items with 0% opacity are not click-sensitive

[Daniel Pope]

Items that are fully transparent cannot be clicked on to select them. Similarly the mouse cursor does not change when it moves over them. They still exist in the SVG and can be selected by rubber band.

Similarly, the right-click popup menu does not appear for these objects, even when selected. (This may be related to #168618.)

[bbyak (buliabyak)]

So why is this a bug? If you make an object no-fill and no-stroke it's also not clickable, so this is consistent.

[Textureglitch (textureglitch)]

I can confirm this bug on Inkscape 0.46 built Apr 1, 2008 on Windows XP SP2.

It doesn't matter if it's consistent, this bug wasn't present in 0.45 and it is bad UI design. When I set an object to 0% opacity it's because I want it to be fully transparent, I don't want it to be unclickable and unselectable, and just disappear.
Now I have to remember this bug every time I use Inkscape and make sure that things I want FULLY transparent are instead set to 1% opacity.

I cannot imagine why anyone would want a feature that can make an object invisible and unselectable in the first place. Wouldn't you just delete it instead?

[prkos (prkos)]

I'd also like to cast a vote to make all objects clickable, unless someone can clarify the current implementation...

Clicking on objects is very fundamental for Inkscape workflow, I think all objects should behave the same on that matter. Being transparent should be treated as a value of equal importance as having a color fill or stroke. Just as Textureglitch above said if you don't need a transparent object to be selectable you just as well might delete it.

[bbyak (buliabyak)]

They are not "unselectable". They can be selected with a lot of methods - tab, ctrl+a, drag around. The only bug I see here is that it could not be selected by clicking on the outline in Outline mode, but I just fixed that in rev 19084.

As for the normal mode, I still don't see your point. Yes, clicking may be said to be "fundamental". And that's exactly why, when I see object X, I want to be sure that clicking on it will select X, not some fully-transparent Y sitting on top. Such ghost objects getting in the way would be very confusing and irritating. Again, this is consistent: objects that have no fill cannot be clicked on the fill; objects with 100% transparent fill cannot be clicked on the fill; and objects with 100% transparency cannot be clicked, period. I see no reason to make exceptions here.

Are such objects useful? Of course. For example in a web page mockup, I create a slicing with no-fill no-stroke rectangles in an "export" layer. This way I can work with the visible stuff without the invisible things getting into the way. When ready, I switch to the export layer and either do ctrl+a for a batch export of slices, or tab through the slices, or switch to Outline mode and select slices by clicking for adjustments if necessary.

[Textureglitch (textureglitch)]

Thanks for the Outline mode fix, that's a step in the right direction :)

I'm glad that you find these objects useful in *your specific* workflow of slicing webpages, but you must also understand that other people find it frustrating when you change the rules on us like this. The slider did not work that way in the previous version of the program.

To contrast your story, I mostly use 0% opacity objects temporarily in order to make unions or see what's behind something. I rarely have any 0% opacity objects in the finished picture, which is why it frustrates me that they disappear, because I'm always planning on grabbing them again later and doing something useful with them.

I'm not sure if this is some sort of miscommunication between artists and programmers, because I don't see how having 'no fill' click-through objects leads to the logical conclusion that 'no opacity' should also be click-through, especially since you remove the edges of the object as well.

Clicking is indeed fundamental; you can't do much with an object you can't click. The word 'opacity' means "the degree to which an object lets light pass through it". However, the opacity slider as it works now seems more like a 'reality anchor' to another dimension and once you set it to 0%, the object is forever lost in a parallel universe.

I can perhaps see your point about 'no fill' objects being click-through as it were, on the grounds that people find it useful in their work since it's a quick way to draw a frame instead wasting time aligning four edges with the Bezier tool. The goal is more efficient, convenient workflow.
In the same way, it is more convenient for me to just drag the opacity slider to zero when what I really want is to make the object fully transparent for a short while. If I wanted to make it unselectable as well, I'd put it in the background or something, but I'd certainly want to still be able to move the object.

Usually when you have a fully transparent object Y sitting on top of object X there's a reason for it, and it shouldn't be a big surprise. By making object Y click-through you're already making a big exception there: An alpha of 255 is a solid color, an Alpha of 1 is aaaalmost invisible (but still clickable and movable), but an Alpha of 0 makes the object cease to function like it did before? This is not a logic progression at all. How can you argue that this is *not* a major exception to the rule?
Not only is the object not clickable, it's not even movable either. Suddenly it doesn't work like all the other objects do.

