215 lines
14 KiB
Markdown
215 lines
14 KiB
Markdown
# Gaps
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> **Last reviewed:** 2026-10-10 · **Last updated:** 2026-10-11 · **Change:** minor (G4: proportional vertical metrics done, #966; G11: Shape Builder merge seams on grids of lines fixed, #893; scaled text controls corrected, #1034; group font-size preservation deferred) · **Target:** Adobe Illustrator 2026 (30.x)
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Every known shortfall against Illustrator, one entry each, **ranked by how much it stops a professional from
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switching**. This is the work list: unless you were given a task, pick the highest-ranked gap you can make
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progress on, write a plan, and update the entry (and [target-app-parity.md](target-app-parity.md)) in the same PR.
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Gap ids are stable (PRs say "Part of gap 2"); the rank can change. Hours are Opus 5.5 agent wall-clock hours for
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one agent, estimated unless marked; calibration in
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[target-app-parity.md](target-app-parity.md#calibration). **Beta** marks the gaps that must close before the beta
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stage ([ROADMAP.md](../ROADMAP.md)).
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## Ranked
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| Rank | Gap | Hours | Beta | Doc |
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|---:|---|---:|:---:|---|
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| 1 | [G1 Interaction fidelity](#g1-interaction-fidelity) | 60–90 | yes | [ui-parity.md](ui-parity.md) |
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| 2 | [G9 Illustrator `.ai` and EPS files from real users](#g9-illustrator-ai-and-eps-files-from-real-users) | 10–20 | yes | [file-format-parity.md](file-format-parity.md) |
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| 3 | [G10 Launch and stability on real machines](#g10-launch-and-stability-on-real-machines) | 20–35 | yes | — |
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| 4 | [G8 Hardening at scale](#g8-hardening-at-scale) | 30–50 | yes (part) | — |
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| 5 | [G11 Correctness bugs in core tools](#g11-correctness-bugs-in-core-tools) | 8–15 | yes | [target-app-parity.md](target-app-parity.md) |
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| 6 | [G4 Advanced type](#g4-advanced-type) | 34–47 | core part | [type-parity.md](type-parity.md) |
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| 7 | [G12 Preferences and panels that don't act yet](#g12-preferences-and-panels-that-dont-act-yet) | 13–20 | yes | [ui-parity.md](ui-parity.md) |
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| 8 | [G2 Photoshop-style raster effects and the Effect Gallery](#g2-photoshop-style-raster-effects-and-the-effect-gallery) | 24–40 | no | [effects-parity.md](effects-parity.md) |
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| 9 | [G13 Illustrator 2026 (30.x) additions](#g13-illustrator-2026-30x-additions) | 15–25 | no | [target-app-parity.md](target-app-parity.md) |
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| 10 | [G14 Pen hardware beyond Windows pressure](#g14-pen-hardware-beyond-windows-pressure) | 8–16 | macOS pressure | [hardware-parity.md](hardware-parity.md) |
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| 11 | [G5 Brushes, symbols and libraries](#g5-brushes-symbols-and-libraries) | 17–28 | no | [target-app-parity.md](target-app-parity.md) |
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| 12 | [G3 3D and Materials](#g3-3d-and-materials) | 45–75 | no | [effects-parity.md](effects-parity.md) |
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| 13 | [G7 Views and windows](#g7-views-and-windows) | 15–25 | no | [ui-parity.md](ui-parity.md) |
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| 14 | [G6 Automation and scripting](#g6-automation-and-scripting) | 8–14 | no | [target-app-parity.md](target-app-parity.md) |
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| 15 | [G15 Performance budgets and a GPU renderer](#g15-performance-budgets-and-a-gpu-renderer) | 15–25 | budgets only | [hardware-parity.md](hardware-parity.md) |
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| 16 | [G16 Localization: the five missing key languages](#g16-localization-the-five-missing-key-languages) | 70–110 | no | [localization-parity.md](localization-parity.md) |
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| 17 | [G17 Ecosystem: third-party plug-ins](#g17-ecosystem-third-party-plug-ins) | 20–45 | no | — |
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| 18 | [G18 Generative AI features](#g18-generative-ai-features) | 30–60 | no | — |
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| 19 | [G19 Accessibility](#g19-accessibility) | 15–25 | no | [ui-parity.md](ui-parity.md) |
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**Alpha blockers:** none. Every core workflow passes the [alpha gate](roadmap.md#alpha-gate); G9 is the only
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partial one, and it blocks beta, not alpha.
