Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
768 results found
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Grid or Guides Calculator
Have a make grid or guides feature with a grid calculator that was artboard dependant.
- as in I could have different grids on different artboards
- proportional grids
- vertical grids and guides as well as horizontal
The amount of time I take having to set up grids, by drawing boxes and dragging in guides, to do my layout is enormous.
It is such a fundamental part of graphic design, I feel like it should really be embedded in illustrator. I have noticed that the new Photoshop has it. Also indesign has it. But really i need it more in illustrator.
(…
21 votes -
Customizable zoom levels (including mouse wheel zoom and hotkeys)
The current mouse wheel zoom (ALT + wheel) only navigates between zoom presets, making it incredibly difficult to use since the scale factor only doubles/halves most of the time. This is especially true when using touch mouse wheels (e.g., Microsoft surface mouse).
A setting that switches between this mode and a finer grain zoom (e.g., +/- 10% of current, possibly user-preference defined) would make this much more useful.
21 votes -
The ability to increase the text size of any menu, panel or dock item. Some of us are going blind.
Give users more flexibility with the program interface please. This will help a lot of people with eye strain.
21 votes -
Curvature Combs and Tunni lines
Two ideas, both aimed at creating smoother curves:
curvature combs:
an additional visual aid that could be enabled/disabled via hotkey or option on a panel that assists the artist/user in evaluating whether a curve is continuously smooth, or whether it needs adjustment. See this blog for a quick coded breakdown:
https://observablehq.com/@jrus/curvature-comb
see this webpage for more traditional curvature combs with lines perpendicular to the curved path, in proportion to the path's curvature at that point:
http://www.bluesmith.co.uk/evaluateComb.htmTunni lines:
an additional assist/handle for helping a user more precisely adjust a curve (or multiple curves), both symmetrically and asymmetrically.
See this example…
20 votes -
Ctrl+click the swatch to mix it with the current color
There is a small thing in Corel Draw, that AI could benefit of too.
If you have an object selected and click in a different swatch with a Ctrl held, it adds a bit of clicked color to your current one, blending them.Like if you have a yellow CMYK 0-0-100-0 and Ctrl+click in 0-100-0-0 magenta swatch, you will have 0-10-90-0, 0-19-81-0, 0-27-73-0, getting more like the clicked swatch with each click. Same in EGB Very convenient for adding color reflexes and picking a color in general.
20 votes -
Let the "." on the numeric keypad work as a decimal separator for all countries.
In Dutch, we user the comma as a decimal separator. (0,5 is how we write a half)
Lots of use use the International English keyboard, and the English versions of Adobe CC. But for some reason Illustrator refuses to recognize the "." on the numeric keypad as a separator. When I type "7,2" Illustrator show this correctly in the input fields, but when hitting enter, it makes "72", just skipping the comma.
Please make a Preference to set the "." or "," on the numpad always to act as a decimal separator.20 votes -
Show reference point locator in Scale/Rotate/Shear/Reflect tool dialogue
I wonder, why 'Transform each' has one, while normal transform tools haven't. This would be so useful!
20 votes -
Make ability to make warnings show in background and not in dialogue windows
Right now we can click OK/Enter every time interrupting warning dialogue pops up, or tick 'Never show again'.
I would prefer background message, same as 'Shape expanded' now appears.
For example, I use Ctrl+J combination to connect all my segments in one closed path. I can have two or more segments, and just press this combination several times to achieve my goal, rather then count how many times I should press it. But when path is finally closed, AI throws a warning at me. Usually my hands press keys one more time after that and AI beeps-blinks, which is awful…20 votes -
A big persistent Color palette offering RGB and HSB and Grayscale at a glance.
When making Illustrations, I switch between RGB / HSB and Grayscale all the time. I have a 30" screen - room enough to show all mixers all the time.
Please make this possible.20 votes -
Make keyboard shortcuts work for different input languages
I'd love to see an update that lets me use the same physical keys for shortcuts while I have a different keyboard than English selected.
For example, the backslash key () is used for the line tool. But when switching to German, the same physical key returns (#) and in Romanian we have a (â).
