, any pointers? /d