Hello, I have a diagram, saved as an inkscape .svg, and I would like to automate creating a bunch (100+) of versions of this graphic for a research paper. The only difference between the different versions is that certain graphic elements, already in the file, would be toggled to be visible or not visible.

The relevant vector-graphics objects are contained in a layer called "regions" and are named after the numbers 1-14. 

I want to write a script that does the following:

1. Accepts a python slice of integers `intSlice` 
2. Create a temporary copy of figure object. 
3. For each entry k in `intSlice`, make the entry named `k` and contained in the regions layer visible.
4. Save a copy of the .svg with the vector-object visibility settings.

I'm sure this can be done, but am having a hard time finding relevant information. Any tips? 

Do you want to write an Inkscape extension ( launched from within the Inkscape gui ).

or Just use the standalone Inkscape extension system (inkex) as standalone python ( does not require Inkscape to be installed )

or use the Inkscape command line ? 

**Also do you already know basic Python ? 

Thank you for your reply! 

I have a slight preference for standalone Python because I want to plumb the output of a .py script into the above, but I don't especially care if there's an efficient way to script in the GUI. 

I do know (basic) python but am new to scripting in Inkscape. Specifically, I have been having a hard time figuring out how to toggle object visibility in a given file.  
In the inkscape GUI, I've selected all of the objects I wish to toggle visibility for and gathered them in a layer called "regions". 

If I open the .svg in my text editor, I can see there is a tagging system. The line 
`<g inkscape:groupmode="layer"id="layer2" inkscape:label="regions">` 
is present and I can see the relevant objects are wrapped in this layer and encoded in lines like
```       id="3"
       transform="matrix(0.26458333,0,0,0.26458333,-2.2529349,-38.563479)"
       inkscape:label="3" /><path
       style="display:none;fill:#ccffaa;stroke:#ccffaa;stroke-width:1.09658;stroke-opacity:1"
       d="lots and lots of numbers z"
```
I'm certain the `display:none` field can be modified in a clever way using the aforementioned tagging system, but I'm not sure how to use it.

post a sample file you are working with 

I've attached the .svg file that would be used to generate all the figures I want. 

If you open it in GUI, you'll see that there are is a layer called "regions" with a bunch of objects that are made invisible by default. 

if you install inkex from pypi using pip into a new venv

The following should be a starting point.

Please note

- You are working with inkscape:labels, which do not have to  unique. 

- We make an assumption that there is only one group (layers are groups) with the label 'regions'

- I think in earlier versions of Python3 the for in statement would do partial matches - so pig would match for pig and piglet. (I'm not sure when this changed)

-  The new file is saved in your system temp folder with a random uuid as the filename.

import inkex

import os, sys
from tempfile import gettempdir
from uuid import uuid4


def open_svg(svg_filename, input_folder):
    try:
        svg_element = inkex.load_svg(os.path.join(input_folder, svg_filename)).getroot()
        return svg_element

    except:
        print(f'cannot load svg {os.path.join(input_folder, svg_filename)}')
        sys.exit()

def write_svg_file(svg, filename):

    debug_temp_filepath = os.path.join(str(gettempdir()), filename)

    with open(debug_temp_filepath, mode='w', encoding='utf-8') as file:
        file.write(str(svg.tostring().decode('utf-8')))
        file.close()


def set_visiblity_from_label_list(svg_element, parent_group_label, label_list):

    xpath_string = f'//svg:g[@inkscape:label="{parent_group_label}"]'

    # Find the first occurrence of a group with regions label

    parent_group = svg_element.xpath(xpath_string)[0]

    # Reset all elements to visible
    child_elements = parent_group.getchildren()
    [x.style.pop('display', None) for x in child_elements]

    # Convert the number label list to strings
    string_label_list = [str(x) for x in label_list]

    for child_element in child_elements:
        child_element_label = child_element.get('inkscape:label')
        if child_element_label not in string_label_list:
            print(f'Hiding {child_element_label}')
            child_element.style['display'] = 'none'

###################################################################

svg_element = open_svg('allRegions.svg', '/home/name/Pictures')

label_list = [1, 3, 5, 8, 12]

parent_group_label = 'regions'

set_visiblity_from_label_list(svg_element, parent_group_label, label_list)


write_svg_file(svg_element, f'{str(uuid4())}.svg')

I just added a None to the pop statement, to prevent an error being raised if the style property 'display' is not present.

However I think Inkscape prevents the error anyway, it was just in case.