perhaps this is not a bug (that remains to be seen) but it certainly bugged me.
That is that when (in inkscape) you delete a layer and that this is the only layer...(this somehow inadvertently happened to me) i found that an object i had created was somehow in l ayer limbo!?....
IE it was on the "root layer"?
This is like a ghost layer that is no-where to be found....
So i had to cut and paste this object to a new layer to get a visible layer to apply to it?
Is there some reason why it is possible to delete all the layers and then place an object down in "hyperspace"?

Perhaps there is an explanation to this that i have missed.....

my second issue is renaming layers....IE there is definitely a bug here as when you re-name it, it does not happen straight away and i actually had it getting muddled on me and renaming one of my layers to #2 as it was the same as one i had just "renamed"....
and somehow the layers dialogue is out of step with the quick layer picker down the bottom (ie when you re-name a layer one updates straight away the other does not which is added confusion...)

I'm not sure about the renaming thing, that does sound like a bug.

Regarding deletion, though, I guess there's just not a check in the code to prevent deleting the last layer. Maybe someone doesn't want any layers, why stop them? Although I can see maybe asking for confirmation or something.

The SVG format doesn't actually have layers. Inkscape simulates them using object groups that are treated specially. And if you get some objects that are outside of all the layers, you don't need to cut and paste them. There are commands in the Layers menu to "Move selection to layer above" or "Move selection to layer below". The keyboard shortcuts are Shift+PgUpand Shift+PgDn.

Here's some info on the Root Layer, from a question I posted last July:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1332

As kelan said SVG doesn't have layers, SVG is an XML file and you simply have an area within that file that contains your objects, this is the "root layer" you mentioned. Inside that (root) area Inkscape stores the layers (which are as already mentioned just groups of objects with a special treatment in Inkscape to display them as layers in Inkscape SVG).

First off, "root" is a common computer term to indicate the very top of an hierarchy. Most commonly you'll hear the term in the Linux world to indicate the base of the file system (i.e "/" or on Windows it would be "C:\").

Secondly, vector applications don't operate under the same idea of layers as bitmap application. On a bitmap application a layer is though of like an Over-head Transparency (OHT) that you use on overh-head projectors. Whatever you draw on a single OHT is all a part of a single drawing. With vectors you have objects which are not bound to each other on an OHT--objects are more like a stack of coins that can be moved around freely. So whilst bitmaps must have at least one layer to draw on, a vector does not. With vector applications it's argueably better to think of layers as folders.

Because Inkscape doesn't not display a heirarchial presentation of objects, the root layer can be confusing. The best example of this is that if you have a drawing with one layer, an object can be in the root layer either above or below the other layer. It's not a fault with how Inkscape handles layers, it's just a GUI shortcoming.

[quote="microUgly"]

Guilty...

why do you ask?

David Hewitt wrote:Why do you ask any way?

Because non-Australian's aren't familiar with the term "rooted"--at least not as Australians know it (I don't think)

yeah that was a bit of word play and kind of an in joke too I guess...
Anyway...
I knew there would be a logical justification for this blank layer issue...
But I could not think of it and it is a bit confusing...