It took me ages to work out the buttons on the top of the XML Editor worked because they are so faded they don't look active. And when I try to teach people to how use the XML Editor they also think they aren't active so I always have to explain it twice that they are active.

It could be a matter of themes you're using.
could you post a screenshot ?

There are different themes? I've been using whatever it came with.



I selected a node and the last 3 buttons highlight a little - even that is not enough compared to the usual buttons on the left side -. but see the 5 other greyed out buttons, they are active and work even though it doesn't look like it. I think they also need to be more imaginative than a grey box with a "X" in it.

For some reason your installation is missing some icons, so Inkscape has fallen back to using a generic "missing icon" icon of a document with a red X in. Here's how the same icons appear on my Linux installation:



The question is why you're missing the icons. Did you install a development build at any time? Have you upgraded an older version of Inkscape, or installed from scratch? Where did you download Inkscape from?

Not development, stable Win x64 version. Using Win7 64 SP1
No upgrade, first installation.
Official download. 0.91.r13725 10.12.15

It's not just me, because I've had to tell about 5 people that the faded buttons actually work. There's were the same as mine.

I have those missing as well as the undo and redo, revert and templates, preferences icons.
(Other features vanished in 0.91 are the preview of the document, preview of pdf opening dialog, some previews of fonts in the font tool and what not.)

Known issue, tracked in:

• Bug #929658: Broken XML editor icons (rev >= 10768, GTK_ICON_SIZE_SMALL_TOOLBAR)

Ok I tried the workaround and they are back, but I wouldn't say they are great. They kind-of match the main top toolbar, so I suppose it's ok.
Known workarounds (0.91, lp:inkscape/0.92.x):
a) close and reopen XML Editor in the current session
b) check 'Pre-render named icons' in 'Edit > Preferences > System' and relaunch inkscape