Calligraphy brush renders blotchy

[Kevin Pimentel]

Inkscape version 0.48.1 r9760
Fedora 14 i686
Linux 2.6.35.11-83

Cannot use the calligraphy brush feature without it rendering what appears to be round protrusions, as if a thicker stroke with rounded ends had been randomly (on and off) overlaid on the same path the stroke was drawn on. The calligraphy stroke appears normal while drawing the stroke, after the mouse button is released (and my Wacom Bamboo CTH-460 as well), the blotches appear.

The calligraphy brush worked fine until the width setting was changed, after which the error began appearing. No restart of the program or the pc will fix the error, no width setting seems to do it either, and I have yet to try reinstalling inkscape.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Seems like you changed other settings of the calligraphy brush besides the width (most likely 'Thinning'): does it still occur if you choose a different preset from the dropdown on the controls bar of the calligraphy brush tool?

If not, please attach your preferences file so that we can compare your currently used settings to the default ones:
~/.config/inkscape/preferences.xml

For more details about the individual options, please see 'Help > Tutorials > Inkscape: Calligraphy' and
<http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL_v16/html/Paths-Creating.html#Paths-Calligraphy>

> No restart of the program or the pc will fix the error (…)
> and I have yet to try reinstalling inkscape.

This wont help if it's just the current tool settings that are giving you unexpected results: you can easily reset the preferences to the default settings without rebooting or reinstalling: quit Inkscape, rename '~/.config/inkscape/preferences.xml' and restart inkscape (the file will be recreated with default values - you might have to reconfigure the extended input devices in Inkscape though).

[su_v (suv-lp)]

After inspecting your attached file, the problem is simpler:

Your current style settings when drawing the paths included a dash style (dotted line) for the stroke:
a) To "fix" the appearance of existing calligraphic paths: select them, open 'Object > Fill and Stroke…', switch to the 'Stroke style' tab and change the line style ("Dashes") to a solid line.

b) For new paths: draw a calligraphic path, keep it selected and change the stroke style as described above. The next calligraphic path you draw will use the changes style settings (as the calligraphic tool defaults to 'Last style used').

IMHO it's a feature, not a bug: if you don't want the calligraphic tool to use the current style (aka "last used"), you can change its preferences to always use its own style.

[Kevin Pimentel (pimentelkd)]

Oh goodness I didn't even think about stroke style, I don't recall even opening up the fill and stroke dialog when it changed (I had set color by the palette below).

Alright, thank you!