Selection Tool Lack of Functionality

[JFahlman]

Hey all

I have been noticing a bunch of things that aren't as functional since the newest version installation, and I'm wondering if it's just me, if some settings got scrambled, or if it's a change to the program. 

In particular, I've been noticing that the Selection Tool has less functionality than it used to. I'm having a heck of a time using it for the generic things that I have for the past ten years--namely, it's become a lot more finicky and harder to do things like rotate an object--i hover near the corner, but when the cursor turns into the curved line, I click and insted of rotating, it either resizes, or deselects the object. I've checked the tolerances in the settings and they are unchanged.

Additionally I used to be able to shift-click on a gradiant-coloured object with the Selection tool, to get a swatch from where I clicked in the gradient, but no longer, it now ONLY selects the gradient, and attempts to apply the whole gradient instead of sampling the colour. Which is a pain when working with un-outlined text, which of course remains black.

I have also recently update my system to a Mac Studio, and this is my first time working with the new Mac architecture, so maybe it's simply an incompatibility issue?

I'm hoping someone has experienced these things and found a solution!

Thanks!

[Monika Gause]

As for the rotation: how far are you zoomed it? You might need to zoom in closer.

With the gradient - you mean to pick the color with the eyedropper, right? That still works for me the way it should. You might want to double click the eyedropper tool and adjust the settings, but it shouldn't make any difference for picking a color using the shift key.

So maybe it's a n issue with the preferences going south. https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/setting-preferences.html (you can reset them by renaming the preferences folder and this can be reverted in case it doesn't help)

[JFahlman]

Thanks Monica, I appreciate your suggestions!

Level of zoom doesn;t seem to matter, I can be so close to it that it's not recognizable as an boject anymore, and that doesn't seem to make any difference--most of the time, I have to use the rotate tool to rotate anything. Which sounds like a silly thing to complain about but it didn't use to work that way, so my workflow is slowed considerably. The problem is that it's inconsistent, about 1/4 of the time it works the way it used to, 3/4 of the time it does not.

You are correct, I do mean the eyedropper tool--and yeah, as far as I can tell the settings are identical to those on my home computer (running the last version of  CC, as it's not up to the newest stuff), so my best guess is that this is either an issue with the new version or, like I say, the compatibility with the newer Apple silicon. But I'm still hoping some new setting is the culprit.

I'll try resetting the preferences, I did do a full wipe and reinstall when I first encountered these issues, which didn't help, and I was wondering if it was a case of my old machine having legacy settings from the previous 10 versions of AI doing some sort of legacy thing but honestly I'm just not that conversant with the program deeper than at a user level.

[Monika Gause]

I tried it on my M1 Macbook, so the new architecture should not interfere.

You might want to contact Customer Care. They can log into your system and dig down deeper. https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html

[Anshul_Saini]

Hi @JFahlman,

I understand that you're encountering issues with the Selection Tool in Adobe Illustrator and that it has become less functional than it used to be. This can be a frustrating experience and can impact your workflow.

I would be happy to help and see if there is a solution to your problem. Would you mind sharing a sample file that demonstrates the issues you're encountering with the Selection Tool, as well as a screen recording that shows the steps you're taking to reproduce the issues? This will help us better understand the problem and provide more specific guidance.

Once I have this information, I will forward it to the Illustrator product team for further investigation. They may be able to identify a solution or provide an update that resolves the issue.

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks,

Anshul Saini