The Plugin Site Forum

HaraldHeim

I just posted a poll with various positive and negative statements about Photoshop-compatible plugins at http://thepluginsite.com/
Feel free to post your opinion about plugins here after posting in the poll.

dannyraphael

dannyraphael

Janetb4oz · Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:37 am Post subject: Use of Plugins

Hi,

Thanks for having me here.

I've just voted in the Poll - as a very new (well, 12 months) user of Paint Shop Pro which I use for making incredimail stationery, I have found plugins to be great - I am learning a lot but doing tutorials and taking classes. I only use free plugins - I did vote in the last poll also.

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Cheers,
Janet

Outr · Plugin Novice Joined: 01 Nov 2003 Posts: 2

Hi,

I voted in your poll - all positive as I disagreed with the negative statements.

The only thing I have a problem with in plugins is the preview windows. They are rather small.

I don't know if this is a limitation in the software used to make them but I sure wish they were a little larger.

I know some have the + / - buttons, but many of the older ones do not.

For me, even the plugin utilities that manage plugins have a window that is too small.

Although I don't know what it would take on the programmers end, but as someone with declining vision (I hate glasses!) I would love a preview window that was dockable / undockable and could be resized.

Well, enough from me

Outré

HaraldHeim · Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 1:16 pm Post subject:

When plugins became available in the early 1990s computers were quite slow compared to today, so most of the oldest plugins had previews that were as small as 100x100 pixel to increase the rendering speed. As computers became faster the previews got bigger, too. Nowadays a preview wouldn't be even necessary and it would be better to make plugins display the results in the image window itself. Unfortunately, Adobe still doesn't let Photoshop plugins do that.

Filter Factory software, which was used to create many plugins, is from 1994, so it has a rather small preview and no zoom buttons. If you have some knowledge you can change the preview size with a tool like Resource Hacker or you can convert them to plugins with larger previews in Plugin Commander Pro.

Another tool that is used for creating plugins is FilterMeister. An older version of it had a smaller preview, too, but the latest version has a larger one (although still small). Nevertheless, FilterMeister developers can add some code to maximize the window and preview, but many plugin developers don't do that.

My own PhotoWiz plugins let you make the preview almost as large as the screen, but some of my older plugins (Plugin Galaxy, HyperTyle, Harry's Filters) still have a small or medium sized preview. That will certainly change in future updates.