create text inside a rectangle using inkscape

Question

I've put some text inside a rectangle using inkscape so the tree is like

<svg:rect><svg:text><svg:tspan>text.... 

The problem is, I can't see the text. I've tried fiddling with the opacity of the rect to no avail. There should be a way of doing this from the UI?

Edit

example as requested

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!-- Created with Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/) -->
<svg
   xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
   xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
   xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
   xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
   xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
   xmlns:sodipodi="http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd"
   xmlns:inkscape="http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape"
   width="184.25197"
   height="262.20471"
   id="svg2"
   sodipodi:version="0.32"
   inkscape:version="0.46"
   version="1.0"
   sodipodi:docname="ex1.svg"
   inkscape:output_extension="org.inkscape.output.svg.inkscape">
  <defs
     id="defs4">
    <inkscape:perspective
       sodipodi:type="inkscape:persp3d"
       inkscape:vp_x="0 : 526.18109 : 1"
       inkscape:vp_y="0 : 1000 : 0"
       inkscape:vp_z="744.09448 : 526.18109 : 1"
       inkscape:persp3d-origin="372.04724 : 350.78739 : 1"
       id="perspective10" />
  </defs>
  <sodipodi:namedview
     id="base"
     pagecolor="#ffffff"
     bordercolor="#666666"
     borderopacity="1.0"
     gridtolerance="10000"
     guidetolerance="10"
     objecttolerance="10"
     inkscape:pageopacity="0.0"
     inkscape:pageshadow="2"
     inkscape:zoom="0.64"
     inkscape:cx="195.9221"
     inkscape:cy="335.3072"
     inkscape:document-units="px"
     inkscape:current-layer="layer1"
     showgrid="false"
     inkscape:window-width="640"
     inkscape:window-height="675"
     inkscape:window-x="44"
     inkscape:window-y="44" />
  <metadata
     id="metadata7">
    <rdf:RDF>
      <cc:Work
         rdf:about="">
        <dc:format>image/svg+xml</dc:format>
        <dc:type
           rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/StillImage" />
      </cc:Work>
    </rdf:RDF>
  </metadata>
  <g
     inkscape:label="Layer 1"
     inkscape:groupmode="layer"
     id="layer1">
    <rect
       style="opacity:0.25480766;fill:#ff0000;fill-opacity:1;stroke:#000000;stroke-width:12.94795799;stroke-miterlimit:4;stroke-dasharray:none;stroke-opacity:1"
       id="rect2383"
       width="150.87796"
       height="84.226181"
       x="18.221733"
       y="39.557121">
      <text
         xml:space="preserve"
         style="font-size:56.0331955px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;fill:#000000;fill-opacity:1;stroke:none;stroke-width:1px;stroke-linecap:butt;stroke-linejoin:miter;stroke-opacity:1;font-family:Bitstream Vera Sans"
         x="44.815186"
         y="114.0088"
         id="text2385"
         transform="scale(1.0054479,0.9945816)"><tspan
           sodipodi:role="line"
           id="tspan2387"
           x="44.815186"
           y="114.0088">text</tspan></text>
    </rect>
  </g>
</svg>

I'd expect to be able to see this in inkscape.

The workaround is to put text on a layer above the box (the intent is that the box obscures the layers below it) and not try and get clever with nested tags. Shame it doesn't work though.

Answer 1

A rect element can't contain text elements, that's invalid according to the svg specification and will simply be ignored by compliant user agents.

Just put the text after the rect element to have them render on top.