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Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests

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265 results found

  1. Drop shadow can't use global color swatches

    Drop shadow's color can be set to global swatch, but is doesn't stick to the effect, it only got sampled. So when you change your global swatch, shadow remains colored with previous color.
    Please, make Drop shadow and other raster effects use global swatches for real.

    12 votes

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  2. Please remove the pop-up tip from the Color Themes panel

    It's difficult to try out colors in this panel, because a pop-up tip appears right underneath your pointer every time. I'd love to see the "Click to set active color" pop-up removed, as it makes the colors difficult to select and it really isn't even that informative.

    11 votes

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  3. Put eyedroppers on every color selection menu

    I keep getting the request from my students that they want to use colors from their existing project. In Color, Color Guide, Color Themes, Gradient color menu, there's no good way to grab a specific color from the art boards.
    Putting eyedroppers on ALL the color sub menus would make it so convenient to grab the color of someones eye, various colors in existing blends. For example, if a student wanted to make a gradient of two different colors from her eye, she could not do so simply. Currently the eyedropper only appears to hover over a one inch RGB…

    11 votes

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  4. Delete all / individual color chips in Recent Colors sections

    Recently Ai added Recent Color sections (the request: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/44772598) to Swatches and Color panels (with an ability to disable them — thanks!)
    Unfortunately, we have no control over the section. Once a color gets added, it stays until Prefs reset.

    Sometimes I misclick and create almost identical colors and have to hover later to understand which one is correct... or want to remove some chips to keep some older ones... or wipe everything to be less distracted, because I switch projects.

    I’d like to have an ability to hold Opt/Alt or Shift and delete these chips with a click.…

    10 votes

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  5. Illustrator and Photoshop show fractional CMYK color values differently

    I have a CMYK document, and it has a linked image in it, with an intentionally chosen profile, with some specific colors set for the background, and these have to be the part of the background, because of blending modes used.
    Now I need to grab those colors form the clear parts of the background to quickly transfer them into vector part of the design. But when I try — Ai lies about values.

    Instead of
    70-15-0-0
    0-35-85-0
    0-95-20-0
    I get
    69.8-14.9-0-0
    0-34.9-85.1-0
    0-94.9-20-0

    Not much, right? Just 0.2%, why are you mad?
    But these would be enough to break…

    10 votes

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  6. Edit Global Swatch directly via Color Picker

    Currently a multi-step process to update a Global swatch using Color Picker. Change a swatch via color picker then drag the active color swatch that’s at the top of the swatches panel down into the panel and from there that color can be dragged over a global swatch to update it. Better: just double click whilst in Global swatch and use color picker. Currently can only use sliders whilst in a Global swatch.

    10 votes

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  7. No ability to add Hex code in Swatch colours

    I don't understand why this has not yet been implemented in the 30 years Illustrator is active. What could've taken me 2 minutes to do, took me 10 minutes, and had to go the long way around of opening Colour Options, try to memorise the RGB values, and then go back into Swatch Options, and then add in the values.

    Please can you add the Hex Code field in the Swatch Colour options, so that we can just paste the code to get the RGB values? And also let those updated swatches automatically update the gradients that are applied to…

    10 votes

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  8. Be able to create a finished vector repeat tile from Pattern Editing Mode.

    Currently, the only way for a designer to get a final tile from a repeat pattern created in pattern mode is a clunky workaround involving dragging the fill swatch art from the swatches panel to the artboard and then working with the bounding shape to create a cropped, repeatable tile for export. We need a button to click inside pattern mode that creates a tile from the artwork inside pattern mode that is perfectly cropped (could be a clipping mask) but will retain all the live content that typically gets expanded when you exit pattern mode. This option should allow…

    9 votes

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  9. LAB Decimal values

    Illustrator only supports integer values for LAB. It'd be amazing if there will be support for decimal values for LAB swatches.

    9 votes

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  10. Color swatch variables

    Add color and pattern swatches as options in Variables panel.

    9 votes

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  11. Merge swatches with right-click

    In InDesign you can right-click in the swatches panel and select 'Merge Swatches' (among many other things).

    In Illustrator there is no right-click menu at all, you have to click the fly-out.

