Hi everyone,

I am a total Inkie newb. I do not know what I did or pressed, but my Inkscape does not want to draw circles anymore (draws a dotted rectangle instead). Any idea what I must do to return to "normal" mode in Inkscape and be able to draw shapes?

Thanks,
sithu.d

check the fill and stroke settings when you select the ellipse tool. I'm guessing you've got them set to either the same color as the background or "none." The dotted rectangle is the boundary box and lets you know there is in fact an ellipse under there somewhere.

llogg wrote:

sithu.d wrote:I do not know what I did or pressed, but my Inkscape does not want to draw circles anymore (draws a dotted rectangle instead). Any idea what I must do to return to "normal" mode in Inkscape and be able to draw shapes?

I'm guessing you've got them set to either the same color as the background or "none." The dotted rectangle is the boundary box and lets you know there is in fact an ellipse under there somewhere.

Often this happens because the global opacity was unintentionally set to '0' which affects all new objects which are drawn with 'Last style used' (all shapes except the spirals).

Check the opacity slider in the Fill&Stroke dialog (or in the status line): it has to be greater than zero to create visible objects.

sithu.d wrote: Any idea what I must do to return to "normal" mode in Inkscape and be able to draw shapes?

That's why whenever I install Inkscape, first thing I do is draw a rectangle, ellipse, and star on the canvas. Then with the rectangle selected, go to Inkscape preferences, shapes, rectangle and set the radio button to "This tools own style" , then click, "Take from selection". Do the same for ellipse and star, but make sure you select the same shape on the canvas and in the preferences.

Now you'll have a consistent color, stroke, opacity of these shapes every time you draw them, the same through every document you create in the future.