I can understand why click-through is a desirable thing when you do splicing, but it is not desirable at all when I, as a hapless user, think I am changing the opacity. If anything, the click-through anomaly should be a property that you set specifically as an exception on the object, it shouldn't just happen as a side-effect of opacity.

When I work with opacity I think of it as a stained-glass window that you put thinner or thicker layers of paint on top of, and when I polish the window really hard to see through it, I don't expect suddenly to be able to put my hand through the glass because it reaches a certain level of transpar...

[Joshua Blocher (verbalshadow)]

I think the question you need to ask is the object effectively there?

It is for not effectively there IMO, since it has no solid form, setting it to zero opacity is the same as not being there.
It's more like a ghost than glass. If you can't see a ghost you can't do anything with it. You can do stuff to it(making it show up) when take special measures like you drag select things or tab through the objects.

IMO if you can't see it you shouldn't be able to touch it.

Maybe using layers is a more effective way to do what you want, temporarily hiding stuff.

[bbyak (buliabyak)]

> To contrast your story, I mostly use 0% opacity objects temporarily in
order to make unions or see what's behind something.

I'm not sure how this helps to "make unions". As for seeing, it should not be a problem - you don't need to deselect the object at all in order to see, right? Just move its opacity to 0% and back without deselecting it. Not to mention you don't really need to go all the way to 0% in order to see through. Alternatively you can put it into a layer and hide that layer, or just switch to Outline mode and back to see the shapes beneath this shape.

By the way, here's yet another way to make an object invisible AND unselectable: hiding it or its layer. Another reason to be consistent, as this is very similar to what 0% opacity does.

> Usually when you have a fully transparent object Y sitting on top of object X there's a reason for it, and it shouldn't be a big surprise.

It will start being a surprise after a short while. It's very easy to forget that it's there. Not to mention it may be not your image at all. I'm afraid surprises are unavoidable here, and such surprises when your eyes tell you one thing but the program behaves differently are a very bad thing for usability.

As for 1% opaque object being clickable, yes, I agree it's a bit clumsy. But, such an object, even if hard to see, still can be detected e.g. by the dropper tool. And in any case, I'm sure 1% opaque objects are orders of magnitude less common in real world SVG files than 0% opacity objects, and therefore are much less of a problem.

[Textureglitch (textureglitch)]

Yes, setting the opacity to 0% and then back again is EXACTLY what I want to do, but I can't do that because the moment I click something else, I can't get back to the object. Keeping it selected is not a solution, I want to do other things to my image while the object is invisible, and the fact that I can't even move it around while it is invisible is also a major source of frustration.

As for working on other people's images, I think that's just yet another reason that 0% opacity objects shouldn't be hidden. How are you ever going to find those objects again? Do you check all images you get from other people for hidden objects?

Like you said, one quickly forgets about all the hidden things, so making them unselectable just makes that even worse. At least when you click an invisible object and you see a selection frame around something you didn't expect, you know that there is an invisible object there. When you click a black object on a black background you also get a selection frame around it even though it's not what your eyes would expect to find by looking at the picture.

I fiddled around a bit with the 'hide' property and this is pretty much what I was talking about earlier. So it seems like the functionality for hiding objects in the way that you want for splicing is already there (if a bit more hidden. I couldn't even select the hidden object with Tab or a drag box).
Hiding an object as a property makes perfect sense! Even in the property dialog box the ability to 'hide' an object is clearly a boolean property, but somehow you're saying that the same boolean property should exist between 'opacity 0%' and opacity '1-100%'?

I've tried to find another picture editing, picture drawing, or vector drawing program that hides things at opacity 0%, but none of them do that.
I could also mention that the Inkscape documentation says nothing about this hiding property on the opacity page, but that's a minor issue. What bothers me is that no documentation I can find on Alpha blending, or in the Inkscape documentation, or in any descriptions, or glossaries, or anything that define Alpha channels, opacity, or transparency say anything about hiding objects.

I still insist that an object which you set to let light pass through at the maximum level should not suddenly be turned into an empty, unclickable, unmovable frame. When I set the opacity slider to 0%, what I actually want is 1% opacity and a little less. I don't want 'hidden'.
If you want to get technical, it's the Alpha property I want to adjust, which is supposed to be just another color channel like R, G, or B. I expect the opacity slider to adjust the Alpha channel, not to change any other properties on the object.

