Overlapping text objects are difficult to edit in place

[Andrzej]

Overlapping text objects are difficult to edit in place because the all of them are visible at once.

I often get overlapping text objects when adding TeX commands to the image. Such commands can be significantly longer than the actual rendered output so it is not unusual to have several of them displayed in the same place.

Perhaps making the background of the edited text object opaque would be good enough. Another solution would be an easier access to "Text and Font->Text" dialog box.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

1) You can use <Tab> and 'Shift+<Tab> within the text tool context to switch the focus to the next (or previous) object in stack order. This allows to edit different text objects without leaving the text tool context.

2) Switch to the text tool without having a text object selected and hover over the text object you want to edit - the tool will detect text objects beneath the cursor and highlight its text frame in blue for allowing easier selection (might not help if the text objects are stacked on top of each other and have the same size).

[Andrzej (ndrwrdck)]

Thank you, suv. Selecting the text object is a part of the problem. The other issue is that the text is unreadable because the characters from different text objects are mangled together.

Some other tools (e.g. powerpoint) make the background of the text object being edited opaque, which solves the readability issue.

A question, if I may ask. Using Tab, Shift-Tab shortcuts for selecting objects with different z-order can be *very* tedious because it circulates through all the objects in the drawing. Are you aware of any method of constraining this z-order walk to only a subset of objects in the drawing? That would also be helpful for Bug #815977.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> Are you aware of any method of constraining this z-order
> walk to only a subset of objects in the drawing?

Not really - what I do when I'm in need of this, is to group the subset of objects (possibly with help of 'Edit > Find…' to fine-tune the selection) or move them to a new (temporary) layer. If grouped, I 'Ctrl'+<enter> (or double-click) the group and use <Tab> or 'Shift'+<Tab> within the group as current drawing level. If moved to another layer, make that one the current layer and <Tab> or 'Shift'+<Tab> will work limited to the objects on the current layer.

[Andrzej (ndrwrdck)]

For the record (for others readers who may search for a solution to this issue).

Selecting the desired text object is a lot easier with a Alt+mouse wheel scroll feature that is coming in Inkscape 0.49. This cycles the objects under cursor and transitionally renders non-selected objects in semitransparent objects. This makes reading the selected text possible. (Thanks suv)

Unfortunately, all objects become opaque once again as soon as Alt key is released so editing the text is still an issue. If the text is completely unreadable then the (somewhat inconvenient) solution is to go to Text and Font->Text dialog box (Shift+Ctrl+T) and edit it there.