- [Instructor] In this movie, I'll show you four,
count them, four different ways to play back actions
here inside Illustrator and that will allow us
to use a different technique to play the action back
on each one of these four surfaces, right here.
So, I'll start off by selecting this guy
and I missed; I ended up selecting the big image
and that's because it's in front.
So, if you're working along with me
you just want to go ahead and lock down that image layer
and then I'll click again and this time
I go ahead and select the shape I'm looking for.
After which point I'll bring back the Actions panel
by clicking on this triangular, play icon
and notice that my action is twirled open
so that I'm seeing each and every step
and you can take a look at what each step does
by twirling it open but I'm more interested
in playing it back and so you might figure
you double-click on the action but that's going to bring back
up the Action Options dialogue box
which will allow you to rename the action,
if you want to, as well as change
the Function key and color.
I don't want to change any of that
so I'll just go ahead and click Cancel.
Instead, what you do is drop down to the play icon
at the bottom of the panel and so you can either
play a selected action or you can click on a step
in the action and play it and if you select
one of the later steps, you'll just play
from that point onward.
I want to play the entire action,
because otherwise it's not going to work.
So, I'll just go ahead and select the action itself
and click on the play button in order to play the thing
back and you can see that goes ahead
and adds a second fill in the form of a gradient
to that shape.
All right, here's another way to work.
I'll go ahead and select this shape, right here
and another option which can be very useful
if you're trying to troubleshoot an action
is to Control + Double-click.
That'd be a Command + Double-click.
Either on the action name or on a specific step.
For example, if I just want to see what this one's
doing, then I could Control + Double-Click on it
and that's going to play that step and move on to the next one.
Now, we're not seeing any kind of difference
in the Document window but we have actually
made a difference and you can see that if you switch over
to the Appearance panel, notice that I went ahead
and added a new fill and then if I Control + Double-Click
on this next step, I'll change the fill to a gradient;
Control + Double-Click on this guy.
Notice that we're always Control + Double-Clicking
or Command + Double-Clicking on the Mac
on the step that's active because after it plays back
then Illustrator automatically moves to the next step
and so by Control + Double-Clicking
or Command + Double-Clicking on each step
I can see exactly what it does which can be very useful
when you're playing back other people's actions
and you're trying to figure out how they put that action
together.
All right, here's a third way to work.
I'll go ahead and select the bottom if this block
and then I'll click on the fly-out menu icon
in the top, right corner of the Actions panel
and I'll choose this guy right here: Button Mode,
which is going to show you each and every one
of the actions represented as a button
and you can see, down here at the bottom,
that we've got an orange button because after all
I set the color for the action to orange
and that's the one that we recorded in the previous movie.
And so the Button Mode can be perfect
if you're trying to create actions for worker bees
whose job it is to play the actions back and that's it.
So, all I have to do to play the action
is just click on a button and it plays, like so.
So, it's absolute magic and unless that person
knows to click on the fly-out menu icon
and turn off Button Mode then you can rest assured
that they won't be modifying any of the steps.
Thing is: if you want to modify the steps
where you want to add new actions,
you need to turn Button Mode off.
So, Button Mode is strictly for playing actions
and nothing more.
All right, so, I'll go ahead and turn the command off
to switch back to the standard Actions panel
and I'll click on this final side, right here
and your last option is to press that Function key shortcut.
So, in my case, if I double-click on this action
to bring up the Action Options dialogue box
you can see that I applied Control + Shift + F2,
that might be Command + Shift + F2 on a Mac.
So, I'll just cancel that and press that shortcut:
Control + Shift + F2.
Again, that would translate to Command + Shift + F2
on a Mac and sure enough that goes ahead
and plays that action on that final side.
And so, there you have it: four different ways
to play back actions just so that, as always,
you know every, single options available to you.