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Photoshop

Interface

Customizing the Workspace

There are a number of options for displaying panels in the workspace. In addition to the ones you learned about in the last lecture, they can be moved, grouped, docked or undocked, reduced to icons, and more. Your options for organizing the workspace to your liking are almost limitless. Don't be afraid to try any of these out. At the end of the lecture, we'll show you how to restore the workspace to its original layout.

Panel Dock

A panel dock is an arrangement of panels and panel groups that are connected together as one unit, usually in a vertical fashion. It is usually "docked" to the top right edge of the workspace, as shown here, but can be dragged away by its title bar so it's floating. The dock shown here consists of two panel groups arranged vertically and panel icons, also stacked vertically. The Toolbox is also a dock and works in the same way.

Docked panel groups no longer display their title bars. The dock's title bar controls all the panels and icons. This means that panels can't be horizontally collapsed/expanded individually when they're part of the dock but can still be minimized/maximized or closed.

Panels, panel groups and panel icons can be added to, or removed from, the dock. You can easily change the order in which the elements appear in the dock. We'll look at all of these by the end of this lecture.

Here is an example of the same dock where the bottom panel group has been minimized.

Collapse and Expand the Dock

Notice that there are two collapse/expand controls (double arrows) in the dock's title bar. One is for the panel icons and the other is for the column of panel groups that will expand and collapse as one.

Clicking the panel collapse/expand control (circled in green) has collapsed all the panels as shown on the right. Clicking the control again will expand them.

Panel Icons

Let's take a closer look at the panel icons. They are just additional panels or panel groups that have been reduced to icons. This grouping is called the icon dock. Vertical space is limited in Photoshop and since you can only display a certain number of open panels in that space, this gives you the ability to have more panels available for quick access. If you're not sure what one of the icons is for, hover over it with your mouse to reveal a tool tip.

Like panels, the panel icons can appear alone or in groups. In the arrangement shown here, the Mini Bridge icon is by itself at the top. Next is a group of two icons (History and Actions), followed by a group of three panel icons (Navigator, Histogram, and Info). Each individual icon or icon group has its own gripper bar. A gripper bar is a double row of dotted lines that you can click and drag with the mouse to move the item up or down within the icon dock or detach it from the dock.

Collapse and Expand Panel Icons

Clicking the collapse/expand control at the top of an icon dock will expand all the icons into panels. Clicking again will restore the column of icons.

When you click on an individual panel icon, the panel will expand next to its icon. In this example, the Actions panel icon was clicked on. You'll notice that the entire panel group (History and Actions) has expanded and the Actions panel is displayed at the front. An expanded panel will remain open until you explicitly collapse it.

To collapse the Actions panel group, do one of the following:

• Click on the Actions panel tab.
• Click on the double arrow to the right of the panel tabs.
• Click on the Actions panel icon.
• If you've enabled Auto-Collapse Iconic Panels in the Interface preferences, clicking on another panel or in the document window will auto-collapse the panel to its icon.

View the dock in CS3 with an expanded panel icon.

Panel Icon Menu

You can right-click (Ctrl-click) anywhere on the icon dock to display a pop-up menu with the following commands.

Expand Panels

This will expand all the panels in the icon dock to their full size. This is equivalent to using the Collapse/Expand control.

Auto-Collapse Iconic Panels

This is the same option we mentioned a moment ago. Instead of going to the Interface preferences, you can enable or disable it here.

Auto-Show Hidden Panels

This, too, saves you from accessing Internet preferences to enable or disable this feature.

Interface Options

But, if you need to go to the Interface Preferences for something else, this is a shortcut.

Now that you've been introduced to the basics of panels, the dock and panel icons, we'll look at other ways you can customize your workspace. You may find that Photoshop's default workspace panels don't fit your work style so you can change the order in which tabs appear within a panel group, add or remove panels from a group, and even create your own panel groups.

Changing the Tab Order Within a Panel Group

This one is simple: just click on the tab you want to move and drag it to another location within the tab area.

Adding a Panel to a Panel Group

You can add a panel to a panel group by dragging and dropping it onto another panel group. Or, you can create a new panel group by dropping one panel onto another. In the example shown here, we're moving the Notes panel to form a new panel group with the Layers Comp panel.

