Customizing the Standard Toolbar

Are you sick and tired of hunting through menu after menu looking for your favourite tool? Are you finding the new and improved, ultra-uber version of Paint Shop Pro that is known as PSP8 kind of well...um.....a little frustrating?! Well, look no more! This tutorial will show you how to place shortcuts to your favourite tools on the standard toolbar so they'll be where you know they ought to be - a place where you can find them in a hurry! (While I'm doing all this spruiking stuff, anyone out there in the market for a used car?! hee-hee).

Seriously, one thing that frustrated me no end when I first opened PSP8 was that things seemed to take a loooong time to find - especially when you were in a hurry. One thing in particular I miss from V7 is the View>Normal option which allows you to quickly get a resized image back to its normal size. So, one of the very first shortcuts I added was the Zoom to 100% tool. (Yeah, yeah, I know - it's still there under View>Zoom> but I don't like it there, so there! ;-)

This tutorial will show you how to place a shortcut for the Zoom to 100% tool (the V8 equivalent of "View Normal") but I want to point out that this method will work for whatever tool or preference you like. So, as we go through the tutorial you should be able to easily substitute what you want up there on the standard toolbar instead of the Zoom tool.

Note: This tutorial may be downloaded or printed out for personal use only. It must not, under any circumstances, be taken from this site in its entirety or in parts and passed around Yahoo or MSN Groups, re-posted on other websites or passed on to other individuals. Placing a link on your Group's site or your own site is fine, and passing links around is also fine. But links ONLY please, and remember to acknowledge that they are external links, otherwise many of your visitors will assume they are still on your site. There are logos available on my resources page if you wish to use one. Thank you for your co-operation.

As always, if you have any questions about this tut, or any comments or suggestions in general your feedback is always welcome. Just click on the link above to contact me.

1.  First of all, save your workspace in case you make a boo-boo ;-) That's easy, just go to File>Workspace>Save. It'll ask you to give it a name, just type in 'Myworkspace' or 'Faveworkspace' or whatever you like. O.k., below you'll see a 'naked' standard toolbar.....

2.  Go to View>Customize, OR right-click anywhere on either the toolbar or toolbox and click on 'Customize'. You should now see a dialogue similar to the one below. If it's not already showing, click on the Commands tab to bring it to the front. Now, scroll down the Categories list (on the left-hand side) until you see Tools. Click on this to highlight. (If you want to substitue your own shortcut for the Zoom tool, now is the time, so go hunting through the menu until you find exactly what feature you're looking for and highlight that instead).

3.  Now scroll down through the other list on the right-hand side (the Commands list) and click to highlight the Zoom tool (or your own choice, as shown below).

4.  Now comes the trickiest part of this tut...while the Zoom tool is still highlighted, drag it up onto the shortcut bar, to the exact left-hand side of the edge of the bar (see below where the arrow is pointing). If you drag it to the right-hand side of the edge, nothing will happen, because that ain't where the toolbar is :)

Be careful to drag the shortcut to the immediate left of the edge of the bar as the arrow shows.

Et voila! A successful transplant, Doctor!

Placing shortcuts on the standard toolbar is particularly useful for those tools that are hidden away in the fly-outs. You can have whole groups of tools up there if you like - in any combination or from any category. OK, so much for the Zoom Tool shorcut....what happens if I want to be even fussier?? I don't just want the Zoom tool on the shortcut bar, I want the Zoom to 100% tool on there. I'm so lazy, I can't even be bothered wading through the tiny little zoom menu!