Adobe Configurator and deprecated Flash-based panel support in Adobe CC products

Report · Sep 18, 2013

Does Configurator 4.0 (or Configurator 3) support the creation of HTML5-based panels?

I received the following email from Adobe:

Photoshop CC, starting in the middle of 2014, will remove support for Flash-based extensions. All other Creative Cloud products have already marked Flash-based panel support as deprecated at this time, meaning no future enhancements or bug fixes will be coming for Flash-based extensions.

The current version of Photoshop CC already includes support for a new type of HTML5 based panel. We are currently working on a new version of Adobe Extension Builder designed specifically to support the creation of these HTML5 based panels. You can download a free preview here: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/extensionbuilder3/.

Details about developing HTML5 extensions for Photoshop as well as for other Creative Cloud products are available in the Extension Builder pre-release program here: https://adobeformscentral.com/?f=6V6IgvE0yLQQ7bgadxNXaw . You can also join the Photoshop developers' prerelease program for details specific to Photoshop. If you're interested, please let me know and I will get you setup.

Will the panels created by Configurator 4.0 work in PS CC after the middle of 2014 when support for Flash-based extensions is removed from Photoshop CC? For that matter, will the panels created in Configurator 3.0 work in PS CC after the middle of 2014?

Report · Jul 13, 2014

When Adobe will depricate itself?

SWF Panels don't require any additional funding for developing. I'm waiting when they drop Photoshop project at they done with a lot of features/products.

Report · Jun 20, 2014

If you heard a very loud scream that was me finding out I can't use my configurator panels. What a slap in the face not having some easy alternative for the users of Adobe products. They talk about increasing productivity but honestly what they really mean is increasing their bottom line. Of course this has to happen when I'm at my busiest and don't have time to try and come up with something to speed up my workflow. Thanks for nothing Adobe, screwing the customer again.

Report · Jun 21, 2014

Most of Extensions for Photoshop on Adobe Add-ons are Flash panels or made with Configurator like mine Edge FX (the most popular paid extension on Adobe Exchange). I don't understand why Adobe change that because most of extensions are now incompatible. My costumers also don't understand why and ask for a refund or an update soon. I have to rewrite all my extensions or just give up because I'm not a developer:-(. I hope I will succeed to rewrite them and hove for everyone that Adobe will create a HTML 5 configurator.

Report · Jun 22, 2014

Of course this has to happen when I'm at my busiest and don't have time to try and come up with something to speed up my workflow.

If I understand correctly the installation of Photoshop CC 2014 does not affect an existing installation of Photoshop CC, so you should be able to keep working with Photoshop CC for the immediate future.

Report · Jun 22, 2014

Your are correct. You can either uninstall CC 2014 (you will still have the new functionality of Camera Raw plus Lightroom), or you can keep them both and only use CC 2014 when you need some of the additional functionality. From Lightroom, you would need to set CC as an alternate editor if you leave CC 2014 installed. If you use Bridge, you'll want to manually fire up CC first -- Bridge will use whatever CC version is open rather then launching a new instance.

Report · Jun 22, 2014

Which would work great if I still had CC but I don't. Have no idea why I uninstalled it as I never get rid of the old before I know the new will work but for some reason this time I did.

Report · Jun 22, 2014

You should be able to reinstall PS CC. This is the whole idea behind having SP 2014 as a different version. It's so people can go back to an older version for whatever reason.

Report · Jun 23, 2014

csuebele wrote:

You should be able to reinstall PS CC. This is the whole idea behind having SP 2014 as a different version. It's so people can go back to an older version for whatever reason.

ok so we have to pay a month subscription fee for a software update that we wont use .... the whole point of the cc subscription is to be able to have free regular update, if not it's pointless. If the updates broke important feature it's pointless. So I can stop my CC sub and stay with my CS6... very desapointed

Report · Jun 23, 2014

XR21 You still get the CC 2014 apps as free updates if you are an existing CC subscriber, you can also run CC 2014 apps AND the existing CC 2014 apps, so if you have a panel that you really need but it only works with Photoshop CC and not Photoshop CC 2014, use Photoshop CC and if you want to use the new features in Photoshop CC 2014 finish the image in Photoshop CC 2014. This way you have the best of both worlds.

