Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
4597 results found
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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 -
SQUARE blob brush would be great
The blob brush is a really great tool for an illustrator like me, but it would be so much more versatile if Illustrator would made available a SQUARE brush next to the round brush.
(CC Animate provides both round and square brushes and it is just great.)
It would allow us to easily draw by hand things with square angles like windows, buildings etc.
A square brush also makes it possible to draw in a woodcut style.
You would even make me happier if it would be possible to stretch and/or rotate the (both round and square) blob brush.Attached…
5 votes -
Select same fill colour selects text with same fill colour too. Tricky I know
When I hit select same colour and there is any live text box with multiple colours in it it does not select the text. Would be really handy if it did.
5 votes -
Pressure Sensitivity added to Pencil Tool
Variable width strokes are great! What would be even better would be to have variable strokes simply by drawing them in with a pressure sensitive device.
5 votes -
Allow the app to send projects to Sketch
If I want to outline a drawing in Illustrator Draw but color it in Photoshop Sketch, right now I have to save it to the creative cloud as PSD. There should be an option where I can open the full project in Sketch app, in both apps where in Photoshop Sketch I can choose to either import a project from Illustrator Draw, or while in Draw I can export a project to Photoshop Sketch.
5 votes -
Pinch to zoom for Illustrator while the free transform tool is active.
When I have something selected and I activate the Free transform tool, pinch to zoom no longer works, this is my primary method of navigation. This block forces me to go back to the selection tool and then zoom in and then return to the free transform tool then I had. I don't like that it's very inconvenient. I am on a laptop and have the latest version of Illustrator installed.
5 votes -
A lock for the current style (stroke weight, fill, color), but tool specific
When I need to adjust a filled object and then return to say, the pen tool. I first have to reset the color and stroke before I can go back to my line work. I would love it if there were simply a lock for this on the pallet so that while drawing I can lock it to a certain color, fill, and stroke weight/style. Perhaps a simple lock on the tool pallet under color. Gray out lock icon over color when I turn the pen tool back on would be a good indicator. So it is attached to that…
5 votes -
Keyboard Bindings
I would appreciate being able to bind the ESC key to any shortcut I want, such as deselect. I use Full Screen with Menu Bar all the time and out of Photoshop habit, hit ESC to deselect. But every time, it boots me from full screen. I hate it.
Can you give us some love?
5 votes -
Change arrow cursor back to how it used to be.
I would VERY much like to be able to change the arrow cursor style back to how it was prior to the most recent update. I do not like the arrows no longer having a handle; perhaps I'm irrational, but it's really throwing me and disrupting my workflow.
5 votes -
Export quality for EMF or WMF
When exporting to emf or wmf formats to get editable vectors into PowerPoint the details in curves or small marks get all messed up. For example the details of a registered trade mark on a logo will be distorted or the curve of a letter o will become choppy. This is a huge issue for us and I'm hoping quality settings like the options provided for exporting and svg would fix the issue.
Thank You
5 votes -
A key to reverse "object selection by path only" while using selection tools.
Mostly I like to work with this setting off but there are times when it would really be nice to turn it on by holding down a key while clicking in the middle of a path.
I don't know what key to suggest, command swaps selection for direct selection (and vice-versa), alt widens the selection of the direct selection tool and does nothing for selection, shift adds to/subtracts fom the selection. Maybe `?
4 votes -
Share for Review - Ability for teams to update links
Currently in InDesign and Illustrator, the person that created a review link is the only one able to update the review link. There are times when another person on my team needs to update a file and send an updated review link, but to do so, they have to create a copy of the file and make a brand new link. This is a bit tedious and doesn't keep the history of comments, which we sometimes need to refer back to. I would like to suggest the ability to allow teams on Create Cloud to be able to work on…
4 votes -
There is no documentation for the vector effects in the Effect menu. Write some, please.
There's three major sections to the Effect menu: Illustrator Effects, Photoshop Effects, and Additional Effects.
Additional Effects is the domain of plug-in effects, and properly documenting these is of course in the hands of whoever wrote the plug-in.
Photoshop Effects is full of bitmap effects. There's a page in the docs that runs down the whole list and describes every one of them with a sentence or three. Great! https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/summary-effects.html
Illustrator Effects, though? Some of it's documented. There's a page about the Scribble effect, which is also for some reason about the Object Mosaic menu item. There's a page about…
4 votes -
Please revert to data recovery files being saved as .ai files instead of .aishm files that can't be opened.
Have the data recovery files save as .ai files that you can actually open and work on, rather than .aishm files that are unopenable.
What's the use of data recovery files that you can't open?
4 votes -
Play actions WITHOUT expanding them in the panel
When playing an action, it expands.... so that it visibly "walks" through every step.
I have the Playback Options set to "Accelerated", so the walking is rapid, yet the action expands and I see the panel highlight every single step of the action as they are quickly walked through.
I want to click play, and the action runs while it stays collapsed. I only need an action expanded in the panel if I intend to edit it. I find myself collapsing, now open, actions over and over and over.
In addition re Button Mode:
I don't use button mode specifically…
4 votes -
Allow to use raster images with Mockup
(Not sure exactly what category this request falls under...) The mockup tool as it is now is pretty limiting. If you have a raster image as part of what you want to mock up, the mockup tool doesn't work. I design food packaging, most of which has an image of the item in the package. Being able to mock up packages that include images would be a godsend!
(And if anyone has a workaround, please share! I use the legacy 3d tool for cylindrical objects. But for things like pouches I haven't figured a way to do it. Thanks.)
4 votes -
Introduce a tolerance for Snap to Grid / Pixel, so that snapping happens only when points are close enough to grid intersections
When Snap to Grid is enabled, the snapping is hard — a dragged point is always constrained to the grid intersections. While sometimes it’s handy, at other times is just too rigid, especially if you zoom in and try to make tiny adjustments. Paired with the fact we can’t toggle snapping temporarily on the fly, this makes it into 'try, curse, undo, disable, try again' routine. Same applies to Snap to Pixel.
Compare how Affinity Designer handles it (the turquoise GIF) with the way Ai uses (the orange GIF).
4 votes -
Allow to create Swatch Info object using a hotkey
Currently to create a Swatch Info object you need to dive into the Swatches panel’s flyout menu and locate a command. We need a way to assign a hotkey to this.
Actually, we need a way to assign hotkeys to ALL commands hidden in the panel menus — here is a general request about this: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/46432486 (and even a larger request to hotkey everything at all: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/31609237)
More of it, we need to be able to create Swatch Info objects with drag-n-drop (as Von Glitschka originally requested: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/40192993).
There is now a separate request specifically about this, to…4 votes -
Allow to snap to middles of straight and curved segments in paths
We need middles to get detected with Smart Guides.
The latest Beta 29.5.0.15 got this report fixed — http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/39380149 — and now allows to detect these for straight two-point lines (as 'intersect', not 'middle') but it doesn’t work for straight segments within a larger path or curved segments at all.The team ignored the rest of the comments and did the bare minimum the report stated :( Hope this will get more votes to prove we need it still.
4 votes -
Project Turntable
Project Turntable - This option is not available even on the latest version of illlustrator 29.3.1 and the latest illustrator beta 29.4.73. How can this be activated in my account? This would really help fast track the projects I'm currently working on
4 votesThe development of this is in progress, the team is working on the feature. Stay tuned for more information.
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