Why is it such a chore to color grouped objects? Come on man, this is annoying.

[djohanj18230897]

Why do you make changing colors in groups so troublesome? Why cant i just click a group and change its colors? Please stop this object appearance, layers nonsense and keep it simple.

Come on man, that on top of your inaccurate guides. This is really infuriating.

[BeanFactory]

Are the objects in the group all different colors? You could use "recolor object" under the edit menu (or the "recolor" shortcut in the properties panel) to adjust the colors of multiple objects at once. You can change the individual colors by selecting anything under "current colors" and fiddling with the sliders, or change the overall colors by selecting "global adjust" (as shown below).

Not as easy as simply clicking on a group of shapes and making them all the same color with one click, but these will get you there.

[jane-e]

djohanj18230897  wrote

Why do you ..

Hi djohanj18230897​

If you are trying to change the appearance of individual objects, then double-click to go into Isolation mode (or ungroup, but Isolation mode is a best practice).

If you are trying to change the appearance of the group, then you need the Appearance panel and you can change the appearance there with a new fill and a new stroke.

Inaccurate guides? Shift + double-click in the ruler to jump to the closest tick mark for better accuracy. Or type a number in the Control panel.

Also, just so that you know, this is a user forum, and all we can do is help you with how the software works. There is a second forum for feature requests here: Adobe Illustrator Feedback

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

You could just click and drag a Swatch from the Swatches panel over the top of any object in the group to recolor just that one object.  (You'll see a + when the Swatch is over the object.) You don't even have to select the objects with this approach.

Before dragging the Swatch, if you want to Fill the object, make sure the Fill is active. If you want to change the color of a Stroke, make sure the Stroke is active.

[CarlosCanto]

...or you can select each object with the Group Selection Tool without the need to ungroup or isolate.

unless we're all misunderstanding what you need.

[matthewp33322593]

I agree with this post. you should be able to deactivate that setting. the appearance panel is more work than it's worth a lot of the time. It's good for creating appearances that you couldn't do easily without it within it, but not so good when something you have already created gets abducted by the appearance panel to have multiple strokes or multiple fills, or to be part of a group only with itself.

Like, hey I want this person's shoe to be the same color as their other shoe. OOPS you can't do that because you made their shoe the same color as their sock earlier. get out the sherlock holmes hat to figure out what's not working.

a quick solution is just to ungroup everything after you do anything with it. but that's pretty crummy.

I'd say make it an option to have the appearance panel turned off, or to only be used creatively rather than deductively by Illustrator.

[matthewp33322593]

I missed that the OP was against LAYERS. if you're against layers you need to find another program. I think you can download a mario paint rom for free still.

[matthewp33322593]

at least you should be able to make a setting that ungroups objects which have had pathfinder shape modes such as unite, exclude, merge, minus front, etc. automatically. of course you'd end up with a lot of scribble that would be very hard to get rid of.

[michaelc99689784]

I agree with your feelings about color changing groups. It used to work the way you proposed for decades, but the adding of isolation mode has made basic operations more complicated. At least they should make it a preference you can turn on or off.

[Ava22699614klfw]

I swear you used to be able to change color of any item in a group with the direct selection tool and eyedropper... but it stopped working for me a week or two ago. it's hell having to ungroup things or quintouple click to change colors for any item... 

[Monika Gause]

Shift clicking with the eyedropper on the color you want usually fixes this. If not please post exact steps that do not work for you.

[Red Point]

Same here. Since about two version updates I cannot recolor grouped objects any longer. This is really annoying. Not sure if this is a bug or some silent change that was introduced?!

This also happens on very simple paths (converted from text) without any outline. Basically solid with one color. Once the "letters" (paths) are in a group, I cannot recolor them. 

I have to ungroup, then select all, then apply new color. 

Why has this become so complicated? Why was this changed? Is there some setting that needs to be checked to have that feature come back (of simple group color change)?

Do we need to make a feature request?

[Monika Gause]

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@Red Point  schrieb:

Same here. Since about two version updates I cannot recolor grouped objects any longer. This is really annoying. Not sure if this is a bug or some silent change that was introduced?!

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Exactly what are you doing? Using the eyedropper tool?

[Rafael Rosas298409985taa]

I agree, this is annoying, have you tried to use eyedropper on a group? I though my illustrator was bugged the first time i saw nothing happend, After a little investigation I noticed that by using the "add new fill" option in the appereance panel the group takes the color you took with the eyedropper but in isolation mode the objects retain their original colors!!!!! this is messy, complicated and unnecessary, please wake up Adobe.

[Monika Gause]

Just press and hold down the shift key while picking up the color with the eyedropper

[Rafael Rosas298409985taa]

Thank you for you response, I tried this and pressing shift applies the fill color to the stroke of the elements inside the group, leaving the origina color untouched

[Monika Gause]

Then just focus the fill before picking up the color.

[Rafael Rosas298409985taa]

Nice!!!!!! thank you!!! 

[Rafael Rosas298409985taa]

One last question Though, How can I change all the attributes? is it possible to apply them all at once? fill and stroke... 

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

It now depends on how you usually want the eyedropper tool to work. If you only use it for coloring in group and only rarely if ever pick up appearances (like: brushes, effects, whatever), then you can set up the eyedropper options like this and then when picking up colors from another object, you don't even need to press Shift.

[Rafael Rosas298409985taa]

Thank you I appreciate your help. That exactly was I needed to know.

[Monika Gause]

Glad you could solve it!