Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests
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4664 results found
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Able to specify triangle inner angles
Would it be possible to have an 'advanced' triangle dialogue box where you can specify the angles?. I often need to use this for creating conical cutter guides – I know I can use the rotate tool and use strokes, but feels like it could be much easier as it's very long-winded.
2 votes -
Gradient Tools Lack Customizability
For a $20/month program, it's really frustrating that I've tested it's limited capabilities multiple times.
1. Radial gradient: Should have the option to be deformed to shape. For instance, if I wanted a butterfly shaped radial gradient, the radial gradient should be able to act more like a proportional subdivision. Otherwise, the closes thing there is to what I'm looking for is the Gradient mesh because..Gradient Mesh: The Gradient Mesh has a severe lack of customizability. Everytime I use that tool for any complex shape, I always get a jumbled mess of lines and subdivisions that are overlapping and completely chaotic. We should have the option to adjust the anchor points of the mesh, but that's impossible without warping the vector shape. The tool is a nightmare to work with and practically impossible to get the results I'm looking for. You should have the option to start with a simple perpendicular grid and freely adjust the curves and anchor points without altering the vector shape. If you're not going to allow for this simple capability then don't bother having the gradient mesh at all.
Free form gradient: The other alternative to a gradient mesh would be free form gradient. While this tool is definitely a lot better and more customizable than the gradient mesh, it's not without it's frustrating parts For one, it only ever allows you to draw curves. You can't do straight lines. between 3 points on the same line and there doesn't appear to be a hot key to allow for that capability. And simply using dots without lines turns the dots into radial gradients instead of a linear gradient when the points are connected by lines and you don't get the same effect. The tool is also incredibly tedious to use. Anytime I accidentally click a hotkey like Ctrl I for eyedropper it kicks me out of the tool, or I'll accidentally click an extra gradient dot instead of clicking on one that was already placed.
Linear Gradients: This tool is great, but just like with what I talked about in regards to a radial gradient tool, this tool has it's frustrating limits. For one, the gradient it produces is not at all constrained by the bounding box of the vector and it's impossible to accurately reflect the gradient of a shape with this tool. There should be an option to have the linear gradient warped to accurately reflect the shape. For instance, if I have a trapezoid with a base that is much larger than the top, I want the proportions of the gradient to be proportionate the length of the top side and the bottom side, that way it actually reflects how lighting on that object should be.
Multiple Linear functions: Still in regards to the linear tool, I really wish there was the ability to have multiple linear gradients affecting the same vector shape. This would be useful in examples like buildings. Imagine you're looking down the road through a city. Buildings farther from your view are going to appear brighter or darker than the buildings closer to your vision. (That would be one gradient). But than the tops of the buildings are also, more than likely, going to appear brighter than the bottom of the buildings because it's closer to the sky. In cases like these, it is extremely practical to have linear gradients overlapping.
Another thing in regards to linear tools is the ability to transfer the same gradient to other objects. For example, to keep with the building example, the sun is setting on the horizon of the city and you see the reflections of the sun's light on the windows. The windows closer to the sun will have a brighter reflection than the windows closer to your view. But because all the windows are parallel to each other and are effected by the sun's reflections the same way, you should be able to draw a linear gradient from Point A to Point B and transfer those exact enpoints and slider coordinates to all the windows. I've been able to use the eyedropper tool to copy the colors in the gradient, but most of the time the length and location of the gradient line tool resets and I would have to manually manipulate the gradient lines to match for every single window and that's just plain time consuming and tedious not to mention it would not be a perfect continuity when it comes to accurately reflecting the window reflections.
When it comes to these additional features, I'm not asking you to completely get rid of the features that already exist as those are still useful applications, but all I'm asking is for all these tools to be customizable and as integral as possible. These numerous incapabilities is frustrating and stunts my creative process enough that I wish I could get a job at Adobe just to have these features added.
Thank you!For a $20/month program, it's really frustrating that I've tested it's limited capabilities multiple times.