If you want consistency, what about gradients? If I set a gradient with 255 Alpha at the top and 0 Alpha at the bottom, by your logic, shouldn't Inkscape actually shrink the object because the bottom part is now hidden?

My argument here is very simple: The current 0% opacity setting makes no logical sense, it makes no intuitive sense, and it violates rules of consistent UI design.
The "0% opacity is the same as a hidden object"-argument may make sense in a programming ...

[bbyak (buliabyak)]

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 10:42 AM, Textureglitch <email address hidden> wrote:
> Yes, setting the opacity to 0% and then back again is EXACTLY what I
> want to do, but I can't do that because the moment I click something
> else, I can't get back to the object. Keeping it selected is not a
> solution, I want to do other things to my image while the object is
> invisible, and the fact that I can't even move it around while it is
> invisible is also a major source of frustration.

Again: work in Outline mode, or hide that layer, or just move it away
temporarily. Lots of ways to do what you want.

> As for working on other people's images, I think that's just yet another
> reason that 0% opacity objects shouldn't be hidden. How are you ever
> going to find those objects again? Do you check all images you get from
> other people for hidden objects?

Of course. It's always a good idea to use Outline mode to check for
lost things. Remember, even if I do what you're proposing for 0%
opacity objects, there will be still no-fill no-stroke ones that can
be lost just as easily, so this checking is never redundant.

> Like you said, one quickly forgets about all the hidden things, so
> making them unselectable just makes that even worse.

No, it makes it consistent. If you lost it, you lost it: at least it
won't bother you by preventing you to click things under it :)
Ctrl+NumPad5 and you will see everything you have lost :)

> At least when you
> click an invisible object and you see a selection frame around something
> you didn't expect, you know that there is an invisible object there.

Normally, I know that. I don't need reminding that it's there.
Moreover I likely made it 0% opacity for this very reason: so it does
not get in my way, in any sense.

> I fiddled around a bit with the 'hide' property and this is pretty much what I was talking about earlier. So it seems like the functionality for hiding objects in the way that you want for splicing is already there (if a bit more hidden. I couldn't even select the hidden object with Tab or a drag box).

Yes, that hiding is a bit more aggressive. One might argue about
whether a 0% object should be selectable by drag around, for example.

> Hiding an object as a property makes perfect sense! Even in the property dialog box the ability to 'hide' an object is clearly a boolean property, but somehow you're saying that the same boolean property should exist between 'opacity 0%' and opacity '1-100%'?

Yes, zero opacity vs nonzero opacity sounds like a nice boolean
property to me :)

> I could also mention that the Inkscape documentation says nothing about this hiding property on the opacity page, but that's a minor issue. What bothers me is that no documentation I can find on Alpha blending, or in the Inkscape documentation, or in any descriptions, or glossaries, or anything that define Alpha channels, opacity, or transparency say anything about hiding objects.

Of course you won't find it anywhere but in Inkscape documentation
(when we add it there). Selecting and clicking are Inkscape concepts,
we have full freedom to interpret them as is most convenient to us.

> I still insist that an object which you s...

[MenTaLguY (mental-deactivatedaccount)]

I think providing a UI for viewing a tree of objects in the layer, which
is the next major UI-related feature I'd like to work on, may also help
here; it would become much easier to select objects which were invisible
or locked for whatever reason, and to hide/unhide/lock/unlock them.

[Textureglitch (textureglitch)]

A tree of objects would certainly help, but I would like it if my objects didn't get lost in the first place ;)

> Again: work in Outline mode, or hide that layer, or just move it away temporarily. Lots of ways to do what you want.

Working in Outline mode is limiting because it removes all the visual information about color and stroke.

I don't understand how you can get opacity and hiding mixed up like this. If I, as a user, wanted to hide my object I would either set the 'hide' property, or I would give it no fill and no stroke. Opacity has nothing to do with this.

I think the solution would be to make an Inkscape Preference for it. Put a checkbox in 'Tools->Selector' called 'Do not click-through 0% Opacity objects' or something.

[bbyak (buliabyak)]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 7:33 AM, Textureglitch <email address hidden> wrote:
> Working in Outline mode is limiting because it removes all the visual
> information about color and stroke.

Not all. For the selected object, you can always view the
fill/stroke/opacity swatches in the statusbar. And it's perfectly easy
to select things by clicking to examine them, because nothing ever
obscures anything :)

> I think the solution would be to make an Inkscape Preference for it. Put a checkbox in 'Tools->Selector' called 'Do not click-through 0% Opacity objects' or something.

