Been using Inkscape on & off for about 6 mos now. I'm a fan and very appreciative of the work the developers and support have put into this free project!

Just discovered an easy solution to two annoying problems. (Warning - following may be painfully obvious for many):

Problems:
1) Unable to change background colour of document

maniacal clicking of the colour pallet produces no result to document. remains white.

2) Unable to add colour fill to shapes

repeated thrusting of paint bucket over selected square, circle, etc. stimulates informative message, for only the initiated:

'Area is not bounded. Cannot fill.'

Solution:
After generating sufficient frustrated energy, I boldly explored the A bar below the colour settings. Realized it has two tiny grips, pulled them to the right, and LO-and-BEHOLD

Colour appears over
1) the entire inkscape document
2) the chosen shape! (Yum I can see those do-nuts now!)

Now, far be it from me, but I question whether defaulting Alpha settings to transparent is really the road to mass adoption? It certainly must be great for Helpdesk business!

Or did I screw something up?

Welcome to InkscapeForum!

I've only seen 1 case where I thought Inkscape had opened with the tools transparent by default, and in that case, the person has downloaded the 7z version of Inkscape, rather than installing. I think theoretically it might be possible for the defaults to be transparent. But more likely, you've run into what I actually think is a ridiculous default behavior. I can't imagine why anyone would want to use Inkscape this way. I guess some people probably do, but I surely don't understand why.

What happens, is that by default, whatever style you gave to the last Star you drew (for example) will be the style that the next Star you draw. It's crazy, because new users are always experimenting and trying out all the buttons and whistles, and inevitably, make something transparent. Then the next time they try to use that tool, Blam, it looks like it won't draw anymore. We get a minimum of 2 messages per month, I'd estimate, about tools that "stopped working"!

So you can either remember that's how it works, so you know how to fix it, when it undoubtedly will happen again and again. Or you can change all your tools to draw in whatever style you want. Personally, I have all my tools set to draw black, 1 px paths, with no fill and no transparency. But it really only evolved into that. At first, I had my Ellipses blue, Rectangles red and Stars yellow, etc.

Anyway, you can do this for each tool. Let's use Star for an example. Draw a star with the Star tool. Give it whatever color, fill, stroke, partial tranparency, etc. that you'd like that tool to draw every time you use it. Next, double-click on the Star tool, which will open Inkscape Preferences to the Star tool settingings, automatically. Click "This tool's own style" and then click "Take from selection". Done

The background color of an Inkscape document can be changed in Document Properties > Page tab > Background. Click on the color bar and small color control window will open, where you can adjust the color. Note that Inkscape docs have a transparent background by default. Clicking the color palette will have no effect on the background.

"Area not bounded" means that you were trying to fill a shape that was not completely enclosed. Up to a point, you can overcome gaps in an enclosed area using the Threshold setting on the Paint Bucket control bar.

HorseArcher wrote:It certainly must be great for Helpdesk business!

Uh-oh, Brynn! our lucrative scam has been blown wide open! Busted! Goodbye, little Cabana in Acapulco... Goodbye, little Ferrari.... Nooo! I have to give up my red ceramic saltshaker as well? Drat!

Thanks for the reply, guys! When I get a chance, I'll try a fresh install just to verify this was a result of the start-as-you-mean-to-go-on behaviour.
(And sorry about your red ceramic saltshaker, druban.)