Integrated Style-Set Manager

[LauraSeabrook]

Inkscape 0.46 has a variety of elements and features with which to stylise objects. The user can set the type of: fill; stroke paint; stroke style; degree of blur and opacity; and add unique filter effects. A current limitation with these characteristics is that many of these only seem to apply to the current document. Reusing any of these between documents requires copying either the original object or copying the style to the new object from the original object. This wishlist suggestion is about improving this. Below is a possible way this might work:

TERMINOLOGY
At the risk of duplicating an already existing term, I'm suggesting that the term "style-set" refer to the list of attributes that determine an objects appearance and that can be copied from one object to another by using either the PASTE STYLE or PASTE PATH EFFECT actions.

STYLE-SET CONSOLE
The first addition to Inkscape would be that of a Style-Set console, similar to the Scripts Console. A styles manager menu at the top of the console would enable creating, editing, loading, saving, renaming and deleting of selected Style-Sets to a file format. An additional pane under the Inkscape Preferences dialog would allow the user to add, edit and delete directories (and set one as a default for saves) from which Style-Sets could be used (with each directory having a "shorthand name"). That way, Style-Sets could be kept in a common location (over a server?) for access by more than user, or e-mailed as attachments to friends and co-workers.

Underneath the styles manager menu would be a scrollable named list of Style-Sets already defined and saved in the the directories defined above. Sets could be listed alphabetically and/or by directory name. It would be nice to have an icon or thumbnail for each style-set to indicate what effect it would have, but this is not an essential feature when the user can do an UNDO command after applying the wrong set. An appropriate name for the set should suffice.

CREATING & EDITING STYLE-SETS
A new style-set could be created when the user has an object selected. Either the CREATE command would be chosen in the Style-Set console, or a keyboard shortcut for that be made by the user. A Create/Edit Style-Set dialog box would then appear for the user to complete and then either save or cancel. The dialog would include: a "Name" field by which the set is identified; and tick boxes for each possible attribute to be saved and reapplied later. All attributes from the object would be saved to the style-set file, but only those that are ticked get applied to new objects. Editing an existing style-set brings up the same dialog, and the user can change the name of it, and tick or un-tick which attributes they want applied/don't want applied in the future.

Using a system of tick boxes means that a subset of attributes can be used from an object - e.g. the user may want to save the drop shadow effect created by filter effects, and the opacity levels of that object, but not the fill and stroke properties. When applied to an object later, only those attributes would be changed.

APPLYING STYLE-SETS TO OBJECTS
The user could apply saved style-sets in two ways: by double-clicking on a listed style-set in the console list (or selecting an APPLY STYLE command from the Style-Set manager); or by selecting a style-set from a new menu bar entry STYLES.

The STYLES menu might include an entry to open the Style-Set Console; an entry to go to the additional pane in the Preferences dialog; and one entry for each style-set included on the named list in the Style-Set Console. These could be further nested in sub-menus, the titles of which match the "shorthand name" of each style-set directory defined in the Preferences pane. The menu option would mean that the user wouldn't have to open or see the console if they didn't need to.

RELATED BUGS?
This wishlist suggestion might be related to https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/168406 and https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/170040.