Hi all,

I'm very new to Inkscape and don't have any experience with vector graphics so please bear with me. I did try finding my answer on the forum but maybe I just don't totally understand the jargon because I couldn't find anything about this. So my question is, after I've created an enclosed path (or an object) and I go to use the bucket tool to fill the entire inside of the shape, it will fill almost the entire shape but leave small areas along the border empty. When I start with one color on the inside, and then try to change the color and use the bucket tool to re-fill it, it has remnants of the old color and still some blank areas from that inside border. I'm sure this is an incredibly basic question but can you please tell me how to get the entire area filled? My schematic can be found at the below link for reference, you can see that I am having this issue in many parts, especially noticeable in the "resistance valves" as I decided not to fill those with color after initially setting them as red and blue. Thanks so much for any help and I welcome any other advice you can give me after viewing my attachment!


https://www.dropbox.com/s/4lauu97ergjwp ... 2.svg?dl=0

As a general rule you should try to avoid using the bucket fill. You can set the fill of an object by using the colour swatches at the bottom of the Inkscape window - just select the object then click the colour, or shift-click to set the stroke colour. There's also a Fill & Stroke dialog for more fine-grained control.

Get a feel for drawing a few basic shapes with stroke and fill first of all before diving into something like that schematic. You'll also want to learn a bit about Boolean operations to help you break the schematic down into smaller parts that can then be filled individually.

I've got a series of tutorials that might help you to pick up the basics: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11981

And for times when you do want to use the Paint Bucket tool, there's a setting on the control bar called "Grow/Shrink". You can set that to whatever amount seems to work best. It's not a "live" thing, so you have to set, apply, undo, reset, re-apply, undo, etc., until you get it right. However, that's still not a perfect solution, which I suspect is why Xav suggested not using it. I don't think I've ever used the Paint Bucket, when I didn't have to go back and do some node editing, to make it work well.

The bucket tool creates a new path with each click.

The bucket tool does not change an existing fill.
The bucket tool does not generate a fill on an existing path that has no fill.

So, what's the bucket good for?
Creating new paths in areas surrounded by other paths.



(piled-on for the sake of noobs searching for help on this.)

tylerdurden wrote:(piled-on for the sake of noobs searching for help on this.)

That was my thought as well. Although this is probably....oh, let's have a contest and guess, how many other topics there are, that cover this, in all its completeness.

My guess -- 6.

I guess I'd better add to my FAQ! .....Also, maybe I'll try to fit the faq into my sig.... (FAQs don't work, if people can't find them, right)

Thanks everyone, all of that was very helpful, I'll try to avoid the bucket tool from now on.