Participant

Answered

Is it possible to solo an element of a layer?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
February 8, 2023
4 replies
2109 views

I know it's possible to solo a layer by Alt-clicking the eye icon. However, that only works for layers. Is there a way to do it for objects within a layer?

How to

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Bobby Henderson

You can hide and lock individual objects on a layer. Open the Layers palette and click the right arrow icon to reveal the objects on that layer. The eyeball and lock icons become available to hide/reveal or lock/unlock any of the individual objects or groups on that layer.

Illustrator has a default behavior where objects can be double-clicked to be edited in isolation mode. I'm sure it works well for some users, but I don't like it very much. I'm often aligning objects and doing the extra click to make one object a key object so it stays in place and other other object(s) align to it. If the clicks are pressed too fast the intended key object gets thrown into isolation mode. So I usually turn off the double-click to isolate option in Preferences.

John Mensinger

Community Expert

To do that I:

1. Select the object

2. Tap my custom keyboard shortcut for Select > Inverse

3. Tap the default keyboard shortcut for Object > Hide (Ctrl+3)

B

Bobby Henderson

Correct answer

Community Expert

You can hide and lock individual objects on a layer. Open the Layers palette and click the right arrow icon to reveal the objects on that layer. The eyeball and lock icons become available to hide/reveal or lock/unlock any of the individual objects or groups on that layer.

Illustrator has a default behavior where objects can be double-clicked to be edited in isolation mode. I'm sure it works well for some users, but I don't like it very much. I'm often aligning objects and doing the extra click to make one object a key object so it stays in place and other other object(s) align to it. If the clicks are pressed too fast the intended key object gets thrown into isolation mode. So I usually turn off the double-click to isolate option in Preferences.

UK TV Professional

Inspiring

Isn't it infuriating that Adobe's products all look, feel and work like they're still all made by different companies?!
In Photoshop soloing a layer is as simple as holding ALT and then clicking on the layer's "eye". But Illustrator? Nope, that doesn't work. Drives me mad.
I too would like to see a way of soloing an object layer in Illustrator.

Simon.Is it STILL broken?

Met1

Legend

Different inheritances. Adobe celebrates diversity...

Monika Gause

Community Expert

I get it, you're a fan. But there's no reason why objects shouldn't be soloed the same way as layers. Let's make Illustrator better by upvoting the soloing of object layers excatly the same as layers.
Infact, if it were up to me, there wouldn't be objects, just layers inside groups or containers. After all, objects are just layers inside layers, are they not?

@UK TV Professional wrote:

Infact, if it were up to me, there wouldn't be objects, just layers inside groups or containers. After all, objects are just layers inside layers, are they not?

Actually, no.

That's Photoshop or whatever logic. And you might want to study the things you can do with nested layer structures and appearances in Illustrator. It will surely benefit your workflow.

pixxxelschubser

Community Expert

What do you need that for?

Maybe the isolation mode is a suitable alternative for you?

Select path and then (either) double-click on the path (or) right-click -> isolate selected path.

This does not make the other objects completely invisible - but maybe it is enough for your purposes.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded