Hi,

Could someone advise me how to do the following:

I want to be able to use a unique shape and for it to become a sort of paint brush, as in every time i click it will 'paint' this shape I have created wherever I click.

I also would like to know if its possible to do the following: once I have this unique shape, could I somehow just draw a line and the program will display my unique shape at gaps of 5mm along the length of the 'line' instead of an actual line.

Cheers,

Chris

the Manual is simply magnificent, wouldn`t you say?

For your first request, I think you might be looking for the Spray tool http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Spray.html.

There's also another way to do that (before Inkscape had a spray tool), but I can't remember how. I think it's called "stamping", and iirc, pressing the Space key will stamp a copy of the object. But I don't remember how to get there. Let me check the manual.... Hhmm....not in the index under "stamp"... Hhmmm....

Ah-HA! I was half right. It's called "dropping". Just drag the object, and while you drag, press the Space bar, and it will "drop" a copy wherever you press the Space bar. I just tried it. Seems a bit clunky to me, but it does work. I'm not sure how precise you could be with it, though.

For the 2nd, it sounds like you might want to try Markers.

-- Draw your shape
-- Object menu > Object to Marker
-- Draw the path
-- Place a node in every place where you want the shape to appear
-- Object menu > Fill and Stroke > Stroke style tab > Marker (near the middle -- set beginning, middle and end marker -- your custom marker will be showing in the dropdown markers menus)

However, note that markers can only be 1 color. If the object you want to use will have more than 1 color, this won't work. If that's the case, then try Pattern Along Path. There are both an extension and an LPE (the link that Maestral gave). Imo, the LPE works much better than the extension.