Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
When entering a new feature request, please provide:
- Description
- Why is this valuable to you?
542 results found
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Toggle to Disable touch input
Option to disable touch input, AKA pen mode, so that we can't (accidentally) draw strokes/shapes/etc while interacting with the interface or zooming with multi touch. Just like Photoshop does.
36 votes -
Match arrow keys and aligning to view rotation
i just rotated the screen 90 degrees, but when i use the arrow keys, they move the object as if the screen was not rotated. would love to have arrow keys (toggle-able) match screen rotation.
33 votes -
Paste / repeat symbols / objects into a text along a path
In Indesign you can copy a path and paste it into a text field, including along a path. This is great because if you paste it repeatedly you can then adjust it like you would with type eg changing height and width, spacing etc.
I would like to be able to do the same in illustrator.
30 votesIllustrator Beta now offers a dedicated Objects on Path construct to allow some basic distribution operations for selected objects and a chosen path. So far it allows uniform distribution only, global rotation and global pivot control, widget to control these on canvas, attaching and detaching (including isolation operations).
This is not an extension of Type on Path, but a separate type of object. The text can be used with it, but will be treated as a separate object, not per-character.
I assume some would be happy to have it and get it improved later. Pasting an object into a text, however, is still a needed thing, and is a different request — Inline Graphics / Anchor Object to text ability (like InDesign) — please upvote it if you find it useful.
As for this new object type — kindly try in Illustrator Beta and provide your feedback, so the team…
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Polygonal Lasso/Rubber Band effect for standard lasso
Polygonal Lasso/Rubber Band effect for standard lasso. Should work just like PS lasso. You don't get a break now. Once you start a lasso selection it's on until you've completed your selection.
30 votes -
Lamé / Squircle rounded corners
It would be great to add a way to create Lamé curved corners with rounded corners. (See the section "Optical corner rounding" in https://medium.muz.li/optical-effects-9fca82b4cd9a for an example of this.) Right now, one can make geometric round corners in Adobe Illustrator (and InDesign), but it would add greater flexibility to designs to use Lamé curves to create these more nuanced curves.
29 votes -
Additional arrow-key nudge values by using key combinations...
I would like the ability to specify multiple nudge values for the arrow keys to be used when certain key combinations are used - so that different nudge distances could be achieved with different arrow key combinations, such as:
Shift+Arrow
Ctrl+Arrow
Alt+Arrow
Ctrl+Shift+Arrow
Ctrl+Alt+Arrow
Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Arrow29 votes -
Prevent Pen and Pencil tools from auto-connecting when a modifier is pressed
Sometimes I want to draw a new path WITHOUT connecting it to existing one (and without locking artwork). I'd like to have a modifier key that will temporarily disable auto-connecting.
26 votes -
Add the ability to select an object by clicking it's visual appearance (strokes, glyphs, effects)
Sometimes selection tools fail (seemingly) to pick up object.
For example, if you have an object with fat stroke, clicking to outside part of that stroke will select nothing (or object underneath stroke) — you have to select in/inside edge to do it.
Second example — type object, with an empty descender zone, behind baseline; you click below letters to select an object behind, but pick type object instead.
Third example — object with a subtle but wide drop shadow effect applied to it. Shadow is almost invisible (low opacity and light color), but when you click in it, AI…24 votes -
Make ability to create Dead (not Live) shapes
I don't always need LIVE shapes. They have different controls, different treat of Control panel, they bite off Transform palette. Sometimes I just need rectangular path, as it was before, not Rectangle. Now I have to use Plain rectangle plugin on common basis, rebound to M hotkey.
I would like to use them if not a bug with Ctrl+Enter in Width/Height fields, while proportion constraint is off (Live shapes don't constraint it with Ctrl+Enter, as everybody else do, — I'm surprised I haven't reported it yet.)23 votes -
Illustrator support on Huion tablets
Illustrator is not compatible with huion tablets. The cursor moves when pen moves but no ink comes out when press down. This works in ALL other products (e.g photoshop) except illustrator. Several people have reported this issue.
22 votes -
Add an option to show edges when art is dragged with real-time drawing option on
Real-time drawing is a great feature and I wish it appeared earlier, so by this time I'd be polished enough. Now we have a mode when only edges are drawn while dragging and the other one, which draws only art — but not both. It makes positioning somewhat harder. Please add an option to allow both methods to work combined.
