Sorry to hear about your problems. That is indeed a strange problem, which I have never seen before. But thanks for the great animation, showing all the details.
Please tell us your Inkscape version and operating system.
When you say it's new behavior, I guess that means you've been using Inkscape for a while, but this suddenly started happening? Right?
The only thing I notice, that makes me curious, is that you have Input Devices dialog in the dock. I wonder if you could have changed something there, accidentally?
Have you a graphics tablet or pen installed?
It looks like Inkscape is not recognizing the mouse....completely anyway. You can select tools, but not draw.
It's odd that when you have the Rectangle tool enabled, the status bar is empty. It should be showing prompts to get started. Not sure what kind of clue that might be, but it's odd.
Your Ellipse and 3d Box tools don't have any stroke or style of their own (upper-right corner area). And that's odd too.
But I still have to wonder if the mouse input is happening.
Edit
I don't actually know what it should look like, when a graphics tablet or pen is being used. Is your animation showing a tablet or pen in use?
If you're trying to use a pen or tablet, you need to set some things in Preferences > Input/Output > Input Devices, in addition to the Input Devices dialog.
Now that's really strange, I can't really add anything to Brynn's comments, but I also can't figure out why it looks like you are in the one of the drawing modes wen you are drawing a rectangle or ellipse. Can you reset your input device? Just wondering if you happened to have switched to v 1.0 and that's when it started perhaps? Or if your mouse/tablet is partway plugged in, or dying. Can you reset/reboot the tablet, that's all I can think of.
Spoiler alert: All's well now. Chalk it up to a glitch in the matrix. Read on if you will....
I had tried (in no particular order): New document .... same behavior. Pasting a png or a vector object from another app onto a blank canvas, which I could do, but then I couldn't touch/interact with them..... same. Restart application.... same. Open an existing SVG.... same. Checked input device dialog (had been using trackpad). Tried external mouse and tablet...... same. Reistalled the program, and tried all of the above again..... same.
Opened a different SVG, and everything snapped back into working order! (also reopened the SVG that didn't work in the trouble shooting and that was fine too) Go figure ๐ .
Kurtz. Thanks for popping back in to let us know, that's just wild! If it can happen to you it can happen to someone else, so it's always helpful to come back and post the steps taken (they can analyze if it could have been a bug should others experience it, etc). So glad it came back on it's own.
I'm completely new to this forum (though I've been lurking for quite some time) and I only use Inkscape for cleaning up the basic svgs I get from a graphics designer for online use. There's no "introduce yourself" forum, or am I overlooking it?
Anyway: I believe I recognize this issue: I think when this happened to me, it was because I still had a dialogue box open, out of view because I clicked in the main screen again. Had me tearing my hair out too ๐.
hi Jaydot. Welcome to the forum from beyond the lurking curtain! Good info to know, thanks. I just can't imagine which dialogue box would cause this, but that is good to know.
ps please feel free to do an intro in the Community Cafe area (since there's not really an official, intro yourself thing).
I had the same problem on my initial start-up of inkscape just now. I just wanted to get the feel of it, and no matter what I tried to draw, nothing would actually appear. You can't really play along with tutorials if nothing is sticking to the paper when you try and draw something!
Following the advice above, I tried changing the fill and opacity and such, but it was like there was nothing there to change anyway, and nothing worked.
This thread did work though, because it gave me the clue of the 'last used style'. Since the posts above don't solve the problem in the way it presented for me,ย I thought I'd add to this in case anyone comes here withย the same presentation of the "can't draw" problem.
I clicked theย "Fill: and Stroke: " box at the top right, and it took me to the preferences (see the attached image). There are radial buttons which for me were on "last used style" (but there is none, as it is the first time I've used inkscape). When I checked the "This tool's own style" it suddenly made the drawing appear. Now it is selectable and editable etc., and so solved my problem. I guess you could go directly to the preferences if you can't find the box I'm talking about to click on.
Beginners' Questions Um.... can't draw anything??
Inkscape.org
It's got to be something crazy simple right?
I can't draw anything. Not a shape nor a path.
I await for advice with idiot stick in hand for self flogging ๐.
GIF showing what's NOT going on attached (btw it's a new behavior)
Welcome to the forum!