    Adding the right-click menu (or even the ability add a keyboard shortcut to things in the fly-out) would be helpful as we get a lot of files with duplicate colors or need to convert odd mixes/incorrect names to true Pantones so our rips will recognize them. We do a lot of merging.

    Thank you!

    9 votes

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  12. Export Color Codes for all colors in a file

    I often have to put together style guides and have to manually (literally by hand) write down each color's codes for CMYK, RGB and HEX from Illustrator down onto a sheet of paper and then type those into the InDesign file for the style guide's color section.

    It would be super helpful to be able to export a report for all of the colors used in a file and be able to see the RGB/HEX codes and the CMYK codes for each (depending on what the document color mode is set to)

    Example:
    Color 1:
    CMYK 100, 100, 100, 100…

    9 votes

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  13. Remember "Swatch options" Preview setting

    Why do I have to check the box "Preview" every time I open the "Swatch options" panel? Why is this setting not remembered? I bet, lots of folks would appreciate it. Having it by default unchecked is annoying.

    9 votes

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  14. Automatically focus stroke or fill based on the current appearance of selected object

    It would be great if AI took into account the attributes of an object and flipped the stoke and fill palette default accordingly automatically. If I have a circle that is filled blue and I want to change it, I would like AI to recognise the blue fill on selection and switch the fill palette to the default and vice versa for a stroke only object as it is more likely that I want to change that attribute than anything else. I find this very frustrating.

    9 votes

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  15. Pin individual color chips in Recent Colors sections

    Recently Ai added Recent Color sections (the request: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/44772598) to Swatches and Color panels (with an ability to disable them — thanks!)

    Some choices these remember are more important than others — but not enough to be included into the actual Swatches panel. For example, I have a Magenta global color I sometimes want to be added into certain projects, when needed. Pinning it in Recent would allow me to quickly grab it, without dancing with Persistent panels.
    Or I could have pinned a brand color of a client I often work with, and have it there.

    I’d like…

    8 votes

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  16. Add Black and White color chips in Color Picker dialog in Color Models mode

    For some reason, the Color Picker dialog is the default way of setting a color in several color induced effects: Drop Shadow, Inner and Outer Glow.

    Most of times these effects are used, we need to toggle between black and white. These are more or less OK to pick quickly, if we change the mode of the dialog to Color Swatches.

    But each time this dialog is called when editing a color for the effect, the dialog open in the first mode, Color Models.
    And to set black or white in this mode we need to click the spectrum field…

    8 votes

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  17. Add a slider to Color Guide panel to change the number of steps

    Color Guide panel allows to change the number of steps (4 by default), through Color Guide Options dialog, called through the panel’s flyout menu. Buried rather deeply!

    Plus the value is reset every app relaunch, and there is a report about it here: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447/suggestions/46283755

    What if we could have a slider in this panel, to quickly change the number of steps, up to ~20?

    Original idea by Tony Harmer

    8 votes

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  18. Allow to zoom pattern swatches on right click hold, like we can do in Graphics Styles

    Patterns can we very detailed, and we can have some pattern variants that don’t differ much from each other. Even when we choose to have Large Thumbnail View in Swatches, it doesn’t really help much to distinguish these.

    It’d be useful if we could do the same thing as Graphic Styles panel does — to click and hold a right mouse button to view a giant thumbnail of the clicked pattern.

    The only difference would be that styles are displayed applied to the selected objects, while there is no such need for patterns — a simple square thumbnail will do.

    8 votes

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  19. Image Trace Default black and white preset is grayscale after expanding

    When you Image Trace, using the default black and white tracing preset and expand - the black and white are grayscale. When you double click the fill in the toolbar to choose a new color for the black or white, the resulting color is a shade of gray. Then, you have to go to the Color panel and change the sliders to a different color model to be able to see the color you chose. It would be easier if the black and white were aligned with the document color mode, RGB or CMYK instead. You don't encounter this issue…

    8 votes

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  20. Preserve Names When Adding Color to Swatches From Library

    If you add a color to Swatches from a Library, the name of the color is lost and defaults to the RGB or CMYK values. It would be nice if those names were preserved.

    8 votes

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