1. Click on the tab, tab area, or title bar of the panel you want to move and drag it over towards the target panel.
2. Once your cursor moves near the target panel, the panel you're dragging becomes semi-transparent, so you can see where you're going. Drag until your cursor is over the tab area and the tab area will turn blue with a blue rectangle displayed inside the boundaries of the panel. This signals that you're on target for grouping the panels.*
3. Release the mouse button and the two panels will be grouped.
   

*If your cursor gets too close to the target panel's title bar, the highlight will change to a narrower band of blue just below the title bar. If you release at that point, you'll stack the panels vertically. (More on stacking later.)

Removing a Panel From a Panel Group

Removing a panel from a group is simple. Click its tab, drag it outside the panel group, then release the mouse button. If you drop it on an empty part of the workspace, it will become a floating panel. You can use its Close button to close it, add it to another floating panel group, or add it to the dock.

Floating and Re-docking the Dock

To get you started on the concept of drop zones, we'll look at moving/floating the dock and then redocking it. Dragging the dock by its title bar away from the right edge of the workspace and then releasing the mouse button will cause it to float, as shown here. The only thing different about it is that the title bar has rounded corners and a Close button. If you click Close, the entire dock will disappear. To re-open it, go to the Window menu and select the name of one of the panels that was in the dock. The dock will re-appear.

To lock it back into its docked position, drag the dock by its title bar over to the right edge of the interface. It will become semi-transparent as you move it. Once your cursor moves within range of the right edge, a drop zone, which is a blue vertical bar, will appear. When it does, release the mouse button and the dock will be re-docked.

Adding Panels or Panel Groups to the Dock

In this example, the Notes panel was floating and now is being added to the bottom of the dock. This time the drop zone appears as a horizontal bar at the bottom of the lower panel. Once the mouse button is released, the Notes panel will be docked at the bottom of the panel column.

You can also drop panels or panel groups between docked panels or at the top of the dock, under the title bar. The blue drop zone will appear to confirm the location you're targeting.

Adding Panels to the Icon Dock

In this example, we're going to add a panel to the icon dock. We'll add the Notes panel.

1. While dragging it past the bottom of the icon dock, you can see in this image that a drop zone has been activated. If we dropped the Notes panel there, it would appear as a new single icon at the bottom of the icon dock. But let's keep moving the panel...
   
2. Now the cursor is over the icon panel group containing the Navigator, Histogram, and Info panels. There is a wide blue highlight over the gripper bar and a narrow one around the icon group border indicating that you're over a group. The cursor, which is between the Histogram and Info icons has activated a small drop zone between the two icons. We'll drop it here and see what happens.
   
3. Now the Notes panel icon appears in the third position of the icon group.
   

Removing Panels from the Icon Dock

In this example, we're removing the Navigator icon group from the icon dock by dragging it by its gripper bar. You can see the vacant space left behind but this will disappear. As the cursor moves over the left edge of the icon dock, it activates a drop zone. You could actually dock this icon group to the left of the original icon dock. Or, you can simply drop it away from the dock where it will become a floating icon panel group, shown below.

Likewise, you can remove an individual panel icon from the icon dock in the same way. It won't have a gripper bar unless it's an ungrouped icon (e.g., Mini Bridge) so just drag the icon itself away from the dock and release it. It becomes a floating panel icon.

Floating panel icons will expand normally and when you collapse them they return to the icon state.

Stacking Panels

Stacking is yet another way to organize panels. It lets you "stack" panels and panel groups vertically (and even horizontally) and they can be moved as a single unit. While it's similar to the dock concept, it's a floating group.

Let's continue with the previous example where we floated the Navigator panel group. We also have the Notes panel floating off by itself and want to stack it with the Navigator group. First, we expand the Navigotor panel group, then we drag the Notes panel by its title bar over to the bottom of the Navigator group. Once the cursor is in position, you'll see a drop zone as shown here. Releasing the mouse button will create the stack.

Now we have the Notes panel stacked with the Navigator panel group. This stack can be dragged by its title bar anywhere in the workspace and it can be closed, collapsed or minimized.

By double-clicking on the Notes and Navigator tabs, both panels were minimized.

