Scrap my 1st Photoshop Plugin (Pic attached)...

Hi folks,

I am goofing around making a Photoshop plugin entitled "Layer History". What it does is provide History for each unique Layer (check out the pic i attached to this message). Right now i am not quite sure of its use to anyone out there and so i just wanted to ask all of you gurus what you think. I am just playing around in learning how to do plugins so dont think i am trying to go commercial or anything...please feel free to be as honest as possible! =)

Right now, i am able to capture pretty much anything about how a layer was created including brush strokes (as you can see in the snap). From there the user can move back in time by jumping to one of the previous states and modifying its content (while still maintaining later states) and thus creating a potential uniquely different compounded result. For example,i am able to say, select a brush stroke state (from the Layer History states panel --- the bottom panel of the 3 visible -- btw, the top-right two icons
toggle on/off whether the two other stacked panels which show "Snapshots" and "Folder Sets" appear as well so dont think they are on all the time...i left them on so you could see them ), and then select a different Brush type, Mode type, opacity which would automatically update the stroke inside the document to the new modifications, but also keeping the other states (possibly other brush strokes, etc) that follow it.

Right now it stores information about when the entry was made and allows for internal commenting, creating folder sets (you can select a group of states and organize them under folders for quicker access), color states based on type and by sets, reshuffle states, and modify them. Because the Layer history information can get huge (e.g. Brush strokes) i added in a compression technique while it stores Layer History information inside the PSD file (while saving) which seems to work quite nicely. Currently I also am goofing around putting in discard management options that can allow the user to select the # of states (or types of states) that can be in the window before they are discarded (or converted into a Snapshot). Notice the icon near the bottom of the pic on the left of the last "Brush Stroke" entry (its a gray arrow): Because subsequent entries may be the same e.g. multiple Brush strokes, it is able to know when more than 1 entry is of the same type and thus this icon appears to the left of the first of its type. When the
user clicks the arrow it collapses (hides) all states of that type (leaves the 1st entry though) thus clearing out space for the user inside this window. If the user clicks the collapse arrow again (now shown as an expand arrow) it re-expands the content revealing all the items of that type.

Is this program of any use to anyone? I am thinking of trashing it and moving on to another plugin...It was fun for my 1st plugin nontheless, but boy did they have a lot of bugs in the sdk. Though i actually made it compatible for photoshop 5.0,6.0, and 7.0.

When i think back about this Layer History plugin i guess no one would really find a use for it since no one has ever complained about needing one before and Actions, and History provide part of the solution.

Thanks for your honest opinions! =)


P.S - Sorry about some of the icons in the picture (the ones that are miniturized-checkers arent done yet).

I've used Photoshop for many years now. At first glance I was very excited at the thought of Layer History for each layer! But then after thinking it through, I think it might be too overwhelming! I mean, maybe it's just me, it might get very confusing for the user to track the history since each layer can actually affect the other layers and the more layers you work with, the harder it is to really keep track of it all. Maybe Photoshop users never asked for it for a reason; it's just unusable.

Anyway, I might be wrong. Maybe the more experienced users would find it useful.

But having said that, I think you did a pretty good job with that plugin. Must have taken you alot of effort and time! Very nice. Tell us what plugin you are going to do next!! :D


.drstrangelove.

hi Doc,

Thanks for the very clear and honest reply! Yea i totally agree with you completely! I was just goofing around making it (didnt take very long) and had the same thoughts and decided to stop :cool:

Thanks for the complements!
As for the next plugins, i am still bouncing around a number of ideas in my head...havent committed to any yet.

Thanks again :) :)

I think your plugin seems very interesting. I am thinking about developing a similar plugin but still different to yours, but I am not sure about how to get started. Do you know of any good places where there is information about how to develop a plugin to Photoshop ?

Best Regards,

J

Hi, looks like a good idea but how would you keep track of the all the history changes. I'd suggest having a horizontal history "slider", so each layer is listed vertically ( as norm ) but the history markers are shown in horizontal rows beside them. Hope that makes sense.

PS I am interested in writing my own PhotoShop plugin - for a University project, and i could do with some help on getting started. How do I begin to write a photoshop plugin, im hoping to have a new window with a 3D view of a Game model inside it, I want to be able to get real-time updates of the PSD file on the 3D model - for game model skinners. Any help towards code / tutorials would be greatly appreciated.