flow elements not included in query-all output

[Pelle Nilsson]

Running inkscape from the command-line with --query-all does not include any flowRoot, flowRegion, flowSpan or flowPara elements (possibly not other flow-elements either?) in the output. Since tspan elements are included it looks like a bug to not include flowSpan and flowRegion at least.

Inkscape 0.92.2 5c3e80d, 2017-08-06 (OSX) (although I have also had this problem in Ubuntu Linux running 0.92.2).

It is possible to query a specific element, at least flowSpan that I tested, using --query-x (and y, width, height), including from the --shell, so as a workaround it is possible to query one value at a time for each element, but for a large number of elements that takes a long time.

[Alvin Penner (apenner)]

- not reproduced on Windows 10, Inkscape 0.92.3pre0 (f5a6572, 2018-03-03)

- attached is the output I get using the file 'testflow.svg'

C:\APP\Temp\inkscape_0.92.3pre0>inkscape --query-all \windows\temp\testflow.svg
svg8,52.045359,83.487068,577.02606,936.76995
layer1,52.045359,83.487068,577.02606,936.76995
rect3713,63.824525,83.487068,180.92238,123.77953
path3715,345.21427,96.305403,283.85715,158.14286
path3717,70.497824,313.0175,139.00433,139.00433
path3719,376.85141,293.5048,172.68078,155.03235
path3721,53.334689,541.60842,143.80817,70.497935
path3723,405.2375,536.65483,190.58578,28.961406
path3725,52.045359,736.61421,200.5643,89.879692
text3729,86.151787,976.13053,85.635415,38.942707
tspan3727,86.151787,976.13053,85.635415,38.942707
flowRoot3739,365.70963,979.80389,94.958329,40.453123
rect3743,365.21429,970.59111,295.2857,92.428572

the output contains the size of both the flowRoot element and the rectangle that is included with it.

[Pelle Nilsson (lifelike)]

I created a small test SVG with a normal text and a flowing text and only the normal text (attached). Only tspan shows up in --query-all output, not any of the flow elements.

$ inkscape --query-all /Users/user/Pictures/flowtext.svg
svg2,-453.41811,-289.8622,137.58973,85.963617
layer1,-453.41811,-289.8622,137.58973,85.963617
text,-453.41811,-245.29702,99.485677,41.398438
rect4146,-453.84686,-247.63098,211.94701,238.66437
title,-375.63307,-289.8622,59.804688,19.101562
tspan4140,-375.63307,-289.8622,59.804688,19.101562

$ inkscape --version
Inkscape 0.92.2 5c3e80d, 2017-08-06

Also tested on my Debian laptop running Inkscape 0.92.1 r15371 with the exact same result.

Tested the same file to a raspberry pi with some Raspbian version and its packaged version of Inkscape 0.92.1 r15371 with the exact same result.

Installed Inkscape 0.92.2 (64-bit, 5c3e80d) on my gaming PC with Windows 10 to test there and it does not output any flow elements, however command-line output seems to suddenly die with two I/O Error: Permission denied so not sure if it completed running.

But then I tried to create a new very similar file on the Windows machine and ran the command on that file. The flowRoot shows up. But again the output suddenly stops after a few lines with Permission Denied.

It is possible that if I did not get the I/O Errors then all the flow-elements would always be present with the windows version. But they are definitely missing in 0.92.2 on OSX and on 0.92.1 on my Linux computers.

[Pelle Nilsson (lifelike)]

Sorry, I did not at first notice there was a testflow.svg attached Alvin.

I tested it on the mac and the flowRoot and rectangle shows up in --query-all.

But the flowPara does not show up, so it is still not quite ok.

I made part of the paragraph bold (thus creating a flowSpan element) and that does also not show up in the --query-all output.

[Pelle Nilsson (lifelike)]

This might be a curious thing to even bother to report, but I am abusing --query-all and tspans to insert inlined images in text, as a workaround for the lack of support for flowImage. It would be very nice if I could also make it work for flowing text. Was hoping that it was a simple fix like just some boolean to flip in a class, but I guess if it is not even 100 % straightforward to reproduce (at least not for flowRoot) it might be more difficult to fix.

http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=31091#p103681

[Pelle Nilsson (lifelike)]

If I select a specific tspan element in the XML Editor its bounding box is marked in the drawing, but if I select a flowSpan or flowPara element there is no bounding box shown. The flowRoot element has a bounding box, but not flowRegion (although the rect inside of the flowRegion has one). Guess there can be some connection? Maybe there is some good technical reason for this, but from a user perspective it looks wrong both that the bounding boxes are not seen in the GUI and that they do not (always) show up in --query-all output.