Arrow heads added to paths are always black. Setting fill or stroke color doesn't change their color. There doesn't seem to be a way to select the arrow head as a separate object. Editing the points on the path doesn't show any associated with the arrow head, there are only the points on the linear part of the path. Bug???

Setting the size of the arrow heads is also a pain. In some cases I have not been able to get the size I wanted and ended up drawing an arrow head, merging it with a skinny rectangle path, and making the arrow that way.

0.482r9819 on Windows.

mathog wrote:Arrow heads added to paths are always black. Setting fill or stroke color doesn't change their color. There doesn't seem to be a way to select the arrow head as a separate object. Editing the points on the path doesn't show any associated with the arrow head, there are only the points on the linear part of the path. Bug???

No, not one to blame Inkscape for: Markers in SVG are attributes of the stroke style, not objects by themselves [1]. Currently they cannot automatically inherit the color of the stroke because that's a limitation of the SVG 1.1 specification (this will change in SVG 2.0). Please see the FAQ "How do I change the color of markers (e.g. arrow ends)?" and the Inkscape manual section about markers for details.

mathog wrote:Setting the size of the arrow heads is also a pain. In some cases I have not been able to get the size I wanted and ended up drawing an arrow head, merging it with a skinny rectangle path, and making the arrow that way.

The size of the markers is relative to the stroke width (the wider the stroke, the larger the markers). If you have special needs not covered by the stock markers, you can define your own custom markers.

[1] Converting a stroke (with markers) to path will create separate objects, but those will no longer be 'attached' to the nodes of the former path.

~suv wrote:No, not one to blame Inkscape for: Markers in SVG are attributes of the stroke style, not objects by themselves [1]. Currently they cannot automatically inherit the color of the stroke because that's a limitation of the SVG 1.1 specification (this will change in SVG 2.0). Please see the FAQ "How do I change the color of markers (e.g. arrow ends)?" and the Inkscape manual section about markers for details.

Thanks. That section says:

By default, markers are black. You can change their color to match the color of the stroke of the object they are applied to by enabling an effect: Extensions > Modify Path > Color Markers to Match Stroke.

Which makes me wonder why this key setting is buried under an obscure menu path, rather than appearing as a simple check box in the expected place: the "stroke style" tab of the "fill and stroke" window, where every other marker related parameter is configured. There are a couple of other options that could/should be on that tab:

1. a button to put path nodes on the ends of every dash. Sometimes dashed lines need to be hand adjusted, currently the only way to do this is with another extension that breaks the dashes into separate objects. If this one was present then the other extension could be removed since "break path apart" would suffice.

2. A size adjustment (numeric, like for path width)) next to the marker windows, with matching generic markers (shape only, no size specified) in the pull down window. Assuming that SVG supports this and not just the current small,medium, and large.