Object to Marker, marker is not showing up.

[Reanoe]

Hello all.
I have a problem with Object to Marker. I was trying to make bended gradient and I have found this tutorial:
https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/quick-tip-fun-with-objects-to-marker-in-inkscape--cms-20639
which is workaround to achieve that goal. But when I prepare my gradiented object and convert it to marker it dissapears (which is fine) but I don't have it on Stroke marker list. I've trying to save, close & reopen file, close & reopen Fill and Stroke menu and still I don't have it on the dropdown list.
Any clues?


EDIT
Got it working. After several times of save, close & reopen file.

[brynn]

Welcome to the forum!

In case you're still watching, I thought I'd provide some info.  There was a bug, a version of 2 back, where this is known to happen.  Saving, closing and re-opening the file will make the marker show up in the menu.  To be honest, I haven't looked to see if the bug has been fixed or not.  Possibly it's still happening if it hasn't been fixed.

After I post this, I'll test and/or search for the bug report.  If I find any new info, I'll post again.

[brynn]

Ok yes, the object which you converted to a marker does disappear from the canvas.  But in 0.92.4, I did find the marker in the menu, immediately.

Note that there has to be something on the canvas, and something has to be selected, before you can open the Markers menu.

Whoa!  Looks like TutsPlus has changed ownership!  Now called envatotuts+.  AND Aaron Nieze is writing tutorials for them!  I wonder if that's lucrative, or he does it for free?  Gee, I never thought of selling the skills I've learned....  Interesting.  Fyi, Aaron has his own series of Inkscape tutorials on his own website:  goinkscape.com

[Reanoe]

Hmm unfortunately it seems buggy still. Today I reopened my yesterday work. I created another marker and this marker was not added to menu, also all other markers which I created yesterday were missing. Again save, close & reopen fix it. But in both cases (yesterday and today) I have to do the reopen several times to get the markers in the menu.
By the way - is there any way to throw out markers which were created? I have lot of them now as I wasn't aware of that bug.

[brynn]

That bug has been fixed.  I see that you report using 0.92.4, so you should not be seeing the bug I mentioned.  But we'll still try to sort out the problem.  There must be some explanation, even if it's the bug returned.

First, double-check your version, just to be sure.  Help menu > About Inkscape.

Ok, the marker has to be in the file, I mean, used on the canvas, before it will show in the menu.  When you make a new marker, it's not permanently added to Inkscape.  It only shows in the file where the marker is used.

But I do understand you're saying when you make a new one, it does not show in the menu at all.  You know, it shows up looking just like itself.  In the past it would show as a random string of 4 numbers.  But now the actual image shows up in the menu.  I wonder if the image might be so tiny that it looks like a blank space in the menu?  Also, it should be at the very top of the menu, so you might have to tweak the scrollbar a little bit, to see it.

Can you make a new marker, save the SVG file, and share that file with us?  Or maybe make a couple of screenshots, showing us the new marker and the menu?  That might help us to sort this out.  Let us know if you need help with that.

Yes, there's a way to get rid of unused markers.  But first, make sure that all the markers you want to keep are used on the canvas.  Draw a path and apply the markers that you want to keep to separate nodes.  Because this technique will remove any that are not in use.

Now make sure nothing is selected.  Then click File menu > Clean Up Document.  If you watch the status bar when you do that, it will tell you how much data was removed.  It will give you a number of "defs" that were removed.  A marker is one kind of def.

[Reanoe]

So, I am now recreating the bug or rather recreating a fix for it.
Double checked Inkscape version - Inkscape 0.92.4 (5da689c313, 2019-01-14)
More info - I am working in double monitor evniroment, maybe that's the reason? Later I will check that out.

So. Step by step.
1 - I've opened SVG on which I was working previously. There are markers there already (notice freehand big red arrow pointing to bend pipe - this bend I've made with markers) but as you can see I have no created markers at all in the menu.
2 - I've created new marker. It is still not in the menu.
3 - I've closed & open Fill and Stroke menu - still no marker.
4 - I've repeated step 3 about ten times, in between adding new markers, still no sucess. So It's even worse now.

