Allow Eyedropper tool to copy/apply different things
Guys, the Eyedropper is an incredibly important tool, whether or not it's "****" by virtue of its age. You haven't updated it in, what, decades? Among the things that it is incapable of copying are:
- multiple strokes
- stroke profiles
- transparency
- blend modes
- graphic styles
Those are extremely common usages/needs. And that's off the top of my head, I'm sure there are many more. Obviously there's no reason this tool shouldn't be able to copy these things! Almost every aesthetic effect that gets added to AI should be reflected in that tool's pickup abilities. Please make this happen already.
Whit Gurley
shared this idea
The Eyedropper tool can work in two modes: basic and extended: basic picks/applies only colors and text. extended allows you operate chosen appearance attributes.
If you open the tool’s options (by doube-clicking the tool button or hitting Enter while it’s picked), you’ll see that you can check/uncheck two top ‘Appearance’ options and customize attributes to be processed.
This is not intuitive, but very powerful once you get the concept.
-
Whit Gurley
commented
Ah, got it, that does solve the problem. AND yes, that is absurdly non-intuitive — if all of the underlying boxes are visually checked, it is clearly implied that all of the possible attributes have already been selected. Obviously the ones I list above should be in that list, or at least there should be some sort of message indicating that the "Appearance" option includes attributes that aren't listed. [eye roll]
-
Whit, you forgot to set both Appearance check marks at the top. Then EVERYTHING gets copied and applied. Try it.
This is not very intuitive, and basically people use this default and all-check modes... Lot of thoughts here. -
As much as I hate to admit it, you're *half* right. I don't know why AI didn't successfully capture the transparency and blend mode when I tested it before publishing my post, but those do indeed get reflected in the target object.
But you're wrong about the rest - only the focal fill/strike get captured (not additional strokes), stroke profiles are not captured, nor are graphic styles. This is the outlay of AI Eyedropper options (current version, 23.0.4). If you see something different in your install, maybe mine is corrupt. Otherwise, the above post stands.
-
It does all that. Check options and apply all ticks.
