Hi, I'm new here. I probably will not be using the forums that often as I am not a 'hard core' inkscaper. I usually just use it for simple drawings, nothing fancy. It is the best Mac drawing program I have found, and I love it.

Recently, I was working in inkscape when I suddenly could't fill or draw normally. When I select a stroke color, it appears to be normally selected. But when I draw a stroke with the , it does not appear until I hit fill where it then becomes a skinny oval.
The fill also does not select properly. It gives me the 'area is not bounded' message even when I am 99% positive that the area is bounded and looks like this:

Welcome to InkscapeForum!

Oh, whether you use Inkscape a lot or a little, we're still glad to help
I'm not sure what the problem is though, so I'll ask a few questions.

When I select a stroke color, it appears to be normally selected.

Do you mean that you choose a stroke color before you start to draw? Or are you talking about selecting a stroke that's already been drawn?

But when I draw a stroke with the [Pencil tool], it does not appear until I hit fill where it then becomes a skinny oval.

What do you mean by "hit fill"? What becomes a skinny oval? Are you talking about the Pencil stroke? A stroke with rounded end caps could look like a skinny oval, if it's a straight line.

The fill also does not select properly. It gives me the 'area is not bounded' message even when I am 99% positive that the area is bounded and looks like this:

"Area is not bounded" message only appears when using the Paint Bucket tool. Is that what you mean by "hit fill", that you're trying to use the Paint Bucket tool to fill inside a path drawn with the Pencil tool? The screenshot you provided doesn't show your drawing. It shows the style only, of some unknown tool. Even if that's the style of the Pencil tool, it doesn't help me understand what the problem is.

Could you provide a screenshot of the drawing -- or better yet, of the entire Inkscape window with the drawing on the canvas?

Ok, I figured out part of the problem. The pencil tool now draws normally. But the fill is still weird. In this screen shot, it hope fully shows you (I tried to explain it in the screenshot)

I select an object (drawn with the Pencil tool) that I want to fill. I click on the paint bucket tool, then onto the color I want filled. At the bottom of the screen, below the color selection, I see the color that I choose, in half with the grey checkered. But at the top of the screen, it shows plain grey. No matter how many times I click the color that I wish to use, the top fill box stays grey. When I click the desired area with the paint bucket tool, it turns grey. To get the color that I wish, I have to click it again, and it fills with the correct color.



Thanks for your patience!

nellie123 wrote:But when I draw a stroke with the , it does not appear until I hit fill where it then becomes a skinny oval.

Maybe you've set the pencil shape (on the tool bar) to "Ellipse". If so, then try changing it back to "None".

The Paint Bucket tool has fill and stroke (style) properties of its own. Please go to File menu > Inkscape Preferences > Paint Bucket. Either yours is set to "Last used style", and the last time you used it, you colored the object gray -- in which case, clicking fuschia first should have changed it and colored it fuschia. Or probably it's set to "This tool's own style" and that style is gray Fill, no Stroke. Of course you can set this however you want.

Rrrrrch! (put on brakes )
I just noticed that in the tool control bar, you have Fill by: "Lightness" selected. ("Visible colors" is the default.) So even if you have "This tool's own style" in Inkscape Prefs, this 'Fill by' setting will affect and override it. I suspect that's what caused the sudden change. You either clicked it by accident, or you were experimenting, and forgot to put it back? In any case, I suspect that's what causing the problem.

Let us know

By the way, you can use a regular Fill to color an object, rather than the Paint Bucket tool. So like with the green teardrop shape, you can select it (with Node tool or Selection tool) and just click the fuschia color (or use Fill and Stroke dialog). It probably doesn't matter for small drawings, except it's probably a little faster. But if the drawing is going to get big, you'll be essentially doubling the number of nodes (probably more than double) which could potentially lead to performance issues (slowdowns and maybe crashing). The Paint Bucket tool is typically used to color areas which aren't defined by a single path. Such as the fuschia triangle below:



(fuschia happens to the color I used for my Paint Bucket tool, lol)