Hello everybody! Once again, time to play "Question of The Day!" 🎉

Under the Object menu, there is an item, "Prototype..." I summarily searched the manual and found no reference to it at all. Invoking it gives me no clue as to its function. Can anybody enlighten me?

Thanks in advance!

Hi greyt,

About which Inskcape version are you speaking?

Ah, so sorry...1.0beta (doesn't matter if it's beta, rc, dev)

Ah! I have not installed that version yet. It sounds like a very new option to me.
And the answer is ....drumroll......

I found it in Gitlab, where it's described as a "A panel that does almost nothing!"  Is this a placeholder for some future function?  Maybe someone forgot to remove it from the final build.

https://inkscape.gitlab.io/inkscape/doxygen/classInkscape_1_1UI_1_1Dialog_1_1Prototype.html

It's been there for quite a while now and we had it in the chat - last year I believe - the search is not that useful in this respect.

Right now it's displaying the last selected item - FWIW.

I found it in Gitlab, where it's described as a "A panel that does almost nothing!"  I can confirm that it does nothing on my machine.  Is this a placeholder for some future function?  Maybe someone forgot to remove it from the final build.

https://inkscape.gitlab.io/inkscape/doxygen/classInkscape_1_1UI_1_1Dialog_1_1Prototype.html