modify atn due to different language

[SensationElle]

I have once more the problem, that an action in English doesn't run through because of the English layer names for copy (instead of German "Kopie") or layer (instead of "Ebene" etc. etc. 

I startet to re-record the parts where the action jumped to one of the layers the action could not found due to German name. It is a HUGE action and 3/4 trough replacing all the switches from one layer to another the action could not interpret a command and I could not figure out how to replicate this. 

Is there really no way to edit layer names within the action-panel? Or is there a program/script to make the .atn-file editable so I can search/replace the English names trough German names? I found several posts from 2010 and up with the same question - pitty that it is still not possible to run actions in ps no matter what language ps is used with.

I know I can switch the language temporarily from English to German so I could use the action, but I hope that's not the only work around 🙂 Hope someone can help so I can use the action (I bought) without any troubles.

[Stephen_A_Marsh · Accepted solution]

You can use xtools 2.3 script:

xtools / v2.3

ActionFileToXML.jsx

ActionFileFromXML.jsx

[SensationElle]

Nice, ty Stephen! You saved my day - resp. you saved me 3-5 days to try to record the wrong entries from an action with almost 8000 lines of code (yes... )

Obviously I am too stupid to install it though... I seem to be unable to find the right place on my Mac (Big Sur) to create the folder  "/Developer", because I keep getting the error "Unable to create folder: /Developer (access denied)" when I just leave the path the installation program suggests (/Developer/xtools).

I then chose a folder (with "browse") but I needed to edit a file to generate the XToolkit-atn-file - which isn't working with PS CC 2021. But I managed to convert the action I wanted to an xml-file, edit it and convert it back to a working atn-file 🙂

Still... there should be another way provided by Adobe. I mean... it translates the commands, but not the layer names. And there was one command PS did not understand after editing it as xml (I had to copy it from the original action which was a pain too lol).

Thank you so much! Glad you saw my post 😄

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

I don't install it as in the 2nd installation instructions, I use the 1st option in the installation instructions, as I am not using the library based scripts, just the stand-alone scripts.

[JJMack]

It would be better to try to re-record the action so layers are selected by relative position in the layer stack then by name. If you just want the edit a step and change the step from select copy to Kopie or layer to Ebene with the document open in Photoshop highlight the select layer copy step click the record button in the Document select the Kopie layer press the stop record button and then delete the select copy step leave the select Kopie step.  The Action palette is an editor as well as a player and recorder.

Crafting Actions Package UPDATED Aug 10, 2014 Added Conditional Action steps to Action Palette Tips.
Contains

• Action Actions Palette Tips.txt
• Action Creation Guidelines.txt
• Action Dealing with Image Size.txt
• Action Enhanced via Scripted Photoshop Functions.txt
• CraftedActions.atn Sample Action set includes an example Watermarking action
• Sample Actions.txt Photoshop CraftedActions set saved as a text file.
• More then a dozen Scripts for use in actions

Example

Download

[SensationElle]

Not really with an action with nearly 700 steps where you have almost every 2nd step something like "Layer 1" or "Hue/Saturation 1" or "Background" or "Background copy" etc. which is useless as a non-English user. And there are actually things in that action I could not find out how to re-record it... (like "make selection of: none") so I had to drag steps I could not figure out how to re-record from the original action to the new action.

Guess you agree with me that in this case the search/replace was way better than try re-record it 🙂