Known Participant

Question

Selection tools switch

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
October 27, 2021
9 replies
3188 views

Did Direct Selection Tool and Selection Tool just switch in the new update?

Comparing to Illustrator, the Selection tool (V) is now the white one in InDesign, while still the black one in Illu.

Is this a intentional mislead or a whoopsidaisy?

Bug

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V

vaughngrisham

Participant

I teach InDesign to high school students. When we came back from fall break, the arrow colors switched and the kids were furious. Why the heck would Adobe make this change in InDesign and not Illustrator? Why change that at all?

BobLevine

Community Expert

Sorry, but I'm not buying that one bit.

Yes, without explanation it might be a bit confusing, but there is no way I'm believing that a bunch of high school students were "furious" over something like this. I'm 64 years old and I've been using InDesign since 1999. I can think of a lot of other things to be furious over. This isn't even on the list of annoyances.

L

Lux2014-2022+

Participant

Students have been using InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and other Adobe applications for 5 minutes compared to over 20 years experience. As a teacher, one has sympathy for students!

I easily coped with the change as an experienced graphic designer, but the truth is the changes need to be consistent in all Adobe applications. Probably is a bug that should and hopefully will be fixed in coming versions.

G

grahamtaylornyc

Participant

This is sooooo very frustrating. I can no longer work quickly and efficiently. It's like when they took the holding shift down to constrain an image in photoshop. So dumb! And what choice do we have but toi suck it up. I'm going back to a previous version.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Don't let it throw you off--it is really a minor change to make it consistent between different view themes.

The tools are in the exact same position as always.
The keyboard shortcuts are the same as always (v, a)

Using some of the most common keyboard shortcuts will double your work speed.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

mathewp19463902

Participant

Agree 100% with this (and the OCD things below). It is driving me up the wall!

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Well, I now changed my mind and do not longer consider the change a bug.

Ravi convinced me here:

"The earlier versions of InDesign were showing it incorrectly."

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/44360172--selection-and-direct-selection-tool-icons-mixe

Especilly if I compare the design of the Page Tool icon as well.

Top row InDesign 2021, bottom row inDesign 2022:

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

GrafiskWingmanAuthor

Known Participant

but but... ocd !!!
Change it in the other apps too!

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Laubender

Community Expert

Well, confirmed, I can see this as well with my German InDesign 2022 on Windows 10.

Had to look it up, because I usually use the lightest UI available where this is not the case:

I consider this a bug and not a intentional change.

Dark UI InDesign 2022:

vs. Dark UI InDesign 2020:

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

On my system, the arrows are different in the toolbox, but look "normal" when using the tool on the page.

Luckily, the keyboard shortcuts and position are not changed, which is how I normally navigate to them (90% keyboard shortcut, 10% selecting the tool manually).

I believe the change was intentional to add contrast, so technically not a bug. It's going to take me a while to stop referring to the tools as "black arrow" and "white arrow" however.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

GrafiskWingmanAuthor

Known Participant

I had not noticed this, but it's the same here with me.

That makes me think it must be a bug. Surely they would have changed it for illustrator and photoshop etc. too if it was meant that way.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

The teams do not necessarily work in unison. (How often do you see a feature in PS and ID but then takes forever to show up in AI?)

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

R

Ravi-Kiran

Adobe Employee

The concept of Black Arrow and White Arrow came during the time when there was only the Light theme in all these Adobe apps, like InDesign and Illustrator. As you can see, the Light theme still shows them as Black and White.

The way to look at these icons now is that in the Light theme, the Selection Tool is Black - that is, it looks Solid/Filled. And the Direct Selection Tool is White - that is, it looks Hollow/Unfilled.

For InDesign, the same concept of Solid vs. Hollow for these two Selection Tools is carried over to the Dark Theme - in this theme, against the Darker background, the tool filled with White looks Solid/Filled. Similarly, against the Darker background, the tool with the same color as the background looks Hollow/Unfilled.

Just for comparison purposes, compare the following:

- Direct Selection Tool with Page Tool in Light and Dark themes - they have the same look, that is, they look hollow.

- Selection Tool with Pen Tool in Light and Dark themes - they have the same look, that is, they look filled.

Going with this logic, the way to look at these tools is - the Solid/Filled tool is the Selection Tool in all Color Themes. And the Hollow/ Unfilled tool is the Direct Selection Tool in all Color Themes.

Note: Illustrator is showing these tools differently compared to InDesign.

GrafiskWingmanAuthor

Known Participant

Perhaps that makes sense to someone new to the UI and Adobe in general.
For a user with 20+ years of experience with Adobe and with a slight OCD this is not good.

Why switch in one program, and not in the others?
It HAS to be a bug or slip-up of some kind.

If the intention was for the tools to switch places I can better understand it, they just forgot to move the function. So it's still a bug.