1. Radial gradient: Should have the option to be deformed to shape. For instance, if I wanted a butterfly shaped radial gradient, the radial gradient should be able to act more like a proportional subdivision. Otherwise, the closes thing there is to what I'm looking for is the Gradient mesh because..Gradient Mesh: The Gradient Mesh has a severe lack of customizability. Everytime I use that tool for any complex shape, I always get a jumbled mess of lines and subdivisions that are…
2 votes -
Double-click with Direct Selection to enter Isolation mode.
You can only enter Isolation mode by double-clicking with the Selection tool. Why doesn't the Direct Selection tool work for this? Or the Group Selection tool, for that matter? Was there ever even an explicit design decision made that only the Selection tool should be able to do this?
I do the vast majority of my selecting with the Direct Selection tool, and about 50% of the time when I want to isolate something I just try double-clicking on it with the arrow-shaped tool I'm currently using, and grumble because it doesn't work, and hit the hotkey for the unloved Selection tool and double-click and do whatever I wanted to do.
You can only enter Isolation mode by double-clicking with the Selection tool. Why doesn't the Direct Selection tool work for this? Or the Group Selection tool, for that matter? Was there ever even an explicit design decision made that only the Selection tool should be able to do this?
I do the vast majority of my selecting with the Direct Selection tool, and about 50% of the time when I want to isolate something I just try double-clicking on it with the arrow-shaped tool I'm currently using, and grumble because it doesn't work, and hit the hotkey for the unloved…
2 votes -
Allow more modeling options for 3D extrusions
Give us more extrusion options. It's crazy that you can make a cylinder, but no possible way to make cuts through. I have attached examples to where I made the type of structure I'd need in Blender. In AI you can create a cylinder but no way to make holes through the structure. You can do this with an extruded rectangle but not cylindrical objects.
2 votes -
No puedo cambiar el tamaño de los objetos
Desde hace unos meses que no he sido capaz de volver a utilizar illustrator porque NO ME DEJA CAMBIAR EL TAMAÑO DE LOS OBJETOS/ELEMENTOS. Esto quiere decir que para mi caso, la palicación se ha vuelto inútil. Supongo yo que es un bug de mi programa pero inlcuso desinstalando y volviendo a instalar. No funciona. Esto es muy frustrante y he tenido que migrar a otras aplicaciones de diseño, y francamente lo odio. Alguien me puede ayudar por Dios??? Eso es DESESPERANTE.
Video:
loom.com/share/eb4fdda79c214dd2949228ba34392244
Comparto video grabado por si no ven el de loom
2 votesYou’ve accidentally turned off the bounding box it seems, probably with the Ctrl+Shift+B hotkey. Press it again to enable it back or use the menu command for this: View > Show Bounding Box.
Please comment back if it fixes this for you.
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Allow to set text format for CMYK values and other data in Swatch Info objects
The data for CMYK values in cards inside of Swatch Info is formatted with commas.
I’d like to have the ability to customize it: spaces, hyphens, as C100 M50 Y0 K0, etc.2 votes -
Allow to use custom user templates for Swatch Info objects
Swatch Info is OK (if completed!), but there is not enough customization currently.
Take a look what an awesome ColorList script by Katja Bjerrum offers: https://productivista.com/make-a-list-of-colors-from-your-selection/ — we can set our own shapes before making a color legend.
We could have done it semi-automatically after creating a Swatch Info, with Global Edit, to replace all chips with a custom shape... but for some reason these rectangles are immune to Global Edit (as it often happens, new features get loosely integrated with existing functions...)This actually also includes text parameters, but perhaps it’s a separate request... Sure, the font is the one defined by the [Normal Paragraph style], but text formatting is not only the font family...
Swatch Info is OK (if completed!), but there is not enough customization currently.
Take a look what an awesome ColorList script by Katja Bjerrum offers: https://productivista.com/make-a-list-of-colors-from-your-selection/ — we can set our own shapes before making a color legend.
