I use a lot of layers in my Ch projects, and finding all of the elements that have the same name is vital to making my characters work. This feature is in Ch but not in Illustrator. Not being able to search layers is a massive slowdown.

Should have the option to select just layers, or groups, or both.

1. Full text search by name
2. Replace text (with an option wot work with selection objects only) — this is hard since we have two ways of selecting objects, on canvas and in Layers, and there is still no a good way to covert one selection into another — you might want to look at it now
3. A way to apply any several filters at the same time, unlike Photoshop which allows to apply only some.
4. A way to save, load and manage filter options — in a modern way, and not like you treat workspace, tools presets, and especially poor Views and Selections — these have to get improved too.
5. Take a look at options provided with various external tools — FindReplace Art plugin by Astute Graphics, Select Menu plugin by RJ Graffix, NitPicker plugin by Hot Door, a way Corel Draw manages search options. It’s also a good time to review native Select commands.
6. Take a look at various scripts which try to patch the hole, especially at RenameItems (https://github.com/creold/illustrator-scripts/blob/master/md/Item.md#renameitems) by Sergey Osokin, and other scripts on the same page.
7. As Oleg says, see how Figma does it and see what plugins does their community create, like this one: https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1034178978552865811
8. Don’t forget these need their own hotkeys, available APIs, be open to scripts and actions.
9. Think about a proper integration with everything AI has on board now, especially Global Edit, Show/Hide, Select command.
Since it’s a major change, we really expect to get a way to test it earlier to see if it all works at all before you push it into the release.

Here's how it should look like: https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/articles/9141292269847

Please add a filter by name, color... in the layers panel.

To search for named objects in a document I made a free script https://youtu.be/30AwGPf_2Wk

Uh yeah, I can't believe there is no way to do this already... I have a ton of layers that I spent a reasonable amount of time putting a nice naming convention into, but there is a point where this breaks down and finding things by searching would be much easier. Many modern apps allow this, and yet I find myself here looking for it for Illustrator.

I definitely agree with you. All Adobe products need an advanced, but also user friendly search feature. There are two search options available in Ai, but none of them really stand of good stead.

Selecting hidden layers with special control on the layer tree

I am using Illustrator with Character Animator. I must arrange layers properly and visibility is an important role in this situation. I often found my self need to copy (instead of starting back from zero) an already existing puppet (.ai file) and just make a modification (e.g. color & body parts).
Recolor artwork is one tool I use often, but the problem with this that I need to re-enable the visibility of hidden layers in order to select in and have its color changed, and once changed I need to disable the visibility again. This is a lot of work and can be frustrating sometimes.

I also often find myself moving a parent layer (with some of the children hidden) but then the same with the recolor artwork, I need to re-enable and disable layers back and forth in order to select it on the layer tree.

I propose a special key combination to make it possible to select even the hidden layers and have it moved and affected by recolor artwork without re-enabling and disabling back and forth.

For example hold "Alt" while clicking the parent layer will select all the children layer inside of that parent layer, even the hidden one without re-enabling the visibility!

That would help me so much! Thanks!

It would be nice to have a search function for other panels as well. Such as Symbol panel, Graphic Styles, Brushes, Swatches, ETC. Especially when it comes to large preset libraries!

Crazy this isn't an option. Needs to be a live fuzzy search for showing layers after only partially typing the layer name.

Allow filtering in the layers palate e.g. Type a word to show all layers/objects who's name contains that word, alternatively all text frames which have the selected word in their content. Show only objects who have a fill colour of P495 etc. This would make it much easier to navigate and edit complex documents

Quick search for locked objects in the Layers panel

It would be great if you implement quick search for locked objects. I design dashboards with thousands of objects. Since it is physically impossible to name each one, I usually leave them unnamed. But very often there's a need to lock one or several objects located in different layers of different artboards. And to find them after that is an ordeal. I have to scroll down and up for ages until I found them. Searching for all that are locked can save hours of worktime.

URGENTLY NEEDED.... we need a search function for the layers menu - not a location object, but a real "search layers for name" function.

I have a client project with 584 layers, each with a unique name, and each containing stuff. Scrolling thru the layers menu to find a specific layer name is annoying!!!

Even (******) CorelDraw offers a search layers function - so obviously the GODLY software Illustrator NEEEEEEEDS this. Come on, this should have been included since 2010.

Just my opinion,
Alldaron