Sorry to hear about your problems. That is indeed a strange problem, which I have never seen before. But thanks for the great animation, showing all the details.
Please tell us your Inkscape version and operating system.
When you say it's new behavior, I guess that means you've been using Inkscape for a while, but this suddenly started happening? Right?
The only thing I notice, that makes me curious, is that you have Input Devices dialog in the dock. I wonder if you could have changed something there, accidentally?
Have you a graphics tablet or pen installed?
It looks like Inkscape is not recognizing the mouse....completely anyway. You can select tools, but not draw.
It's odd that when you have the Rectangle tool enabled, the status bar is empty. It should be showing prompts to get started. Not sure what kind of clue that might be, but it's odd.
Your Ellipse and 3d Box tools don't have any stroke or style of their own (upper-right corner area). And that's odd too.
But I still have to wonder if the mouse input is happening.
Edit
I don't actually know what it should look like, when a graphics tablet or pen is being used. Is your animation showing a tablet or pen in use?
If you're trying to use a pen or tablet, you need to set some things in Preferences > Input/Output > Input Devices, in addition to the Input Devices dialog.
Now that's really strange, I can't really add anything to Brynn's comments, but I also can't figure out why it looks like you are in the one of the drawing modes wen you are drawing a rectangle or ellipse. Can you reset your input device? Just wondering if you happened to have switched to v 1.0 and that's when it started perhaps? Or if your mouse/tablet is partway plugged in, or dying. Can you reset/reboot the tablet, that's all I can think of.
Thanks @brynn and @flamingolady for the quick replies!
Spoiler alert: All's well now. Chalk it up to a glitch in the matrix.
Read on if you will....
I had tried (in no particular order):
New document .... same behavior.
Pasting a png or a vector object from another app onto a blank canvas, which I could do, but then I couldn't touch/interact with them..... same.
Restart application.... same.
Open an existing SVG.... same.
Checked input device dialog (had been using trackpad). Tried external mouse and tablet...... same.
Reistalled the program, and tried all of the above again..... same.
Opened a different SVG, and everything snapped back into working order!
(also reopened the SVG that didn't work in the trouble shooting and that was fine too)
Go figure ๐ .
Kurtz. Thanks for popping back in to let us know, that's just wild! If it can happen to you it can happen to someone else, so it's always helpful to come back and post the steps taken (they can analyze if it could have been a bug should others experience it, etc). So glad it came back on it's own.
Hi.
I'm completely new to this forum (though I've been lurking for quite some time) and I only use Inkscape for cleaning up the basic svgs I get from a graphics designer for online use. There's no "introduce yourself" forum, or am I overlooking it?
Anyway: I believe I recognize this issue: I think when this happened to me, it was because I still had a dialogue box open, out of view because I clicked in the main screen again. Had me tearing my hair out too ๐.
hi Jaydot. Welcome to the forum from beyond the lurking curtain! Good info to know, thanks. I just can't imagine which dialogue box would cause this, but that is good to know.
ps please feel free to do an intro in the Community Cafe area (since there's not really an official, intro yourself thing).
@flamingolady Thanks! If it ever happens again, I'll be sure to make a note of what exactly is going on.
I had the same problem on my initial start-up of inkscape just now. I just wanted to get the feel of it, and no matter what I tried to draw, nothing would actually appear. You can't really play along with tutorials if nothing is sticking to the paper when you try and draw something!
Following the advice above, I tried changing the fill and opacity and such, but it was like there was nothing there to change anyway, and nothing worked.
This thread did work though, because it gave me the clue of the 'last used style'. Since the posts above don't solve the problem in the way it presented for me,ย I thought I'd add to this in case anyone comes here withย the same presentation of the "can't draw" problem.
I clicked theย "Fill: and Stroke: " box at the top right, and it took me to the preferences (see the attached image). There are radial buttons which for me were on "last used style" (but there is none, as it is the first time I've used inkscape). When I checked the "This tool's own style" it suddenly made the drawing appear. Now it is selectable and editable etc., and so solved my problem. I guess you could go directly to the preferences if you can't find the box I'm talking about to click on.
Hope this helps someone!
ย
I guess a "Reset Preferences" should have done it.