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**To beta:** G1, G9, G10, G11, G12, the corpus and QA part of G8, the type-core part of G4, macOS pen pressure
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from G14 and the budget run of G15: **~170–270 h** one agent, ~50–80 h wall clock with 4–6 agents.
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## G1 Interaction fidelity
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- **Missing:** a tool-by-tool, panel-by-panel pass over modifiers, cursors, the Properties panel per context,
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isolation mode and small behaviours, against the public tool and shortcut documentation. Itemized in
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[ui-parity.md](ui-parity.md). The Shaper's construction-mode widget and gesture refinements remain.
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- **Evidence:** no side-by-side session has ever happened (the clean-room rule forbids running Illustrator, so
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the pass works from the documentation); users keep reporting small differences: #991, #975, #973, #955, #908.
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- **Impact:** a power user notices this in the first minutes and stops trusting the tool.
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- **Estimate:** 60–90 h; splits well by tool across agents.
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## G9 Illustrator `.ai` and EPS files from real users
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- **Missing:** faithful layer and group structure from the editing data in real files (#951: 109 layers instead
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of 14; #868: round trip with Illustrator 2018 loses layers and groups), guides and non-printing construction
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lines (#779), open speed on large files (#758), legacy type in `.ai` files in PostScript form (those without
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their prolog open since #1027), live effects, brushes and symbols as live objects (#637; pattern fills and global colours are read since #1025). Writing Illustrator's own editing data is out of scope
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(undocumented); Save As `.ai` stays PDF-compatible.
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- **Evidence:** the issues above; 28 of the 350 issues are about `.ai`/EPS (about 22 people, the most common single
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format theme), 20 fixed, and the 8 open ones are about structure (layers, guides, speed, live objects), not missing
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art. No real-file `.ai` corpus (users' files may be used locally, never committed).
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- **Impact:** blocks anyone who hands files back to Illustrator users. Opening and reworking their own archive
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works, with layer cleanup in some files. This is the main-format gap that keeps the stage at alpha.
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- **Estimate:** 10–20 h with users' files to test against.
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## G10 Launch and stability on real machines
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- **Missing:** the app not starting or staying in the background on some Windows 11 machines (#858, #964 fixed
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2026-10-10, #620, #818), slow pointer on a Linux AppImage (#575), macOS paste from other apps (#954), a
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web-free crash/hang reporter, a field record.
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- **Evidence:** open issues; the never-crash lints and `guard` stop panics, not driver, windowing or packaging
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failures.
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- **Impact:** an app that doesn't start on someone's machine is 0% for them.
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- **Estimate:** 20–35 h, needs reporters' help on hardware we don't have.
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## G8 Hardening at scale
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- **Missing:** a corpus of real-world SVG/PDF/EPS files; more Affinity versions and platforms (51 pinned files
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now, including 28 original Affinity 3.2.3 feature probes; large interacting documents and complex typography
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missing); Windows, Linux and browser QA by hand; packaging polish (Homebrew cask #588, Flathub #554, update
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checks #615).
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- **Impact:** unknown failures on users' files.
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- **Estimate:** 30–50 h (the corpus and QA part blocks beta).
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## G11 Correctness bugs in core tools
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- **Done:** scaled text's size and horizontal-scale controls account for object/group transforms (#1034),
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including exact sizes across grouped labels and resetting horizontal stretch while keeping editable text.
