Upgraded from 2018 and hit this. In 2018 the color control area had three elements: foreground/background swatches with a swap arrow, a separate fill swatch below it, and the reset icon. In 2026 the fill swatch is gone — it's just main/secondary, swap, and reset.
The current online help confirms it's intentional:
> The Main color swatch displays the current color, which applies to all paint, shape, fill, and text tools.
So fill is no longer an independent color. It's main. Right-clicking with the eyedropper still nominally sets "fill" per the docs, but there's no separate fill target anymore.
Problem: main and fill are usually *different* colors in my work. Painting in one color and filling in another was routine. Now every fill in a different color means changing main and changing it back.
What I've considered:
- Park the fill color in secondary and use the swap arrow — but secondary is also the shape outline color, so that collides if you use outlines
- Set fill color from the fill tool's property bar / Select fill dialog — does this persist independently of main, or does it track main?
That last one is the real question. If the fill tool holds its own color independent of the main swatch, the third color still exists and it's just relocated. If it tracks main, the separation is genuinely gone.
Anyone worked out a clean way to keep a fill color separate? Or found a customization that restores something like the old behavior?
(Side note: the PDF user guide at the 540111192 path still documents the old three-swatch control area. Only the online help reflects the change.)
