Unable to dock dialogue panels

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ScapeGoat
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:36 am

Unable to dock dialogue panels

Postby ScapeGoat » Tue Aug 27, 2013 3:48 am

I'm using inkscape 0.48 on Windows 7 and encountering a problem which seems to be common before 0.48. That is, the inkscape tool dialogue panels become undocked and can never be docked again. It's best explained at http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sourc ... bug/788256.

The solution is described as grabbing the gray bar beneath the panel's title bar and dragging it to the docking edge of the inkscape window. However, it doesn't seem to work for me. When I crag the panel to the right edge, an empty gray pane opens up along the right edge, but only momentarily. The moment I release the mouse button, the pane goes away, and the panel remains undocked. I tried changing the Windows theme from Aero to Windows 7 Basic and Windows Classic (just a blind guess), but that doesn't seem to change anything.

Has anyone found another coarse of action that solves this problem? I'm hoping that it doesn't involve upgrading, which is hard to do in my locked down environment.

Afternote: It appears that docking *sometimes* happens. I'm not sure of the exact circumstances which allow docking to happen, but one instance is when I had the Find dialogue open, I could dock the Transform (Object) dialogue. But it might also depend on what other dialogue windows I closed prior to this.

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ragstian
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Re: Unable to dock dialogue panels

Postby ragstian » Tue Aug 27, 2013 4:05 am

Hi.

Does this happen to all undocked panels?

I had problems docking my XML editor - See this; viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14109

What version of Inkscape?

I'm hoping that it doesn't involve upgrading, which is hard to do in my locked down environment.


Had the same problem upgrading but found a workaround, when getting new developer versions I unpack this to a temporary
directory and then copy the whole "Inkscape" folder to where inkscape is currently installed.
I have the new directory overwrite my old and replacing files and folders.
This was a new install takes less than 20 seconds on my system and I keep all my settings including extensions, palettes etc.

If you are worried about "damaging" your system this way you can make a copy of the current Inkscape install directory - if anything goes wrong then just delete your Inkscape directory and rename the copy.

RGDS
Ragnar
Good Luck!
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
RGDS
Ragnar

ScapeGoat
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:36 am

Re: Unable to dock dialogue panels

Postby ScapeGoat » Tue Aug 27, 2013 7:36 am

Good question -- no the docking problem does not affect all dialogue panels. It only affects the Transform (object) panel. I mistakenly thought it was a more pervasive problem because I couldn't dock myText and Font panel, but that panel doesn't have the characteristic gray bar underneath the title bar which indicates dockability. Same with the XML editor (and your thread confirms that it isn't meant to bel dockable).

About upgrading inkscape, the current install was done by an administrator. The organizational process to upgrade goes far beyond what one can expect on a home computer. I've resigned myself to this, and pretty well seek only solutions that do not require that. Once in a blue moon, a convulsive upgrade might be done, but there is an exobitant price tag (time and good will) associated with that.


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