I'm new enough to Inkscape that the following might already be features of Inkscape, but I just haven't discovered how to do them yet. The following items frustrate me often as I use Inkscape (a program, which, despite these simple difficulties, I'm loving, btw).

I'm using 0.46 in OSX 10.4.

Here are changes I'd like to see:

1. Tool selection via keyboard works even when a dialog is active.

For example, when the layers dialog is active (i.e. I just clicked inside the layers dialog), and I then try to change my tool by using the keyboard (for example, from the node tool to the pen tool), instead of changing my tool, a small text field inside of the layers dialog pops open and the letter I pressed (in this case "p") appears in the text field. This actually appears to me to be a bug, since the text field doesn't do anything. After I type I can press enter, or I can click my mouse cursor anywhere on the screen, and the text field disappears without any changes being made in the layers palette.

Or, when the fill and stroke dialog is active (i.e. I just clicked inside of the fill and stroke dialog) and I then try to change my tool using the keyboard, instead of changing my tool, inkscape thinks I want to type in the RGBA color code field.

2. Universal fill and stroke selection.

An option to set the fill and/or stroke color, which remains the fill and/or stroke color for all the tools as I switch between them. It might be convenient to place it in the tool bar on the left (similar to Photoshop, where at the bottom of the tool palette is the foreground and background color selector).

The option can remain to override this universal fill and stroke color within an individual tool's preferences, so, if you always want the pencil tool to make black lines without fill, you can set it to do so, even if the universal fill and stroke selection is set to blue fill with no stroke.

3. Dropper use on gradients. Also setting the gradient default to have a solid color instead of a transparent one.

Presently, it appears to me that if I wish to change gradient colors, I have to select a path in my drawing that contains the color I want, manually copy the color's RGBA color code, then open the gradient dialog and manually paste in the RGBA color code into the color code field. It would be great to be able to use the dropper to change the gradient color.

Also, for how I presently use inkscape, I always change the second color in the gradient to a solid color. It would be great if I could set the default to white, or any color I wish, and to set the default as a fully opaque color instead of transparent.

4. Default setting for new file.

I haven't seen how to change the default document settings. One thing I always do is go in and uncheck "show page border." It would be great to be able to customize the default, so that every time I create a new file the page border is already turned off.

5. Right-click menu customization.

Currently, right clicking brings up a menu with default options. It would be nice to be able to change these menu items to whatever I wanted. So I could, for example, right click and have a menu pop up with my most commonly used boolean operators, or effects, or dialogs or tools or tool preferences or whatever I wanted. Perhaps the menu options could be customizable for each tool, or I could keep the same options available no matter which tool I am using.

Daniel Heywood wrote:Tool selection via keyboard works even when a dialog is active.

I'm not sure what that little popup is when you do this on the layers dialog. But I couldn't reproduce what you describe with the fill stroke-the hotkeys still worked to change tools (unless I select RGBA text field obviously).

Daniel Heywood wrote:2. Universal fill and stroke selection.

Do we really need three options? Reuse last style/use global style/use tools own style. It seems to me the added complixity will just make things more confusing. If I'm going to reuse a style I tend to create an object with that style off the canvas then just copy and paste it onto my objects. In future Inkscape will have a style manager.

Daniel Heywood wrote:Dropper use on gradients. Also setting the gradient default to have a solid color instead of a transparent one.

The On-canvas gradient editor allows you to use the eyedropper to change a stop colour.

Daniel Heywood wrote:Default setting for new file.

Make your changes the to the document and preferences then save those changes over the default template file in Inkscape/Share/templates/.

Daniel Heywood wrote:Right-click menu customization.

People love being able to customise their workspace, so I can't argue against it. Having said that, I think a lot of function could be moved to the context menu, such as bool operations, by default. They could be a sub-menu item.

Too use the eyedropper on gradients select a node in the gradient then select the eyedropper.

Hey, thanks guys.

As for the hotkey/dialog bug, I'll have to ask around and see if other's can reproduce it. It's terribly frustrating. It isn't something that only sometimes happens for me. Rather, it always happens for me.

