Live Update Prewiew
I'm exploring a dynamic feature in Adobe Illustrator for live visualization of nested symbols. Think MC Escher tessellations – I would like to see how changes to one symbol affect the entire design in real-time. Any insights or techniques for achieving this precision are highly appreciated.
Robin Davis
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So I assume you are referring to a situation when you are isolated one or more levels deep into a nested design, and want to see how it all changes in general, but illustrator won’t update upper levels until you leave the current scope?
Then I see what you mean and would like to have it myself.
At first I thought that using Window > New Window might be a solution, but no — the second window synchronizes the current scope.The only workaround I know so far is not using symbols directly, but using temp symbols created with Global Edit.
You can create nested groups, multiply, transform, and then use Group Selection Tool to select the one you want to edit and call the mode. But — don’t isolate. Isolating makes these easier to edit, but disables the live update of your 'symbols'. And yes, 'live' here still means Ai will update copies only after you release the mouse, not while you are dragging it — which is still good enough.The other downside of the method is that Global Edit uses a tolerance we have no control over. And if after numerous edits Ai decides this particular copy is not similar enough to the original, there is no way to persuade it into adapting it back with a tolerance tweak — you’d have to manually replace the flawed duplicate.
Alos remember that some other settings for the mode we can tweak in Global Edit Options (available both in Properties and Control, under a small triangle button).Does it make any sense or do you need a demo?
I’d also love to see the design you are working on.
