I'm trying to do the Can of Soup exercise in Bah's book. At the point where I am to delete one of the paths, it does nothing except shift the top sides of the elipse downward, rather than delete the top half.

What am I doing wrong?

Are you talking about Step 2.c.?
I think you're on the right path, pardon the pun
Just read on. The next step will get rid of the top half.

Unless you're somewhere else in the tutorial....if so, let me know exactly where you are.

That's exactly where I am and no it doesn't work... the problem manifests itself on 2 out of 4 machines... that's what so strange! All the machines are running XP SP3, same version of Inkscape, but some work, some don't.

rmmarsh wrote:At the point where I am to delete one of the paths, it does nothing except shift the top sides of the elipse downward, rather than delete the top half.

Are you sure that you converted the ellipse to a path (by using the 'Path > Object to Path' command)? Else you would be dragging the top handle to change the size of an ellipse (shape), not a node of a regular path. You can verify whether it is still an ellipse or a path by selecting it and reading the message in the status line ('Ellipse in layer Layer 1…' or 'Path (4 nodes) in layer Layer 1…').

Yeah, I've just performed the exact steps, and it works perfectly:

1. draw ellipse
2. Object to path
3. select top node and delete
4. select resulting segment
5. Delete segment between 2 non-endpoint nodes

Yep... works for me on this machine... I'll be in the office where it's not working on Thursday, and will post the results... it appears to have the elipse handles, but something ain't right.

Thanks for the help so far...

As I thought.. sill doesn't work! These are my steps and the outcome:

1. Create the ellipse and duplicate it
2. convert object to path on the top ellipse
3. delete the top node
4. select the left-most node, press shift and then select the right-most node
5. click on "delete segment between two non-endpoint nodes"

What happens next is the upper sides of the ellipse move down a hair, just enough so you can see the edge of the bottom ellipse.

What now?

rmmarsh wrote:What happens next is the upper sides of the ellipse move down a hair, just enough so you can see the edge of the bottom ellipse.

Did you use the same document on the different machines or create the tutorial on each one from scratch? I'd be interested if this happens with every ellipse you create (in a new document) or only those you use in the tutorial drawing.

And maybe you can attach one of the drawings with an ellipse converted to path that denies to be node-edited in half ;-) ? Or a new sample one with the curve in all three statuses:

• ellipse,
• ellipse converted to path,
• ellipse converted to path with top node deleted,
• ellipse converted to path with top node deleted and top segment deleted

rmmarsh wrote:What now?

Do you know how to reset Inkscape's preferences to default values? That would be my first step to figure out what is happening:

1. quit Inkscape
2. rename '%APPDATA%\Inkscape\preferences.xml' to keep a backup version
3. launch Inkscape and repeat the steps listed in your previous comment…

If this restores the expected node-editing then you could attache the preferences file here or upload it to a pastebin of your choice so we could try to figure out what setting was interfering.

Else I am stunned as well. All machines have the same version installed (check 'Help > About Inkscape…' and verify that all are Inkscape 0.47 r22853, and not some prerelease 0.47preX version)? Any other relevant differences (Language settings, Service Packs, User rights, … whatever)?

Did you use the same document on the different machines or create the tutorial on each one from scratch? I'd be interested if this happens with every ellipse you create (in a new document) or only those you use in the tutorial drawing.

On this particular machine, it happens on all ellipses... also happens on one other machine, same thing!

Do you know how to reset Inkscape's preferences to default values? That would be my first step to figure out what is happening:

1. quit Inkscape
2. rename '%APPDATA%\Inkscape\preferences.xml' to keep a backup version
3. launch Inkscape and repeat the steps listed in your previous comment…

There is NO 'preferences.xml' file on the machine.

Else I am stunned as well. All machines have the same version installed (check 'Help > About Inkscape…' and verify that all are Inkscape 0.47 r22853, and not some prerelease 0.47preX version)? Any other relevant differences (Language settings, Service Packs, User rights, … whatever)?

That's the first thing I thought of...different version, service pack, etc... it's the same on all machines. I think the preferences might hold the solution, but as I indicated, no preferences file.

And maybe you can attach one of the drawings with an ellipse converted to path that denies to be node-edited in half ? Or a new sample one with the curve in all three statuses:

* ellipse,
* ellipse converted to path,
* ellipse converted to path with top node deleted,
* ellipse converted to path with top node deleted and top segment deleted

I'll have to install some screen capture software on that machine... won't be able to do that until next Tuesday...

rmmarsh wrote:There is NO 'preferences.xml' file on the machine.

Somehow I really doubt that. But I'm not on win32 myself, so I can't help you find it...

Somehow I really doubt that. But I'm not on win32 myself, so I can't help you find it...

It's a hidden file! Found it and will let you know if it fixes the problem...

rmmarsh wrote:I'll have to install some screen capture software on that machine... won't be able to do that until next Tuesday...

I didn't mean a screencast - just attaching a SVG file with the four editing stages listed so one could compare if the created ellipses and paths are different (node types, number of nodes, path direction etc.) after each step of converting to paths and node-editing.

That was it! For some strange reason, the preferences.xml file is becoming corrupted... I will copy both files (the old and the newly created one) and attach them...

However, I don't see anyway to attach a file here... will it take clipboard data?

rmmarsh wrote:However, I don't see anyway to attach a file here... will it take clipboard data?

Maybe it is only available to registered members. And iirc it is possible that it didn't accept XML files last time I tried.

You could use a pastebin service like e.g. inkscape.pastebin.com to upload both files and just post a link to the pasties in your next comment.