What do you think will happen when you click the collapse/expand control on this stack? Will it collapse back to icons or will it still display the icons and panels names? View the answer.

Saving, Restoring and Deleting Workspaces

There is an Interface preference (discussed later in this module) called Remember Panel Locations in CS4 and Restore Default Workspaces in CS5. It lets you decide whether you want Photoshop to start up using the default workspace layouts or display the panels the way you left them the last time you used Photoshop. For this discussion, let's assume it's set to display the panels the way you left them.

After experimenting with moving panels around, you may have ended up with an exquisite layout that's perfect for you or your workspace could be a royal mess. Either way, there's a solution.

Save a Custom Workspace

If you like a layout that you've created, you can save it to use in future sessions. There are two ways to access the New Workspace... dialog to create a custom workspace:

• Click on the Workspace Presets menu button and choose New Workspace... (shown here).
• Go to Window > Workspace > New Workspace.
  

The New Workspace dialog will open. Enter a name for your workspace and click the Save button.

The result is a new, custom workspace built to your own specifications.

Reset a Single Workspace

If you've made changes to a workspace - either a preset or a custom one - you can restore it back to its default layout in one of the following ways.

• Go to Window > Workspace > Reset [Workspace Name]
• Switch to the workspace you want to reset, click on the Presets menu button and choose Reset [Workspace Name].

When you reset a custom workspace, this will restore it to the state it was in when you first created it.

Restore All Default Workspaces

To restore all of the preset and custom workspaces in Photoshop, go to the Interface preferences and click the Restore Default Workspaces button. A confirmation message will appear.

Delete a Workspace

Both custom and default workspaces can be deleted. Custom workspaces will be removed permanently while the default workspaces can be reinstated using the Restore Default Workspaces button in the Internet preferences.

Before you begin, make sure the workspace you are going to delete is not the active workspace. If it is, switch to another. Access the command to delete a workspace in one of the following ways.

• Go to Window > Workspace > Delete Workspace and select the workspace you wish to delete.
• Use the workspace Presets menu and select Delete Workspace.

The Delete Workspace dialog box will open. Click on the Workspace pop-up menu and you'll see that the active workspace name is greyed out which is why can't delete it. Also, notice that there's an option to delete All Custom Workspaces.

Click on the name of the workspace to be deleted and click the Delete button. A dialog will open asking, "Do you really want to delete the workspace [Workspace Name]?" Click the Yes button.

As you can see, there are almost an infinite number of ways that you can organize your workspace to suit your needs. Photoshop shares this new panel docking system with many other Adobe products in the CS3+ family.

Answer: The panels will collapse to icons. Return to the question.

Customizing the Workspace Summary

• You can customize panel groups by changing the tab order, dragging panels from one group to another, or by separating a panel from a group.
• A dock is an arrangement of panels and panel groups that are connected together as one unit.
• Panels in a dock can be rearranged or removed and panels can be added to the dock.
• The panel column of the dock can be collapsed to show just the icon and panel name using the collapse/expand control.
• The panel icon dock contains panels and panel groups that are small icons, usually arranged vertically.
• The icon dock can be expanded to full-sized panels using the collapse/expand control.
• As you're dragging the dock or panels, when the cursor approaches certain target areas, a blue drop zone will appear and the object being dragged will become semi-transparent.
• Panels that are removed from panel groups or the dock and dropped in any place other than a drop zone are said to be floating.
• A panel "stack" is created by dropping a panel onto a floating panel's drop zone. Other panels can be added to the stack in the same way.
• A custom workspace arrangement can be saved so it can be accessed in future Photoshop sessions.
• Default and custom workspaces can be deleted. Custom workspaces will be permanently deleted while default workspaces can restored by using the Restore Default Workspaces button in the Internet preferences.
• Default and custom workspaces can be reset to their original states, individually or globally, by using the Restore Default Workspaces button in the Internet preferences.

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Photoshop - TOC - Introduction - Books -
Interface - Links - Questions -
1 - 2 - 3 - [ 4 ] - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - A - B - C - D - E -

Photoshop - TOC - Introduction - Books -
Interface - Links - Questions -
1 - 2 - 3 - [ 4 ] - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - A - B - C - D - E -