What is the difference between Pathfinder in Effects in menu and the Pathfinder palette

[khsana04]

Can anyone  please tell me what is the difference between Pathfinder in Effects > Pathfinder menu and the Pathfinder palette as Window > Pathfinder.

By the way the pathfinder Effects items never works.

Thank you

[Mike_Gondek]

The difference is using the pathfinder palette changes your path shapes to the result (unless you hold alt when clicking)

The effects are supposed to be live effects you can turn on/off & edit. As you noticed the liveeffects for pathfinder as don't work, so I never use those. For all others I prefer the live effects, just not pathfinder. 

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Pathfinder effects do work, but they need to be applied in specific ways. They are very useful when used in appropriate circumstances.

Most of the time you won't need the effects. On top of pathfinder functions there is the live paint and the shapebuilder.

What is it that you want to do?

I've written about it all:

http://illustratorbuch.de/pathfinder-and-other-construction.html

https://www.vektorgarten.de/pathfinder-function-and-effect.html

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

The Pathfinder effects do work, but you need to apply them to a group (or multiple objects grouped in the Appearance panel).

Make a rectangle and put a circle (give it a different color) halfway on top.

Group them and use the Pathfinder effect.

It has the advantage that the elements in the group are still live and can be moved and edited.

[khsana04]

Thank you for the answer, ButI couldn't understand why they need to be in group?

[Kurt Gold]

> "But I couldn't understand why they need to be in group?"

In short, it's not necessarily a group. Pathfinder effects require a container. This can be a group, nested groups, a layer, a nested layer structure, multiple appearance attributes (which are special kinds of groups) and some other containers as well.

These are just the preconditions in order to do astonishing things with the Pathfinder effects.

If you apply them to single objects that are not part of a container, most of the time you may think that they do not work because they cannot interact as intimate with their comrades as it is possible as part of a container.