A hotkey to make the Free 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 Free Transform tool.)
There is a ‘transform pattern only’ option in the Transform panel’s menu, but that’s a lot of clicks far away from the thing you’re actively working on, plus it doesn’t actually WORK. No, really, try it. Make a fill pattern, draw a shape with it, check 'transform pattern only', and watch the entire object be transformed along with its fill pattern.
(Actually it is the ` key, no need to hold down Shift to get a ~; I just usually refer to it as the ~ because that's easier to distinguish from the '/" key in many fonts.)
Margaret Trauth
shared this idea
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I feel your pain.
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Margaret Trauth
commented
As a subsidiary request: I know that international users can have problems with this because they don't *have* this key on their keyboard. And they can't change it, because it doesn't show up in the Keyboard prefs. Having that changeable, whether in the Keyboard prefs, or SOMEwhere, would be icing on the cake.
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Margaret Trauth
commented
With every other transformation tool in Illustrator, you can hold down the `/~ key to affect just the pattern applied to the shape - the Rotate, Scale, and Shear tools, dragging it around with one of the Selection arrows, bumping it around with the arrow keys.
But not with the Free Transform tool. The Free Transform tool doesn't know about this switch that every other tool has. Probably because it was implemented long after the others, and nobody involved in it knew about this behavior.
Today I got to explain this to yet *another* a new user who wanted to be able to transform patterns, and I'm really tired of telling them about this exception. Can we please get "hold the backtick key while using the Free Transform tool to transform an object's pattern" put into the queue?
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Anonymous
commented
I concur with Monika Gause... As a French user with an AZERTY keyboard, I can't access to this feature. Very frustrating...
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Monika Gause
commented
It's important that whatever key gets assigned will work in any language on any keyboard layout.
