I use Inkscape to produce drawings in which different line styles have specific meanings, e.g. if it where a map, then a certain line style might mean "road", another line style might mean "railway line", etc.
In order to make this easier and reduce the number of user errors where the incorrect line style is chosen, it would be useful to be able to name the line styles, so instead of selecting a particular dash or dot style, I could instead select "road" or "railway".
Is there any way of achieving something like this within Inkscape?
The ID of each dash-array can be changed to a descriptive name, but there doesn't seem to be a tooltip popup to display the IDs when hovering in the menu.
A somewhat hack-ish workaround would be to create a template file with something like a legend on a geographical map. This could be a bunch of line objects, one for each of the required line styles and a descriptive text or name label next to them. Then users could simply copy/paste the styles from these objects to their own drawn lines. Not optimal but could work well enough, I suppose.
You can Ctrl + Click each line, then press Ctrl + C to copy, then Ctrl + Shift + V to paste the style.
You can keep you finger on the Ctrl button throughout, and because the selection occurs on mouse button release rather than press, it stops you from dragging the individual lines out of the group if your hand shakes on the mouse.
Beyond the Basics Name line styles?
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Hi
I use Inkscape to produce drawings in which different line styles have specific meanings, e.g. if it where a map, then a certain line style might mean "road", another line style might mean "railway line", etc.
In order to make this easier and reduce the number of user errors where the incorrect line style is chosen, it would be useful to be able to name the line styles, so instead of selecting a particular dash or dot style, I could instead select "road" or "railway".
Is there any way of achieving something like this within Inkscape?
Many thanks
The ID of each dash-array can be changed to a descriptive name, but there doesn't seem to be a tooltip popup to display the IDs when hovering in the menu.
A request for the feature can be submitted. Info here: https://inkscape.org/forums/beyond/how-to-report-bugs-or-request-new-features/
Custom dashes can be made and unwanted dashes can be deleted in the preferences.xml file. Background info here in the archive: https://alpha.inkscape.org/vectors/www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopica7b8.html?t=2400
A somewhat hack-ish workaround would be to create a template file with something like a legend on a geographical map. This could be a bunch of line objects, one for each of the required line styles and a descriptive text or name label next to them. Then users could simply copy/paste the styles from these objects to their own drawn lines. Not optimal but could work well enough, I suppose.
To expand on Sven's idea.
If you group the custom lines you have made.
You can Ctrl + Click each line, then press Ctrl + C to copy, then Ctrl + Shift + V to paste the style.
You can keep you finger on the Ctrl button throughout, and because the selection occurs on mouse button release rather than press, it stops you from dragging the individual lines out of the group if your hand shakes on the mouse.
Thanks folks, those are helpful suggestions.