I know you are upset about the loss of Configurator and Flash Panels but you do still have a way to keep using those panels by using Photoshop CC and you are still able to use the latest Photoshop as and when you need to.

Hope that helps.

Jonathan

Report · Jun 23, 2014

Im 99% sure nobody from Adobe will answer to this but here goes.

I assume Photoshop CC 2014 was not a major rewriting of the source code? So why was support for flash panels removed. Was it to improve efficiency/security of the program?

So it should be simple to produce a patch that would allow the admittedly small amount of users to continue to use this feature whilst not impacting the majority of other users.

If I see one more reply that you can use CC and then CC 2014 when you want to take advantage of the new features then Im going to.............. and theres the problem, theres nothing I can do, its just its an infuriating response from a company that obviously has little regard for all its users.

Report · Jun 23, 2014

They tells that it has gone completly 64 bits now ... but its not an excuse they could have invested in a new HTML version of configurator if they wanted

weymouthsteve wrote:

Im 99% sure nobody from Adobe will answer to this but here goes.

I assume Photoshop CC 2014 was not a major rewriting of the source code? So why was support for flash panels removed. Was it to improve efficiency/security of the program?

So it should be simple to produce a patch that would allow the admittedly small amount of users to continue to use this feature whilst not impacting the majority of other users.

If I see one more reply that you can use CC and then CC 2014 when you want to take advantage of the new features then Im going to.............. and theres the problem, theres nothing I can do, its just its an infuriating response from a company that obviously has little regard for all its users.

Report · Jun 23, 2014

I’ve taken the liberty to start another thread on the issue on the officially monitored site for feature requests and bug reports.

If anyone wants to add their support or arguments please do so over at

http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/please_publish_an_html5_alternative_to_configu...

Report · Jun 23, 2014

Hi weymouthsteve,

Well I am replying from Adobe but I am not on the Photoshop team so I would suggest you make your voice heard on their forum as well. However, to try and answer your question, Photoshop CC 2014 was not a complete rewrite but the Photoshop team was keen to remove what we internally call APE, it stands for Adobe Player Embedded, essentially it was a Flash Player inside Photoshop and it's still in a number of the other creative apps for now although it will go away either later this year or next year but it is up to each individual product team. I totally understand everyones frustration about the Flash panels no longer working and no Configurator, I do not think you will be able to change the Photoshop team's mind about Flash panels, they were problematic and HTML5 panels are better in terms of performance, sandboxing (if a panel crashed it does not crash the host application) and other things. However, I do think you should mention the importance of Configurator. Even if I got some engineering resource to completely rebuild the Configurator app again we need the help and resources of the Photoshop team to pull in the latest features and so on. Please let the Photoshop team know you miss Configurator, how and why you used it and I will do my best to speak to that team but your collective voices are way more powerful than mine alone.

Thanks,

Jonathan

Report · Jun 23, 2014

Well I am replying from Adobe but I am not on the Photoshop team so I would suggest you make your voice heard on their forum as well.

Some Adobe employees are active on

Photoshop General Discussion

but it is not the proper place for Feature Requests, those go over at

Photoshop Family Customer Community

most people don't act unless they are forced to do so.

Not a baseless observation, I guess.

While I had read about the change a while back I still have not learned enough html5 to get all my old Flash Panels’ functionality over to CC 2014 satisfactorily.

Jonathan Ferman, thanks for taking the time.

Report · Jun 24, 2014

Hi Johnattan

This is all more positive here today

In fact just to sum up :

- Most of us knew about the Flash deprecation thing. That OK, we understand flash is outdated.

- Some of us , me included would be happy with just extension builder but we need more support to learn it, we are not professionnal coder

- Some of us , me included would love to have a HTML configurator.

So I ask for help

- Is there someone at adobe that can explain us how to make Extension Builder work with CC 2014?

- Is there someone that can build some panel with extension builder 3 (just one button with action or one with script, one with menu or tools) and post it

- Is ther someone that can make a tutorial about making such a HTML panel?

Do you have any pointers? Can you redirect our demand?

Then if you manage to make configurator work again fine, but again we are not against change and even a few extra work to build everything again with a brand new technology, but really need some help to do this.

That would be great

I will double post this demand on the feedback forum.

