Gradient Stop Alpha value not correct in Fill/Stroke dialog

[John Smith]

Issues with Gradient stop alpha in Fill/Stroke dialog:

1.When using the on-canvas Gradient tool (or Node tool) to select a gradient stop, the alpha value of that stop in the Fill and Stroke dialog is not correct. It usually shows 255. The Fill/Stroke "master" opacity and the legacy Gradient Editor dialog show the correct alpha value.

2. Changing the alpha value then the master opacity often resets the alpha value back to 255

3. Cannot directly change the rgba value of a Gradient stop in the Fill/Stroke RGBA: textbox.

[John Smith (john-smithi)]

Committed r11572 to trunk.
Gradient stop alpha value should be correct in Fill/Stroke, RGBA can be edited directly for stops.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Unfortunately, the committed change (linking the 'Alpha' slider to the global opacity slider for the special case of selected gradient stops) does not offer a solution for related
Bug #169019 "no way to change fill/stroke opacity with gradient / pattern":
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/169019>

Underlying issue of bug #169019 (AFAIU): The existing style attribute of an object with a gradient may or may not include a 'fill-opacity' and/or 'stroke-opacity' property (represented in Inkscape with the 'Alpha' slider in the color chooser for flat fill and stroke colors).
Inkscape itself is inconsistent whether to keep (gradient tool) or remove (fill & stroke) existing 'fill-/stroke-opacity' properties from a style when converting a flat color to a gradient (or pattern) paint server. I don't know about SVG files created externally, but AFAIU the SVG 1.1 specification does not prohibit a 'fill-/stroke-opacity' setting in combination with paint servers like gradients or patterns.

See also:
«When you have one of the gradient handles selected, its style (color and opacity) is reflected by the selected style indicator (left of the statusbar) and the Fill&Stroke dialog. Previously, opacity of a gradient handle was reflected as fill-opacity and stroke-opacity; now it is reflected as master opacity (the "O:" spinbutton in the selected style indicator, the "Master opacity" slider in Fill&Stroke). This makes it much easier to view and change opacity of gradient handles using only the selected style indicator in the statusbar. »
<http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.46#Style_of_gradient_stops>

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Correction:
> whether to keep (gradient tool) or remove (fill & stroke)
should be
"whether to keep (gradient tool) or reset to '1' (fill & stroke)"

[John Smith (john-smithi)]

> committed change ... does not offer a solution for related Bug #169019
Sorry i didn't mention it, but I also created a bug report (bug #1028505) for this related problem.
I think the Fill/Stroke "master" opacity should show the opacity of the selected object (line, rect etc), and the color alpha should show the opacity of the selected gradient stop in this case. Otherwise there is no way to independently control both the object opacity and the gradient stops opacity.

This report is only to fix the problem of the color alpha being wrong (and usually set to 255) for gradient stops. This fix should not break the existing functionality - as per the 0.46 release notes - of editing the gradient stop opacity from the status bar.