Combining a Shape that is contained inside another.

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JohnJR

Hi Folks,

I have noticed that I can't seem to Shift-Select a shape that is wholly contained in another in order to Combine the two using Item > Paths > Path Operations.  I did see a cumbersome route for concentric circles in a Scribus tutorial on how to make a RSS feed logo, which might be dependent perhaps upon using an Item > Transform (by %) command.

However say you have a shape wholly contained inside a larger shape of different proportions.  I can't Shift-Select either without it defaulting to a single larger shape's frame, while the smaller shape goes totally unrecognized, I take it because its contained inside the select-able one.

Is there a straight forward way to do this, or anyway to do this?

Thanks,


a.l.e

1. create logos in inkscape and then import them into scribus as svg

2. if a shape is fully covered by another one you can ctrl-click to cycle through all items below the cursor (it's then possible to use the mouse to work on that shape, but it needs a bit of care and you will have to try a few times before succeeding...)

3. depending on the other shapes you have, you can start the selection by dragging from outside the covering shape, by completely selecting the smaller ones but not the bigger one.

4. use inkscape for logos, not scribus :-)

JohnJR

Hi a.l.e.,

Inkscape it is--and thanks for the tip on importing it as a .svg.  I want to pass on something I did learn concerning concentricity that might be useful.  I had not tried your suggestion to ctrl-click to test it to see if you could ctrl-shift-click to link the shapes and thus combine them.

To try shapes other than just target circles as in the tutorial mentioned above; as an experiment, I created a smaller rectangle, say 2 x 4, and used the "round corners" dialog to create a capsule or pill shape.  No matter which Transform I used from dialog box using the centerpoint box and  equal scaling values (hidden behind the Add button) would I get a correct percent transform, up or down.  The rounded ends accepted the correct proportional increase or decrease, however the straight sides did not accept the proportionate change.  (In my case they split the percent in half and applied that to each side.)  And to boot, the innermost one lost it's frame and was not Shift-Selectable to use the Path Tools, but the inner shape itself remained visible.

A method that finally linked the two capsules into one shape was for me to create a bigger capsule FIRST, then creating a new shape frame inside that one to create a proportionally smaller capsule inside the larger one.  Once the smaller capsule was constructed but with it's frame still visible (active) I Shift-Selected it and then Shift-Selected the larger one outside the smaller one's frame.  Both shapes and their frames stayed visible and Item > Path Tools > Combine Polygons became a selectable option.  They combined fine.  I do not know if this method would work with more than two shapes starting from the smallest one up, somebody's frame might disappear.

The contained (smaller) shape did not have to be the same or concentric, so long as the smaller shape's frame remained active and selected before shift-selecting the larger one's frame.  Otherwise the smaller one's frame disappears inside the larger frame and is not selectable.

Just for fun: I threw out my original logo idea and took my linked capsules, stood them on their head, and made a nice Egyptian Cartouche (see attached).

Thanks,



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