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- **Missing:** Shape Builder misses planar regions and targets whole shapes (#937); Transform effect dialog's invisible checkboxes and missing options (#885);
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PDF text boxes moving on open (#722); SVG units reverting to points (#864); bezier drag preview freezing (#834).
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- **Impact:** wrong output in everyday work.
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- **Estimate:** 8–15 h.
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## G4 Advanced type
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- **Missing:** hyphenation and justification options, Optical Margin Alignment (type core); CJK vertical
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composition (ruby, mojikumi sets and dialog, kinsoku settings #633, manual tate-chu-yoko), Middle Eastern
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features beyond bidi, variable font axes, spell check with an open dictionary,
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Touch Type, Retype, Snap to Glyph; optional preservation of font sizes during group scaling (#1034 enhancement).
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Itemized in [type-parity.md](type-parity.md).
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- **Impact:** professional typography and Japanese/Chinese publishing.
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- **Estimate:** 34–47 h (type core 14–19 h blocks beta).
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## G12 Preferences and panels that don't act yet
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- **Missing:** ~17 Preferences options stored but not acted on (#394: Highlight Alternate Glyphs, Open
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Documents As Tabs, Real-time Drawing, hyphenation language, Appearance of Black, devices…), Properties panel per
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context, context menus beyond the canvas, Layers panel row menus and Collect for Export, SVG Interactivity.
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- **Impact:** settings that silently do nothing erode trust.
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- **Estimate:** 13–20 h.
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## G2 Photoshop-style raster effects and the Effect Gallery
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- **Missing:** 29 of 57 filters (all of Artistic and Sketch), the Effect Gallery dialog, Load
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Texture for Glass and Texturizer, Smart Blur's Edge Only and Overlay Edge. Measured in
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[effects-parity.md](effects-parity.md).
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- **Done:** the pixel-filter pipeline and 28 filters (Blur, Brush Strokes, Distort, Pixelate, Sharpen, Stylize,
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Texture, Video), Brush Strokes on 2026-10-11.
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- **Estimate:** 24–40 h (measured 0.7–1.2 h per filter); parallelizes well.
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## G13 Illustrator 2026 (30.x) additions
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- **Missing:** gradient dither and perceptual blending, gradient presets (30.0); tangent and perpendicular
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snapping and the consolidated snapping options (30.0); artboard locking, artboard colours and managing
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artboards from the canvas (30.0); the Blend panel with ease in/out and separate colour acceleration (30.7);
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TIFF in Export for Screens (30.2); the Dimension tool (28.x).
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- **Evidence:** Adobe's 30.0 and 30.7 release announcements, see
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[target-app-parity.md](target-app-parity.md#how-this-was-measured-2026-10-10).
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- **Estimate:** 15–25 h.
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## G14 Pen hardware beyond Windows pressure
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- **Missing:** pen pressure on macOS (#852) and Wayland (#491, #764) — winit 0.30 reports none there; tilt,
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bearing and barrel rotation for brushes (6D Art Pen, #372); the eraser end.
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- **Estimate:** 8–16 h, partly waiting on winit 0.31; needs pen hardware to verify.
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## G5 Brushes, symbols and libraries
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- **Missing:** the Art brush's Overlap, auto-generated Pattern brush corners, new tile art in Pattern Brush
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Options, the Key Color eyedropper; original brush, symbol and graphic-style libraries generated in code (never
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Adobe's); dynamic symbols; Start Global Edit.
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- **Estimate:** 17–28 h.
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## G3 3D and Materials
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- **Done:** an initial live Revolve in the `three-d` crate (#846, from the contributor who offered in #605).
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- **Missing:** Extrude & Bevel, Inflate and Rotate, caps, materials and better lighting, exact visibility for
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intersecting surfaces, 3D Classic, Turntable, 3D export (OBJ, USDA, glTF).
