Awesome!!! I was on 29.7.x. Just upgraded, and the focus is now back on Keyboard Increment! ...thankfully! It went from 2 keyboard clicks to 6, and now it's back to 2, phew. No need to disable the Search field.

Thank you, Egor!

Mark, this issue was resolved in version 29.8, as mentioned in this bug report’s status:
http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447/suggestions/50255313
What version are you using?

With the focus now reverted back, is there any other reason to disable the Search field at al for you?

Put the cursor focus back on the Keyboard Increment, when first opening the Preference popup, please.

This **** is happening for me and I'm not even on the beta channel.

09.04.2025
Thanks Egor....I see v29.7.1 is available but not 29.8 in general
I also see 29.9 in Beta

I ran the update and giggled with glee when the cursor was focused on the keyboard increment. It's weird how something so small can be the one feature I was most excited about returning.

No, it is just not everywhere available at the same time.

For people saying it's fixed with an update, I'm looking at Creative Cloud and don't see any 29.8 build available. Is it still in beta?

The default cursor location in the Preference popup used to be the "Keyboard Increment" field. Now there is a "Search Preference" search field that has the default cursor location. PLEASE add a function to turn that Search Preference OFF, so the default cursor location is back to "Keyboard Increments".

Illustrator power users know where everything is in that Preference popup. I don't need to search for preferences.

I rely upon fast Keyboard Shortcut toggling to quickly change the Keyboard Increment. Now that the Search Preferences ruins the default location of the cursor and the TAB order, completely messing up my workflow.

I can confirm it's finally fixed in 29.8 official release today! ;-)

Thank God someone asked about this. I use ctrl K religiously for keyboard increment changes. It's always been a lightning quick action, which as a graphic designer is paramount. If you work 8+ hours a day moving objects around, you don't want extra clicks involved in your process. I hope someone fixes this soon, it's a major workflow killer.

A recent change to the Preferences panel that has negatively impacted our workflow. As a user since Illustrator V3, I have always used the shortcut Cmd/Ctrl + K to open Preferences, where the 'Keyboard Increment' field was traditionally the default selection. This allowed for a rapid workflow: Cmd/Ctrl + K, type a number, Enter, and the increment was set.
In the current version, the 'Search' field is now the default selection. This requires extra keystrokes or mouse clicks to navigate to the 'Keyboard Increment' field, slowing down a process that was once instantaneous. My entire team has noted this disruption.

Additionally, if I start typing a decimal increment in the search window by accident (because that's what I'm used to doing in previous versions), the units of measure automatically switch to points! I have to go back into Preferences and change it back every time. I always use inches, so this is extremely frustrating.

Press CMD+K, enter a value and hit Enter. This was daily time saver for precise designs. Please return this functionality.

I have been working with Illustrator since 2000. Until now, it was very convenient to set the Keyboard increment in the preferences panel. All you had to do was press CMD+K and enter the increment value (because the cursor immediately stood where you needed it) and press ENTER. This saved a lot of time, because this operation has to be performed very often. In the new version 29.7.1, when you press CMD+K and open the Preferences panel, the cursor automatically stops in the newly appeared SEARCH field. So you have to press TAB 4 times to move the cursor to the Keyboard increment field and after entering the number you now have to press ENTER twice... :((((( Couldn't we just return everything to the way it was before? That newly appeared SEARCH field is good, but maybe the cursor could automatically appear where it was before - i.e. in the Keyboard increment field? Understand - in professional work we use the keyboard and shortcuts, and this was a very convenient solution until you came up with the idea of putting the SEARCH field in the preferences panel...

While I appreciate the drive for progress, this was a step backward in my workflow.
I use the keyboard increment dozens of times a day and adding the extra steps has really screwed things up for me.

I'm glad the focus on the keyboard increment is back, but as previously stated, you need to hit return twice (which started happening with the latest general build) to commit and exit the Preferences Window. Please change it to a single return press like it used to be.

Hi, focus is on Keyboard Increment in the Beta, which is good, but you still have to double return to get back into your workflow, which although isn't terrible, is still a bit of a pain.

Also noticed some fonts don't work in the Beta but do in the full release version.

It has the focus on the increment field, but you have to hit Enter 2x to exit the dialog. Used to be 1x

Hello Egor Chistyakov, personally, I cannot afford to work professionally on a beta version. I am usually the type of person who does not change versions unless necessary. However, your bug that completely changed the fonts in the document was extremely critical for my work. To fix this, I had to perform the dreaded update to 29.7. I hope it will be officially released very soon, because it's just a monstrous waste of time on a daily basis.