I have looked at the threads and either I cannot make the suggestions work or I cannot find them.

First of all, the programme made circles without any problems for a good few days while I was playing with it, but now it only produces rectangles.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled twice and the problem persists. I have installed from both the command line and from the Ubuntu Software Centre and the result is exactly the same.

It was first suggested that I click the "whole circle" icon, but that is greyed out, as are all of the three icons shown.

Another suggestion was that I change the angles to 360º, but I cannot find any such option.

I should imagine this is something simple, and obvious (due to the fact there are not loads of posts) that I have done, but for the life of me, I cannot find a way to correct it, let alone a reason for it starting to happen.

Cheers

Frank Sirett

It would be useful if you could post a screenshot of Inkscape just after you've drawn an ellipse/rectangle (with the Ellipse tool still active). Uploading an SVG file would also help. I suspect it's a simple misunderstanding (perhaps you've made the ellipse transparent, and the "rectangle" is actually the selection box), but it's better to have some evidence to work with rather than speculating too much.

Now I feel like an idiot...not surprisingly I remember Spike Milligan's contribution to the subject. I put a stroke on the ellipse and there it was! I should have thought of that, but I did not. What a DOLT!

If I remember the Milligan poem correctly:

Happy little idiot,
Happy little man.
Wish I were an idiot,
My God! I think I am!

Thanks for your help, sorry for wasting your time.

Frank Sirett

fsirett wrote:Thanks for your help, sorry for wasting your time.

Believe me, we've all made a similar mistake when first using a vector graphics program. Inkscape has so many ways to make your object invisible that even a seasoned used can sometimes be left scratching their heads as to where an object has gone, or why it doesn't look the way they think it should.

So no need to apologise, if you've learnt something that will help you progress with the program then our time hasn't been wasted. It's what we're here for

You would be surprised at the breadth and depth of my lack of observance. I have yet to ask fir help bringing a device back to like that is unplugged, but I have found programmes that do not work because I downloaded a Windows version for my Linux machine, however that is a secret that nobody knows. There is no bottom to my well of foolishness when it comes to the digital arts. Some say digital arts are just one lagoon in a rather large lake.

In any case, I really appreciate your time and trouble and will try to be less doltish in the future.

Cheers

Frank Sirett

This is one of the very most common questions we hear. Generally it traces back to transparency somewhere, but there are several ways it might have happened. So rather than write out all the possibilities every time, I wrote a tutorial to help newbies find the source of the problem.

What To Do When A Tool Stops Working (or Tools are Drawing Invisible Objects)

That has now been downloaded and bookmarked.

Yours in humiliation,