An admin answered me back and said "tool panel" was the wrong terminology, so maybe I'm referring to a "command panel". I really don't care what it's called, just a row of buttons at the top like most Windows apps that has "New File, Open File, Save File, Save As, etc. I'm really tired of having to pull down the menus every 3 minutes (I've done a lot of artwork every day for 15 years), and, the hot keys are too far apart so it takes 2 hands (I have to take my hand off the mouse to do those hot keys). The admin also mentioned the Button Mode in Actions Panel.... I played around with this and recorded several actions, and it's a little quirky. The commands don't always work the same when they are in Button Mode (try Save As). It's too complicated and quirky. Simple is soooo much better.

I wouldn’t call it a 'tool' panel, since, it would contain no tools, but commands...
So do you men to just get an unfolded duplicate of the File menu as a panel, or a fully customizable panel with command as buttons? Are you aware of the Button Mode for Actions panel? I think it just does what you need.

I'd like to see a panel at the top with buttons such as: New File, Open File, Save File, Save As, etc. It takes 2 hands to do the hot keys, and therefore slows me down... A panel like this would greatly increase my productivity.

I will bite the bullet once again then! :-)

Mark, yeah, trashing user settings is another problem...
Edit > My Settings > Export / Import Settings, which was added at some point to mitigate it, also does not work properly for some...

Even if the Ai team comes up with method to add custom commands as buttons in custom panels (to be able to have more than one Actions panel) — these would have to be backed up also.

I learnt to backup all settings manually.
Whenever I change actions, I save them via the panel’s flyout menu in a dedicated folder in my own cloud folder. If (when) these get dropped, I load it back.
Since all the different presets are located in different places (hotkeys, actions, tool panels, workspaces, etc.), some users create shortcuts to various folders (which also change, because major versions change!), some build .bat files.

Workarounds... but working in stock Ai is a masochistic violence. It makes more harm than making backups for settings. Don’t hurt yourself! :)

Hi Egor.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Over the many years I've been using Illustrator I found that regular updates often kill Actions, Keyboard shortcuts and various other preferences. I just gave up taking the time to troubleshoot them, port from older versions etc etc...

I found myself, more times than not, redoing the various keyboard shortcuts I created or Actions. Now I tend to keep Illustrator pretty much stock.

I guess, if there's no chance of it happening I might find myself creating them again.

Mark, as for today Illustrator offers several ways to have these accessed faster:
1. Assign a hotkey to each of these commands. Open Keyboard Shortcuts, locate these and assign something Ai would allow to use (there are restrictions).
2. If you want specifically buttons, and not hotkeys, you can make actions instead. Fire up Actions panel, create a new action, record a command, stop recording, and once you are done, switch the panel into a button mode via its flyout menu. There, you have buttons — not exactly in the toolbar, but you can put the panel wherever you want.
Does these work for you?

The new ability to make a custom toolbar is great, but it's limited to existing tools only. It'd be great to be able to add items from the menus that are sometimes buried several clicks in - such as Select Same Appearance, Outline Stroke, etc.

I guess they'd need custom icons - maybe they could use user-defined text labels or acronyms (eg: SSA) as a quick default, and you could allow users to also create their own icons for use.

The custom toolbar feature is very limited in illustrator. We cannot add our own desired command. Every command is hidden some where in the menu bar. Which slows down the production process and i personally hate it very much. As a artist we have to learn many software packages. We simply cannot keep remembering every keyboard shortcuts while switching between different software packages. It confuses us very much.

Autodesk Maya and 3ds max has a great features which allows to add any commands from the menu bar that the artist like to use by creating a new custom shelf. And also has many other additional features such as
1) giving custom names for shelf or toolbar
2) loading any previous saved shelf
3) choosing custom icons for commands
4) choosing custom text, color and its background color
and many many more.....

This could also be entitled: Make Custom Panels with Toolbar Buttons.

It's great to make custom toolbars, but what I really need is to create PANELS with toolbar buttons. Then I can dock them, make them retract automatically, etc., just like any other panel.

This way I can produce sets of very specialized panels that snap alongside the related settings panels.

It's not visually helpful to be forced to keep ALL tools in just one or two columns! There is no user-based reason that a toolbar can't be made square, or docked with the other panels.

Of course, ultimately I just want a very easy, drag/drop way to make custom panels that include tools, Actions, etc.