Standard Toolbar

[Philip Kaszerman]

Is there a "Standard Toolbar" in photshop 7; i.e. one with icons for open, save, copy, etc. If so, how does one display it.

[Dave Hamer]

Philip Kaszerman

The Menu Bar is near the top of the screen and has the following:

File Edit Image Layer Select Filter View Window Help

When you mouse click on one of them, another drop down list opens or you
can open them with short cut keys, which show up as underlined.

Dave

[YrbkMgr]

Is there a "Standard Toolbar" in photshop 7; i.e. one with icons for open,
save, copy, etc.




No.

[Chris Cox]

That is not a "standard toolbar" - that's a "button bar" (normally associated with applications designed for consumer level users)

[Philip Kaszerman]

Thanks.
It would be convenient to have one no matter what it is called. Corel's scheme of being able to make up your own list of icons (or buttons) is even better,
Thanks again.

[Chris Cox]

It is available in Photoshop Elements -- the consumer version of Photoshop.

[Don McCahill]

Philip

There are a thousand icons available in Photoshop (well, maybe not that many, but more than I want to count). To add simple ones like this where the shortcuts are memorized would just add clutter to the already crowded desktop.

Once you spend a bit of time with PS, I think you will learn the shortcuts and not want to go looking for icons. If you are only an occasional user, then you might want to follow Chris's advice and try Elements. Full PS is far too complex for only occasional use.

[icurate]

I bet if we all asked Uncle Chris real nice we could have an option in Photoshop where we could just fill both monitors with pretty little icons. We could click away all day long.......

[Don McCahill]

icurate

I curse you to forever work on Photoshop on a 640x480 resolution monitor ... see how you like all your icons then.

<grin>

[icurate]

Hey Don, I was being a sarcastic snit
(or snot) when I suggested 2 screens full of icons. Jeesh............

And I do remember back in the good ole days, on my Mac Quadra with version 3.
Ah, the simple times......

[Trevor Morris]

Philip,

You can also record any commands you wish as actions and then display the actions palette in button mode. This would give you exactly what you are looking for.

[Don McCahill]

icurate

I assumed such ... notice the <grin> at the bottom of my message.

[Richard Walkley]

There was a very useful toolbar available from Extensis which was part of "phototools" and was the main reason for buying that program. There is a guy at [url]WWW.Jazdiver.com[/url] who rewrites the program with each new Photoshop (? to Adobe, why is this nessecery) and gives you a toolbar that conforms to what you need to have "up front"
Rich

[Phosphor]

Extra toolbars are for saps. Learn the shortcuts and create custom actions... it's faster and doesn't clutter the screen.

[icurate]

Thunderous applause and bowing in the general direction of Phosphor.

And Don, I was just making sure. :)

[Phosphor]

You want Photoshop icons and cursors?

I gotcher icons and cursors right here <http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.2ccd3ccf/0>.

[icurate]

Yep, just spread that beauty over 2 monitors and I am all set! ;)

[Daryl Pritchard]

Being the one who has provided the Photobars supplement to preserve that lost functionality from Phototools, here's my comments on the topic:

In short...I think it all boils down to personal choice and not a question of whether one is a professional or non-professional user of Photoshop.

1. Perhaps the keyword in Chris's comment is "normally", but even as a non-professional, I would debate that applications used by graphics professionals "normally" forego the use of a toolbar or "button bar". I know I've seen comments from professional users of 3D Studio Max, Dreamweaver, etc., who have stated their desire to have customizable toolbars or buttons in Photoshop. Whether actually served up in a toolbar fashion or not, I think the idea is still the same, and I do think it has merit and is very desirable as an available option that can be enabled/disabled by the user, just as Photobars can.

2. To Don's comment about easily memorized shortcuts and desktop clutter, I do agree that the most frequently used shortcuts are easily memorized, and the more one uses Photoshop then the more apt they are to memorizing a wealth of shortcuts. That may be where "professional" use comes into play, as non-professional users may only memorize a handful of shortcuts. Or, maybe even a professional user just doesn't have a knack for memorizing such things, and favors a button-centric approach. I think this is really a question of personal preference and once again points to the desire for a feature that can be enabled by those who wish to make use of it.

