Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
4623 results found
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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 -
A hotkey to make the Transform tool only transform fill patterns.
When dragging with the selection or direct selection tools, or using the rotate, and scale tools to transform an object, you can hold down ~ to only transform its pattern fill. But the free transform tool doesn’t do this. Can we get it to do this?
(As with the rotate, scale, and selection tools, holding down the other modifier keys whole holding down ~ should act as they normally do with the Transform tool.)
There is a ‘transform pattern only’ option in the free transform panel’s menu, but that’s a lot of clicks far away from the thing you’re actively…
12 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 -
Scatter Brush 'scatter magnitude' slider
I would like to see a new pair of sliders in the scatter brush options that controls how 'powerful' the scatter is.
Each instance of the brush image would have its distance from the central path, as defined by the 'scatter' slider(s), multiplied by this value. So if it was at 0%, any effect of the scatter sliders would be completely nullified, if it was at 1000%, the effect of the scatter sliders would be multiplied by ten.
Essentially, I would like to be able to control how 'wide' a scatter brush is based on my stylus pressure. The existing…
2 votes -
Brush Groups
I would like to be able to select several brushes in the Brush palette, then press a 'make brush group' button on the palette.
I would then be able to choose this brush group as if it were a brush. Drawing with this brush group would choose a different brush in the group at random for every new path I created.
I might have a 'brush group options' dialogue box wherein I could choose the relative frequencies of the different brushes in the group, switch it between random choice and cycling between brushes in order, give it a name, and...…
5 votes -
Assignable keyboard shortcuts for EVERYTHING.
In the 'keyboard shortcuts' dialogue, I would like to have a section that contains the flyout menu items and buttons of every palette.
Ideally this would be automatically populated when a palette is created, so that palettes created by 3rd-party plugins would be able to take advantage of this without a new version.
Currently there is an 'other panels' section in the assignable menu commands that lets you assign keystrokes to ten seemingly-arbitrary palette menu items. I'd love to see a ton more choices there. No need for default shortcuts; this is a way for power users to pick exactly…
111 votes -
Layer freezing
When doing very complicated artwork, sometimes Illustrator's live preview starts to become impossibly slow. Distorted dense fill patterns, lots of art brushes full of translucent shapes, complicated high-res bitmap effects… I can do some stunning things with these but I’m reluctant to use them, because I need to have fast response time in my drawing tool.
Currently, layers can be locked, or unlocked. I would like to have a third mode: 'frozen', where the layer is locked, and a bitmap of the entire layer is cached. This bitmap is then used for rendering the preview, until such time as the…
5 votes -
Crop Tool - Thanks!
Not a request, just wanted to say thanks! I Love, Love Love! the new crop tool. Waited so long & use daily. (Don't worry, I know how to mask.)
1 vote -
Adding multiple artboards at once
Why can't we add several artboard instead of manually adding one by one ?
3 votesAs per the comment, the most accessible way to create multiple artboards is to draw multiple rectangles with required dimensions and positions, followed by the Convert To Artboards command.
There are multiple ways to create several rectangles fast: Transform Again command, an expanded blend, Split into Grid command.
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'Tab' and 'Shift-Tab' to navigate when renaming Assets
Issue:
While renaming assets in the Asset palette there's currently no way to move to the next or previous asset using the keyboard. When there are a large number of assets this makes for a tedious process.Goal:
Allow the renaming of multiple assets without having to use the mouseSuggested Solution:
Utilize 'Tab' / 'Shift-Tab' keys to navigate to the next / previous assets, e.g. how renaming layers works in Photoshop.13 votes -
An option to Consider End Handles when filling open paths
In illustrator we can to adjust start and end point handles in open path, but it have not much sense. What about to consider this handles to adjust shape of the object fill. Not on strait line like usual, but in way like we want. By the way, if we decide to close the path, Ai should make it in that way too.
So, we doesn't need two objects with stroke and shape separately, it will be one object with adjustable end handles.6 votes -
Anchor point smart delete
Deleting an anchor point by default break up the shape of the stroke.
What about smart delete, that automatically adjust nearest handles to save the shape of the stroke.
I dream about it from the cs3 version :)16 votes -
Allow selecting a clipping mask by its fill
Currently, I need to select clipping masks by their edge, which is tricky. I prefer selecting objects by their fill.
35 votes -
Drag to "bevel" a shape.
I'd like to have a bevel tool.
One for "Below" and one for "On top"
Shown here is the "Below" version, dragged straight and at a 45º angle.79 votes -
Isolate Selected Objects without having to group them
In my work flow, I find I would like to isolate more than one object for something, and not necessarily a whole layer. Currently I have to group two or three objects first to do this. I'd like to see being able to isolate selected objects without having to group them first.
19 votes -
Selection panel - supercharged customisable selection options
- A new Select panel.
*User-defined search permeameters with logical operators, and access to all relevant properties and object types in the document object model. Ability to extend and refine a search by multiple parameters.
*User-defined labels for objects, with which users can create their own custom searches (eg. ”figure”, ”house”, “red team”, “platform” etc.).
This would make me A Happy(er) Bunny.
8 votes -
Select > Same > Font (Size/ Style/ Typeface / Size& Style / Size and Typeface)
Extend the select menu items to include options for selecting type variations.
207 votesNow available in the latest release, version 26 (2022) and higher. Please let the team know in the comments if you have any problems with that.
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Make Spiral as a live shape, editable after it has been drawn
It could be useful to have an option for adding segments, or changing decay, especially if it serves as a path for text.
12 votes -
Add a swatch from a color inside a gradient in Adobe Illustrator
When you are working in a gradient, you may customize your colors inside. However, there's no way to add this new color as a swatch - or even to be given a HEX code. Let's make this more functional!
12 votes -
Make Pathfinder work with groups properly
Allow for the Pathfinder to operate on groups of objects as if the group were one object. Possibly its own pathfinder function.
If I am working with a group it is understood that I want to work with those items as one object. However, when using the pathfinder to minus front, and the object below is part of a group it just deletes the entire group along with the portion of the top object that I wanted to get rid of. When would that be useful? This will also be posted as a bug, because that is how I view…
52 votes
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