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.
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