3. The cluttered desktop argument from Don and Phosphor isn't one I agree with...unless I'm working on a low-resolution display where the point is very valid. Even if I were to dock four toolbars with one on each edge of the workspace on a 19-inch monitor at 1280x1024 pixels, I personally don't find that as intrusive as seems to be suggested. At a lower setting, I might opt for only 1 or 2 toolbars, but that is typically the most I have enabled anyway. Again, I think this is really just a matter of personal preference. I feel toolbars clutter the workspace no more than palettes do. And, at least with the Photobar toolbars, those which are enabled can have their visibility toggled right along with the palettes upon depressing the Tab key (I may be forgetting this as Shift+Tab).

4. True to what Trevor says, the action buttons can serve a similar purpose and even exceed the capabilities of Photobars for some tasks, yet I think a toolbar is more compact than a palette in button mode (as I write this, I'm basing that upon what I recall, not what I'm observing...no Photoshop on this PC). Moreover, by using Photobars and leaving the actions in the normal non-buttonized mode, I maintain ready access to the details of an action in the event I only want to run a subset of that action. Do I do this often however?...No.

5. Among of the "thank-you" notes I've received from users of my Photobars supplement, I've seen a few from individuals who state that they favor a mouse click on a button to that of a keyboard shortcut. The two most prevalent reasons were limited mobility of their wrist due to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (although I'd have thought moving frequently between keyboard and mouse might help avoid that) and, more significant, one or two individuals who had the use of only one hand. Certainly if I had only one hand that normally rested upon a mouse, trackball, or pen, a convenient alternative to drilling down through the menus would be nice. Again, yes, the buttonized actions can support that, but not in as elegant a solution in my opinion.

6. Richard, it has puzzled me as well as to what it is that Adobe changes in the Photoshop code that sometimes corrupts the working of the Extensis menu and accessibility to the Photobars and other components of Phototools. However, it is my understanding from Chris Cox that Extensis did not adhere to the Photoshop plug-in specification in how they designed the Photobars component of Phototools (or perhaps Phototools as a whole). So, maybe that is where the real problem lies....in the design of the plug-in. Fortunately, even though Extensis has stripped out Photobars from Phototools, they have continued to provide updates for Phototools that maintains compatibility of the remaining components for Photoshop, and that has so far been all that is needed for the Photobars supplement to work as well.

Regards,

Daryl

[Don McCahill]

I haven't used or seen Photobars, so I can't comment on its use. I do know that when I get an icon crazy program like MS Office, I frequently forget what a certain icon means, and have to hover over them all, reading tooltips.

Somehow, I don't see that as being more productive than scanning through menus (except for those stupid MS menus that only show the recently used options instead of all of them).

[Daryl Pritchard]

Don,

I agree with you that too many buttons, icons, etc., can quickly become overkill and icon meanings can as easily be forgotten as keyboard shortcuts. Fortunately, tooltips can help refreh one's memory about the icons, but even tooltips can become a bit annoying over time.

Although I'm fortunate to have full use of my hands, I think the single most valuable reason I've heard for providing quick-access buttons and toolbars is to facilitate use for mobility-impaired individuals. Had Photobars worked as designed from the start, where even keystrokes could be assigned to custom icons, then I'd fully say they are better than buttonized actions. As it is, I think Photobars complements the existing capabilities of Photoshop to such an extent that I support the idea of Adobe implementing customizable toolbars and buttons as a user-selectable feature, thus eliminating the need for a plug-in that I expect may ultimately no longer be salvageable.

Whether it be MS Office apps or the Windows O/S itself, one of the first things I do following a fresh installation is disable the "personalized menus". The other is to install TweakUI and get rid of the damnable "Shortcut to" prefix for new shortcuts. In Photoshop, the "Copy of" reeks of "Shortcut to", in my opinion.

Cheers,

Daryl