In this very crude drawing,


the ends of the lightning bolt look blunt, not sharp. The lightning bolt is a path, 10 pixels wide, which is easier to see here:


The lightning bolt looks sharp if I set it to just 1 pixel (or 0.5 pixel) wide - but then you can barely see it's outline.

GOAL: to have a lightning bolt with a 10 pixel green outline and black fill that has sharp points on the ends of the lightning bolt.

QUESTION: What is the best way to accomplish this goal?

It occurred to me that one way to get the appearance of a (1) a fat outside border and (2) sharp ends, to make two lighting bolt objects (one solid green and one solid black which is slightly smaller) then layer the black bolt over the green bolt. However, it seems that a cleaner design would be one that relies on a single object instead of creating two. I hope that there is some way to change the path properties of the existing lightning bolt sot that it has a 10px border *and* sharp ends.

I'd maybe use a clipping object.... fatten up the stroke and duplicate the bolt, delete the stoke on the duplicate and use it to clip.

If you want to get fancy, you can use grouped clones for the bolt and clip.

Edit:
see next post by Xav!

Talk of multiple objects, clones and clipping is just overkill for this, if you ask me. You just need to sort out your paths and stroke style...

1) Double click the path to enter node edit mode.
2) Select all the nodes (Ctrl-A)
3) Click the "Make selected segments lines" button in the toolbar to ensure that all your corners have a nice, tight angle to them.
4) Open the Fill & Stroke dialog and select the Stroke Style tab.
5) Ensure that the join type is set to "Mitre join".
6) If you still have some non-sharp corners, increase the Mitre Limit value until they all become sharp.

Yes, that is WAY better!

I totally overlooked that feature.