I'm having a hard time figuring out which objects are selected. I know selected objects have a box around them, but I do a lot of tiny work on big objects, so the box is often outside of my view. The XML editor isn't bad when only one object is selected, but it doesn't seem to indicate more than one object.

Do you know of any other ideas for knowing which objects are selected?

Thanks!

Welcome to InkscapeForum!

Yeah, there have been many, many, many requests for....I'm not sure what to call it, maybe an object manager, to make it easier to keep track objects and the z order within a layer. I'm not sure if it's on the development plan yet or not, though?

One way I keep track of what's selected, is to keep an eye on the Fill and Stroke indications in the bottom left corner of the Inkscape window. So you know, using Alt + click, click, click, down through the z order, so usually every object is different enough to identify it by the fill and/or stroke. But it still gets so confusing sometimes to have to remember everything that's there!! It would be SO very helpful to have some visual, textual (if that's a word ) display of that, even if it would just be a list of object numbers.

You could even temporarily give objects certain colors, to help with selection, if possible. But the other thing that's really the most helpful, I think, is to keep an eye on the status/info area at the bottom of the window in the middle. So it would say for example "Path (n nodes) in Layer x" or "Ellipse in Layer x". It reports what's happening almost at every click you make.

And one more trick that I've used, is the Tab key. With the Selection tool, click any blank space on the canvas, then after that, every time you press the Tab key, it selects the next object. So you can cycle through all the objects, one at a time. I don't know exactly how they are ordered. I would guess that it's the order in which they are created. I think it's really not very helpful, if you have 10s or 100s of objects. But in your case, like if you just have a few objects, it might be the best option?

I hope one of those will work for you. And if not, maybe other members will have some ideas.
All best

Thanks for the welcome! I have a feeling I'll like it here.

An object manager, like in Illustrator, would be super nice. I hope that happens!

Those ideas are useful, though, they don't really solve the problem with multiple objects. The tab trick is also quite good, although I'm not sure why sometimes it sends my view careening around the canvas.

It sends your view careening because when it selects an object, it centers the object on the screen and also zooms to fit. But if your objects are huge, it sounds like the zoom gets maxed out (or in this case minimized out) before the object can fit in the window. So you never actually see the object in full, or the selection indicators.

Why doesn't watching the fill/stroke info, or status bar solve your problem? I think I must not clearly understand your situation.

Well, if you select one blue object, and one red object, it tells you "fill:different" and "2 objects selected in layer Layer1." Great, but what if there's also a green object? Have you selected red and blue, red and green, or blue and green?

And some of my layers have large objects that are the same fill and stroke, too...

If you have 2 objects selected, it can't tell you the fill, because there are 2 fills for 2 objects. That's why it says "different". In this case, you know that you have 2 objects selected instead of one. So already you know something's wrong. Unless you are trying to select 2 objects? In that case, you just have to use all the clues you can. Sometimes I even use the Node tool to do the selecting, because I can tell by the nodes which ones I've got.

I'm not making excuses for this. I know it's a difficult thing to do, in a complex image with many, many objects involved. And I do hope that some kind of object manager is in the works. But I don't really know for sure, only that it's been requested many times.

Other tricks I've used -- the aforementioned Node tool, also I sometimes will raise an object to the top of the z order, to make it easier to select. Then when I've done whatever I needed to do, I move it back down to wherever it belongs. Sometimes I put things in separate layers, so I can hide the layers and select difficult things below. Oh, and like using Node tool, I sometimes use the Gradient tool, if whatever I'm trying to select has a gradient. So those things help too, but I still think the status bar and fill/stroke info are the best.

Oh, and you know about the so-called "rubberband" selection, or dragging a selection box. If the objects are positioned in such a way, sometimes I find that's a better option. And unfortunately, sometimes it just comes down to trial and error. You do whatever you need to do, and hope it's right. If it's not, the just try again.

I wish I had better info to offer