21 votes -
Multi selectable handles, groupable handles, handles follow paths, mirror handles, numeric edit handles, nudge handles with arrow keys
That would be awesome.
21 votes -
Introduce reset option for shear/rotation/scaling
Currently, having used the Shear or Scaling tool on an object cannot be undone - except by undoing ANY previous changes to a document, plus the document may not have been closed and reopened, thereby losing the undo stack.
I'd like to suggest to add a Reset Object option to AI, allowing to reset an object's shear, rotation and scaling attributes to their original values at the time that object was created.
The suggested Reset Object option should open a confirmation dialog containing three checkboxes for the user to check:
Reset the following object attributes:
□ rotation
□ scaling
□…21 votes -
Bring back "Object lasso tool".
Was present in earlier AIs. Helpful for non-marque selecting. Increases efficiency
20 votes -
Improve Shape Builder by adapting the Corel’s Smart Fill functionality (Paint Bucket)
Whoever came up with the idea of the Shape Builder, they did utilize not that popular Live Paint in a great way. Make it even better!
Steal and add to Ai the Smart Fill from Corel Draw (see the GIF attached). You don’t have to create a live paint, you just click over the intersection, just like Shape Builder does, and you have your new shape over the original paths. Steal it and make it better — CorelDraw doesn’t understand click and drag here, and it’s less comfortable to set a color (while Ai won’t have any problem here). Like…20 votes -
A menu item/keystroke target to enter/exit an object's Opacity Mask.
I use a lot of opacity masks these days. It'd smooth out my workflow a lot if there was an entry in the Keyboard Shortcuts that did the same as opening up the Opacity palette far enough to see its thumbnails, and clicking on the opacity mask thumbnail.
Detailed implementation suggestions:
- a menu item in the Transparency palette that either reads "Enter Opacity Mask" or "Exit Opacity Mask" depending on whether or not we're currently editing an opacity mask
- a keyboard shortcuts entry for Other Panels/Toggle Opacity Mask
- NO DEFAULT SHORTCUT, new users would hit it by accident and then…
20 votes -
Draw/brush selection
I work with pixel art. When I select I need to click on every single pixel to change color, if it's not simple shapes like a rectangle that I can marquee and select. If I draw, I just drag the pixels around accidentally. I would like to draw a selection with a brush (any brush I like), and that whatever is covered beneath what I draw by the brush gets selected. And it shall be in a mode that no pixels or objects or anything is dragged around.
Why it's valuable? It would be a huge timesaver, and keep me…
19 votes -
Soft selection (Selection drop off)
This already exists in many 3D applications (Maya, 3D Max, and C4d, for sure) and it's often treated, not as a separate tool, but as a setting in the regular selection tools. The idea is that you can set an gradient influence area where the points directly selected are affected 100% by transform changes, while everything else is affected by the changes but adjusted to the alpha percentage of the gradient at that point's initial location. I know that sounds like a mouthful, but it's very similar to how the mesh warp works (minus the having to convert anything and…
19 votes -
Star and Spiral live shapes, with on-canvas controls, better tools
Better Star tool, with side widgets to change the number of points, the rays’ length, etc.
Possibility to re-edit anytime the number of points in a star.
Also, the possibility to adjust the thickness of the star "arms".
(like Freehand was doing long time ago...)19 votesStar is now a live shape and available in the all the public builds starting from V 28.3.0.
You can now customise your star in any way you like; may it be changing the no of sides, corner angles, or even the corner radius.
Please try it out and let us know what y'all think !
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Pattern brush can be created while viewing preview as in pattern edit mode.
Creating tiles and checking whether the seams are aligned is hard work.
I think that it is convenient to have a function that can create a pattern brush while watching the preview as in the pattern edit mode.
It seems that the efficiency of pattern brush creation will be greatly increased.(Translated to Japanese)
タイルを作成し、つなぎ目が揃っているかを確認する作業は大変なので、パターン編集モードのようにプレビューを見ながらパターンブラシを作成できる機能がほしい。
制作時の作業効率が大幅にUPすると思います。18 votes
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