> And for years of attempts, I can't seem to understand the distinction, or how to discern what my drawing actually consists of. If you look at the status bar

> And for years of attempts, I can't seem to understand the distinction, or how to discern what my drawing actually consists of. If you look at the status bar at the bottom of the window, it always tells you the type(s) of the object(s) you have selected on your screen. So you can quickly tell whether something is a path, or an object, or a text, or whatever. There's also outline mode which hides your stroke and fill styles, so you only see the paths. Paths are what my laser cutter will follow, completely ignoring those stroke widths or fill colors or what have you, so outline view shows exactly what it will cut.