A PDF, and the PDF part of a PDF-compatible .ai, writes a shape filled
with a gradient as a clip followed by a shading fill: the shape, W n,
then sh, which fills the clip's bounds. The importer kept that as a
clip group of the shape (a clipping path) and a rectangle the size of
its bounds filled with the gradient. The Shape Builder skips clipping
paths, so it built its pieces from the rectangles: two overlapping
gradient-filled diamonds gave three rectangles. The Fill swatch showed
? for such a selection, since it held groups.
A clip whose only content is one rectangle covering the clip, filled
with a gradient placed on the page and nothing else, now comes in as
one path: the clip's outline, its subpaths closed, with the
rectangle's fill, opacity, blend mode and mask. It draws as before and
edits like a gradient-filled path drawn in the app. Clips holding
anything else (a flat colour, several objects, a gradient that doesn't
cover the clip, a shading that doesn't extend past its ends) stay clip
groups.
Tests: a diamond clipping a shading imports as one closed path of four
anchors with the linear gradient where it was, and a gradient covering
only part of the diamond or a flat colour stay clipped. Two overlapping
diamonds in a hand-written PDF, clicked on their overlap with the Shape
Builder, give what is left of each (9000 pt² each) and the overlap
diamond (3000 pt²), each with its gradient; main gave three rectangles
of 12000 pt².
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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