How to manage/organize Actions

[StefanMehl]

Hi

I am building up a rather large Actions section. I have added my actions into action sets, but now I can see that some actions needs to be moved from one action set to an other. It is rather confusing to work in the Actions palette, as it not easy to have the big overview. Does anybody know, if there is a way/tool/plug-in that can help in managing actions.

I found a tool called ActionDex, which seems to more or less do what I would like. But it has not been updated for 1½ years and the last update in the news section says "testing for CS3 support". I am using CS3, so I would need something that will work with that.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

/Stefan

[DannyRaphael]

I used AD with PS7 and it worked great. To my knowledge there is no other tool like it. (I helped the developer do pre-release testing.)

I don't know about compatibility with CS3. I e-mailed Keith a little while ago to alert him of your question. I'll follow-up when I hear back from him.

[DannyRaphael]

In his e-mail reply to me Keith confirmed ActionDex is in fact CS3 compatible. (He updated his website to reflect this.)

If your Actions palette is out of control (like mine was), this is a very flexible, well thought out and easy to use tool.

[PhotoVagrant]

I've just purchased Action Station and it works very well with CS3 and CS4. I know I've too many actions and I really should clear them out but until I do...

[DannyRaphael]

Originally Posted by PhotoVagrant

I've just purchased Action Station and it works very well with CS3 and CS4. I know I've too many actions and I really should clear them out but until I do...

Looks interesting. The "find" feature is very cool.

Thanks for the link.

[Markzebra]

These plug ins will work with anything since photoshop 7 - including CS3, 3 and 4 - this is because the actions interface hasn't been changed or updated for many years. Unfortunately I don't know of a MAC compatible plug in that will do the same kind of thing.

I agree organising Actions is a pain. In CS4 you can now, somewhat cumbersomely, create Configurator Panels. allowing you to create buttons to trigger your actions, and save you having to trawl through the Actions panel for them. You can of course use F keys to launch them, and this is one of the great advanced processes of all time, for efficiency and speed while working.

[PhotoVagrant]

Originally Posted by Markzebra

These plug ins will work with anything since photoshop 7 - including CS3, 3 and 4 - this is because the actions interface hasn't been changed or updated for many years. Unfortunately I don't know of a MAC compatible plug in that will do the same kind of thing.

I can confirm that Action Station works on OSX on the Mac

[Paul R]

Here is a script that works on a Mac or Windows, Photoshop CS2 or better.
Unzip and place the javascript into the following folder.
PC:- C:/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop CS#/Presets/Scripts/
Mac:- [hard drive]/Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS#/Presets/Scripts/
Close and restart Photoshop so that it picks up the new script.

To use :
File - Scripts - and select Action Finder

You can allways create an action to call the script or create a keyboard shortcut (Edit - Keyboard Shortcuts - File - Scripts)

[skydog]

Paul...pls explain this script...

[Paul R]

The script allows you to run an action.
You can look through each actionset or search for actions starting with anything you want or search for action containing any characters.
It will only benifit people who have a multitude of actions and find it difficult to find the one they want.

[gholmes1936]

It works like a dream on my iMac Paul. Thanks so much for this script.

[mkjones589]

i'm getting an "action script must be specified" error.....

edit: I see, all scripts must be loaded into the actions tab palette first. I will play with this further.. thanks again