Action use
jstvnsn opened this issue · 7 comments
This is not an issue directly ... but, I found today that the plug-in works within a standard Photoshop Action. Was this an intentional design step? (It is not mentioned in the documentation.)
I have not done anything to support Photoshop Actions, Photoshop probably has a compatibility mode that allows any plug-in to be used with Actions.
If so, that's new. I know that it was not the case some years back. It's a bonus for me!
If so, that's new. I know that it was not the case some years back. It's a bonus for me!
I reread some of the Photoshop SDK documentation on Actions, and it appears that this feature was present from when Actions were introduced in Photoshop 4.0.
This makes sense, the Actions feature would not have been as useful if it was incompatible with a user's existing plug-ins.
I did not add Actions support to the documentation because this plug-in has a few compatibility issues with it:
- Any G'MIC effect that produces multiple images or resizes the image will save the results to an external file, which is not friendly to an Actions / batch processing workflow.
- The G'MIC-Qt ability to "layer" multiple effects in a single session, this is also not friendly to an Actions / batch processing workflow.
- G'MIC-Qt only remembers the most recently used filter.
- The Actions "Never show UI" setting is ignored:
- G'MIC-Qt handles its own UI.
- The plug-in does its own error handling to support other (broken) hosts.
There may also be other compatibility issues that I have missed.
There are many commercially-offered plug-ins which cannot be incorporated into Actions. To the point, that the developers of those who do have this capability are very explicit about it. For example, see here: https://jixipix.com/watercolor-studio/details.html (in the section there titled PHOTOSHOP PLUGIN). Concerning "the G'MIC-Qt ability to "layer" multiple effects in a single session": I will take a look at that (since that is of most interest to me). Where is the "Never show UI" setting to be found?
Concerning "the G'MIC-Qt ability to "layer" multiple effects in a single session": I will take a look at that (since that is of most interest to me).
That is documented in the Usage section of the plug-in read-me:
You can "layer" multiple G'MIC effects in a single session by clicking the Apply button. Note that only the most recently applied effect will be used when the plug-in is invoked through the "Last Filter" or "Repeat Filter" commands.
I already mentioned the most recently used effect limitation in my previous post.
Where is the "Never show UI" setting to be found?
In the Actions panel to the right of the enable/disable check mark.
Adobe's About actions and the Actions panel page has an image that shows its location, search for "Modal" on that page.
That option instructs a plugin that it should not show a dialog, if possible.
I improved the integration with Actions for the next version.
The plugin will now show the name of the G'MIC effect and the Input Mode in the actions palette.
