Selectable units for steps

As far as aligning nodes go, I'd like to see the align and distribute
dialog work with those as well, with any invalid items (Biggest Item,
Smallest Item, etc.) greyed out.

Node alignment is in CVS.

Originator: NO

I would just like to ask if there's something going on in this direction.
So far (14th of January 2007) you still can't choose units for STEP. I
think this is really useful feature.

a) Selectable units for steps:

Initial commit in revision 10177.

b) Add spinbox for "Arrow keys move by" to Main toolbar:

The option stays in the preferences dialog for now, but with selectable units like other 'Steps' options (part of r10177)

c) Align nodes

Already part of the 'Align & Distribute' dialog when the node tool is active. For further feature requests, see bug #171287 (“Align dialog should have "Relative to" for nodes, too”) and its duplicates.

@Johan - would it be ok to assign the report to you?

Could you please update the release notes? I don't see any reference to this.

Sorry, I was talking about "a) Selectable units for steps" only.

> Could you please update the release notes? I don't see any
> reference to this.

@Pablo - this was just committed less than 24 h ago to inkscape trunk and hasn't seen much testing and user experience yet - why such a hurry to add it to the release notes for 0.49 (which is not scheduled to be released this year anyway)? Or do you propose to backport some selected new features to the 0.48.x branch for 0.48.2 (intended for bug fix releases, not new features)?

Ok, sorry, nevermind ;) It was just a reminder.

> Or do you propose to backport some selected new features to the 0.48.x branch for 0.48.2
No, I'm indifferent.
I was afraid that it didn't make to the releases notes since it has happened before (I think) that the person in charge of a part of the code didn't update them. But I'm not in a hurry, so excuse me, forget it;)

On 18-4-2011 17:04, Pablo Trabajos wrote:
> I was afraid that it didn't make to the releases notes since it has happened before (I think) that the person in charge of a part of the code didn't update them. But I'm not in a hurry, so excuse me, forget it;)

I was about to add it, but couldn't find a good spot where to add it and
forgot about it. Please go ahead and add it to the Release Notes. I am
very sure all coders will appreciate it very much if other people helped
them with this kind of stuff. It can be a bit of a pain to get
everything right after implementing something. :-)
Thanks!

@Johan - we have a problem when upgrading to the new feature with old preferences: all commands which take a value from the steps preferences (move with cursor, path inset/outset, scale with keyboard) initially fail with Inkscape trunk (there's no unit in the preferences file). As soon as the preferences dialog has been opened once (without changing anything), the preferences are updated and have the necessary units added: the commands now work as expected.

For users upgrading to a newer version, this is unexpected and the "fix" is not obvious.

Steps to reproduce:
1) quit all instances of Inkscape
2) rename current preferences file
3) launch&quit Inkscape 0.48.1 (to recreate a default preferences file)
4) launch Inkscape trunk, draw a shape and try to move it with the cursor keys -> failure
5) open and close the preferences dialog
5) try again to move the shape -> success

Follow-up report:
Bug #799848 “Commands using 'Steps' values initially fail in trunk with preferences file from stable”

Changing status to 'Fix Committed' (updating prefs file has been filed separately in bug #799848).

Still needs documenting in the release notes 0.49
<http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.49>