Paste to layer that is set to invisible doesn't work

[Milo van der Linden]

I am a mapmaker/cartographer.

I export svg images from www.openstreetmap.org that I want to make beautiful in Inkscape. These files are big and therefor I need to divide them to layers that can be turned on and off to ease my working process.

I noticed that when I CTRL+X an object that is not on a layer and CTRL+Alt+V on a layer that is set to invisible; the object disappears.

This means that I have to set a layer to visible (inkscape starts rendering) CTRL+ALT+V (Inkscape starts rendering) and set it to invisible again (Inkscape removes the visible objects from the canvas; rendering)

If I could past to an invisible layer and be sure the object reaches that layer, I can save 2 re-renders per cut and paste process.

Another advantage is that once my canvas gets more "empty" Inkscape starts operating faster, which is nice working with such big files.

I think that would be an enhancement.

What do you people think?

[prkos (prkos)]

I usually have the Layers dialogue open when dealing with such operations, I too often have some layers visible and some invisible.

I use Shift + PgUp and Shift + PgDn to move selection through layers and I can see which layer the selection was moved to in the Layers dialogue (it's highlighted). Try it :)

[Halley (ed-halley)]

I've been looking for bug fixes and requests for enhancement that relate to layers, to consider for patching for 0.47. While I can understand the situation you're in, and I can understand the annoyance of being told "Current layer is hidden, unhide it to draw on it," I think it's probably better this way. Modifying hidden things is not a good way to remain self-explanatory or clear to the user.

In fact, I was thinking of changing the Shift+PgUp, Shift+PgDn keystrokes that prkos mentioned, so that it would only move selected things to the next *visible* layer, as that would be more clear to the user. However, in light of this bug report, I will refrain from making any changes to Shift+PgUp, Shift+PgDn behavior, so that it remains a useful workaround for this usage as prkos described. If you want to move something into a hidden layer, use Shift+PgUp, Shift+PgDn to do so.