Hi All,

I wanted to know before I report this, if this is a bug or a "feature" .. It really screwed me over that it acted like this, but maybe there is a good explanation for it .. ok here we go;

When you have various objects on different layers, and you group those objects, it puts them all on the same layer!! This is very undesired behaviour. I was drawing my cartoon, and needed to have everything moved up. I decided to use group so I could align the bottom of that area with an already placed object and figured that grouping it, all relative positions were kept the way they are. So I grouped, moved, ungrouped and all objects were on the same layer while they were on seperate ones.

This really screwed up my work because I work in different layers .. I have a frame layer (the cartoon frame), the shadow color layer, the base color layer, and background. This way I can manipulate objects without having to worry about the order. But I really would have liked to be warned that all my objects were promoted to a single layer, because I was not finished with my work, and all layers were left empty and basically rendered useless.

You can simply reproduce this (even in inkscape 0.48):

- Open a new drawing
- Add a new layer
- Put a square on the first layer
- Put a circle on the second layer
- Select all objects
- Group the objects
- Move them up or down a bit (prolly not even needed)
- Ungroup
- Voila all objects are on a single layer

So, is this a bug or not? It sure feels like undesired behaviour.

With regards,
- Jorgen

jorgen.bodde wrote:)…) is this a bug or not? It sure feels like undesired behaviour.

It is not a bug. Layers are groups as well [1], with a special label that tells Inkscape to handle them as layers. Since groups can't overlap, objects within a group must be in the same layer.

References:
Inkscape manual: Layers

Bug tracker:
Bug #171627 “objects in groups should remember their layer” (Invalid)
Bug #170286 “sets (named selections)” (Wishlist)


[1] The SVG 1.1 specification does not have a <layer> element.

Well ok if it is no bug, it can cause irreversable damage to people's work who are not aware of the "SVG standard" limitations. I would vote for a warning message box telling me that all my objects will be grouped to one layer. Like I said it really screwed me over not knowing this side effect..

With regards,
- Jorgen

I posted a feature request to Launchpad.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/622589

Like I said I will be more careful in the future, but selecting multiple objects on different layers can happen acidentally and usually one does not want those objects to jump from layer to layer, so a warning dialog looks like the best solution right now.

With regards,
- Jorgen

I've had that happen several times, very frustrating, and here's a decent work around that I use now to avoid grouping it all on one layer. Close off the layers of items that you don't want to edit or move (you may have to create a few more layers for this). So now on the screen are just the objects that you want to move or adjust, etc.
Go to Edit, then click on 'select all in layers' - but DON'T group it, at this point move your selected items to the desired place, adjust the size, or, you can Cut and Paste it to somewhere else. Once pasted to the desired area, click outside the object to deselect it.
hope this helps, it takes a little getting used to, but it does work.
dee

Hi,

Yes that is the work around and would have been my first action of choice. However I wanted the whole set aligned to another box, which I assume just selecting them all will move all objects and align to the top of the box, but if you group them they will stay relative towards eachother. However that nasy side effect was totally unexpected for me.

I filed a bug/feature asking of they could please warn before moving objects to a different layer so at least people not aware of this side effect will be warned.

And yes, I would also like a exclusive layer lock feature. Not sure if this is already built in, but usually I only work on one layer at the time all others should stay locked also to prevent accidental grouping.

With regards,
- Jorgen

I filed a bug/feature asking of they could please warn before moving objects to a different layer so at least people not aware of this side effect will be warned.

I like this idea! Plus if the message box supplying the warning also had a 'never show this again' option, it would be even more effective.

I don't know if it happens to everyone, but I was another victim. You know, if I had known how much of an effort it was going to take to learn Inkscape, I might not have ever tried But I have to say that I'm glad I did! Anyway, all it took was that one hard lesson, and now I know not to do it.

However, I can see how it might actually be a nice feature. And my example is ironically a cartoon. Let's say you have several characters. In the beginning, you might want to use layers to create each character. Then having finished, you group the whole character, so you can move it around on the canvas/frame, depending on what you need for that frame. I think what I would do, is before I do the grouping, duplicate the entire character, preserving all the layer details, and maybe even making all the layers into sublayers of a single layer. Then I would either hide them in that same document, or create a whole new document, just to hold my characters for future editing. I think it all depends on your own unique workflow, as to exactly how you do it. But it really just takes one disaster to learn the lesson.

Jorgen - great ideas! Brynn - good ideas as well. I've never even thought of using a sublayer.
hope they can work them all into the next release.
At least you'all learned the first time, I've done this slip up several times, cough cough, slow learner I guess!
dee