Illustrator Subselect Feature RequestThis one covers several drawing tools and requests, all listed below the videos. It’s all about giving us options to work the way we like to work, not the way Illustrator tells us to.
Feature requests:
- The ability to place several scans/bitmap images at a time
- The ability to move an item to another layer just by clicking on the desired layer
- Line preview with the pen tool (make it an option)
- The ability to toggle between the pen tool, the selection tool, and the subselection tool on the fly
- Somehow indicate that a path is closed or open
- The option to have the fill color show, or not until the path is closed
- Bezigon-like tool
- Deleting a point with the delete key only deletes the point, doesn’t break the path (make it an option!)
- The option to highlight selected path, or not
I’m an illustrator user, I have never used Freehand and I’m loving your posts anyway because I’m learning so much.
Well, first of all, I¡m sorry for my english, I’m argentinian, living in Spain and totally out of practice. However, some of the things you are asking for, already exists in Illustrator. I’ll try to explain that.
• Change object to another layer by selecting it and, in the layer window, take the little colored square and drag it to the layer you want to place the object to. Done.
• Press P key to change to Pen Tool from any other tool. Press V key to change to Selection Tool, to change from any other tool. Press A key to change to Direct Selection Tool (that is how is called Subslection Tool in Illustrator) from any other tool. While in Selection Tool, you can toggle betwen Selection and Direct Selection, by pressing Command key o to Group Selection Tool by pressing Command+Alt. Same thing to change to Selection when you are using Direct Selection, for example (Mi dios, I hope I’m writing this correctly enough and somebody will understand me!)
• While using the Pen Tool (and the Add Anchor Point tool or the Delete Anchor Point), press A key to change to Direct Selection tool and select de path you want to and press Delete key. Illustrator uses many letter of the keyboard for almost every tool on the Tools window.
• You can hide the highlighted path by pressing Command+H (View > Hide Edges)
I don’t know if I’m being of any help. Anyway, some of the features of Freehand you are showing here, I would be delighted to have it in Illustrator (Love the Bezigon Tool!).
Uff! I’m tired of writing in english. I’m so so out of practice… I’ll keep reading anyway :-)
You make so valid points and it’s interesting for an AI user to find out about FH features… But I think you should familiarize yourself with AI a bit more before you make those videos… Some of the points in these 2 videos shows more a lack of AI experience than AI’s shortcomings…
- The ability to move an item to another layer just by clicking on the desired layer: I actually hated that in FH, but that a question of personal preference/habit I guess… Nevetheless, you can click + drag the little color icon on right on the layer to select/move
- Line preview with the pen tool (make it an option): that looks more annoying than usefull to me ;)
- The ability to toggle between the pen tool, the selection tool, and the subselection tool on the fly: on keyboard, respectively p, v, a (btw, command key doesn’t select the “wrong” tool, it selects the last selection tool you had (a or v) so you can toggle quickly between current tool and preferred selection tool for repetitive tasks
- Somehow indicate that a path is closed or open: don’t know the answer to that one.
- The option to have the fill color show, or not until the path is closed: that would be cool…
- Bezigon-like tool: slightly off topic, but check out xtream path Illustrator plugin, if you’re a pro illustrator, it might very well be worth the investment… it has many very useful tools like that one.
- Deleting a point with the delete key only deletes the point, doesn’t break the path: use pen tool (p on keyboard) not sub select tool, click on already existing point will delete it, you can also use the delete anchor point tool.
- The option to highlight selected path, or not: command + h for A tool, shif + command + b for V tool bounding box
As I said, interesting post, but a lot of your requests are already addressed by the software…
Hi Yann and dosdedos,
I want to thank you for taking the time to post comments on my videos and helping me understand Illustrator.
Like I say, I work alone, so I have no one to help me with these little things in Illustrator, I’m self-taught, and a newbie at that. So I posted these videos for a couple reasons. One, for the feature requests, and two, for experienced Illustrator users to help me learn the right way, and ultimately helping other Freehand users love and become more familiar with Illustrator.
I know I’m inexperienced, and I stuck my neck out there, but I’m getting the exact responses I was hoping for!
Thanks again, and for being patient with my lack of knowledge.
¡Encantada de participar! (spanish for “Love to participate!”)
;-)
A few comments:
- When using an image as a template, check the “Template” option checkbox at the bottom of the Place dialog - it will place the image on a layer, dim it to 50% and lock the layer, and also add a new layer above to start working on. You can also set this after the fact with the Layer Options by double-clicking on a layer name in the Layers palette.
- Regarding the fills, you can toggle Outline view command-y] for the entire image, or just an individual layer by command-clicking on the ‘eye’ icon on the layers palette for that layer. Option-clicking an eye will hide/show other layers, and command-option-clicking an eye will set all other layer to Outline mode.
I agree with the above poster as well that the option to have closed paths not fill would be cool.
- If you need to place more than one image, you can drag-and-drop from the Finder on to the open document. I agree that a method to do this via the Place dialog makes sense, obviously it’s possible.
- Layer options also give you the print/non-print feature you are looking for.
- I agree with Yann that the FreeHand layer-move technique looks bad, I like how AI does it.
- Bezigon tool - yes, we need that for sure.
- The Pen tool path preview - I would like to have it, but would have to use it and decide if I liked it. AI’s method doesn’t feel like it slows me down - I pretty much ‘know’ where lines are going to end up from using AI for so long.
- I find that working with the Direct Selection tool and Pen Tool is the most efficient (I hit ‘A’ then ‘P’ so many times working on an AI file it’s ridiculous. You can pretty much click anything with the Direct Selection tool, and if you need to you can, while using the Pen tool with the Direct Selection tool as your ‘Command-select’ tool, add the option key and get the Group Selection tool which for the most part functions like the Select tool.
Also, a super-handy (and free) plugin: Select [http://rj-graffix.com/software/plugins.html#SelectMenu]. It gives you tons of objects you can select, such as closed paths, open paths, stray points, etc. - 15 in all.
I cannot begin to tell you guys how excited I am about using Illustrator tomorrow and trying all these things out! I’m going to have to make new videos to counter these and include all of your suggestions and tips.
Thank you thank you!
While using the pen tool, hold the Space Bar and drag :)
I’m with you on the line preview and fill path options. I’d forgotten how frustrating AI is.
I’ve used Freehand since 2004 and AI since CS.
Any plugins, tips and hacks would be a great help.
When they were dividing up the Adobe/Macromedia spoils there were so many goodies to plunder - how come we lost out?
TIP: As an old FH user - I found that when I use the AI pen tool I drop the opacity to 50% when tracing an image.
It is frustrating, the sooner they cherry pick the best features of FH the better.
-Line preview with the pen tool (make it an option)
If you don’t want to preview the line that you are drawing hit Command+H or Ctrl+H and it will hide your edges, but this will also hide your anchor points.
-The ability to toggle between the pen tool, the selection tool, and the subselection tool on the fly
Using key commands you can do this very fast. Hit P for the Pen Tool, A for the Direct Select Tool (or Open Arrow) V for the Select tool and so on. If you aren’t sure what the command is for a tool just roll over it and it tells you in the palette.
-Somehow indicate that a path is closed or open
When you go to your last anchor point on a path the cursor will have a small circle next to the pen when it is closing a path. If it is not closing the path it will have either a carat or nothing next to it.