I'm afraid that would be a prime example of an obscure, hard to
explain, bug-prone, clumsy preference that just needs to be avoided. I
think we need to get this right on our own and not bother the user
with this.

[John Cliff (johncliff)]

How about we just limit the opacity slider lower limit to 1%? after all, after that its not transparent not opaque...

[Textureglitch (textureglitch)]

I'm not sure that's a good idea. As far as I know, the Alpha channel value that you're actually adjusting with the slider is between 0.0 and 1.0. And setting 0.0 to be 1% is just going to mess things up if you're actually trying to use a specific value for some reason.

I think it would be far better if the slider hard-stopped at 0% and you had to release it and drag it down to -1% in order to get the 'hidden object' functionality. That would make absolutely as much sense.

[John Cliff (johncliff)]

I'm not suggesting setting 0 to be 1%, I'm suggesting not letting the slider take the value below 0.01 (1% of 1)

[hash (hash-g)]

I would be glad, if when I select transparent object, I would be able to move it with mouse, as if it was normal not-transparent object.
I'm assuming that what is selected is clickable.

[Daniel Pope (djpope)]

I reported this bug because I've watched my novice assistant lose dozens of objects into transparency. If she can't click an object, it doesn't appear to exist. Or perhaps it's not getting the move cursor that creates the problem. Either way, understanding the structure of an SVG document is vital to understanding how to change it; that's much more true of SVG than proprietary vector formats. My assistant was getting annoyed because she thought Inkscape was deleting/losing objects she'd carefully created.

0% creates a special case on the slider. Users don't understand special cases. In the mind of a user, it makes exactly as much sense for an object not to be clickable at 0% opacity, as if, say, an object of exactly 42% opacity were not clickable. The fact that it's invisible on the canvas doesn't mean it's invisible in the mind of the user who's just put it there.

The argument about non-stroke, non-fill shapes is not really relevant. I don't know how many users seek to create such a shape, but I think the vast majority would prefer if Inkscape prevented that. When you click the button to turn stroke off it could flip fill on: the fill and stroke dialog would not be able to create such an object. If such a shape is useful, perhaps in scripting, it shouldn't be much different to substitute a transparent but filled shape.

[MenTaLguY (mental-deactivatedaccount)]

After watching the discussion for a while, and experimenting in Inkscape, my feeling is that the 0% special case ought to be removed. Part of the reason is that in many cases there is no visual difference between a very small opacity and none at all.

A compromise solution might be to make 0% opaque objects clickable/draggable only while they are selected, which would still serve to alleviate the worst behavior:

 - set selected object opacity to 0%
 - selection cue is still shown
 - try to drag it
 - *poof*

[EarlyBlake (pam4water)]

I would also like to be able to click on my no fill/no stroke boxes and move them. Seems to me in 0.45 you could click on the out line of the 0% 0% objects and drag them. I have multiple boxes for exporting that I can't effectively move or delete anymore. Selecting them with the rubber band selects to many other objects. Sorting through a tree to find them does not sound like an appealing option either.

[BlueSloth (bluesloth600)]

I want this bug to be fixed too. It's frusterating to not be able to click on something that I know is there, when all I did was adjust the opacity or the alpha channel.

If I make something 0% opaque and then forget it's there, accidently selecting it would surprise me briefly, but I wouldn't mind. At least then I'll remember it's there. Finding out that clicking on an object does nothing just because the opacity is set to a particular value is a much bigger surprise.

It makes sense to not be able to click on an object with no fill and no outline, because there's nothing to click on. There's a difference between being transparent and not being there.

[andreb (nucleus-rei)]

I have been recently switching over from Illustrator to Inkscape.

I must admit that I found (and still find) this behaviour odd and very counter-intuitive. After all we already have at least one way of click-selecting through obscuring objects by alt-clicking on those objects.
I really don't want Inkscape forcing those current restrictions on me. Same as when I import a PNG that has transparency and otherwise only nearly white or fully white opaque areas it can get quite hard to guess where I need to click to be able to drag the image.
Sure, I could set the document background temporarily to another value or add an image filter effect that inverts the image, but having to turn this on for dragging, off for evaluating the colors in your document (from a viewpoint of composition) and on aggain for some more manipulation is just so counter-intuitive to the workflow.
And I feel Inkscape really looses its edge in intuitivity which made me use it more often for professional projects in the first place...

