? about actions in CS3

it's probably a silly question, but I have to ask..

When I pull out my actions pallete.. there are little boxes to the left of the action's name. Some of these boxes are red, some are grey and some have neither a red or grey icon next to the name. What does all of this mean?? Should they all be red, all be grey? Also, are the check marks next to these boxes necessary? I was playing around with it yesterday but I'm afraid of screwing something up :blink: Thanks for the help

If there is nothing checked, the action will just run as soon as you press the play button.

The red and grey things let you change the settings if you want, as the action runs. It slows it down and shows you each individual step of the action, and you can make changes before going to the next step.

You can't screw anything up by changing the boxes

Thanks Col!! That makes a lot of sense

The check marks indicate that step of the action is active, if you unmark the check, the action will skip that step when it runs (so unmarking steps could make a significant impact on how the action runs). Like Col mentioned, the other boxes indicate whether that step is interactive giving you the chance to change the settings (for example, the amount of sharpening on an USM action) vs. using the exact settings that the action was written with. The top box next to the action name will make the entire action interactive or not, while the boxes next to each step control individual commands. HTH!

Good point Sheri! I only mess with the top box, not with the individual steps, so I forgot about that.