Default Units in Document Properties ignored

You have to save and re-open the document to see your units choice propagated to all the UI selectors.
If you want to always use inches save a blank document with inches as default units as a template.
The templates are stored in the "templates" folder, inside the configuration folder (it depends on what operating system you're using. In linux is usually .inkscape; in Windows is somewhere in the Documents and Settings folder, but I don't remember where).
The default.{your locale}.svg template will be loaded everytime you open inkscape, with the chosen page properties.

Nice, but I think it's still a bug. If you change the properties for THIS document, shouldn't it show up in THIS document? Other properties take effect immediately (e. g., paper size). Why not this one?

kjohrf: There are several bugs reports related to units and how they are implemented. Is a known situation but fortunately there is an easy workaround. Also there is a blueprint with some guidelines for a potential future implementation.
I marked this report as invalid because units are not ignored, as the summay states, although I should mark it as a duplicate.
Anyway, this has been reported already.

Reopening: When the current window is reused for the opened file the UI selectors are not updated to the default units of the newly opened document.

Steps to reproduce:
1) start Inkscape (without specifiying a file to load)
2) the current window and its UI selectors are based on the default template
3) open a document saved with different default units than the default template

-> Expected result:
All UI selectors (select tool, node tool, rectangle tool) are switching to the default units of the current document

-> Actual result:
All UI selectors keep the units from the default document template

Reproduced with Inkscape 0.47 and Inkscape 0.47+devel on OS X 10.5.8

Workaround: 'dirty' the new (empty) document to force Inkscape to open a new window with the document you want to edit.

I made a patch for this a few weeks ago. I am not able at the moment to make sure that it works with the current codebase, but it is small and doesn't touch a lot of code, so it should do.

Tested successfully on Ubuntu 10.04, Inkscape trunk revision 9778.
Using the unit tracker is a very good idea. I think I'm going to review my previous patches in order to use it too...

@Craig - what is the status of your patch? I think it's worth committing it in the trunk, if you don't plan to modify it in a near future.

I was hoping it could be committed as is (minus the printf() and fflush() calls, which were just me debugging). Sorry I don't have a lot of spare time to dig into the code for at least a week or two.

I tested it myself in Windows 7 and the trunk code a few weeks ago and it did what I wanted. su-v did the same on mac os x.

I don't plan to modify it further unless someone either discovers a bug or provides a better way to solve the problem.

Great! Since it works on Ubuntu, OSX and XP and Seven, I guess it's safe to commit it now.
It's in the trunk (revision 9780) and the 0.48.x branch (revision 9671).
Thanks again for your patch!