Edit a Script in Paint Shop Pro 9

What can you do when the script you use on an image doesn't have quite the effect you want to achieve? Recording a new script when the existing one is just a little different from what you need seems a waste of time. If you know how to edit scripts you can just modify it to fit your needs.

You have two methods to choose from when editing, using Paint Shop Pro's built-in Script Editor or using a regular text editor. The built-in is easier, at least at first, so this article will focus on it.

Choose the script you want to edit and hit the Edit Selected Script button. This brings up the Script Editor dialog box which lists the actions in the script and some basic information like the author and copyright if available.

The first column of the editor contains check boxes - they allow you to choose to use or omit parts of the script. This is useful for testing parts of a script without deleting commands.

The second column contains the command mode, with a dropdown used to set the mode for the script's actions. Generally, when a script is recorded from Paint Shop Pro actions the command modes will be set to Default. Any script commands set to run in either Silent or Interactive mode will override the user's toggling of the Interactive Script Playback button. Any script commands set to run in Default mode will be overridden by the user toggling the Interactive Script Playback button.

Here are quick explanations of the three different modes:

Default - This will execute the command based on the current setting of the Interactive Script Playback Mode. If it is set to Silent all the dialog boxes are skipped, if set to Interactive the dialog boxes are displayed.

Silent - This will skip all the dialog boxes.

Interactive - This will display all the dialog boxes which allow the user to interact with the settings.

The third column contains the actual commands in the script. Commands which are italicized and marked not editable cannot be selected for editing. To modify the settings which aren't italicized, select the command and then hit the Edit button below the Script Commands box. A dialog box appears with the settings used when the script was recorded. To delete a command from the script, select the command and hit the Delete button. When you are finished hit Save As, and add a 1 or something to the script name to differentiate between the original and your edited version. Then hit Close.

And that's all there is to it. You can now edit a script in Paint Shop Pro 9 using the built-in script editor. Make small or radical changes to scripts to achieve all sorts of image effects.