How do i disable live shapes??

Illustrator 2024 does not have it in the preferences file anymore, but you can copy the lines from older version of illustrator preferences. Pretty stupid.
/LiveShapes {
/constrainRadii 1
/autoShowPropertiesUIOnCreatingShape 0
/createLiveShapes 0
/maxLiveShapesToShowWidgetsOn 20
/constrainPieAngles 0
/constrainDimensions 1
/hideWidgetsForShapeTools 0
}

FORTUNATELY YOU CAN!!!!

****FOUND A FIX!!!!**** Ok so turning off the widget is just a bandaid on a bullet wound. I found the solution today and I want to share it with everyone. Here's the step by step to TURNING OFF Live shapes. This will prevent Illustrator from creating live shapes by default. you'll go back to normal shapes in which you can reset the bounding box etc.

1. Quit Illustrator CC

2. (On a mac) click on "GO" on the top menu bar of OSX

3. Click "Option" while on "GO" This will make the "Library" folder appear

4. In "Library" scroll down to "Preferences"

5. Go to "Illustrator CC (Or Illustrator 20 or higher) "Settings"
6. In the "en_US" folder you'll find a file called "Adobe Illustrator Prefs" >Open it with textedit

7. Once the file is open hit (Command "F") and type in "Live" (No quotes)

8. Look for the line of code that reads "CreateLiveShapes 1"

9. Change the value of this code from "1" to "0"

10. Save the file and close

That's it! Keep in mind that you ever delete your preferences file you'll have to repeat this process

i complained about this feature the minute it came out. i love the idea of it, but i hate that it is the default. i think making New Features default is just a bad idea overall.

a big problem with live shapes that no one here has touched on is that they can actually slow down your computer. probably not noticeable to most but a document with lots of live squares as opposed to regular squares can make a big difference in the applications response.

the latest 'Default' issue i have is the Dynamic Symbols. they are killing me. it's a neat feature but one that i'll hardly use compared to Static Symbols and it drives me nuts that Dynamic is the default. is like adobe doesn't have any test users or they are taking a page from apple and telling us what we want instead of thinking about what we might need.

@krishunt as far as irate professionals go, i feel that more photoshopers rely in tight workflows than illustrator users. and at least in my office, everyone is completely unaware of efficiency to care about these issues. i had to give a little illustrator lecture on how to use layers. not just that, but i had to defend their usefulness to belligerent non believers. and these are people that have been working with illustrator for over 15 years and were not even aware of the appearance palette or how to make a pattern. these people will outline type just so they apply a gradient to it. or duplicate it to make a drop shadow.

I think I've found a possible solution. You can disable the widgets when drawing ellipses rectangles and polygons by clicking the live shape button in the control bar, I've attached a screenshot so it will be more clear :

If you disable it for ellipses it will also be disables for rectangles and polygons...

Guys, I'm so filled with rage I can't think straight so apologies if I'm getting this badly wrong. I'm still coming to terms with it and haven't yet got into all the problems it's going to cause for my workflow but at this point it seems quite dramatic.Immediate stuff is...

I'm trying to make a simple polygon...

1)The bounding box seems to come in at an angle depending on the number of sides. This means preferences on snap rotation set to 45/90 or 30/60 will only be relevant to certain shapes.

2) You can fix this by expanding the shapes (another step added to every shape but OK) but the polygon shape now will only scale from the centre meaning precise work with grids requires you to enter the exact size into the properties tab, then expand to get a flat bounding box (2 steps added). Also, both those steps are longer than a simple shift drag on a snap grid and require you to do the maths whilst working. I work in UI design for film, which is crazy tight on time and this "upgrade" seems to be a step being towards the mass market and hobby-ists with their tablets.

Also, I really want to be wrong so if anyone can show me how to drag a polygon from left to right, not scale uniformly whilst having it snap to a grid I would be completely delighted.

These new features have been frustrating me since the moment I updated.  Very obtrusive for experienced users, and not really needed, in my opinion. Adobe should be doing some more testing with these new features and make them optional.

How many times does anybody really need to turn an ellipse into a pie? For that rare occasion, there is pathfinder.  If anything, leave it in the option panel as numeric values, and don't add unnecessary, obtrusive clutter please!

I want to add to this thread by mentioning the larger circular  handle in the middle of live shapes with no fill color, especially in smaller shapes, gets in the way and prevents you from adding to the selection things behind it among other problems.

I don't want to expand a live shape every time I need to use one. Please disable these options. This comes from someone who loves the round corners feature. ( Being familiar with Autodesk tools before using Illustrator, I always wondered why it didn't have some sort of chamfer tool.)

I offer this to the community. Feel free to let us all know if you feel the same pain, to add to (or dispute) any of what I've written. Also, if there is someplace more appropriate to post this, I would appreciate any information about where to do so. Thank you.

