Known Participant

Question

Actions changed to bad behaviour

Forum|Forum|1 day ago
May 5, 2026
4 replies
79 views

Adobe, why? First, you changed the gradient tool, and now only the classic gradient tool is usable (for applying multiple gradients sequentially). And now it's the actions' turn. Directly clicking on the actions triggers them immediately. What?! And yet another tool in Photoshop that has to be switched to classic mode. Any suggestions?

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

The reply from @Conrad_C in the other topic is here:

Conrad_C

Community Expert

The reason they changed it is that It’s better…it saves steps. When you want to run an action the old way, you either have to select the action and then click the Play button, or to run an action in one click you had to switch it into Button mode. Now, you only have to click the action (no need to double-click). Just one step.

But the important thing to understand is that nothing was lost. You don’t need to switch it to Classic mode. Playing back, editing an action and its steps, etc. are all possible from the default Actions panel view. It only takes one click to edit an action (hover over action, click the gear icon).

Or have you noticed that there’s something that works worse than before?

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

@Conrad_C

In another topic, a different user wanted to start the expanded action from an arbitrary step in the action, not from the first step, so Legacy was required. This may have been due to the action having a “stop” step which required manual work, before the action was later resumed.

For most people, the single click rather than Ctrl/Cmd + double-click is indeed an improvement.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

Yes. I’m actually replying to that other thread now, because although I replied there, I realized what I posted didn’t answer the question. But my latest reply will show that I did find a way to play from any action step in the modernized Actions panel.

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

@Iwan24905747x70q

Switch to Classic Actions:

Iwan24905747x70qAuthor

Known Participant

Thanks for your help. I know that classic mode fixes the problem. The point is, though, why does Adobe constantly change things that don't need to be changed?

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

Thanks for your help. I know that classic mode fixes the problem. The point is, though, why does Adobe constantly change things that don't need to be changed?

Ah, well, I can’t talk for Adobe. That’s your personal opinion, which you are entitled to. Adobe, as the developers of the software, obviously have a different opinion.

Personally, I don’t believe that actions have evolved enough since they were initially introduced! Contextual actions were a start point and there have been some other smaller changes since then.

I’m glad that something other than a new “AI” bell and whistle has been added.

This discussion reminds me of this comic/meme:

Sasha003

Participating Frequently

Had something similar happen before - usually it’s the action recording getting slightly corrupted or out of sync. Try recreating the action from scratch and see if it behaves normally. Also check if any steps depend on specific layer names or selections, because that can break easily. Resetting preferences can help too if things started acting weird all of a sudden.

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