Changing width of multiple objects without affecting style

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smellycabbage
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Joined: Wed Apr 17, 2013 9:57 pm

Changing width of multiple objects without affecting style

Postby smellycabbage » Wed Apr 17, 2013 10:09 pm

Hello my first post here, and born slightly out of frustration with one part of an other wise excellent package. I use Inkscape for tracing archaeological drawings and have hit a really annoying feature which I can't seem to find a work around for.

I often want to resize the widths of multiple lines/ objects with different stroke dash styles, however when I do this Inkscape always resets the dash style to the current default, loosing all the information. I can't seem to find a way to stop it doing this and after a search on the web seem to have found no-one else who has encountered this issue. It doesn't seem to affect any other stroke attributes. So for example I draw two lines, and change the dashes for one in the fill and stroke dialogue to dot dash, keeping the other one as a continuous line. I then select both and change the width in the stroke style and either one or the other will default so they both have the same dash style. This happens even if you click the drop down next to the 'width' drop down (the one to select px, % etc).

This behaves more like a bug (perhaps attributes are being overwritten) but I wanted to check whether there was a workaround or whether I'm just being stupid!

Thanks for any help.

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ragstian
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Location: Stavanger-Norway

Re: Changing width of multiple objects without affecting sty

Postby ragstian » Wed Apr 17, 2013 11:16 pm

Hi.

This one had me puzzled for a while - Inkscape works as you have experienced if you use the fill and stroke menu.
By experimenting a little I figured this will work;

Select the objects - then right click on the Stroke width indicator in the lower left corner:

Image
dropbox.com/s/f3h81xzjoi7qbm6/Set_Width.png

Then select the width from the pop up menu;

Image

Easy when you know how?

Good Luck

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

smellycabbage
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Apr 17, 2013 9:57 pm

Re: Changing width of multiple objects without affecting sty

Postby smellycabbage » Wed Apr 17, 2013 11:37 pm

Ah thanks that's almost a complete fix. I didn't even realise clicking on that had any effect at all. :-)

It would be nice to have a flexible line thickness rather than set ones, but I suppose something is better than nothing. Do you think I should report the issue with the line width in the fill and stroke menu as a bug? (if it hasn't been already). It surely can't be intended to work like that?

smellycabbage
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Apr 17, 2013 9:57 pm

Re: Changing width of multiple objects without affecting sty

Postby smellycabbage » Thu Apr 18, 2013 12:17 am

Ah just noticed the behaviour of the width button down the bottom is different from that in the Stroke Style box. This one fattens the line but doesn't extend the gaps in say a dot dash line whereas the one in the Stroke Style box changes this. Also the line when examined in the Stroke Style box after changing it down there is recorded as a solid line, which is very odd! :?

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druban
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Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 10:48 pm

Re: Changing width of multiple objects without affecting sty

Postby druban » Thu Apr 18, 2013 2:12 am

]
Last edited by druban on Wed May 29, 2013 7:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Your mind is what you think it is.

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ragstian
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Location: Stavanger-Norway

Re: Changing width of multiple objects without affecting sty

Postby ragstian » Thu Apr 18, 2013 2:24 am

Hi druban

Off topic:
Ragnar, did you know that in the dev builds you can now use 'drag gestures' to adjust stroke width in a continuous way (not confined to the preset widths in the popup... Enjoy!


Wow! This seems a little "erratic" to me - can you enlighten me on how to use?

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

smellycabbage
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Apr 17, 2013 9:57 pm

Re: Changing width of multiple objects without affecting sty

Postby smellycabbage » Thu Apr 18, 2013 6:51 pm

Looks like some of this has already been reported as a bug, with a low priority of fixing, looks like I could be waiting a while to get see this one fixed, oh well :) . I'm slightly surprised this doesn't come up more often as I would have thought more technical drawings would have needed these to work quite a lot (perhaps everyone just uses CAD and it is just me!).

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ragstian
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Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2012 2:44 am
Location: Stavanger-Norway

Re: Changing width of multiple objects without affecting sty

Postby ragstian » Thu Apr 18, 2013 10:47 pm

Hi smellycabbage

Did you see the solution in my post? If it ain't broken it does not need fixing!

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

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druban
Posts: 1917
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 10:48 pm

Re: Changing width of multiple objects without affecting sty

Postby druban » Fri Apr 19, 2013 3:40 am

]
Last edited by druban on Wed May 29, 2013 7:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Your mind is what you think it is.

smellycabbage
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Apr 17, 2013 9:57 pm

Re: Changing width of multiple objects without affecting sty

Postby smellycabbage » Sat May 04, 2013 2:09 am

ragstian wrote:Hi smellycabbage

Did you see the solution in my post? If it ain't broken it does not need fixing!

RGDS
Ragnar


Hi sorry for the delay in getting replying, been out of touch for a bit. Yep thank you I did see the post and used it, and what you suggested sort of works but it does also effect the way the line looks, widening the line but also effecting the way broken lines look. It isn't a problem on a solid line, but if the line style is something like dashes or dot dashes then the line looks really quite squashed if you do anything more than slightly thicken it. Try making a dot dash line and changing the width using the fill and stroke box and then try using your method. The results are quite different (I would post an example but works security won't let me). :)


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