How to tell which swatch is being used?

[CRWillow]

Is there a way to highlight the swatch that's in use? When I'm using colors or gradients that are very similar, I have a really hard time identifying which is being used. I'm trying to renumber the swatches but it would be so much easier to see the swatch highlighted. I can't find it in the settings maybe it's there and I'm not seeing it?

[Brian_J]

For me (on Windows 10), the Swatches panel highlights a swatch if it is applied to the selected object, but color pickers in other areas — like the Context Toolbar, Text Styles, etc. — do not indicate the swatch that is applied.

Can you see a highlighted swatch in the Swatches panel?

I’ve been meaning to post a feature request… I would like all color pickers to indicate the applied swatch.

[thomaso]

5 hours ago, Brian_J said:

Can you see a highlighted swatch in the Swatches panel?

Unfortunately (at least in V1) it is required to have the according palette selected in the Swatches Panel to see its highlighted swatch because there is no auto-switch to the relevant palette. Even worse, I have to set the right palette before selecting the object, otherwise its swatch would not be highlighted. So, with an object selected just switching through possible palettes doesn't work.

Furthermore the highlighting doesn't always work, for instance I have an imported gradient palette from Photoshop whose swatches refuse to appear highlighted. Last but not least, swatches with reduced colour opacity get the wrong swatch highlighted if a 100% opacity swatch exists, too.

[CRWillow]

Thanks, at least I know I didn't shut something off by mistake. (Which probably would have been better since then I could turn it back on.) I'm using V2 and don't see according palette selected in the swatches panel.

I noticed the swatch stayed highlighted if I didn't apply it to anything, not terribly helpful.

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, CRWillow said:

I noticed the swatch stayed highlighted if I didn't apply it to anything, not terribly helpful.

I understand this behaviour as a feature: to show the current swatch selection which will get used for a new object. Like a text style selection will remain active and used for a new frame unless a frame or text with a different style gets selected. Or stroke properties, or brush ...

But I agree, this can confuse and lead to miscoloring if I defined a current colour in the Colours panel that is similar to the currently selected swatch. Then the UI leaves it unclear whether a new object gets created with the colour from the colours panel or gets the currently highlighted swatch assigned.