Inkscape UI question: Missing tools on the side of the screen.

[Shilvahfang]

Hi All,

I am actually a pretty experienced user, but I took a couple years off and after reinstalling I'm lost.

My old UI used to have a whole list of tools on the right hand side of the screen: align and distribute, stroke, transform; all that stuff. But now it seems the new design doesnt have that. Any way to get it back?

Example: http://imgur.com/a/hO0zK

First image is my screen, second image is how I would like it to look.

Thanks! And sorry if this is a stupid question.

[Moini]

Uhm... they appear to be all there, according to your screenshot - only the order of snap controls and commands bar appears to be reversed, and the icons look different.

Align+distribute is the third icon from the bottom at the far right, fill + stroke is the seventh (from bottom), (transform was always only accessible via menu), etc.

Do you want to exchange the icon set?

[brynn]

Welcome to the forum!

It sounds like you're looking for docked dialogs, on the right side of the screen.  In your screenshot, the docking area appears to be open, but there just aren't any open dialogs.  Try opening some.  Like Object menu > Align and Distribute, or Object menu > Fill and Stroke.

I don't know if those dialogs will be docked with you first open them.  If they aren't docked, but are floating, they can be docked.  Once you open them, if they aren't docked, let us know and we can explain how to dock them.  Or read the manual info:    http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Anatomy.html#Anatomy-Dock

You might not want all the dialogs docked.  For example, some of them are quite large, and when they're docked, they take up a lot of the screen area.  So it's possible to have some docked and have others floating.

Not knowing how long you've been away from Inkscape, there may be some new window and dialog management tools, which you can find in Inkscape Preferences > Interface > Windows.  You can set to have them always open in the same place they were the last time, for example.  (Or you can set so that they don't.)