I am an old GM, but new to using Inkscape (IS) as a mapping tool. I'm familiar with vector graphics programs in general.

My question is this. I'm beginning to draw a largish village (1,000 people, a couple of hundred buildings). I'm doing a learning-IS-on-the-fly and creating this village as my players starting base. It will initially be artistically crude, but hopefully I can improve it as my IS skills improve. My thought is to create a set of template objects for buildings that can be cloned and placed. These objects (and the clones in my maps) can then be improved as I go, with the changes to the originals cascading to the clones as I make them prettier. But here's the thing - I'm staring with basic filled outlines and I want each building to have a number in it to link it to a gazetteer. I'm not sure how to build this in IS so that the default number (say 0000) is cloned with the building, but ready to be altered when the clone is placed (hopefully in an automated way, but I'm OK with manual). I want the building symbol to be on its own layer and the number on a separate layer. Is this possible in IS? I can't find anything like it, but I may very well be missing the implications in some of the toolsets. I've tried building the symbol and putting a text object in it and grouping them, but this acts funny when layers are made invisible. Any IS gurus done this kind of thing?

Thanks Very Much In Advance,

Mmmh. If you clone it, you can't edit the number. If you unlink the clone, you won't be able to have changes on the originals propagate to the clones.

I'd also go with grouping. The building as a clone, the number grouped with the clone. If the number is text, you can easily select all of them (to change color, font-size,...) by right-clicking on one, then doing 'select same'.

What is the funny thing that happens for you?

Yes, we need some details about the funny behavior. Your Inkscape version and operating system might help too.

I remember someone else asked about something similar to this, a little while ago. Unfortunately I don't remember enough to be able to search out the message. As best as I can remember, he just wanted to have a number automatically increment, but there weren't any clones involved. I think he found a solution with javascript, but my memory is fairly vague.

Yes, it's possible to have the building symbols on one layer, and the text on another. But if you want to group the symbol with the number, the group will be on one layer or another. You can't have a group and still have the objects on different layers.

brynn wrote:I remember someone else asked about something similar to this, a little while ago.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=18387&p=68987

Wow! I'm not sure if that's the same one as I was thinking of, but it could be. But either way, it still might be helpful.

Depending on the operations the op wants to do, using FIND with tags in the object properties might be an option... because as mentioned above, grouping across layers is problematic.

OK. It must be the cross-layer grouping, since the "funny" behavior" is items being visible/invisible when the layer of the other part of the group is visible/invisible. OS is LINUX 3.1.6 on KDE 4.14.2, IS version 0.48.5 r10040. I guess I'll work around this. Thanks!