I've been using CorelDraw in the past to make simple maps of railway companies' lines and I now want to do the same in Inkscape but I've come up against a problem and would be grateful for any hnelp.

Since this is a map or diagram, I'm working with lines (strokes, with a width and colour) rather than with objects. In CorelDraw I can draw my route-lines in any order I want and then arrange which is on top of which, but I don't seem able to do this in Inkscape without converting the stroke to a path, which then makes it hugely more difficult to work with. Am I missing something? Is there an equivalent to the CorelDraw Arrange/Order command? (I know there is for Objects, but this does not seem to work just for Strokes.)

Imagine that two lines cross each other at right-angles and are joined by a curve in one quadrant, say north to east, all three in different colours. What I want to be able to do is shew one line crossing above the other and the curve running into them so that it merges gently. It seems to me at the moment that the only way I can do this in Inkscape is if I know exactly how my finished map is to look before I start drawing, so that I can enter all the lines in the right order for Inkscape. What I want to be able to do is enter the lines in any order and then arrange them (and allow for afterthoughts and changes in my work!). Is this possible?

Objects/raise|lower ... ?

I would make each "stroke" (open path) an object; then their scale, position, rotation and z-order can be manipulated. They do not need to be "converted to paths" (closed paths).

To convert an object with multiple paths (compound path) to separate objects, select and Shift+Ctrl+K (Menu: Path>Break Apart).


(right click on the above svg to download)

http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Paths.html
http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL ... Paths-Misc

Thank you very much -- I think I've got that now. (I had tried reading the Manual and hadn't managed to make sense of this particular point.)