We could have done it semi-automatically after creating a Swatch Info, with Global Edit, to replace all chips with a custom shape... but for some reason these rectangles are immune to Global Edit (as it often happens, new features get loosely integrated with existing functions...)This actually also includes text parameters, but perhaps it’s a separate request... Sure, the font is the…
2 votes -
Allow to quickly enable or disable all Text Options for cards in Swatch Info objects
Text cards for Swatch Info objects can have a lot of items displayed.
I found that I either need all of these or none often. The only way to choose between these two major modes is to patiently toggle each one manually.
...meanwhile in Asset Export we can easily choose to use All or No Artboards with dedicated buttons. Perhaps there should be a way to do the same thing here?
It should be allowed both when creating and when editing a Swatch Info object.2 votes -
Better control over position of symbol in mapped classic 3d art
When placing symbols for image maps in the classic 3D palette, I'd like to have more control over the position of the symbol to be mapped.
Example: I'm using this function for mockups of labels on bottles. There are a number of bottles, each a different flavor, let's say 4. (The bottles are placed images.) I create a cylinder sized to the bottle image's label area, and map a label symbol to the cylinder for each flavor. The labels need to be in the same place on each cylinder, both size and position. And those 4 bottles with labels are multiplied by 2 or 3, depending on how many concepts there are. So, lots of noodling with the mapped symbols sizes and positions.
This could take the form of, at the very least, a larger window for placement so you can actually see what you're doing, or fields for x/y and w/h values similar to how they are displayed for transform (but inside the mapping module).
Another thought about expected behavior: if I copy/paste a mapped cylinder, and then go into the copy and change the mapped symbol to different symbol of another label of the same dimensions, the new symbol would be in the exact same size and position.
I know you are working on adding mapped graphics to the "new" 3D effect, so maybe this will be added functionality? I know there are others who would appreciate it. When can we expect to try out this functionality in the "new" 3D effect?
(FYI, I cannot share my company files in public, they're proprietary. But if someone wants to contact me I am happy to send screen shots or share my screen.)
When placing symbols for image maps in the classic 3D palette, I'd like to have more control over the position of the symbol to be mapped.
Example: I'm using this function for mockups of labels on bottles. There are a number of bottles, each a different flavor, let's say 4. (The bottles are placed images.) I create a cylinder sized to the bottle image's label area, and map a label symbol to the cylinder for each flavor. The labels need to be in the same place on each cylinder, both size and position. And those 4 bottles with labels are…
2 votes -
Is there a way to turn off the "Help Toolbar" (grey bar with "?") at the bottom of the screen?
Can this be a Preference to be turned off if not needed? It eats into valuable real estate at the bottom. I used to be able to view an 8.5 x 11 document @100% on my 27" iMac. Now I have to reduce it down to fit.
2 votesWe can hide it with Window > Help Bar command, the same way we choose the other panels to show or hide
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An option to add extra space around when creating an artboard base on an object
When using Artboard Tool (Shift+O) to create an artboard around a selected object, an option to add some extra space around the selection would be really handy
2 votes -
Envelope Mesh needs corner points option
Envelope Mesh needs to have points that can be converted to corner points. It only has Bézier curve points which make it impossible to get perfect straight angles. Like the pen tool has. I have struggled with this for years.
2 votes -
Reverse Pie with Opt/Alt when creating or editing an ellipse
It would be nice if, when holding Option/Alt, the opposing piece of the pie opens or closes symmetrically, similar to how the option modifier switches drawing shapes from the corner to the center of the object. Option+Shift would add a snapping behavior to the symmetrical pie.
Originally by Ellis Humphres
2 votes -
Show build number on splash screen
Ai is evergreen, sure, SaaS and things...
But it’s extremely important to know what exact build we are using all the time since features and bugs differ.
Help > About shows the build number, but why not show it directly on the splash screen as well?2 votes -
Unify / bring closer the contextual task bar with the simplify/smooth adjustment bar
When I chose Edit Path from the contextual task bar to smooth or simplify a path, the slider bar for the smooth menu pops up somewhere near the path not on the same contextual task bar, so on multiple actions that means a lot of mouse travel from the contextual task bar to the simplify/smooth adjustment bar.
