Scrapping "Layer History" Plugin i made (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 have a number of 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! =)


Here is the link to the picture:
http://www.codeguru.com/forum/attachment.php?s=&postid=684129

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

Sounds like a good idea Will it be finished and downloadable any time soon?

Having a plug in that tells you the history of each layer could be very useful. Think about when you create something by accident that turns out unique and can't recall exactly how you made it, or if you get half way involved with something and have to walk away from it for a few weeks, then continue on. Keep going. You seem to be onto something.

*edit* even with that you could make a layer history to action setting and go back into the history and refine it, then convert it to an action? just a thought.

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies!!

Marble: You think the way i think...Yup it too has a feature where you can select portions (or all) of the states and convert them into actions too at any time! I originally had an icon at the bottom of the picture for that but decided to move it into the Popup Menu. Hahaha...funny that you realized the usefulness to that feature too! Though, Actions cant repeat brush strokes but iwas goofing around trying to figure out a convenient way so that i could convert brush strokes that exist in Layer History into an Action equivalent...

I am strongly considering scrapping the whole thing and moving onto newer playgrounds or at least putting it aside for a number of months.

Thanks for the replies guys they were very useful!

i think it would be cool to repeat actions (on different or the same layer) too, but i have no idea how you'd code that out