Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
-
Alt+click in Appearance hides all effects except clicked one Sometimes I need to isolate one particular effect and work on it.
I always try to alt+click it, like I do with layers in Photoshop, but fail, of course.
Why not to add this in AI?17 votes -
procedural textures for fills It would be nice if there was a procedural texture fill available. Something like coreldraw has, but completely procedural so that file size doesn't bloat. The more parameters the better so we could create many varying textures/colors/patterns/etc.
5 votes -
Add Preview tick to 'Free distort' effect dialogue window Using 'Free distort' is very inconvenient, because it works in small dialogue window that doesn't show actual artwork.
'Preview' tick could solve this problem (although I'd rather prefer 4 interactive points.)
AT LEAST! It should be live long ago, without separate dialogue!19 votes -
Transforming 3D effects For 3D effects such as 'Extrude and Bevel', 'Revolve' and 'Rotate', transformation behaviour is incomplete. For instance:
Scale Strokes and Effects doesn't cause the extrude depth to scale.
Flipping the object only flips the path and not the 3D effect.
Both these things should transform as expected...
6 votes -
Color Halftone with various pixel sizes and/or LPI In "Color Halftone" we only have the option of setting one pixel size for the dots, that will later be applied to all 4 channels. However, in printing, it is common for each color channel to be printed with a different dot size, to prevent moiré and create more solid patterns. It would be great if in Illustrator one could set a different pixel size for each color, the same way it is possible to vary the angle.
Also it would be amazing to have this setting done in LPI rather than pixel dot size.
4 votes -
Extend the transform effect into a tool which lets you design each generated copy! Extend the transform effect into a tool which lets you design each generated copy!
1 vote -
Adding 'Gradient Feather' function similar to InDesign would be great. It makes masking in Ai a lot more convenient.
21 votes -
Add numerical control over light sources in 3D Extrude & Bevel Effect Options When applying and tweaking 3D Extrude & Bevel Effect, user has to manipulate light by precise mouse twitching over the small sphere.
It should be at least twice as big to provide fine control (I won't note this as separate request), but there should also be numerical fields to control the lights' position over sphere — angle, elevation, choose any.Also, why Depth and Height values there are immune to document Units settings? 56.96pt is nonsense to me, while 20mm makes sense.
15 votes -
Add Reference Point to "Convert to Shape" effect When using the convert to shape effect, it would be useful to be able to specify a reference point to the dialog, about which the effect can transform. For example, the current implementation distributes the effect from the centre across the height/width axes. A reference point would allow you to add extra dimension to the left/right/top/bottom (as required) and would be extremely useful in UI construction, among other things.
16 votes -
A way to fill shapes with brush textures (paint bucket) An ability to use a paint bucket to manually fill shapes with textures such as the watercolor brush, or an ability to pick swatches and textures within the fill panel.
7 votes -
Ability to create object clones This idea is inspired in mograph features of Cinema4D.
It would be great to have an instance (or clone) of an object so that when you alter the shape of the source object, the clone alters automatically.This would also be a powerful simmetry tool as well but much more flexible since you can position the clone wherever you want.
You would be able to clone it several times in a grid and alter all clones by fixing one single object (similar to what can today be achieved with Transform menu, but with much much more flexibility and control).It…
1 vote -
glow the glow selection effect to be able to have some form of HARD line which is what I think most of us want to be able to put around a photo clipping so that the background and the product photo can live together. so basic a stroke setting
2 votes -
Turn off effects in outline mode I never really understood why effects are loaded in the background in outline mode. Why is it necessary to load an effect when you don't even see it? I thought the purpose of outline mode was for when the artwork have become heavy and takes longer time to load. The usual reason why my artwork becomes so heavy is because of all the effects I use. I wish I could switch to outline mode for quick edits instead of having to wait for the effect to load every time I do a tiny adjustment. Effects should be turned off in…
4 votes -
Square wave live effect. Gears. Crenelations on castles. Zippers. These are a few things whose border can be described by a square wave. Or by a rectangular wave.
But you can't do this easily in Illustrator. Oh, you can add a dotted line to a shape - but that's an awkward workaround. How about a new live effect?
effect->distort & transform->crenelation would bring up a new live effect where you can apply square waves to whatever object you're affecting.
Suggested parameters:
- size - similar to the size parameter in roughen/zigzag, this would control how far the generated path deviates from the original path
- pulse…
10 votes -
Advanced User Defined Variable - Step and Repeat Transform Live Effects I think I'm getting at a broader idea that includes some requests already posted - Advanced user defined variables to duplicate or step and repeat objects any number of times. This would allow users to either or conform or randomize copies of a Transform for advanced effects. I saw this idea some years ago by a Russian guilloche pattern product called Excentro ( http://www.excourse.com/excentro/index.html ) screenshot attached, that does just that.
Perhaps this is a third party plugin, or a separate Adobe product, but I think it would be great to take this on as an Illustrator feature. You can…
4 votes -
Pixel brushes It would be awesome to add pixel brushes in Illustrator as well as an easy way to paint inside objects, it's really not a ideal workflow to jump to Photoshop and even working with Affter Effects to keep those textures. Maybe something like Astute's Texturino or Affinity Designer's pixel layer.
4 votes -
A tool to drag and make objects 3D A tool that would be used to click and drag an object into varying aspects of 3D, rather than guessing and drowning in menus with the normal 3D effects.
1 vote -
Improve the warp tool The arc upper and lower warp isn't very good! It distorts too much!!!! Please improve!!!! It's been like this for years.
2 votes -
Auto-generate an opacity mask from the Appearance palette I've been experimenting with ways to create soft edges and stylized natural textures in my work. I find myself wishing for this to be able to quickly and easily create, say, an erratically faded and mottled edge to a filled path by giving it an opacity mask made up of a jagged white-to-black fade pattern brush, plus some black spots from a scatter brush.
I would like to be able to add strokes and/or fills to a path via the Appearance palette, and have these paths show up in an auto-generated opacity mask for the path instead.
Possibly this might…
4 votes -
Opacity and tint/shade options for Transform effect In EFFECT < DISTORT & TRANSFORM < TRANSFORM, it would be really great if you could have a way to fade out the shape's opacity when making copies. Other options, such as fading it to specified tint or shade, would be really great as well. You can approximate this in the blend function, but it cannot generate the fractal-like structures that the transform effect can, so it would be nice to further the artist's capacity to manipulate a single shape.
3 votes
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