I switched to Inkscape Trunk and enabled "Use legacy Gradient Editor" in interface preferences. Yet nothing appears as I double-click on gradient stops. Is it broken or is there another way to access it?

Can you please explain a little more precisely what you are doing?
for example...are you double clicking a gradient stop node on the canvas, while the gradient tool is active?
Or is the gradient tool not appearing in the toolbar along the left side of your Inkscape window?

I followed the link you gave for Inkscape Trunk. It says that the devs don't offer support for it. And if the devs don't offer support, we, as a user community, certainly don't. But the link also says that you might find support on the IRC channel

To use the 'legacy gradient editor' you must have the preference box checked, as you do, and then, with the object selected, in the fill and stroke dialog, click the 'edit' buton or icon. This is afaik the only way to get the LGE to pop up.
May I ask why you want to use the LGE? The new redesign of the gradient tool has all the functionality and more of that dialog, and does not cost you screen space... and time...

Interesting... I found this topic while searching the web for the answer to the question "Am I simply too stupid to use that new gradient editor?"

druban wrote:May I ask why you want to use the LGE? The new redesign of the gradient tool has all the functionality and more of that dialog, and does not cost you screen space... and time...

I'm still using the stable version and have only been fiddling a little bit with the dev release yet (don't usually need bleeding edge features and stable runs smoother/faster). But so far I can't say I'm really happy with the new way of editing gradients/swatches. Sure, being able to rename them without having to use the XML editor is a lot more convenient. I've been using the auto-palette ever since I stumbled over that feature, mostly because it made quickly changing colors a breeze, without actually having to have selected an object with the swatch/gradient applied, mind you.

Now one might wonder why it's sooo bad to select an object to change its colors. Well, I'm working with a more or less great number of (nested) layers, where usually only one is unlocked at a time, in order to avoid accidentally picking or creating new objects on the wrong layer (which does actually happen more frequently the more complex an image gets, sometimes due to performance problems). Also I tend to adjust and experiment with colors quite often along the way towards completion of an image. Now, with the new way I'd have to find the layer that contains an object with the swatch that I want to edit, unlock it if necessary, pick the object, edit the swatch and lock the layer(s) again. Another thing, editing swatches via the updated stroke/fill dialog on the right feels kind of awkward when you're trying to simply rename or remove a swatch that's not bound to the currently selected object, because clicking the swatch with either mouse button assigns it to the object. Hrmpf.. Personally, I hardly ever used the gradient tool, since moving gradient-handles is also possible with the node tool, which I'm using all the time anyway, and adding/changing gradient stops worked fine in the old grad editor. This, again, could be done without the need to have an object selected.

Maybe it's just me seeing this as a problem or a step backwards or whatever.. or maybe I'm just missing something important here. But right now this new thing just doesn't feel right for me :/

I think I have found the answer to the question 'am I too dumb to use the legacy gradient editor' (yes). Because i can't understand at all how you are editing - or even accessing the gradients without an object selected. In my stable version if no object is selected then the fill and stroke dialog options are all grayed out.
What are the steps you take to bring up the gradient editor without an object selected?

Hehe.. I don't think you're too stupid to understand, more like I'm too crazy to work like everybody else does ;D And maybe I should have added a few more details. For most pics I'm using my own custom template. In this template I already have a couple of "standard swatches" (accessible via the auto-palette) for things that I need in pretty much any of my pics anyway (line-work, highlight, shadow colors, etc). All additional colors I need are created via simply duplicating existing ones in the xml editor as soon as I can tell what I'm gonna need. This means that very early in progress I have a palette of pretty much the same colors, which I then use on objects and adjust later on.

Now I admit that up to here is a very.. erm.. special way of handling things. But it's working. After that I can simply right-click on any of those swatches, select "edit", which then brings up the gradient editor in which I can edit all important aspects of it (color, opacity values for stops, add/remove stops). In the new version right-click->edit on the auto-palette did nothing for me unless I had an object selected. Well, like I said, it's probably just me doing such funny things. But I like the concept of having a set number of base colors/gradients (namely the auto-palette) from which all actual gradients in the image "inherit" and that can be edited any time, with effects being visible immediately and without having to care which object might actually have these applied.

Was that more understandable?

stood
_____
totally .

FYI it's still broken in the most recent dev version. As in when you choose edit from the drop down swatches menu, nothing happens. The LGE is the only way to edit a swatch, but picing a swatch fill with a gradient seems not to work very well anyway in these versions, as in the gradient handles have to be jogged for it to draw properly.
thx 4 the explanation!

And thank you for the info.
I haven't had problems with gradients as swatches. Like I said, I'm simply copying one swatch via "source-code" and then add stops when I need them. When assigning a gradient swatch to an object the gradient handles are in a default position, which is if I'm not mistaken the top left and right corners of the path's bounding box. Start and end stops can be adjusted for each path individually, while stops in between will change for every object that uses this specific swatch. Usually I'm not using more than start/end stops anyway so that's not a problem for me. But like I said, I just love being able to adjust colors later on without much hassle, no matter if I'm just replacing a single color or want to spice up gradients. Especially the latter can become really tedious when there are dozens and dozens of gradients to adjust, e.g. to boost the pic's overall saturation or shift colors or whatever. Reusing existing grads definitely has its advantages :)

If you're interested, here's a snapshot of one of my typical setups (layers, palette...)

druban wrote:FYI it's still broken in the most recent dev version.

You meant it's a total mess (for now).

I don't like the auto(random) clean (I'd have preferred a manual one.)