2 votes -
Add the ability to "freeze" layers.
Once upon a time, back around 2000, there was a natural media vector program called "Expression", by a studio named Creature House. It did a lot of heavy, complex rendering, yet retained pretty speedy performance on the machines of the time. But Microsoft bought Creature House back around 2003 and ended support for it; "Expression" became a Windows-only tool with greatly limited functionality.
One of the ways it kept its performance snappy was by having an additional state for layers. Like Illustrator, they could be visible or invisible, and they could be locked or unlocked - but they could also be frozen.
Frozen was sort of a super-lock. A frozen layer was locked and uneditable. But freezing a layer was also an explicit hint to Expression's renderer: I am not planning to do anything to this for quite a while; please render it to a bitmap and cache it for speedy performance. You'd start to see pixels when you'd zoom in far enough but that was fine. Saving it as a jpeg/png/tiff/whatever would ignore the frozen image and render it at full resolution.
This was a great feature. I do some pretty complicated stuff now and I constantly miss it. All I can do now is turn a layer off or set it to render as outlines and that's nowhere near as useful as having a low-res proxy that I've explicitly asked Illustrator to use instead of rendering it again and again.
There were a lot of other great ideas in Expression. If a few artists on the Illustrator team got Expression 3.3 running in a virtual machine and played with it for a couple of weeks they'd probably find a lot of ways to make Illustrator a more capable program for artists.
(I would swear I asked for this before? I can't find it in the system. Maybe I asked for it in the old feature/bug form, before Uservoice. I've been using this thing as my main art medium too **** long.)
Once upon a time, back around 2000, there was a natural media vector program called "Expression", by a studio named Creature House. It did a lot of heavy, complex rendering, yet retained pretty speedy performance on the machines of the time. But Microsoft bought Creature House back around 2003 and ended support for it; "Expression" became a Windows-only tool with greatly limited functionality.
One of the ways it kept its performance snappy was by having an additional state for layers. Like Illustrator, they could be visible or invisible, and they could be locked or unlocked - but they could also…
2 votes -
Ability to view comments by date
As well as filtering read/unread comments, it would be ideal to be able to sort by date
2 votes -
ZWNJ (Zero Width Non-Joiner)
Please enable the shortcut for ZWNJ (Zero Width Non-Joiner), It's commonly used in Arabic and Persian Language. In other programs, we can type it by Ctrl+Shift+2 or Shift+Space ...
کتابها
Between "کتاب" and "ها" is a ZWNJ character, without that it will join:
کتابها2 votes -
Show gradient annotator for Live Paint selections
Version 29.3 finally allows to adjust gradients for individual Live Paint regions on canvas: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447/suggestions/35930962
While these can indeed be adjusted now, the annotator is still missing.
I suppose it requires more hacking to make it work, but still I’d like to see the controls on canvas, to tweak the look and not remaking it from scratch each time.2 votes -
Retain original, unexpanded art for pattern swatches.
"This pattern contains active content (symbols, effects, etc, it's a long list) that must be expanded to create a swatch. If you edit the pattern again, the expanded content will no longer be active."
There's a lot of clever, well-paid people at Adobe. I bet someone there can figure out how to store the original pattern art along with the expanded pattern art, and edit the former rather than the latter when I double-click on the pattern swatch. I have workarounds for this but they are tedious and annoying ones.
Also I would like to thank whoever wrote the dialogue text I quoted, it would have been so easy to just say that the pattern contains Forbidden Art and leave me to figure out exactly what triggers the warning.
"This pattern contains active content (symbols, effects, etc, it's a long list) that must be expanded to create a swatch. If you edit the pattern again, the expanded content will no longer be active."
There's a lot of clever, well-paid people at Adobe. I bet someone there can figure out how to store the original pattern art along with the expanded pattern art, and edit the former rather than the latter when I double-click on the pattern swatch. I have workarounds for this but they are tedious and annoying ones.
Also I would like to thank whoever wrote the dialogue…
2 votes
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