Inkscape question - apologies if this was covered elsewhere.

[ncblee]

But I couldn't find it, so - I am an old GM, but new to using Inkscape (IS) as a mapping tool. I'm familiar with vector graphics programs in general.

My question is this. I'm beginning to draw a largish village (1,000 people, a couple of hundred buildings). I'm doing a learning-IS-on-the-fly and creating this village as my players starting base. It will initially be artistically crude, but hopefully I can improve it as my IS skills improve. My thought is to create a set of template objects for buildings that can be cloned and placed. These objects (and the clones in my maps) can then be improved as I go, with the changes to the originals cascading to the clones as I make them prettier. But here's the thing - I'm staring with basic filled outlines and I want each building to have a number in it to link it to a gazetteer. I'm not sure how to build this in IS so that the default number (say 0000) is cloned with the building, but ready to be altered when the clone is placed (hopefully in an automated way, but I'm OK with manual). I want the building symbol to be on its own layer and the number on a separate layer. Is this possible in IS? I can't find anything like it, but I may very well be missing the implications in some of the toolsets. I've tried building the symbol and putting a text object in it and grouping them, but this acts funny when layers are made invisible. Any IS gurus done this kind of thing?

Thanks Very Much In Advance,

[ChickPea]

Not an Inkscape guru, so there may be a way to achieve this, but I think there are some difficulties. You can't clone two objects at once without them being in a group. However if you try to group two objects that are sitting in separate layers, I believe Inkscape automatically moves them to the same layer.

This means that if you want your building and number cloned together, they have to be grouped and therefore on the same layer. Also, in order to edit the number, you'd have to unlink the clone from its parent, which means you couldn't update the building clone at some point down the line. I think you need to treat the buildings and the numbers separately, even if this means that you have to do some manual positioning & editing. I'm actually not sure if it would even be worthwhile creating clones of the numbers, since they're all going to be edited anyway. Don't know of a way to automatically increment numbers. There might be an extension that does this, or a coding solution, if you're handy with XML.

However, I have to reiterate that I'm no expert, and if no-one else here has any suggestions, you might be better posting at inkscapeforum.com There are some incredibly knowledgable people there, and they're very helpful too. If there's a way to do this, I'm sure they'll know. Good luck!

[ncblee]

Thank you kindly! I will do that!

[Hai-Etlik]

From this StockOverflow question it looks like this is not possible with the current SVG standard, and therefore not possible for Inkscape. SVG 2.0 should remedy it as it has a mechanism for parameterized symbols.

In the mean time, you could create a symbol, clone it, create a group with it and the text, and then copy (not clone) the resulting group. It's not ideal, but it does help.

[ncblee]

Ah. Thanks. I'll have to check and see when SVG 2.0 plans to be ready.

[RobA]

It is a limitation of SVG at the moment. Layers in Inkscape are groups with a special Inkscape specific attribute, and groups can only be nested.

-Rob A>