Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
4619 results found
-
Reversing order of objects
Sometimes it's useful to change order of selected objects, making bottom-most go topmost and vice versa.
I understand possible complications — what would AI do when selected objects have other unselected objects between them (meaning order)?
For example, I have these objects in Layers:
A
1
B
C
2
3
I select 1,2,3 and do proposed 'Reverse order' command.
I expect order to become this:
A
3
B
C
2
1
I see two fitting places for this command: Layers palette menu or Object > Arrange
It's scriptable, but I would like to have it by default.22 votes -
Bring back the ability to create a new artboard with a click of Artboard tool, just like it used to work in earlier versions
Bring back the ability to click to set the location of a new artboard. With 2018, I have to find wherever a new artboard appears and move it to where I want it.
In 2017 and prior, I'd just click to make a new artboard where I wanted it.
22 votes -
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.
(…
22 votes -
Cmd + H should hide Illustrator on Mac
Yes, CMD-H should be standardized across all of your programs. And kindly take Freehand out of its vault, study its pen/curve tool(s), and make Illustrator's pen tool work as well as Freehand's did.
22 votes -
Ellipse tool, circle pie, Shift snap to angles
Make the pie feature of the circle support snap to angle.
Example
https://i.gyazo.com/bbf718e29c9eb4af8af65a8d837de353.mp422 votes -
Introduce reset option for shear/rotation/scaling
Currently, having used the Shear or Scaling tool on an object cannot be undone - except by undoing ANY previous changes to a document, plus the document may not have been closed and reopened, thereby losing the undo stack.
I'd like to suggest to add a Reset Object option to AI, allowing to reset an object's shear, rotation and scaling attributes to their original values at the time that object was created.
The suggested Reset Object option should open a confirmation dialog containing three checkboxes for the user to check:
Reset the following object attributes:
□ rotation
□ scaling
□…22 votes -
Edit a Brush like a Symbol, on canvas
To edit a brush stroke, we have to do the following:
1. Edit the panel
2. Grad the brush and drag it onto the canvas
3. Edit
4. Alt+drag it over the original brush
5. Think about applying changes to existing art if the brush is already usedMeanwhile, editing a symbol looks like this:
1. Double-click a symbol
2. Pass the warning (or disable it once)
3. Edit a symbol
4. Double-click on the canvas or hit Escape to finishLooks like almost the same length... but clicking is faster than dragging and aiming. Why no use the same…
21 votes -
Consider a document as 'unsaved' (dirty) when a linked image gets updated
Illustrator think that updating a link is not an operation.
This leads to problems with documents that use PDF-compatibility option.Imagine you have an already saved document that have some linked images in it. You open it in Ai and then Edit a linked image in Photoshop. Make some changes in the image, save them in Ps, go to Ai and agree to update the link...
But Ai still considers the document as non-'dirty', as if no changes were made.
You can’t save the document and re-write the PDF content, to see these changes appear, say, in the InD document,…
21 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.
21 votes -
Improve Shape Builder by adapting the Corel’s Smart Fill functionality (Paint Bucket)
Whoever came up with the idea of the Shape Builder, they did utilize not that popular Live Paint in a great way. Make it even better!
Steal and add to Ai the Smart Fill from Corel Draw (see the GIF attached). You don’t have to create a live paint, you just click over the intersection, just like Shape Builder does, and you have your new shape over the original paths. Steal it and make it better — CorelDraw doesn’t understand click and drag here, and it’s less comfortable to set a color (while Ai won’t have any problem here). Like…21 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.…
21 votes -
Allow multiple elements in a scatter / pattern brushes
For example, you could make a brush that draws a random letter or number every pass, instead of being locked to a single element
21 votes -
Make live hint with color values for the Eyedropper tool
Right now clicking with Eyedropper results in a blind result: until it's clicked, there is no way to predict what will be picked exactly. Why not to show properties to be picked in floating thingy next to the cursor? PS does it great in separate panel, why AI can't steal that?
21 votes -
Cancel button in progress bar window
What I figured out right now, is that you can't really press Cancel when you accidentally launched a complex process.
Applying filter, saving, complex transforming — it just won't respond no matter how quick you are and how strong you push that mouse button.
Is there any way that Illustrator will hold a bit of it's attention to actually letting users cancel what they want and make this button a bit less decorative?21 votes -
Stop nag windows
Provide the option to stop nag windows appearing - offering to take a tour of Illustrator, or to use the new tools instead of the old ones. I already use most of the new tools, but I would like to occasionally use some of the old ones without being reminded that other options exist. Especially after the 200th time...
21 votes -
Export for screens should exclude template layers
When exporting for screens, any layers which are set as template or non-printing should be excluded from the output without having to first turn off that layer.
21 votes -
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?21 votes -
Allow negative value spacing in pattern brush.
Simply allowing negative value spacing in the Pattern Brush Options, so it overlaps. Would eliviate a lot of work tinkering to make the original object right for pattern brushing as well as for allowing more interesting patterns.
21 votes -
USE of .CXF FILES within adobe cc
As >cxf files will soon be the future of colour communication why do x-rite and adobe not integrate .cxf files with each other. The idea of a .cxf file is to help stabilise colour across various substrates, regardless of background hue, it allows the use of a spectrophotometer to read the colour and match it against a dE tolerance to make sure the colour is within specified range.
Hence pantone live was born as every pantone book differs in colour, however a .cxf file never changes.So pantone want you to use pantone live, which is fine until the colour…
21 votes -
Loaded eyedropper just like in InDesign
I wish the eye dropper behaved more like it does in InDesign: If you pick up a type style, you "keep" that style and can apply it to several different text boxes. so if you have a text box with 4 subheads and body copy after each and you want to change all of the subheads to match the first one that you've changed, you could click on the desired style, and then click-drag over each of the subheads carrying the same style to each
21 votes
- Don't see your idea?