files and replace rules
( 
files). The first is via Drag and Drop of those files on to their
corresponding Textboxes:This software is published under a Creative Commons License, the Software is provided on an AS IS basis, without warranty of any kind. No Liability for Consequential Damages.
The ATN Action Translator-Windows is a tool for translating and adapting Photoshop actions in a way that they are localized and then do also run in other localized versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Some of the ATN Action Translator-Windows features are:
In order to use ATN Action Translator-Windows you must have must an actual installed Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2 on your computer. To install ATN Action Translator-Windows, just copy the contents of it's ZIP file into a directory of your choice. Where the AtnActionTranslator-Windows.exe file is the main ATN Action Translator-Windows file, which must be executed.
In the following table, <somedir> refers to an installation directory of your choice.
| File to copy | Target directory |
Contents of AtnActionTranslator.zip |
<somedir>/atn-actiontranslator/
|
To start the ATN Action Translator-Windows you can just do a double click on it's EXE file, afterwards the ATN Action Translator-Windows should appear and is ready to use.
To uninstall ATN Action Translator-indows just delete it's directory contents, the whole installation directory, where you copied the contents of the AtnActionTranslator.zip file in.
Since most people should be overall familiar with the usage of nowadays User Interfaces, the following just describes shortly some ATN Action Translator-Windows specific topics.
The ATN Action
Translator-Windows
offers two possibilities in order to select actions ( files and replace rules
(
files). The first is via Drag and Drop of those files on to their
corresponding Textboxes:
Or you can use instead the file selection buttons. In both cases a selection of the right files will be visually indicated through a changing of the icons and the beneath text field will then show the path of the selected file.
For the translation and adaptation of Photoshop Actions to local versions of Photoshop, you need translated and ordered according to word lists (eg for PS English -> German PS), which then can be used for the search and replace. Such an association could be considered roughly as a kind of rule, at least I have used this name for it in the ATN Action Translator-Windows [BTW ... cynics would say now because I could think of nothing better to ;-)].
For this purpose, the ATN Action Translator-Windows offers one small rule editor, that allows to define and use find and replace rules for the translation of Photoshop actions. By pressing the "Edit Rule ..." Button the following dialog opens...
...in it's table you can create appropriate search and replace texts and save them under a new rule file name, or load and modify already created rules again. Make just sure that the find / replace texts are always entered in pairs, ie to a search text, there must also be a corresponding replacement text, or in other words, an entire table row must be filled. Otherwise it may cause problems and errors later during the execution of rules at runtime. - In the table the column marked with # rows can be selected using check boxes and thus explicitly stated, which search/replace texts (ie the rows) have to be used during a translation process. Only the selected rows are used for an action in a translation process, those rows that are not marked will be ignored.
| [x] | searchstring1 | replacestring1 | (will be used) |
| [x] | searchstring2 | replacestring2 | (will be used) |
| [ ] | searchstring3 | replacestring3 | (will not be used) |
| [ ] | (will not be used) |
If you change or modify a rule inside the Rule Dialog don't forget to save that rule afterwards, since the Rule Editor doesn't save automatically any changed rules. You have to force the Rule Editor with "Save Rule" button to save any possibly changed rule. When saving a rule under a new file name and closing the Rule Dialog with the Ok button, also don't forget to reload that saved new rule file afterwards under the main window in order to use it.
IMPORTANT! It should be explicitly noted that the order of applying specific search/replace texts in rules is often very relevant and important for Photoshop actions. If you don't take care to this you will risk that text passages might be accidentally overwriten in actions (search texts have only been replaced almost half) and then later other search text can no longer correctly be found in the sequential execution of search/replace runs.
For example: one should first look for "Background copy" and replace it by "Hintergrund Kopie" before you are going to search for "background" and replace it with "Hintergrund". Otherwise in reverse order, ie when first searched for "Background" it will be replaced with "Hintergrund" and all potential matches of the "Background copy" text in an action would be replaced to "Hintergrund copy" text. This will then cause problems for a subsequent search after "Background copy" as text, since it could not be found and replaced anymore. The result would be that the translated Photoshop action does not work then!
| [x] | Background |
Hintergrund |
| [x] | Background copy | Hintergrund Kopie |
| [x] | Background copy | Hintergrund Kopie |
| [x] | Background | Hintergrund |
| [x] | Background |
Hintergrund |
| [x] | copy | Kopie |
CONCLUSION! One must act in the creation of rewrite rules very carefully, with foresight and make oneself clear, that these search and replace processes are always taking place one after the other. So in sum up keep in mind, that the executed search/replace processes do run like a queue through the entire Photoshop action one after the other.
Rule files are common text files in the UTF-8 encoding, where every single rule is defined as one text line with three semicolon separated entries, namely a 1 or 0 bool flag used as an indicator for true/false here, a searchstring and a replacestring. Every rule line is terminated by one line ending, just like common text lines.
| true | false |
; |
Searchtext | ; |
Replacetext |
; |
<nl> |
1.) If you change or modify a rule inside the Rule Dialog don't forget to save that rule afterwards, since the Rule Editor doesn't save automatically any changed rules. You have to force the Rule Editor with "Save Rule" button to save any possibly changed rule. When saving a rule under a new file name and closing the Rule Dialog with the Ok button, also don't forget to reload that saved new rule file afterwards under the main windowin order to use it.
2.) The find/replace entries in the table of the rule editor must be paired, they are used for translation at run time, but currently not validated by the program logic for pairing. I.e. here the user must provide on their own responsibility, that there is no marked column of a selected table row which does have no entry! Always remember that those lines you want to use for the translation process must be marked (enabled via it's checkboxes) and should have paired entries!
3.) There should be no blank marked lines in a rule of the rule editor, since when saved and loaded as a rule file those marked (enabled) blank lines would otherwise be used for compilation and they are currently not caught at run time.
The ATN Action Translator-Windows version is C#-based and has been tested with the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2 running under Windows 10 on a x64 machine. This version might not work with earlier Microsoft .Net Framework versions.
In order to work correctly, user must have an installed "Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2".
If you have problems with the installation of the ATN Action Translator-Windows or support questions, you are welcome to send an e-mail (see the below e-mail address) to KyrSoft.
If you believe that you have encountered a bug in the operation of the ATN Action Translator-Windows or have a suggestion for an improvement that will be of use to many others, please send an e-mail to: info@kyrsoft.com.