Adobe Illustrator Appearance Panel: Where Did My Effects Go?

Question

Granted I'm new to Adobe Illustrator I'm having trouble figuring out the appearance panel. Namely when I add an effect, I can't seem to select the right selection again to get it to come back up on the appearance panel. It's extremely aggravating.

If I make a selection and add a texture and then grain, It seems if I make the same selection (I just drag across the same area) I no longer see grain on my new (and should be the same!) selection. I'm getting very messed up in this. Somehow when I try and change fills on a whole selection, or stroke, some change some don't.

What's the best way to make sure I'm affecting what I want to be affecting?!

Thanks, Patrick

Update: I'll add some pictures to be more clear.

Here's the first one. You can see that there is a stroke and fill of the same golden gradient. But now let's say I want to remove the fill. Well I can't just uncheck that because there is NO selection, as the appearance panel says. OK let's make a selection then:

Well great now I have a selection, and all my options for affecting the gradients have disappeared. Awesome.

I see the "mixed appearances", but I don't know how that came to be. I've tried flattening the image to try and get a 'non-mixed' selection, but that didn't work. How can I reduce this to a 'single-appearance'?

Answer 1

You can only access appearance of 1 object or group at a time, assuming the group doesn't have different settings applied to different group members. In the top situation to remove the fill select that whole line and click the trashcan. In the bottom situation click 1 small corner of the art. If appearances aren't accessible then ungroup until you have a single object or group with like appearances. This should bring back the appearance options.