[dennis (dh-triple-media-deactivatedaccount)]

first, i can't see how layers relate to translucent shapes. if i take away a layer, it is gone from the staple. this is the idea behind blending out a layer. calling it translucent is misleading because it is rather 'gone' - or effectively turned off. a translucent object, instead, is still there but serving for other than immediately visible purposes.

second, a translucent object is there by intend (which is not to be argued about by the developers at all) and not because it is 'lost'. defining a translucent object as 'being lost' is fully strange to me. if inkscape were a garbage collector, it would not be used by anybody because it caused memory leaks. however, object leaks are in no way better. inkscape may delete those objects or treat them as any other. the rest is nonsense, from the perspective of an artist as well as from the perspective of an application designer. from the perspective of an artist, deleting the intentionally created object is nonsense too. think of the floating-text box, which is deleted if it is left empty. i rather want it to stay for the simple reason of creating initially empty text fields in templates. is there a way in inkscape to prepare initially empty text fields in templates?

[Kjohrf (kjohrf)]

I just found this bug after fighting with this issue many times. I vote (if I can vote) to have it fixed.

For me, it's more for object that are no-fill, no-stroke, not 0% opacity exactly.

There are many times I want such objects:

1) I am preparing a bezier outline that I will use for flowed text. I don't want the outline visible. Maybe I "unflow" the text to change the outline, or just try to select the outline. If the outline has no fill or no stroke, I can't select it. Now I know about Shift+D on flowed text, but it was a long time before I discovered that.

2) I am putting text on a path. The path object will often end up being set no-fill, no-stroke. But I want to change the path sometimes. Same thing with Shift+D here.

NOTE: What is especially frustrating for me in these case is that Alt + Mouse Drag does not find the object, when I know it is there!

For closed path objects with no fill, I would like to select by clicking ANYWHERE in the object, if there is no other object inside where I click.

[rfvuhbtg (rfvuhbtg)]

Gonna have to add a comment here as well. I'm currently making a poster to present at a conference. In it, I have some graphs where I made the white space transparent in an image editor to make it look better on the off-white poster template background. Since the only opaque parts are the data and frames, it makes it rather hard to click and move it instead of the template or background behind it. I want most of the image to be transparent, but I still want all of the image to react when I click on it or try to move it.

For this reason, I'm going to be forced to use Powerpoint to create the poster instead. While I've become painfully aware that Powerpoint isn't exactly designed to do this sort of thing, it's frustrations are less than the inability to deal properly with transparent objects.

[father (chimenigfx)]

Here is my vote: let invisible object BE VISIBLE
Being right anb being sensible are two diggerent things.

And if we can't all agree, atleast make an option somewhere in the preferences!

[father (chimenigfx)]

Sorry, typo. I ment let invisible objects BE CLICKABLE.

[father (chimenigfx)]

@John Cliff

I would go paranoid if that slider didnt go all the way to 0%. In some cases when i make graphics for 3d engines and other unforgiving systems, making 100% sure that what I export is 0% and not 0.1% or 1% transparent is of paramount importance.

Again, the best solution imo so far is to just make it an option in the preferences: "Allow invisible objects (no-stroke no-fill or opacity 0%) to be selectable by click".

[ejnaren (ejnaren)]

I had the same experience with the graph problem. I had an image with very fine lines as a PNG and could not select the image without zooming all the way in or drag select it (which was difficult because not only the image would get selected.)
I can not contribute to the code (yet) so I will not make a vote, but I will make a proposal:
How about simply making a hotkey toggle each mode?
Hot-key not pressed: Doesnt select tansparent areas.
Hot-key pressed: Selects transparent areas.
Hope to see this resolved in the future.

PS proposal inspired by the !ingenious! alt-drag = move selected object no matter mouse location.

[jack.herbert (jack-herbert)]

Being a newbie, I just put some text along a red path (so I can see it), worked on my path, and later, when exporting the image, I changed the path's colour from red to transparent. Then I wanted to change that back and I simply couldn't.
After spending the best part of an hour searching around and reading this bug report's comments, Kjohrf mentioned "Shift+D on flowed text" and I could select my path again. Once I turned up the alpha, it was back to red. Oh the irony! Inkscape knew all along I wasn't done with this path.

Intuitively, I make a hierarchy with the object on top, different parameters beneath it, like shape and colour, and below that the different values, say RGBA.
I don't expect, nor am I warned, that changing only one value of the colour will alter other parameters of my object, like its 'clickability'. And since I can't change the alpha value back unless I can precisely select the object, well... it's a catch 22.

