Hi Friends,
This may not actually be the best place to post this, and if not, mods please feel free to move it. I have an interest in tesselations, and have been working on a piece, mainly for practice with basic Inkscape features, colors and colorcodes. And I've come across a few issues which seem to be....inherent, so to speak, so I thought I'd offer some discussion.

On the positive side, I must say that I find it extremely EASY to create a new custom palette in the GIMP, and then Share it to Inkscape. The various Guides and tutorials I looked at regarding custom palettes are right on, and I was able to follow them without any problems. And palettes could NOT be easier to use, right there below the canvas. All one needs to do to use a palette, literally, is select the object one wants to color, and then click on the color in the palette

I guess I should qualify those comments somewhat, by saying that I'm working strictly with flat color, in this case. And that it seems to me detailed color manipulation, beyond the colorcode, seems to be better accomplished using the Fill and Stroke dialog. Although a question did occur to me (and here, please keep in mind I know little to nothing about programming or coding)(and precious little more about graphics, lol!). Looking towards the day when one will be able to create custom palettes using Inkscape alone, would it be remotely possible to use a non-flat color as a single entry in a palette. Like for example, if one expected to use the exact same gradient many times in an image, or in many images, could a gradient be named as a unique color entry in a palette? Or could one define a color with an alpha value, as a unique color entry in a palette?

Ok, getting back to reality, lol, I've run into a couple of stumbling blocks. In the Inkscape palette, when one mouses over a color, what I think might technically be called a Tool Tip, although I'm not certain at all about that. Anyway, the colorcode pops up in a tiny little box (not like a real window). In the particular project I'm working on, I find that to be quite helpful. Except for 1 thing -- the colorcode, in its tiny little box, is displayed exactly beneath the mouse pointer, so that it's all but impossible to read it. So I would NOT like the popping up of the colorcode to be discontinued, but I would like to see it pop up ANYWHERE except under the mouse pointer!

Actually these last few issues might have solutions. It's possible I'm not using certain features correctly. Oh, and these are not so much palette issues, as just color issues in general. Normally after selecting an object, one can mouse over the Fill, Stroke, and Opacity area in the extreme bottom-left corner of the window, where the color of the selected object is displayed, and the colorcode pops up. But after grouping several objects (select several objects, click Object menu > Group; or the Group button in the taskbar), the color of the objects disappear from the Fill, Stroke, and Opacity area in the bottom-left corner, and mousing over produces no code, even though the objects are still selected (as one). And if one opens the Fill and Stroke dialog, the dialog is blank and the ? button is selected. I can understand why this might happen if the selected objects were different colors -- that makes sense. But in my case, the objects are all the exact same color, and they stay the same color after they are grouped. So it seems the color should still be displayed, the colorcode should still pop up, and as well, the F&S dialog should display the colors. I've found I can work around this, by re-coloring the objects as a group, but that is just extra work, which seems to me should not be necessary. Another annoyance, is if the Fill and Stroke dialog is open, but minimized, it covers this bottom-left corner area entirely, where even if a color is being displayed it can't be seen. Of course, one could just Restore the dialog. But glancing into the corner, and/or mousing over, is so much easier!

So I'm just wondering if these few issues could potentially be fixed? If you need screenshots, just let me know, I'll be glad to oblige And also note that a couple of these might be related to my 800 X 600 screen resolution. Unfortunately, I have some visual deficits and simply can't see the screen very well in the higher resolutions. But surely I'm not the only Inkscape user with visual issues?

Ok then, I guess I'll leave it there for now. I'd be interested to hear any comments, questions, or advice from other members about these issues. And if there are actually solutions to any of them, please do let me know.

Thanks for listening

Are you using Linux? I don't suffer the same issues with the tooltips and the minimisation of the F&S window in Windows Vista. For reference in 0.46 the F&S dialog is docked which will avoid that problem.

I believe the desire to have both flats and gradients stored in the swatch is recognise by the developers. But someone needs to code it.

You can't see the fill and stroke for a group because groups do not have colour. They are mearly a container. Showing colour would create confusion over exactly what you had selected. Having said that, if you want to see the colour of an object in a group, double-click on the group. This allows you to "enter" the group and select the objects indipendantly. You can exit out of group by pressing Ctrl+Backspace (I think) or by selecting a different object.

If you want to ensure you're issues with tooltips and minimised windows placement are addressed, you will want to take it up with the developers on the mailing list.

No, I'm using XP Home.

Cool! Dockable would definitely solve that problem.

You can't see the fill and stroke for a group because groups do not have colour. They are mearly a container.

But one can change the fill and stroke of a Group of objects. Well, only for all the objects together, as one, I guess. Hhhhmm....looks like I need to read up on Groups a little more than I have already.

When you say

take it up with the developers on the mailing list

which mailing list do you mean? There are several, and I'm not sure which one would be best. You're not talking about the Feature Request Tracker, are you, in this case?

Thanks for your help microUgly

brynn wrote:But one can change the fill and stroke of a Group of objects.

Yeah, I don't neccessarily agree with that behaviour because it's conflicting. In that situation Inkscape is treating groups the same as a multiple selection - I think the difference should be better distinguished. But that's just my opinion.

which mailing list do you mean? There are several, and I'm not sure which one would be best. You're not talking about the Feature Request Tracker, are you, in this case?

The Feature Request Tracker is an appropriate place to request new features. Bugs can be reported on the Bug Tracker. But if you want to communicate with the develoepers, the inkscape-devel mailing list is the place to do it.