How to test out a collection of Actions

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xbytor

How to test out a collection of Actions

Post by xbytor »

For lack of a better name for this script, I am calling it an Action Stepper.

Here's how it works:
1) Open up an image
2) This script will pop up a prompt for you to specify an Action Set name.
3) The script will step through and execute each Action in the set individually.
4.1) In Batch Mode, it will save the result of each Action to a file
4.2) In Interactive Mode it will display the result and ask you it you want to continue or not.
5) After each Action, it does an 'undo' back to the original image and steps on to the next Action.

The files are stored in a subdirectory with the Action Set's name beneath the document's directory. The files are have the name of the action inserted before the extension.

To test this out, open an image and choose the Image Effects action set that comes with CS/CS2.

A set of Frame actions would be well suited for this. I am frequently wondering what the best frame from my collection of frame actions would be most appropriate for a given image.

There is one configuration variable called 'batchMode' to control whether it runs in Batch Mode or Interactive Mode.

The one thing that does present a problem is that some actions require some kind of setup (like an active selection) or they require interaction. The requirement for interaction makes the batch mode somewhat useless.

Another problem is that the actions cannot call scripts.

Things that would be nice to have are a pulldown list for selecting the action set and a bunch of check boxes for selection the actions that you want to run instead of having all of them in the set run.

Note that this could easily be changed to run all of the actions in a set consecutively on an image instead of doing an 'Undo' after each step.

Enjoy.
xbytor

How to test out a collection of Actions

Post by xbytor »

I've update the script so that it can now work with PS7 with the added requirement that you hardwire in the name of the desired ActionSet.

As always, let me know if there are any problems.

Enjoy.