is there any setting in inkscape to prevent the arrow keys (and page up/down) from ever moving the sliders in the fill/stroke panel?

the problem is... i use the keyboard to move one object somewhere i can get a good look at it, then tweak the colors exactly how i like them, then try to move it back again with arrow keys (or page up/down to re-order layers) and keep accidentally losing my color settings. it's really annoying.

i know i can click back on the object again to change focus from the sliders back to said path, but often i end up selecting something else by accident, especially when making heavy use of overlaid blur/opacity.

thanks in advance.

Welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately, this is just the way that Inkscape works There are some tricks that I've found to deal with this, and probably others will share their tricks as well. I actually submited a new feature request -- Re-Select the last thing that was selected (bug #695940). And there are some other ideas about it too, which you can find linked to that page. Especially I like the "selection history" idea!

But anyway, some of the tricks
My favorite is the Q key. While the pointer is on the canvas, pressing the Q key will automatically zoom to fit selection in window. As long as you hold Q, the zoom will remain, and when you release it, it goes back to the previous zoom. It's fabulous! And if you press the Q, and while holding it, move the pointer off the canvas (like over the toolbar) you can release the Q key, and it stays zoomed. (because sometimes I find it clumsy to hold the Q key and still remember whatever I'm doing) Then put the pointer back over the canvas, tap Q again, and it zooms back out to where it started. This makes it easier to select the small things quickly!

However, the Q key doesn't help if you're selecting something underneath something (or some-thingS) else. In this case, you might be able to make use of Layers. Although I understand that using layers just involves more intermediate clicking to retrieve the object. You do know about using the Alt key, right?, to select something underneath other things? I'm not sure what's happening in your image, but you might not have to move things out from under other things to change the color. The Alt key allows you to select it in place. Or I might have misunderstood you when you said "....then try to move it back again with arrow keys (or page up/down to re-order layers) and keep accidentally losing my color settings."?

Another even less-helpful trick, especially if you have a large number of objects, is using the Tab key. You can select any object, then every time you press the Tab key, the next object is selected. So you could Tab, Tab, Tab, .......Tab, until the object you need is selected. (I think "next object" means the order in which they were drawn, but I'm not positive.)

Another -- Instead of using the sliders, in the Fill and Stroke dialog, using the number values might be another option. Then using arrow keys or mouse to move the object back won't affect the sliders.

As I said, I expect others will reply with more tricks. But for the most part, it's just how Inkscape works. Hopefully you'll get a tip that fits well into your workflow. And I know full well how frustrating it is when the answer is "learn to live with it" Believe me, I know! But until we get some kind of Re-Select button, or Selection History, I'm afraid that's the bottom line. I think we all deal with it, at least from time to time....

Sorry, I wish I had a better idea

With an undocked fill and stroke dialog, clicking on the main window title bar will shift focus back to that window without losing the selected object. At least it works for me in Linux. HTH

When using the keyboard, <esc> will return the focus to the canvas, and subsequent keyboard shortcuts/commands will affect the canvas, not any widget in the docked dialog.

I'm not aware of a way to 'prevent' (keyboard) input focus on docked dialogs.

brynn wrote:Unfortunately, this is just the way that Inkscape works There are some tricks that I've found to deal with this, and probably others will share their tricks as well. I actually submited a new feature request -- Re-Select the last thing that was selected (bug #695940). And there are some other ideas about it too, which you can find linked to that page. Especially I like the "selection history" idea!

yes, selecting and de-selecting should be part of the sequence of undo/redo actions like they are in gimp and many other programs.

However, the Q key doesn't help if you're selecting something underneath something (or some-thingS) else. In this case, you might be able to make use of Layers. Although I understand that using layers just involves more intermediate clicking to retrieve the object. You do know about using the Alt key, right?, to select something underneath other things? I'm not sure what's happening in your image, but you might not have to move things out from under other things to change the color. The Alt key allows you to select it in place. Or I might have misunderstood you when you said "....then try to move it back again with arrow keys (or page up/down to re-order layers) and keep accidentally losing my color settings."?

wasn't familiar with this. i tried alt-clicking a stack of overlaid objects and nothing happened. then i tried alt-dragging on or around some objects but the cursor changed to a gripping hand which jerked the inkscape window out of the maximized position, continued dragging the reduced window around, did not affect the canvas objects.

using inkscape 0.47 on ubuntu 10.04. looks like the OS is intercepting these commands because other program windows behave the same way... commences to drag the window by the body instead of the title bar. don't know how to disable this effect (of which i was blissfully unaware and won't be intentionally using).

~suv wrote:When using the keyboard, <esc> will return the focus to the canvas, and subsequent keyboard shortcuts/commands will affect the canvas, not any widget in the docked dialog.

ESC key is the best tip yet. thanks.