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- **Impact:** specialist, but a visible menu of stubs.
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- **Estimate:** 45–75 h, the largest single gap; plan in `plan/` before coding.
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## G7 Views and windows
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- **Missing:** multiple windows and Window › Arrange (Cascade, Tile, Float in Window, Consolidate All Windows),
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panels on another monitor, New View/Edit Views, global and video rulers.
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- **Estimate:** 15–25 h.
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## G6 Automation and scripting
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- **Missing:** a scripting surface over the command registry (Illustrator: JavaScript), Batch, image and graph
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variable kinds, dataset import/export. Actions, Variables (text and visibility) and full agent control over
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MCP are done.
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- **Estimate:** 8–14 h.
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## G15 Performance budgets and a GPU renderer
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- **Missing:** an idle-machine run of `vectorcraft-cli perf` (last: 2026-10-01 on a loaded machine, 290 ms for
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a 50k-path fit against a 16 ms budget), fixes for any budget missed, dirty-region rendering, the GPU backend
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spike (M5).
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- **Estimate:** 15–25 h (the budget run and fixes block beta).
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## G16 Localization: the five missing key languages
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- **Missing:** Hindi, Arabic, Indonesian, Korean, Vietnamese catalogs; a right-to-left interface and interface
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shaping for Arabic and Devanagari; messages for Simplified Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese; native review of
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every catalog. Measured in [localization-parity.md](localization-parity.md).
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- **Estimate:** 70–110 h plus human review.
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## G17 Ecosystem: third-party plug-ins
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- **Missing:** Illustrator's ecosystem is a C++ plug-in SDK and a large commercial plug-in market. VectorCraft
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has sandboxed WebAssembly plug-ins for object filters and live effects ([plugins.md](plugins.md)) and MCP;
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missing are tool plug-ins, panel plug-ins, a plug-in directory and any third-party plug-ins (#710).
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- **Estimate:** 20–45 h for the APIs; the ecosystem itself isn't agent work.
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## G18 Generative AI features
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- **Missing:** Text to Vector Graphic, Generative Recolor, Generative Shape Fill (#766), Generative Expand,
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Concept to Vector, Prompt to Edit, Rewrite Text. Adobe's run on its cloud models; ours would be a pluggable
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provider.
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- **Needs:** an owner decision on models and providers.
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- **Estimate:** 30–60 h after that decision.
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## G19 Accessibility
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- **Missing:** AccessKit is on by default, so egui widgets reach screen readers, but custom panels, the canvas and its objects aren't described and nothing has been tested with VoiceOver, Narrator or Orca; keyboard-only canvas operation; high
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contrast. Illustrator's own accessibility is limited, so this is mostly beyond parity.
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- **Estimate:** 15–25 h.
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## Revision history
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| Date | Change | Summary |
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|---|---|---|
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | G4: proportional vertical metrics (#966) done; estimate unchanged |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | G11: #893 fixed (merged regions of crossing lines left seams); #937 still open, estimate unchanged |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | #1034: corrected scaled type controls; optional group font-size preservation remains separate. Estimates unchanged at this rounding. |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | G9: legacy `.ai` without the prolog opens with its layers (#1027) |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | G9: `.ai` pattern fills and global colours read from the editing data (#1025) |
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| 2026-10-10 | minor | G3: initial Revolve landed (#846), 45–75 h left |
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| 2026-10-10 | minor | G9 evidence counted from the tracker (28 `.ai`/EPS issues, 20 fixed); impact narrowed to handing files back |
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| 2026-10-10 | minor | Alpha blockers checked against the core-workflow gate: none |
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| 2026-10-10 | major | Moved from the ROADMAP's "Where we're lacking"; kept ids G1–G8, added G9–G19 (file formats, stability, bugs, preferences, 30.x additions, pen hardware, performance, localization, ecosystem, AI, accessibility) and re-ranked |
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