does adding the shape bring up a dialog? if so, you can simply toggle the dialog to "on".
Dave,
There is no dialog box for the shape parameters. The number of sides resides on the context-sensitive options bar and the others on a drop down menu from an arrow on that options bar.
George
George:
I’m not seeing a way for an action to display the flyout where you can specify the polygon specifications, either.
I don’t know if this will help, but I’ll toss it out anyway. You can save a set of Polygon tool options as a tool preset and invoke the preset via the action, e.g.:
Sides 6
Star=yes
Indent sides by: 25%
save preset as (say) Hex-25%
An action could be written to chose preset "Hex-25%" (as long as option "Show all tool presets" is active).
~Danny~
I’m having trouble with this one. What are you trying to do George?
Seems to me that if you want a "stop" to enter parameters, why not just stop the action at the "insertion point" where you add your polygon, and then hit "play" to continue your sequence? Danny’s idea of a preset would play nicely with this.
Alternatively, of course, if you are looking for precise placement or size, you can place a generic star or whatever, then include Transform in your action that reduces it to a specific size and places it precisely.
So, I don’t understand why you want ONLY the dialog to display – it’s still a pause in the action….
Peace,
Tony
Tony,
Thanks for responding and it’s good to hear from you again !
I don’t understand why the routine I go through in creating the action is not repeatable in any of its parts by pausing at appropriate places when the action runs.
When creating the action, at one point, with the "paths" icon highlighted on the options bar, I highlight the shape tool and select the polygon tool. The options bar icons change to correspond to the polygon’s context. A "sides" box appears in which I enter the number of sides I desire on the polygonal path. There is also a down-pointing arrowhead which, when clicked, drops 5 polygon path options. I enter my choices and they become imbedded in the action. I have no problem with all that happens therafter.
When I run the action, at the point where I am about to create the path, I’d like it to stop for me to reset the polygon’s parameters (sides,radius. indent sides by) using values differing from the original values I used in creating the action. But, using "insert stop" or "insert menu item", I am unable to do so. It just seems to me that, if these parameter settings were recognized in the action’s creation, I ought somehow to be able to repeat that segment during a pause in the action when it is run. Photoshop’s macro capability seems lame indeed if I can’t do that little bit of maneuvering.
Danny,
Thanks for the workaround. I will try that approach if there is no other way—which I’m finding hard to accept.
George
George,
From what I understand you’re doing, simply do NOT include the polygon placement in your action – you’d have to pause anyway, so insert a stop. At that point you draw your polygon, set it’s params, then hit "play" to continue.
What am I missing if you don’t want the exact same poly in the exact same place anyway?
Peace,
Tony
Tony
"…What am I missing if you don’t want the exact same poly in the exact same place anyway?…"
You are missing nothing. That IS the way to go. It was I who was missing something. I did not realize that to resume after stopping you had to hit Play. I looked for "continue", didn’t find it, tried Enter,…everything but the play button. Thanks again.
George
Ahhh… "missed it by that much" (Maxwell Smart). Cool beans.
For others also inexperienced with Actions, it may be helpful to elborate on what my hang-up was:
When a Stop is inserted into an Action and the Action is then run, the Action DOES stop when it encounters the Stop command. But it is NOT REALLY STOPPED. It is in LIMBO.
Before any mouse or keyboard operations are recognized, you have to hit the Stop button temporarily presented in the dialog box. THEN perform the operations you desire. THEN hit the Play button on the Actions palette to get the Action to resume. The whole 1-2-3 sequence has to be followed.
Even though the Action ostensibly self-stops, if you don’t in addition hit that Stop button, you are incommunicado.
Also George, if you press Escape during an action run (usually), the action completes what it was doing but doesn’t complete the action sequence.
In "regular" mode this is no big deal, and you can actually target a specific step of an action and start playing from there. But in button mode, you have to "reset" the action by playing another action first.
For example, lets say I have an action that does Resize, Auto Color, USM. In "regular" mode, after the image resizes, you can press escape and that will stop the action from continuing. You can then open the levels dialog and perform whatever color correction (or anything else you want), then click on the USM part of the action and hit play.
But in button mode, you’re kind of stuck at the Autocolor step. So the next time you press that action, it begins at autocolor. If you want to play the action in its entirety (sp?) you have to run another (benign) action first.
It’s one of the annoying little quirks of button mode, but I use button mode all the time because it shows what hotkeys are assigned to the action, it shows the color coding (for organization), and it’s a single click to run instead of two clicks per action (I use actions a lot).
Peace,
Tony
Tony
"…I use actions a lot…"
I SHOULD use actions a lot.
It’s a matter of getting comfortable with a basically non-user friendly feature. Your tips are decidedly welcome, Tony.
Happy New Year,
George
