Hi Friends,
I know the description in the topic title isn't clear, but I'll try to make it clear with more words

I have 4 objects selected with the Node tool, which are all stacked on top of each other in z order (2 are duplicates in shape but not fill, 2 others are not duplicates). After that, I select roughly half of all the nodes, using click-drag (selection box, rubberband select). Then I move them all using Alt + drag (node sculpting) on....the node that's easiest to drag, and closest to the appropriate place according to what I need. Then I'm finished with what I'm doing with those objects.

Still with the node tool, I click once on the top object, intending to deselect the selected/highlighted nodes, but leaving the 4 objects selected. Now I realize I should click on an empty area of canvas to do that. But meanwhile, something interesting happened. When I clicked on the top object, the 3 other objects were entirely deselected, leaving the top object selected, AND all the selected/highlighted nodes of the top object remained highlighted.

Is that what we should expect? It seems to me the highlighted nodes should be unhighlighted. But as we all know, the technical side of Inkscape remains mysterious to me

This is with Inkscape 0.48.1 stable on Windows 7, 64-bit. Probably not a bug, but it seems strange enough to me to ask about

Thanks for your help

brynn wrote:Probably not a bug, but it seems strange enough to me to ask about

You could as well say it is a feature of the multi-path editing mode of the node tool - depends on your expectations, I guess.

brynn wrote:This is with Inkscape 0.48.1 stable on Windows 7, 64-bit.

Any reason not to upgrade to the latest bug-fix release? As far as I know you don't use a tablet and would not be affected by the regressions some Windows users experience in 0.48.2 with pressure-sensitive tablets ;-)

brynn wrote:Then I'm finished with what I'm doing with those objects.

Still with the node tool, I click once on the top object, intending to deselect the selected/highlighted nodes, but leaving the 4 objects selected. Now I realize I should click on an empty area of canvas to do that.

Use Esc instead - it's faster and has the same effect: press <esc> once to deselect the nodes, press it again to deselect the selected paths (works in 0.48.1 as well as 0.48.2).

Aahhh....
Thank you very much ~suv

I haven't upgraded yet, because 0.48.2 came out so fast after 0.48.1. And also, I haven't learned about anything that affects how I use Inkscape, that's either newly available or fixed in the new version. And if 0.48.3 comes out as soon after 0.48.2, as 0.48.2 did after 0.48.1, then it won't be much longer, and I can upgrade directly to 0.48.3

Thanks again for looking into this