Some time to grab a node handle I've had to maginify part of an image to to ~2000%. The more magnification the slow inkscape updates the drawing. I just wonderer why that is? Does it have to map out the whole drawing thing each time? Is this just under window vista? Just wondering.

I use gimp a bit. I noticed it has a clear history option which you can do every so often when gimo starts slowing down. Would this be useful in inkscape? I don't use that feature much in gimp. Gimp freezes periodically vista. Rather then wait for it to freeze, I save and restart the application periodically. But might be useful under linux or something

I don't know, but I would assume it slows down at 2000% zoom because it's working with extremely small numbers (which is much the same as working with extremely large numbers). I doubt clearing the history would make any difference.

It might also be useful to use Duplicate Window (View > Duplicate Window) and set the zoom to 2000 in one so you can easily switch between that and some other zoom - just switch between windows instead of changing zoom level all the time.

I find that on my windows machine the short cut keys (1,2,3,4,5,6) seem to work faster than icons on the tool bar, the marqee zoom, Ctrl + + or - or the Ctrl + mouse wheel.

All the zooming functions are bogged down when you have a complex drawing though and I couldn't be sure if my observations are accurate as different facrors come into play.

Short cut zoom keys in inkscape:

1 = zoom 1:1
2 = zoom 1:2
3 = zoom to selection
4 = zoom to drawing
5 = zoom to page
Ctrl+E or 6 = zoom to page width