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.

[Dragonwalker Art]

I completely agree. It looks like others experienced this earlier, but for me this is very recent. I used to be able to select a group or items in a layer by clicking on the layer and then I could just change their base colour. It never changed the attribute of the layer itself. 
It is EXTREMELY frustrating and is really slowing my work process down. There DEFINITELY should be an option to switch automatic attributes off. If I want to change the attributes I should be able to do so only by going into the attributes panel. Isolation mode of the group still changes the attributes of the group, so now I have to go into the group and then individually select all items in it. Yes, I can click on the first and then shift+the last one, but sometimes I have hundreds of small shapes in a group.

I am so annoyed by this and I know it is recent for me as I haven't changed how I do things.

[Monika Gause]

The Attributes panel in Illustrator is there for setting up overprinting, the fill rule and a couple other things. You might want to use the Appearance panel. DOuble click the contents of a group and then see their fills and stroke (if they are all the same ... but if they are not, then your questions doesn't make too much sense anyway)

[Dragonwalker Art]

When I want to change the colour they would normally be the same. I think the issue is that it used to be simple and attributes could be changed using the attributes tab, but now the way I usually selected the objects or groups of object in a layer has now resulted in the attributes of the layer or the group changing rather than the individual items. It has taken away a simple way to select these items and made it a lot more work. I am obviously not alone in this and for a while I couldn't understand what was going on as I would click on an individual item and it would show one colour but the swatch would show another, and then there would be odd fine lines in a different colour.
The whole thing is a mess. When you have been using Illustrator for 20 years the same way and then this happens it is more than frustrating.

[Monika Gause]

and attributes could be changed using the attributes tab, 

By @Dragonwalker Art

You could never change the color in the Attributes panel.

[Dragonwalker Art]

You can by clicking on the boxes at the bottom of the attributes box. It then give options for fill, line colours etc. Then you can also add effects such as drop shadow etc. 
I have never used it to change colours but it makes sense that you would be able to from there. 

[Monika Gause]

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@Dragonwalker Art  schrieb:

You can by clicking on the boxes at the bottom of the attributes box.

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That is the Appearance panel.

[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?

[Dragonwalker Art]

For me, not necessarily. I just used to select by clicking a layer or a group and then all items within that group or whatever would change if I chose a new color for them. Now it changes the attribute of the group itself and not the individual items within. This has only been happening since earlier this year and it is a TERRIBLE change. There should be a way to switch this awful issue off.
Change it back the way it was. I hope they listen. We pay enough.

[Monika Gause]

95% of contributors on this forum cannot change anything. We are volunteers.

When I select a group and click on a color in the swatches panel, then the stroke or fill of the items in the group changes.

So there must be something else you are doing.

[Dragonwalker Art]

I have been doing it the same as I have always done, so something has changed. I select a group by clicking the on the group in the layers panel, or by using a pointer and clicking on the object itself and both times if I go into the swatch at the left to adjust the colour then it changes the attribute colour at the group level so if you click on an individual item it still shows its colour swatch as the colour it was before. This is NOT how it worked before.

I understand that this forum does not influence Adobe, but it helps to know that there are others annoyed, and hopefully we can all send in complaints as needed.

We pay for a service and hopefully our voices count.

[Monika Gause]

if I go into the swatch at the left to adjust the colour then it changes the attribute colour at the group level

By @Dragonwalker Art

Exactly what are you doing?

[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