Comment 5 for bug 459811

on Windows XP the behaviour is as follows:
- draw an ellipse, which in this case happens to be a whole ellipse, not an arc
- note that all three icons at the top are disabled (segment closed, arc unclosed, and whole ellipse)
- open the ellipse into a closed-segment arc by dragging the start angle, note that all three icons at the top are now enabled
- click on 'switch to arc-unclosed' and the ellipse responds appropriately and the three icons are still enabled
- draw a new ellipse and the new ellipse is a whole ellipse not an arc-unclosed as it should have been, and the three icons at the top are now disabled so that it is no longer possible to change the ellipse style using them, unless you manualy drag the handles as before.
- it might be worth mentioning that in the Oct 2008 version of Inkscape the three icons at the top would not become disabled when drawing an arc shape (either closed or open); these three icons would become disabled only when drawing a whole ellipse, which makes perfect sense because once you have drawn a whole ellipse the angular arc information has been destroyed..