The invisible 'stroke path' effect in the Appearance stacks of strokes should be made visible.
There is an invisible effect in an Appearance stack on a stroke wherein the stroke is actually rendered along the path. It is possible to place effects above or below this invisible effect by dropping the effect on the stroke's entry or within the stroke's expanded entry.
It is very useful to be able to place effects before or after strokes are rendered, but it's very confusing to deal with when a crucial effect is invisible. If you create and place the effects the wrong way then a list of steps that used to work, or that work for the person who wrote them because they habitually set up effects the other way, then it's insanely frustrating.
I propose that this invisible step should be made visible. I should not have two paths with seemingly-identical appearance stacks and radically different renderings.
Attached: an Illustrator 30.3 file that demonstrates this, documents how to place effects before/after the invisible "stroke path" effect, and has images of how I propose this invisible effect should be made visible.
If there is a corresponding 'fill path' effect hidden in fills, I have not been able to make effects happen after it. It would be pretty neat to have that visible too, I'm sure there's some neat things that could be done with that ability!
EDIT: my initial test case is a little confusing since it uses a brush; I went back and recreated the example I helped diagnose that shows that this is going on with simple strokes as well as complex ones. I've also added a couple of images.
Margaret Trauth
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