Blend Modes Hotkeys are broken
Illustrator allows users to set custom hotkeys for blend modes, in Keyboard Shortcuts > Tools, right in the very bottom.
Aside from direct commands for each available blend mode, there are two contextual keys: Next Mode and Previous Mode.
They don’t work as expected. Let’s make a simple test.
1. Assign Shift+9 (displayed as 'Shift+(' — which is not correct, actually) for Previous and Shift+0 ('Shift+(') for Next blend mode.
2. Put two colored shapes in a stack, to see what’s happening when you change modes
3. Open Transparency panel, to see which mode is chosen (for some reason Properties does not allow to see the mode)
4. Select the top shape and hit Shift+0 (Next Mode)
...nothing happens. Illustrator refuses to change a mode when it set to Normal. Shift+9 (Previous Mode) also does nothing.
- Change the mode to Darken manually via the panel
Press Ctrl+0 (Next Mode)
Now it goes correctly to the next mode, Multiply.Hold this Ctrl+0 hotkey
Ai goes through all available modes and stop at Luminosity, the last one — and won’t loop to the start of the listHold the other key, Ctrl+9, to cycle back
Ai never stops looping through all modes, but won’t never display Normal one.
TLDR:
A. Next Blend Mode hotkey does not work when Normal is chosen
B. The list of modes does not loop to the start when you use Next Blend Mode key
C. Looping through blend modes omits Normal blend mode
Why is this important?
A minimal way to utilize these keys would be one to set a normal mode (to reset blending, basically), and then any counted number of presses to navigate to a desired one. Instead we have to assign one for Normal, and one for non-Normal and hit the wall when cycling down.
AdminEgor Chistyakov
(Admin, Adobe Illustrator)
shared this idea
I am happy to share that we have fixed this bug in our latest release – 27.0.0 which is available worldwide now.
Going forward, our goal is to fix as many top User-Voice bugs as possible and as frequently as possible. Given the nature of the fixes, some of the bugs will take a longer time to fix, but we are on it.
You can update to the latest release using Creative Cloud desktop App: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/creative-cloud/help/creative-cloud-updates.html
Thank you for all the feedback. Keep it coming!
Ankit Goyal
Illustrator Team
-
Tony! :D
If you open Keyboard Shortcuts, make sure you have Tools selected (don’t ask me why, I have no idea why not in the Menu Commands), scroll all the way down, you’ll see all 'Blend Mode - [name of the mode]' commands there — empty, ready to be assigned... but. Opt/Alt cant’ be used for these. Because these are in tooools. Which means these can be bound only to naked keys and Shift+keys. Which are all taken, long time ago!
So the problems are:
A) Move Blend Mode keyboard shortcuts from the Tools section into the Menu Commands section, so we can use all possible modifiers for these, and not only Shift:
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/46691479-move-blend-mode-keyboard-shortcuts-from-the-toolsB) Allow all modifiers to be used for anything anywhere:
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/34616848-support-for-more-keyboard-shortcut-modifiers
and also this one:
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/43161018-remove-restrictions-to-useable-keyboard-shortcutsC) Allow to map anything to a hotkey, including all the panels’ menus:
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/31609237-assignable-keyboard-shortcuts-for-everything -
Tony Harmer
commented
Ankit! :)
Can we not go the whole way and allow Opt/Alt modifiers in keyboard shortcuts so we can use the same shortcuts as Photoshop for assigning blend modes? For example Shift+Opt+N assigns Normal, Shift+Opt+M applies Multiply, etc. A full list is available if you need it!
Tony Harmer
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Photoshop has default hotkeys for looping through blend modes, Shift+Plus and Shift+Minus. Illustrator can have these assigned too (in Keyboard Shortcuts, in Tools section), but they behave differently — when the end of the list is reached you can't jump to the beginning.
That is pressing Shift+Plus does not take you to Normal from Luminosity. Strangely enough, Shift+Minus does choose Luminosity when you are on Normal!
To maintain consistence between apps, this should be changed.