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PECourtejoie
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 24, 2022
Open for Voting

Add Legacy shapes/patterns/gradients/swatches in option bar, contextuals etc.

  • March 24, 2022
  • 7 replies
  • 2094 views

Two+ years after the arrival of the new useful Shapes Patterns, Gradients or Swatches Panels, users still cannot find the legacy presets as they search in the Option bar local menu, or in the local menu of the Contextual (right-click) click on the image, instead of in the new panels.

 

Case in point: https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/missing-patterns-in-fill-dialog/m-p/12824825/thread-id/630928#M630985

 

We never see such discussions for Brushes, for the legacy option exists in the Option bar local menu, in the local menu when they right-click on the image. (in addition to the Brushes panel)

 

Why do they search there? Because, before we got the new folders, that's where all the other sets were found. You cannot beat twenty years of muscle memory...

 

 

7 replies

Participant
November 19, 2025

That's true ✌️

Arian
PECourtejoie
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 5, 2024

There was another thread where a user was pointed to the search bar, he told that he has any.

 

That made be realize that the simplest fix is to pop up the panel with full functionnality, instead of the drop down, on the option bar, on properties, or when doing a right-click, where all users go, instead of in this additional panel. (Would be curious to see the usage stats.) 

PECourtejoie
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 3, 2023

Another location where that menu would be useful is in the properties panel: I tried to add a photographic toning to an image, added a gradient map from the layers panel, this opened properties that only allow me to re-add the default gradients, or load gradients, but annoyingly enough, not the legacy gradients, forcing the opening of yet another panel (what the new gradient experience is trying to reduce, panel creep)

PECourtejoie
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 10, 2023

Indeed, @jane-e followed by the arrows... but that's just the shapes. How many know about the photographic toning Gradient Maps, created and offered by Steve Weinrebe?

jane-e
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 25, 2023

Managing patterns, shapes, and gradients in their own panels makes a lot of sense to me in the long run and I think it was a good move.

 

On the other hand, most of the new shapes are silly. If Adobe keeps track of usage, I suspect the talk bubbles are the most popular.

 

Jane

 

Known Participant
January 29, 2023

Both Apple and Adobe seem to have a new motto. If it ain't broke: fix it anyway. Just leave things alone guys!

PECourtejoie
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 5, 2022

Another simple solution would simply be to add the legacy folder in the list to load them.

 

There are still users struggling to find them when they are looking for them in the obvious locations, where brushes can be found on similar panels, it is such a simple problem to fix where users expect UI consistency...