@Grace - you and I started at approximately the same time with Valentina, now Seamly2D. You have done so much more and so much quicker than I with regard to learning and documenting how to use the tools. You have been a real blessing to many who seem to stop by and need help to figure out how to use the software. You do what you do really well. I seem to have more chaos in my life from the “real world” and have spent less FOCUSed time discovering how the tools work. I have become determined to make sense of the build process and document it well enough that others can use it. Don’t beat yourself up if you are not the best or fastest with code. and @MrDoo, I would appreciate anything you happen to dig up on the background or overlay issue. There are several proposals in the github repository that are related to this in the way they would be technically implemented and I will continue trying to make sense of them and document it well enough so that someone else or a future me can write the code
Awww… Thank you @kmf. In Afrikaans, we have a few sayings, none of which I think I should mention here 
but they basically mean that we each have our own talents and things that we are good in. I’m good at figuring out programs and teaching people, so I snagged that area, since I very seldom go anywhere. Please don’t underestimate what you have done on here and what you are doing is so very, very necessary and appreciated. Thank you very much for what you are doing.
I spent the morning downloading and trying to figure out how to package up the source code and gave up. It’s total Greek (or some other language that I don’t speak) to me 
I’m wondering if someone can’t send me a step-by-step from what to download, how to install and then how to package the program, please?
Grace, if you hop on the Discord server, I can attempt to get you up and running. Unless you’re using MacOS, in which case I will certainly be of no help. The chat could use some life, anyway!
I only wish I knew of a step by step instruction on what you need to do. 
One of the things I am working on in my free time LOL. Today, I am taking off to sew
Once I know the ins & outs, I may be able to do something
@kmf , I have refreshed my local repository, and created a fork (MrDoo71/Seamly2D) and re-tested and committed the changes for background images to that.
Note that the background image won’t show until you’ve loaded a pattern file.
@MrDoo I do not see your repository. I looked both on github and bitbucket. Could you give me a complete URL? thank you very much
@kmf, from his instructions on the Kristina Shin Basic and working with the files in your develop folder…
mainwindow.h:59 - find the ‘mainwindow.h’ file and go to line 59.
enter the code below this heading. Repeat for the rest of the changes.
Then test and commit the changes and run as @MrDoo said above (which is the part that I’m battling with). I hope this helps
found it. thank you! I guess I am more new to github than I realized, because somehow I was not able to find your repository when I thought I was using both MrDoo71 and Seamly2D as search terms. Guess I have more to learn
ah, I see the issue I was having - right under my nose as they say - I was looking for a different (separate) repository. It did not occur to me to look for a fork from the seamly2d repository in your name
@Grace, thank you. I found your answer and his both this morning. RE,the test and commit the changes, I will start a new thread where we can talk about where you are in the process and see if I can help.
note: it is helpful to start with a tiny change just to be sure you are able to build and run a test case. My first code change was issue 161, fix forum name. I was sure it would not break anything else and it was easy to see immediately whether it worked.
Not to worry, I have someone helping me Thanks.
I just started another thread which I intend to use to gather my thoughts to write procedures that I promised to add to the wiki. Please feel free for both you and your helper to comment there
If I may throw my two cents in on the original topic, may I suggest moving to a ‘layers’ mindset, with the standard ‘show/hide’, opacity, etc. options? I would even go so far as to making an easy, intuitive way to reference points/lines/etc. on lower layers with an option to copy/unlink them. That would allow easily reusing sections from previous patterns/etc., as you could load them in a separate layer. You could then select which objects on which layers you want to use for the final layout.
Does that make sense?
I would find something like this handy as I have done some hand drawn patterns in 1:4 scale and would like to size them up for full size use. I am a total newbie to this software but I am sort of getting the hang of it and being able to “trace” over my pieces and align them up with the measurement boxes would be super handy. If this is already a thing how do I find it?
@security16 it is not already a thing, but many others, including me, see that it would be useful. There is an existing issue documented on github and the ability is planned to have an overlay of some graphic (examples could include small scale drawings, grid lines, or others yet to be defined).
welcome to the forum and please feel free to keep asking questions.
Is there enough interest on this forum for this feature to have a fund raiser?
Personally, I think there are more important things that need a fund raiser first, although there are some who would like a background image to copy.