You can create a continuous fill across several objects that do not touch. All types of fills can span objects, but gradients, object fills, and masked objects are the most interesting.
When you connect objects with the Connect Closed command, the objects fill with the current color and pattern. If you fill a set of connected objects with a gradient, masked object, or object fill, the fill spans the set of connected objects, even if the component objects of the overall connected object do not touch. The example above shows connected objects filled with a single diagonal gradient.
