Hello, I’m having trouble exporting pieces to layout, it gives an error: “You can’t use Layout mode yet. Exception: Piece PatternPiece doesn’t have shape.” I checked forum and found it could be a problem with checking “Hide seam line”, but it is unchecked in all pieces. Version Linux AppImage, I updated it today. Can somebody help?
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Hello and welcome to the Seamly2D forum, @MarinkaV
Have you tried to export your patern directly from the Piece Mode? Then you can choose what you would like to export it as. It will export exactly as you have laid out the pattern pieces:
I’ve just checked the Layout Mode on my Windows 10 (also on the latest update) and it’s working:
Perhaps, check if you have the pattern pieces selected for printing in Piece Mode:
Please let me know if your Layout Mode still gives you an error so that we can let the developers know.
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Thank you! I checked, all pieces are included in the layout. I tried to export directly from Piece mode, the same mistake. When trying to go to layout mode, it stays in pieces mode, showing the same mistake. Linux version looks a bit different. Export pattern to layout doesn't work - #2 by Grace
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Are you using the latest release version?
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Can you DM me the pattern & measurement file so that I can check on Windows, please?
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Sorted this problem. There was a pattern piece created without any objects inserted - I don’t know if there was a crash or something - but after I deselected the pattern piece, everything exported normally, so I went ahead and deleted the pattern piece in Notepad++ since it couldn’t be deleted from Piece Mode.
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That’s odd. You can’t add a pattern piece without selecting at minimim 1 curve, and vice versa you can’t delete all the objects in a piece… there has to be at minimum 1 curve.
Wonder if there some other dependency anomaly where an attempt was made ot delete a piece where it cleared the objects, but couldn’t remove the < piece > ?
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Problem solved, thank you very much!
In more way than 1. 
I’m going to reword the layout error message to be clearer in what the issue is. More or less to say the piece in question has an invalid path not that it has “no shape”, and that the path needs to be fixed.
I’m also going to add a Pattern Piece dock context menu item “Delete” so that a piece that may not be visible (as in this case) because of an invalid path - can be deleted.
Also as I’m thinking of it, maybe I can rework the Pattern Piece dock to display the warning icon
in the Included column for any pieces with an invalid path.
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Actually what I should do is try and make it so you can’t save &exit the Pattern Piece dialog if a main path is invalid… IE has “no shape”. Something is catching the error in layout mode so you would think we should be able to catch it in piece mode.
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That would be nice but could be frustrating, since, once you’re at that point, you can’t add more objects but will need to Cancel and start again - but that’s better than sitting with the problem.
Well yeah you could cancel, but you can also fix the order or direction of curves to make the path valid. You can add more objects, but in this case the pattern piece doesn’t show, so the only way to open the Piece dialog to edit the path is double clicking the piece in the dock. When the Pattern Piece dialog opens up, it does run a validity check on the path, but there must be something more rigorous in validating the path when you go to Layout mode. I’d have to look at the code, but it may be a Qt class method that’s throwing an exception, and not an app validation routine.
In any case, you should not be able to Save a main path that is invalid. In an ideal world we should be able to select objects in any order, in any direction, and the app should Automagically be able to figure out the correct clockwise path. But it’s a very complex thing to accomplish with programming, simple for the human brain.
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I can imagine the miles of coding that the program would have to parse through sorting each item into the correct order for you, and how it will slow down the program. Nope, I agree with you, we do have to do some things ourselves 
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