[Strangelv (jamesg)]

Okay, so I find this thread and discover that if I press tab a whole bunch of times I eventually find it. Great. Now I still can't rotate it -- just because it needs to be invisible doesn't mean it's not structurally important. And making it non-invisible and then invisible again on every open image I'm needing to go back and fix something with is sufficiently inconvenient that finding my extremely rarely used login to complain here seemed like a good use of time.

I very much would like to be able to click on or alt-click to hit the object instead of wasting large amounts of time trying to work around rules designed for someone else's idea of an optimal workflow. One that evidently never involves the rather basic thing I'm trying to do.

Admittedly, if it wasn't for a different, hopefully less controversial bug I wouldn't be needing to select the invisible object again.

Even if non-visible objects were treated as being at the bottom when alt-click is used that would help enormously, unless I have an outlandish number of overlapping paths to deal with and had it on top or near the top for a reason.

Putting the object in a layer won't work because it needs to be at a specific Z axis and I don't want to need to create five layers to keep things in order and still probably fumble things when it should be able to work with a single layer.

Moving things around is such a big horrible time consuming inconvenient mess to put the object precisely back to its previous location that I don't even know where to begin with explaining why that idea a bad one.

Yes, after reading the condescending attitudes of the pro-bug caucus in here I *AM* a bit grumpy right now.

I'm glad you noticed.

After reading this page I can easily see someone patronizingly explaining why it's important for text put on a path to spontaneously reposition itself away from where I put it, and why I'm being unreasonable for wanting it to stay put when I hit save, and explaining why it absolutely shouldn't show me the change until after I try to reload the image.

[Andreas (andreas-draganis)]

I was glad to find this thread, and that this issue with Inkscape was being discussed, but very surprised to find that some people actually defend it!

The reasons that I object to this behaviour are both "philosophical" and usability-related.

1. From a "philosophical" viewpoint: I feel it doesn't make sense for a "continuous" opacity variable to have an influence on a binary property of an object, i.e. its "concreteness" (e.g. "clickability"). I consider it to make more sense for an object with 0% opacity to be "existing but invisible" rather than non-existing.

2. Usability: The user should be the master of what's going on in the project, and should therefore have access to all objects of his/her creation, even if they happen to be meant to be invisible in the final exported image. Furthermore, fully transparent objects ARE selectable, just not by a direct click. One may use TAB, one may use a selection box (and then proceed to deselect anything else that might have been selected in the same process). If the philosophical viewpoint is that transparent objects are non-existent, then either _remove all_ ways to select the object, or _keep all_ ways to select the object.

[Junopsis (smccalley)]

I found this because I just lost my reference layer, a raster image that I was using to recreate stuff in vector form. I can't believe that you'd want elements that are invisible to become unusable. I found it using Tab to select the layer, but at that point I had to delete and paste in a duplicate by reopening the original image, because while it selected it, Inkscape didn't allow me to alter its opacity (in fact Inkscape seemed to think it was now at 100% opacity again). There's no reason to make stuff unselectable just because at some point during the creation process you wanted it not to get in the way of other things. It's like punishing us for wanting to see how far we've gotten.

[nagger (uo-ichbinsauch)]

As a workaround for invisible-but-clickable-objects I use objects with a stroke, but set the stroke width to zero.

[Jehan (jehan-marmottard)]

I also find this very annoying to have to do boring stuff (multiple tabs, select through the XML editor or the find dock, provided one knows the id or label, etc.) to select an invisible object. There are many good reasons why one might want to use invisible objects.

- A very common usage is to transform a text to path while still keeping the original text object hidden below, allowing modification (I saw a conference of someone making images for Wikipedia and using this trick).

- Another is to make icons and have an invisible rectangle behind your icons to delimitate the icon border. This is not the same as using the viewBox since this way you can make a single file with many icons, and you later crop each icons individually with a script. This technique is used by GNOME designers for instance who design icon sets in a single SVG file delimitating each icon with a square.

I would propose to at least add a checkbox option for allowing this capability in the "Selecting" tab of the preferences.

[mray (mrayyyy)]

Hi - thanks for reporting this bug, I've manually migrated it to Inkscape's new bug tracker on GitLab, and closed it here.

Please feel free to file new bugs about the issues you're seeing at http://inkscape.org/report.

Moved to: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/issues/352
Closed by: https://gitlab.com/mray