As for a global style option for color fills and strokes, I think it would make the "reuse last style" option redundant, and it could be done away with. So, my thinking is that there might then be two possible options to consider including, the "global style" and the "tool's own style". I personally wouldn't even be interested in keeping the tool's own style as a part of inkscape, but would only be interested in having a global style. My suggestion for possibly keeping the tool's own style as an option to override the global is for anyone who may want to keep one tool the same style all the time.

As for being able to change the file template, that's great. I also think it would be nice to be able to do it at the click of a button within the preferences dialog.

The eyedropper use on the gradient is way nice to be able to do. I also think it would be nice to be able to use the dropper from the gradient dialog, just to give one more way to do it which seems more intuitive to me (it would be kind of like how there are multiple ways to pick a tool, which makes it easy to do even if one of the ways is unknown by the user.)

Thanks again guys.

Daniel Heywood wrote:1. Tool selection via keyboard works even when a dialog is active.

For example, when the layers dialog is active (i.e. I just clicked inside the layers dialog), and I then try to change my tool by using the keyboard (for example, from the node tool to the pen tool), instead of changing my tool, a small text field inside of the layers dialog pops open and the letter I pressed (in this case "p") appears in the text field. This actually appears to me to be a bug, since the text field doesn't do anything. After I type I can press enter, or I can click my mouse cursor anywhere on the screen, and the text field disappears without any changes being made in the layers palette.

Or, when the fill and stroke dialog is active (i.e. I just clicked inside of the fill and stroke dialog) and I then try to change my tool using the keyboard, instead of changing my tool, inkscape thinks I want to type in the RGBA color code field.

Ah, I have that all the time when I want to toggle guides, with the Layers dialog open, I get a small text input popping up in which a | appears. Really annoying.

I can't reproduce the one with the fill and stroke dialog though.

Daniel Heywood wrote:2. Universal fill and stroke selection.

Do we really need three options? Reuse last style/use global style/use tools own style. It seems to me the added complixity will just make things more confusing. If I'm going to reuse a style I tend to create an object with that style off the canvas then just copy and paste it onto my objects. In future Inkscape will have a style manager.

Creating a dummy object with styles off canvas is a little "clunky" isn't it? I mean, a style manager would be preferable surely, for ease of use and consistency (and across different documents). I was going to suggest one but there seems to be more than one use of the word within Inkscape. Is a style for an object: fill & stroke properties; the combined set of filter effects; how CSS applies to it; any or all of these? Ideally a good style manager would be able to save and apply all of these, and be able to export and import them in one or more files.

I too have problems from the layer dialog when trying to select a tool.

Select the pen tool. Go into the layer dialog box. Select a layer. Move your pen to to the canvas. Press 'c' for calligraphy tool. Layers box will now try to rename the layer you selected with a word starting with 'c'. Oh well not too bad. Try to write on canvas. First click drag nothing. Second click drag, the bezier tool makes a mark ON THE ROOT LAYER. No regular layer will be selected anymore. Took a while to figure out what was going on with this one in .47 pre 1. Short answer... you should have to double click or right click the layer name to change it, otherwise leave my keystrokes alone.

Also, do we even NEED a root layer? Could we expose it in the layer box if we do? Otherwise simple mistakes are time consuming to fix.

Not sure about a stile guide but I would love to see a stroke thickness setting on the pallet bar down at the bottom. You can already set color and transparency (on/off at least) for both the fill and stroke separately. Stroke thickness is something inkers need to change often. Having to go to a dialog box for this is really a pain. Slows up everything very significantly.

Also the whole am I changing the current object, or the current tool logic seems pretty odd. It's at least straight forward. Everything changes the selected object. Clumsy but easy to remember. The stroke-fill icons in the bezier and pencil tools tool bars go to the tool preferences dialogs, since that's where the use last style vs tools own style toggle button, and the set tool to style of current object button are at. Maybe we could just put those buttons on the tool bars? Along with a stroke on/off, and a fill on/off toggle and a size tool that affect the tool directly not any predrawn object. So I don't have to draw the wrong thing just to edit it immediately. Yes I know it shouldn't matter... but it does. The caligraphy tool doesn't need these things, and tools that do, the pen, pencil, rectangle, elipse, and spiral, all have lots of room on their tool bars.