To Adobe Illustrator Devs:

Can you please provide us with a way to disable the "Live Shapes" feature, introduced in the latest release of Illustrator (19.2.0)? It interferes with my workflow requiring me to convert each newly created object to a compound shape using the Pathfinder before I can manipulate it in the typical, fluid manner that my workflow has utilized for over a decade. It is a very nice feature for some, but I don't think it should be a hard-coded default feature for all shape tools. Perhaps you can allow us to recognize a shape and convert it to a Live Shape if we need to or – my preference – allow it to be enabled/disabled.

I think all of Illustrator's new features, on every release of them, should have a preference to disable them at launch. Let people work in the same manner that they always have and allow them to introduce themselves to the new features if/when they are ready to. Forcing it on experienced users with years of experience in a trusted and proven workflow only interrupts that workflow and slows down production. This happens every time Illustrator introduces a new feature.

All of my colleagues have disabled our round corner widgets and have yet to find a reason to enable them since their introduction. If this was a separate tool, I'm sure we would use it, but to hard-code it as a default characteristic of every new rectangle is folly. Also, there has not yet been any way that we have discovered to disable or work with the highlighted corners of the newly created rectangles, which was introduced at the same time as the rounded corners. This highlighting of the corners requires us to deselect an object we have just created if we are to attempt to create another object from the exact corner of the previous one. This slows us down considerably.

Not all users of Illustrator are doing creative work. I would guess that a large number of Illustrator users are employing it in a print production environment where speed and efficiency play huge roles in our performance evaluations and advancement. Any hurdle that hinders our performance causes a lot of anxiety in this regard. Almost every new feature, with no option to disable it, slows us down. We then have to relearn our tools or incorporate new techniques to overcome the new features and still meet our production goals in the same, expected time frames. Often, these techniques ADD time to our production work. This is not ideal at all in a production environment.

As responsible production artists, we often create actions, symbols, graphic styles, scripts, entirely separate hot-folders or workflow modules to shave fractions of seconds from our production times per use. These practices, over an entire day will save minutes to hours. Illustrator’s new default features typically derail any progress we make in these time saving solutions. A Print Production Artist role has strict timelines. The costs, quotes, schedules and workforce are based on the speed of quality production. Supervisors do not want to hear about how the software has altered our output times. They expect us to overcome the hurdle and punch out the same quality work in the expected amount of time allotted for it. If not, we – the artists – are to be held accountable for it and our perceived performance is now suspect. This could mean the difference between climbing the ladder and falling off, for many. Those not quick to adapt can be punished or even let go for sudden, poor performance. While in reality, they may be top performers trying to find an efficient work-around to overcome the latest, new feature introduced  by Adobe Illustrator.

To all Adobe Illustrator Developers: Please consider us ALL when implementing the new features and provide us a way to disable them if they are to be hard-coded into a Shape tool or any already-existing tool, for that matter. Your efforts over the past few years have done nothing to help the production work done in Illustrator, only to hinder it. Every solution we find to overcome them seems to get crushed by the next new feature or app update.

I applaud your efforts in creating these easy-to-use, creative features for creatives and tablet/touch-app users for the creation of purely digital art. However, I employ dual monitors in my daily work (I could easily use a third monitor  to open all of my plug-in panels which are currently just buttons at the borders of my main monitor). I cannot foresee that I will ever do my work on a tablet or touch-enabled device with any efficiency. These hard-coded features should have the option to be disabled for use outside of the touch-enabled devices. They are often just a hindrance to print production users. I ask that you consider these production users in your next release of features or app updates.

I will gladly offer my free time to beta test for you in a production environment, provide input in regard to its value in a production environment and I will be happy to offer options to improve features to work more efficiently in a production environment. It is my opinion that the Adobe Illustrator developers need serious consultation in regard to the use of this product in Print Production.

I honestly, and humbly, ask that we in the Print Production, Pre-Press and Printing fields in general are considered in a much larger capacity the next time there are new features to be developed/released. Print may be dying, but it is still keeping a large community of Adobe Illustrator users alive and employed. Consider us, please.

Thank you.

Chuck Brodd

Any of the community's thoughts, input, critique, etc. are welcome. I am trying to help us all. Thank you. Feel free to point out any misspellings or grammatical errors. I am not a writer and I am happy to improve myself in all ways. Thank you again.

I'd just like to chime in on this, too. I've already submitted a feature request to make "live shapes" optional, so this is just me venting my spleen, really!

So, I create a triangle using the polygon tool. The triangle is created with its base parallel to the x-axis, as you would expect. Now I want to adjust the width of my triangle, but not the height. There are no drag-handles on the edges of the bounding box, only at the corners. Expand Shape is not really an option in this instance, as it uses one of the triangle's angled sides as the new "base" (try it!). The only way that I've found to get around this, so far, is to drag from a corner (whilst the triangle is still a "live shape") being careful not to alter the height (the shape is then automatically expanded, causing the same result as described in the previous sentence), and then select Reset Bounding Box from Object > Transform.

Having to do this every time I create a new shape is driving me mad! It really interrupts my workflow. To try to speed things up a little, I created a custom keyboard shortcut for the Reset Bounding Box menu command, which won't even work – but I guess that's another story.

Come on Adobe! If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Behold, the ellipse of tomorrow: