I can't even make a box

mgh · Postby **mgh** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 4:13 am

OK. This is not my first time using a piece of software, but...I cannot even make a square! I click and drag, and get a dashed line showing the square I have made, but when I click, it vanishes. I cannot make the square stay, fill it, do anything. Same thing if I try to make a circle, and shape at all.

So what is it I am missing? :oops:

I have looked at the manual, even tried one of the quick-start exercises (Swedish Flag), and I can get my rectangles to snap to the grid, but they will not stay.

Postby **prkos** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 5:16 am

It might be that the opacity of the object is set to 0. Can you take a screenshot of the whole window and show it here?

Postby **brynn** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 6:46 am

Are you using a tablet?

Could you be drawing on a hidden layer, or transparent layer?

Did you by chance install the zipped version?

PatJr · Postby **PatJr** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 7:22 am

what OS ?
some times when I am trying to figure out WFT is going on I make a new user on my system and login as that.
You get a whole fresh base to start from without losing your original home directory

Pat Jr.

mgh · Postby **mgh** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 8:50 am

Thanks for the replies.

I am not sure about the layers or opacity. I am running BodhiLinux, and installed Office-Light, which included inkscape.
Here is a screenshot. This is from left-click and drag. When I release the mouse button the box stays as you see it displayed. When I click a color, it does nothing. When I try to click to select, or anything else, and it disappears. Again, this happens for any shape I try to use.

Thanks for the help!

Postby **prkos** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 9:51 am

It seems to be the transparency/opacity issue. When the object is selected its fill and stroke colors are shown in the bottom left corner. The screenshot shows the red color for fill but with a checkerboard pattern, which means it's not fully opaque, or it's even fully transparent.

The top right corner of the window shows which style will be applied to the object you create next, and it shares the same style, that's why all your objects seem invisible.

To fix it open the Fill and Stroke dialogue and move the A (alpha) slider to the right to increase fill opacity. The object has to be selected of course.

To select a transparent object you can switch to the Outline view where only object outlines are shown (View > Display mode > Outline.)

As you may have noticed you can change entire object opacity with the Opacity option, or just the fill or stroke part with the A slider.

mgh · Postby **mgh** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 12:44 pm

I have checked the opacity, and have it set at 100%. In the screenshot you will see I selected view outline, and that helped a lot, at least I can see the 2 boxes I created, and I can select them, but still have not been able to fill them.

Thanks for the help.

Postby **brynn** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 2:02 pm

There are 2 ways to make things transparent (actually maybe 3, if you count layers). The one you have at 100% is for the object. Look in the Fill and Stroke dialog. There are 4 bars of color, with a number value on the right side of each one. The "A" slider bar controls opacity for the color. That's the one that's on zero. It should be all the way to the right, and read 255.

So while the object is opaque, the fill color is transparent, and that's what you can change with the "A" slider.

mgh · Postby **mgh** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 1:02 am

I got it!!

Thanks for your patience. I had to open a new document after making the changes to the 'A' slider, but now I can see everything.

Thanks so much for the help.

This is a read-only archive of the inkscapeforum.com site. You can search for info here or post new questions and comments at inkscape.org/forums

This is a read-only archive of the inkscapeforum.com site. This feature is no longer available.

InkscapeForum.com

I can't even make a box

I can't even make a box

Re: I can't even make a box

Re: I can't even make a box

Re: I can't even make a box

Re: I can't even make a box

Re: I can't even make a box

Re: I can't even make a box

Re: I can't even make a box

Re: I can't even make a box

Who is online