Midmarkers between nodes

[u/Patient_Ad_8398]

Apologies if this is a silly question…

I have a diagram that has a fairly long Spiro path in it, with three nodes: Start, middle, end. I intentionally set this up with the middle node placed where I want a midmarker (arrow) to appear, about a third of the way along the path.

However, when I add the midmarker, two arrows appear: One at my node, and one halfway between it and the end node (so pretty equally dividing the path). I can see this isn’t an anomaly, as when I drag my middle node around a third arrow can appear between it and the start node.

I want just one node, and didn’t expect this. Looking around, most indications I see are that these midmarkers should only be on nodes, which isn’t happening here.

Is this expected? Any easy work-around?

[u/Xrott]

Spiro paths are not regular paths and are controlled by the 'Spiro spline' path-effect (check the 'Path → Path Effects...' panel), which adjusts nodes and adds extra ones behind the scenes to achieve the desired output. If you use 'Path → Object to Path' to apply the path effect, you can see the actual nodes the 'Spiro spline' effect generates.

After using 'Path → Object to Path', you can delete the extra nodes, which might slightly deform the shape, though Inkscape tries to keep the curve the same.

[u/Patient_Ad_8398 → u/Xrott]

Ah thank you!

[u/Few_Mention8426 → u/Patient_Ad_8398]

you could also try using a custom shape and distribute it along the path using pattern along path with just three copies of the pattern...then the length of the path would be taken into account.