To create many of my illustrations I’ve been tracing over an image that I imported and filling the selected area with the appropriate color. Once I group these selections together, they can be moved as a unit. Although every now and again I move the selection and have tremendous difficulty trying to place it exactly in the same place on top of the image I’m trying to recreate. Does anyone know of any helpful tips?
Use the cursor keys rather than the mouse to move things.
In particular, if you're just trying to move something out of the way temporarily, but want to be sure you can get it back into the right place, hold Shift when using the cursor keys. The items will then move in larger zoom-independent steps that can be easily reversed. Conversely, for fine movements, hold the Alt key as well - it moves in smaller steps that are zoom-dependent, so zooming in lets you make really fine adjusments.
If you mean that you move them accidentally, you might be able to use layers, and lock the layers that you aren't using at the moment. Then they can't be accidentally moved.
When I'm tracing a raster image, I usually put the image in its own layer, and lock that layer, so the image doesn't accidentally move. I always have more trouble with the image moving accidentally, than the paths.
It is possible to lock objects, such as paths or groups. However, I almost never suggest that because it makes them hard to select again. They can be selected, it's just harder. If you want to lock an object, right-click > Object Properties > Lock. To select a locked object, I think you have to either drag a selection box around it, or use the Tab key. I'm not positive, but I think those are the ways.
If the moved object is a path, and it shares a border with another path (which if I don't have you confused with someone else, you showed something like that in another message?) you could snap the moved path back into place.
I mostly do what xav does. And i usually move things in even numbers, ie. Shift the right arrow 8 times, so it's easy to return. Also, and this will sound crazy, but i made small circles and put one on each layer, by using pg down. If i screwed up, i just use the align tool and group ea layer and lined up the circles! Crazy but it worked. Had dozens of mesh objects that don't move well, and it acted like a hzndle to move them too.
Ive used guides on some things successfully. But between low pc memory and dozens of meshes on many layers where you cant grab them easily, i just found it easier to grab the circle as a makeshift handle to align.
In Inkscape 0.92 there is this new objects dialog. Menu > Object > Objects.
There you can name each and every part of your drawing. It is also possible to lock and unlock every path and object and group. And you can make every object transparent with a slider. So if you open that dialogue when you start a new drawing, you can easily see how it builds up if you draw something.
Just lock every path after drawing it.
If you need to select something, you can click on the name in this dialogue. When you've finished, you can right-click on an object in this dialogue and choose unlock all, to remove all the locks (if you want to).
Thank you very much for all of your responses. @Kirstie and @brynn that is very helpful info! @flamingolady you mentioned guides, what exactly are those?
They are guidlines that you can create and place anywhere on the page. You can snap to guidelines, just set it under doc properties> snapping. They made it tricky to do though, there's a tinee weenie space on the toolbars that you have to double click in to create them (see pic). The upper one creates hor and the the one on the side creates vertical guides. You can create as many as needed. The little dots on the line is simply a handle, can be moved along the guide, makes it easier to move them.
If you have rulers visible you can just drag from within the ruler to create a guide. Drag from the top ruler downwards to create a horizontal guide, from the left ruler rightwards for a vertical guide. Dragging from the end few pixels of the rulers creates a +/-45 degree guide.
Once you've got a guide you can double-click on it to opend a dialog in which top set its properties (position, angle, colour) to your requirements.
Beginners' Questions Tracing Images and Lining up the Selection
Inkscape.org
To create many of my illustrations I’ve been tracing over an image that I imported and filling the selected area with the appropriate color. Once I group these selections together, they can be moved as a unit. Although every now and again I move the selection and have tremendous difficulty trying to place it exactly in the same place on top of the image I’m trying to recreate. Does anyone know of any helpful tips?
Use the cursor keys rather than the mouse to move things.
In particular, if you're just trying to move something out of the way temporarily, but want to be sure you can get it back into the right place, hold Shift when using the cursor keys. The items will then move in larger zoom-independent steps that can be easily reversed. Conversely, for fine movements, hold the Alt key as well - it moves in smaller steps that are zoom-dependent, so zooming in lets you make really fine adjusments.
If you mean that you move them accidentally, you might be able to use layers, and lock the layers that you aren't using at the moment. Then they can't be accidentally moved.
When I'm tracing a raster image, I usually put the image in its own layer, and lock that layer, so the image doesn't accidentally move. I always have more trouble with the image moving accidentally, than the paths.
It is possible to lock objects, such as paths or groups. However, I almost never suggest that because it makes them hard to select again. They can be selected, it's just harder. If you want to lock an object, right-click > Object Properties > Lock. To select a locked object, I think you have to either drag a selection box around it, or use the Tab key. I'm not positive, but I think those are the ways.
If the moved object is a path, and it shares a border with another path (which if I don't have you confused with someone else, you showed something like that in another message?) you could snap the moved path back into place.
I mostly do what xav does. And i usually move things in even numbers, ie. Shift the right arrow 8 times, so it's easy to return. Also, and this will sound crazy, but i made small circles and put one on each layer, by using pg down. If i screwed up, i just use the align tool and group ea layer and lined up the circles! Crazy but it worked. Had dozens of mesh objects that don't move well, and it acted like a hzndle to move them too.
@flamingolady would guides and guide origins be useful to you?
Ive used guides on some things successfully. But between low pc memory and dozens of meshes on many layers where you cant grab them easily, i just found it easier to grab the circle as a makeshift handle to align.
In Inkscape 0.92 there is this new objects dialog. Menu > Object > Objects.
There you can name each and every part of your drawing.
It is also possible to lock and unlock every path and object and group.
And you can make every object transparent with a slider.
So if you open that dialogue when you start a new drawing, you can easily see how it builds up if you draw something.
Just lock every path after drawing it.
If you need to select something, you can click on the name in this dialogue.
When you've finished, you can right-click on an object in this dialogue and choose unlock all, to remove all the locks (if you want to).
Kirstie, that's great info. Is it written down or on a tut somewhere so we can learn how to use it? I've not seen that in the online manual.
Hi Flamingolady,
There is not much information on the internet yet.
You open the dialog with menu > object > objects.
I've found this video on youtube:
thx so much Kirstie. Will check out that tut real soon!
Thank you very much for all of your responses. @Kirstie and @brynn that is very helpful info! @flamingolady you mentioned guides, what exactly are those?
They are guidlines that you can create and place anywhere on the page. You can snap to guidelines, just set it under doc properties> snapping. They made it tricky to do though, there's a tinee weenie space on the toolbars that you have to double click in to create them (see pic). The upper one creates hor and the the one on the side creates vertical guides. You can create as many as needed. The little dots on the line is simply a handle, can be moved along the guide, makes it easier to move them.
If you have rulers visible you can just drag from within the ruler to create a guide. Drag from the top ruler downwards to create a horizontal guide, from the left ruler rightwards for a vertical guide. Dragging from the end few pixels of the rulers creates a +/-45 degree guide.
Once you've got a guide you can double-click on it to opend a dialog in which top set its properties (position, angle, colour) to your requirements.