common Inkscape problem - disappearing shapes

[susibi]

Sometimes it happens that Inkscape goes invisible! you draw a shape and when you click away it disappears - most frustrating but quite easy to correct:
HTH
Susibi

[sfandm]

Susibi, I am having this exact problem. I did everything you listed in this tut and I still have the same problem. I am new to Ink and I may have done something wrong, but if you get this I would really be grateful if you could help me with this. I am getting frustrated.

Thanks,

Sonya in Texas

[susibi]

Ok now I've seen the message! In the properties window that opens there are tabs at the top - fill, stroke etc. Make sure that you click on the stroke tab and that it is set to solid fill.
Can you post a screen shot of what your window looks like - we can probably tell from those settings where you are going wrong.

[sfandm]

Good morning, OK, I got the arrows to appear all around my rectangle. I don't know how, but they are there. Is there some sort of default that I can go to to make the 6 arrows always show up around my rectangles, and ellipses? I would show you a pic of what I mean but I don't know how to take a pic of the screen. I then tried to make an ellipse, but I only see the three marks around it, the two small squares and a small circle. And after I click off of it, I can't get it back, it disappears also. I also noticed in importing an image this morning that I am now missing the bar at the bottom, below all the colors, which used to tell me if my image was a path or whatever, there is nothing there anymore. Do you know if they have a book about Inkscape for Dummies, cause I could sure use it right now. I am totally lost.

[Craigg64]

Good morning, OK, I got the arrows to appear all around my rectangle. I don't know how, but they are there. Is there some sort of default that I can go to to make the 6 arrows always show up around my rectangles, and ellipses? I would show you a pic of what I mean but I don't know how to take a pic of the screen. I then tried to make an ellipse, but I only see the three marks around it, the two small squares and a small circle. And after I click off of it, I can't get it back, it disappears also. I also noticed in importing an image this morning that I am now missing the bar at the bottom, below all the colors, which used to tell me if my image was a path or whatever, there is nothing there anymore. Do you know if they have a book about Inkscape for Dummies, cause I could sure use it right now. I am totally lost.

Hi to get your status bar back do the following.
Firstly make sure that Inkscape is maximised (click on the square icon next to the x on the top right corner of the Inkscape window)

From the Inkscape menu choose View, Show/Hide and sellect statusbar. A tick should appear next to the word status bar and the status bar should appear at the bottom of the screen.

Hope that helps with that proplem.

Selecting help on the Inkscape menu then Inkscape Manual brings up this site.
http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/index.html
You can view it on line or purchase a pdf version here http://www.informit.com/store/product.a ... 0137004720

Also try here http://en.flossmanuals.net/Inkscape. Another online manual but from the left menu allows you to download a pdf of the manual.

Hope they help

[firstcut]

Inkscape has many features that you don't need to worry about for cutting. Try to stick to the basics and not get bogged down with all the bells and whistles that don't matter to SCAL at first. Stroke and fill is a good example. Try to work in outline view as much as possible, because colors and line widths are ignored by SCAL anyway. Go to the view menu, select display mode>outline view. You will be able to see your shapes there no matter what the fill and stroke are.