[Reanoe]

So what I did next.
5 - Unplugged second monitor -  still nothing
6 - Several tries of save, close, reopen SVG, close open Fill and Stroke menu, adding new markers - still nothing.
7 - Finally. Opened Inkscape without opening my file with work in progress. On new canvas I draw a path, create marker (call him TEMP) and it is in menu immediately. Then I've opened my WIP file. I had this TEMP markek in menu but when I was trying to use them, nothing happened and it dissapears from menu - which is fine as I understand as TEMP was created in different file. After that I've created new marker in my WIP file and in the screen shot you can see what I have in menu. Those markers in red oval are mine. Created several times during fighting with menu. Those arrows above seems to me like standard markers - I didn't create them. Those blank spaces are propably my markers which will show up correctly in the menu after I will use them (I had that before)....

[Reanoe]

One more thing to add.
I had previously 0.92.0 version installed. I have removed it via windows control panel before installing 0.92.4
Didn't work alot in 0.92.0 and I definitely didn't play with markers in that version, so I don't know how it was behaving.
I am using x64 bit architecture and Inkscape versions.

[brynn]

With all that description, I start to wonder if maybe there is a problem with that specific wip file you're using.  We certainly have seen that before, both personally and helping other people.  Are you able to share it?  Was it converted from some other format, at some point?  Did you make the whole thing yourself?

Please do something like this.  Maybe in a new layer, or in a corner somewhere, create a new marker which does not look anything like the others you've made (just so we don't confuse it with your others).  Save the file as SVG and share it with us.

I don't think the extra monitor would have anything to do with this.  Or I should say at least I haven't seen any reports about it.

Sharing the file with us would be the best way to investigate further.  But if you're not able to share that file, here are some more questions.

How do you make the marker?  Have you noticed that a marker made with one kind of object behaves like this, but made with a different kind of object it doesn't?  I'm wondering if possibly using an LPE for example, and converting that to a marker, or....I actually don't know if this is possible, but converting a pattern to a marker, might cause some strange behavior?  Or maybe using a gradient mesh and converting that to a marker, might do something strange?

Edit
I just had a stray though!  After you make a new marker, open the XML Editor.  On the left side, click on the plus sign beside the item near the top, which has "defs4" in it.  Look at the bottom of that expanded item, and there should be the new marker there.  (The newest marker goes to the bottom of the list there.)  I wonder if clicking on that new marker in the XML might do something?

When I try it, it doesn't do anything.  Normally when you click on something in the XML Editor, it selects it on the canvas.  But because the new marker disappears after you make it, there's nothing to select.  But I would at least try it.

Or maybe you can determine whether the marker was actually created or not.  Make another new one, and look in the XML Editor, to see if there's a new one there?  If you don't see it in the XML, that means it's not being created.  So at least we can find out if the marker is being created.

[Reanoe]

Lot of homework 
I will do it, but it will take some time.
All the time I was making those markers by drawing Bezier curves, adding linear gradient to them and then Object to Marker.

[brynn]

Well, not so much really.  I guess you can't share the SVG file.  If you could, I could do the testing I suggested.  And others could look at other things which I might not understand.  So that would be the shortest route.

Since you've confirmed that the marker appears in the menu, in a new blank SVG file, that really points toward something about your wip file as the source of the problem.  Or if you were to see the same problem in a different file, which you are able to share, that would work as well, for a test file.

There is one potential solution that I've thought of, but it has at least one problem.  Possibly copying all the contents from the canvas, and pasting it into a new blank file MIGHT leave the problem behind in the old file.  However, if you have layers, that would dump all the contents into one layer.  Also, when I try pasting a path with a marker into another file, the gradient doesn't show up.  I only get the outline of the marker.

[flamingolady]

Reanoe, I would suggest making a copy of the svg file (with a new name), so now you have 2 of the same.  Pick one, then remove all of the design work that you don't want others to see and leave just the makers that have the issue, then attach that file here. 

[brynn]

Well, in this case, where the problem is suspected to be in that particular file (or at least that's what I'm thinking), I would be worried that removing some of the contents might remove whatever is causing the problem.  So that might not be ideal in this kind of situation.  But it's good idea for other things, like if someone is stuck with some particular technique

[flamingolady]

Well, I'm thinking it would at least drill down a bit...  And if it doesn't reproduce, then the correct marker could at a minimum be cut and pasted into the old file as a workaround until you figure it out.