The redraw is pretty sketchy sometimes. Esp. if I draw a star shape with it dragged into other interesting shapes using the Edit Path tool (with or without rounded corners).
What is "sketchy"? Slow?
OK, so one has to import an image file into the doc in order to get it to tile with in a shape, am I correct here??
If you need to tile a bitmap, of course you need to import it first. Otherwise just Edit | Tile.
Once I have right clicked and copied the shape and then click on the object and choose "tile" from the Edit menu sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't.
File a bug with a reproducible example where it does not. It always does for me.
Something interesting I notice is that if you do tile the object then it seems to be transformed into a bitmap. I see this happening only because then if I go to use the "Edit Path" tool there are no nodes to move in order to reshape the shape. All of a sudden if I choose a new fill the nice star shape is a filled rectangle. Not a star shape any longer but a rectangle now. I can undo it, no problem but I would like to ask what exactly is happening?
It's not a "bitmap". It's a pattern fill of a rectangle. So you can node-edit the rect but not its fill. If you need to edit the fill, Untile it, edit, and then Tile again.
So I guess what I am really getting at here is that I would like a little tutorial on how to PROPERLY use the fill option.
OK, I will write it for the next version.
I would also like to suggest that an expansion of the options be included in the Pattern Fill tab so one can work from there. You might also want to include some basic functions in the right click menu when a shape is filled with a pattern!! One other thing would be to include resizing handles to allow for rotation, resizing and moving of the fill within the shape.
We do have such handles. Switch to node edit and you'll see them.
Also, when I click on the icons from the "Standard" bar for the Fill and Stroke or Text dialog... etc.... in my thinking one click should turn ON the dialog and another should turn it OFF.
No. That's counterintuitive. To hide/delete something, act on that something, not on some button half a screen away.
Maybe what you guys were thinking was to click on the icon would bring the dialog back to the top where it's accessible but I would think that making the dialogs float ABOVE the main interface at all times
They ARE above the interface at all times (except on Windows, where it's hard to implement).