Report · Jun 24, 2014

A perfect summing up, I could not have put it better myself, thanks

Report · Jun 24, 2014

Hi everyone,

To get started with HTML5 panels, please head here: http://bit.ly/SYYQpN

From there you can find a lot of resources and samples.

You can use Extension Builder 3 preview 3 but I suggest you don't, because it's incompatible with CC 2014. Instead, use your favorite code editor to edit the extension in its installation folder. By doing that, you won't have to restart the application every time you deploy your extension.

A bit more info can be found here: http://bit.ly/1yAR0T9

Best regards,

Hallgrimur

Report · Jun 24, 2014

Thanks Hallgrimur for the links

here is one more

Starting Photoshop HTML5 Extension development — Medium

You also have to put cc2014 into debug mode as Hallgrimur says here

Re: Important: EB3 in Illustrator cc 2014

And here is a 2 button project that execute actions in photoshop that i just made. Should be easy to modify with a simple text editor.

Just modify the 2 following files, leave others untouched

index.html : here is your html page with buttons

Photoshop.jxx : the code that execute each button ( just copy paste it, rename and change the name of your action in the doAction line

feel free to branch and enrich

studioxop/CEP_PHXS · GitHub

that has to be put in one or more of the following folders:

All users, Win: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\CEP\extensions
All users, Mac: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/CEP/extensions
Per user, Win: C:\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CEP\extensions
Per user, Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CEP/extensions

Report · Jun 24, 2014

Sad to see my panels not working, I've had them for so long now... I've used Photoshop today and spent a LOT of time wandering through the menus truing to find things (looked as if I had never used the application before)

Options for me:

Don't have custom panels (make everything an action)

Only use CC

Look into teaching myself HTML and JS (no! - how many photoshop users / photographers want to do that?)

Sad to see that the extension builder (which on the surface to me looks like it could be useful if it was wisiwig like configuratator) - is ANOTHER PAID SUBSCRIPTION!!!

Pro users need some customisation tools back please.

Report · Jun 24, 2014

extension builder 3 is free on adobe lab

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/extensionbuilder3/

but it does not really work with CC2014

Finally i discover that it is better to use a simple text editor or a visual HTML Editor like Dreamweaver ...

Report · Jun 24, 2014

Hi,

I have posted a new blog post about how you can tweak Extension Builder to work with CC 2014: http://adobe.ly/1v3wgiq

Report · Jun 24, 2014

XR21, Thanks so much for the 2 button sample. I've built something similar just a couple weeks ago without realizing I would need those skills for CC 2014. Do you think you could help me with the coding for selecting a brush tool preset? I'm not sure what I would put in app.doAction

Report · Jun 24, 2014

Remplace the doAction line in the Photoshop.jsx by the following lines

     var desc = new ActionDescriptor();
     var ref = new ActionReference();
     ref.putName( stringIDToTypeID( "toolPreset" ), 'BrushToolPresetName');
     desc.putReference( charIDToTypeID( "null" ), ref );
     executeAction( charIDToTypeID( "slct" ), desc, DialogModes.NO );

Just replace BrushToolPresetName by the exact name of your tool preset

Report · Jun 25, 2014

Thanks for the coding XR21, now when I have a bit of time I can start building panels.

Report · Jun 23, 2014

sorry this is total non sense , you are not actually WORKING with photoshop nearly 10 hours a day every day or you won't say such a thing, maybe you use it as a toy, but it's certainly not your main tools to earn your living or you won't be talking like that. The problem is when people that developp never be real user. you can play the way you tell not actually work.

Ok imaging the mess using your favorite develloppement tools in two or three version going back and forth from one to antother using one function, and you must go everyday faster and be more productive?? I am using my workflow on EVERY of my picture so I can't use cc 2014 but the smart object change would be a great improvement.

I also heard that it is faster on some case (64bits).

So this whole CC is becoming a really problem for real users. Again I won't go on paying if I can't work on on functionnal version

The problem is not only configurator, it's a whole perpective on how you consider your clients work tools. Again we don't need no more fancy functions we need improved working tools that are not deprecated on each new version because some geek prefer a new fun function than working hard to improve some old code that everybody needs

Sorry no you don't help and make me more even angry not being understand by the one that should support me as your client...