When making a shape, for example a simple circle with a black stroke/outline and then trying to fill in a solid color with the paint bucket I find that there are some areas that remain white, mainly around the stroke color. how do I get the fill color and the stroke color to meet completely without white spaces?

I'm sure this is posted somewhere else, for which I apologize, but I was unable to find it and I'm a newbie to inkscape and this forum.

Thanks!
--Mel

ammyzan wrote:trying to fill in a solid color with the paint bucket
--Mel

Inkscape has many fine tutorials under Help. I suggest you do some of the basic ones.

Anyway, don't use the the bucket tool. Draw your shape, or select a drawn shape, and click a colour in the palette at the bottom of the screen. Shift-Click the same to select the stroke colour.

I hate to add to this particular thread but when I started learning to play with Inkscape, I had to learn to appreciate that it was not a program like GiMP in the slightest... well, actually, that's not entirely true as GiMP supports paths which was a key aspect that made learning Inkscape easier. I used the path tool in GiMP when I wanted to cut objects out using path to selection a lot. But I eventually learned to use paths for making lines as well. And when I finally saved paths for import into Inkscape, I found myself appreciating it a lot more than GiMP. But in Inkscape there were a lot of different objects/shapes to learn about, but the most fundamental thing was to learn about fill and stroke. Objects that are closed loops could be filled with any one color, gradient or pattern. The strokes were also an important part of Inkscape objects and can have similar attributes and a bit more in that strokes can be wider or more narrow and can use dots and dash patterns along with solid lines. Curves are expressed in the strokes as well as the manner in which strokes are generated.

You must absolutely understand the stroke and path as it is one of two most important elements in creating a drawing. The other, of course, is the fill area. With knowledge of just those two things, you are already prepared to create stunning and interesting images.