I'm not aware of a way to 'prevent' (keyboard) input focus on docked dialogs.

well obviously i'd still want to be able to type in the little number/hex fields in certain cases, and occasionally use the arrow keys to move the cursor between digits.

perfect for me would be a preference setting like "[✔] never use keyboard for adjustable sliders, ever" because if i need to adjust something in increments of 1.0 i'm fine using the little up/down arrow buttons to the right of each number field.

thanks for the advice and don't ask me how i ended up in the wrong sub-forum.

thanks for the advice and don't ask me how i ended up in the wrong sub-forum.

No worries

i tried alt-clicking a stack of overlaid objects and nothing happened. then i tried alt-dragging on or around some objects but the cursor changed to a gripping hand which jerked the inkscape window out of the maximized position, continued dragging the reduced window around, did not affect the canvas objects.

using inkscape 0.47 on ubuntu 10.04. looks like the OS is intercepting these commands because other program windows behave the same way... commences to drag the window by the body instead of the title bar. don't know how to disable this effect (of which i was blissfully unaware and won't be intentionally using).

Whoa, I've never seen or heard of that! I think you're probably right that the system keystrokes are being invoked somehow. I don't think Inkscape offers the ability to make custom key assignments, for keyboard control. Although I could be wrong, I'm not sure if that would solve the problem. But I think I've read other topics related to this, if I recall, someone reported that B did not engage the Pen tool as expected, and instead did whatever their system called for from the B key.....mmmmm, I'd have to search to find details, but I seem to recall it was a non-Windows OS. I'll try to search it out after I post this.

Actually I don't think Alt + drag is an Inkscape command. Alt + click, does select below other objects, but I don't see that Alt + drag really does anything. However, it should NOT drag the whole window, lol!

I don't know if this other topic will offer you anything helpful, but first I have to find it. I'll be back shortly.

lolwhut wrote:i tried alt-clicking a stack of overlaid objects and nothing happened. then i tried alt-dragging on or around some objects but the cursor changed to a gripping hand which jerked the inkscape window out of the maximized position, continued dragging the reduced window around, did not affect the canvas objects.

using inkscape 0.47 on ubuntu 10.04. looks like the OS is intercepting these commands because other program windows behave the same way... commences to drag the window by the body instead of the title bar. don't know how to disable this effect (of which i was blissfully unaware and won't be intentionally using).

Inkscape FAQ "How to make Alt+click and Alt+drag work on Linux?" maybe includes instructions for your window manager, too.

Well, I got distracted while searching, and I see that ~suv has posted in the meanwhile. Probably her info is more relevant, but I'll post anyway

Wow! Well apparently I was wrong about assigning keyboard shortcuts/hotkeys, as well a Alt + drag. I've found a plethora of information for you. Whether it's useful or not is another story Since I'm not terribly familiar with keyboard shortcuts (I'm using them more and more, but far from exclusively), and not at all familiar with Macs, I did not read any of these topics in detail. But you may find some solution, at least for the Alt key issue. I'll put the links about shorcut/hotkeys below. And again I'll say that I'm not sure if a custom key shortcut will help, but possibly worth looking into.

But first, I did find one topic where a couple of shortcut keys did not work, and it was traced back to some Comodo security products (evaluated with fresh installs of OS, Comodo, and Inkscape) that were solved with....either a virus definition update, or version upgrade (can't remember which). Here's the link for that, just in case: viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;"postlink-local" href="http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;">viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;"postlink-local" href="http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;">viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;"postlink-local" href="http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;">viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;"postlink-local" href="http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;">viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;"postlink-local" href="http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;">viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;"postlink-local" href="http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;">viewtopic.php" onclick="readonly();return false;"postlink-local" href="viewtopic2a60.html?f=5&t=3294">viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3294

All best

If you don't want to start disabling keyboard shortcuts or making other global changes to your OS, here's the best solution I've found to using the Alt key with Inkscape on Ubuntu:

Hold down the Windows key as well.

In other words, where the instructions say "Press Alt" you should actually press "Windows+Alt", pressing the Windows key slightly before the Alt key.

I've found a similar irritation working with blurs. I'd blur a shade or something, get it the way I like and then start pressing page-up or down to move it to the proper order (like if I'm creating a drop shadow) but rather than changing order, it changes the size of the blur. I've found you have to deselect your drawing and reselected and then start using key commands.

jkuhl wrote:I've found a similar irritation working with blurs. I'd blur a shade or something, get it the way I like and then start pressing page-up or down to move it to the proper order (like if I'm creating a drop shadow) but rather than changing order, it changes the size of the blur. I've found you have to deselect your drawing and reselected and then start using key commands.

Press Esc after you set the blur, this will shift focus from Fill and Stroke to canvas and you'll be able to reorder the objects with PgUp, PgDn and arrow keys.