I wish that all shortcuts activated by the press of the physical keys work as intended in the interface regardless of the language currently active so I don't have to switch so much between languages just to have my shortcuts work again.
This could work…
19 votes -
Add dividers/separators to custom tools panel (or enable stacking/docking them vertically)
It would be nice to be able to visually separate tool groups in custom toolbars since there is no way to stack them vertically. Think "groups" in Microsoft Office apps' "ribbon". We can currently only...
A) Mash all of our tools into one toolbar, with no means of visual organization apart from the order in which they appear (I don't count stacking the tools as "visual organization", since I cannot see them).
B) Snap multiple toolbars together, but not while docked to edge of UI. They will not be movable together like this, and other UI elements can overlap them.…
19 votes -
Refine (not revert to previous) zoom to selection
Now, 'Zoom to selection' zoom AND centers.
I think that zoom to selection should not center at all by default (and, of course, there should be an option to add centering to zoom). The selected art should stay where it is located in view, until zoom level is big enough so object will go outside current view — only then AI should move view to fit the art.
And there should be a tick 'Only for zooming in'.
19 votes -
Improve and allow customize the 'Show' info slot in the bottom bar (next to horizontal scrollbar)
Show field next to zoom and artboard selectors below work area can now show 5 things:
current artboard name, which is nowhere else is seen except Artboards palette;
current Tool, that is usually visible if Tools panel is on;
current date-time, which is visible in system clock;
number of undos, which was quite useful when RAM was tiny;
current profile, which is visible in document header.
I mean, almost every info available is also available in other place!I would like to use this field as something exclusive:
number of selected objects (nowhere to be seen, only PathScribe plugin can…19 votes -
Reveal in Finder / Explorer option for document tabs
Reveal in Finder Option - Currently reveal in finder you "command + click" file name at top of window, however this option is not availble when window is tied to the application frame.
19 votes -
Option to put Properties Panel at the top of the workspace.
For those of us who find it more convenient for the Properties to be at the top of our workspace, we should be able to click and drag the properties panel into the default space along the top of the window.
19 votes -
Add an option to hide the Search/Filter field in Layers
Search/Filter is cool, but some prefer to not have it.
Other panels allow to choose components: we can pick sections to display in the Character panel, we can show or hide the search field in Swatches, etc.However, the panel does not have such an option in its flyout menu.
Please add one!18 votes -
Add Cut At / Connect / Remove Selected Anchor Points commands to 'Object > Path' menu
In Control panel we have three buttons for a point partial selection:
Remove selected anchor points.
Does the same as a menu command Object > Path > Remove Anchor Points, and this command can have a hotkey assigned toConnect selected end points.
Does the same as a menu command Object > Path > Join, and has a default hotkey. Why Ai uses both 'Join' and 'connect' for the same operation, and also has 'Join' tool, which does a pretty different thing — is an UX mystery.Cut path at selected anchor points.
There is NO a menu command for…
18 votes -
Customizable splash screen
Adobe marketing team decides what to display as splash screens. Sometimes the choice is great, and sometimes is not, much more often, to some of us.
And since the Illustrator splash screen is what we see often, and it obviously influence our thought and mood, we’d like to have options to customize it.
We can access the image ourselves, all of them are stored along with other version for different resolution screens at
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator 2022\Support Files\Contents\Windows\aiccsplash.png (on Windows)
and packed in the application in Contents\Resources\ (on Macs),
but this feels like a hack.What if we…
18 votes -
Make title bar of inactive window look different from an active one
On Windows there is no way to tell Illustrator window in focus from inactive one, even when a corresponding option in OS preferences is on.
And every time Ai is not in focus you can’t use hotkeys.
Please make at least something dynamic to tell if the window is in focus! Like it was before. Icon changing color at least.18 votes -
Add 'Release' button for Envelope distort object in Control bar
Control bar is still the best thing to control various aspects of selected art. You try to transfer some of those to Properties, but 'Release' button (as long as 'Expand') is still nowhere to be found (only deep in menus or on hotkeys, already taken).
18 votes
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