I'm an #engineer, not an #artist. But every so often, I need to use graphics-related tools for something I'm working on. Today's example was trying to lay out some control panel #graphics, and I was using #Inkscape on #Debian.

What I did: created a circular object

What I wanted to do: when I select that object and type values into the #coordinates boxes, the circular object moves so that its *center* is at the specified coordinates.

What Inkscape actually does: moves the object so the top-left corner of the object's bounding box is at those coordinates.

Really not helpful when you want to #align multiple objects to the same #center.

Do some searching, find #forum posts of others asking how to do this exact thing. Answers range from "select the object and open the #XML editor..." to "do this specific thing which doesn't appear to have existed in the UI for a decade", to people suggesting workarounds (you need a #workaround for what must be an *extremely* common workflow?).

One workaround: "just create a #guide, move (or maybe it was 'align') the object's something-or-other to the guide". The word "guide" does not occur in the UI, FAQ or in the basic documentation for Inkscape. Searching for it is troublesome because of all the web pages that have "guide" in their *title* rather than their content.

Lots of other discussions with links to pages on the Inkscape site which are now 404.

Where's that "FFFFUUUUUUUU..." meme when I need it?

Infinite Discord Emoji Glitch

https://peertube.wtf/w/abqW9rN76vp8Kv7Fw2rzv4

#RateLimiting issues on #mastodon #servers

As it becomes more popular, these are going to be experienced by more users. We just revealed one in the linked thread.

Here's another, and a work-around - large media files in posts. If I go to a post from an instance I dont often visit, images etc may be missing. Not a lot happens for several minutes, even if I repeatedly attempt to load the image.

#workaround [right-] click-hold on the image etc and choose open in new browser tab, it loads instantly, with the url being to the post's host site [without all the rest of the site you get if you use [...]>"open original page"

https://climatejustice.social/@wavesculptor/115872885582390334

[ edit - cc mention @MastodonEngineering
]

Today I found a #workaround for two #mastodon mis-features that have annoyed me every now and then:

- Inability to tag only part of a word
- Inability to separate #hashtag​s using slashes

The magic that powers these workarounds are #unicode
#zerowidthspace​s/​#ZWS:

Place one inside of a tagged word and everything after it is no longer part of the tag.

Place one after a slash and it no longer inhibits tag detection.
(Also works for closing parens – the other special char with this property.)