Configurator

Adobe has released Configurator, the cool little app that lets you make custom panels for Photoshop CS4. After downloading it from Adobe Labs (and AIR if you need it), launch the program and you'll see its simple interface.

Choose the size of your panel, its name, and start dragging over the tools and commands you want in your panel.

Save your working panel (in case you need to change anything about it later.

Next you Export the panel into the Panels folder inside the Photoshop CS4 applications folder (Configurator should automatically direct you to the correct folder).

Restart Photoshop, go to the Window menu, to Extensions and choose your panel. Here I positioned it and made a workspace that showed only my panel and the Layers panel.

These custom panels (often referred to as Flash panels since they're based on Flash technology) can also include scripts, video and more. While it will be interesting to see what people develop, I think it has great possibilities for us an individual users: to create panels that contain what we want to be in a panel. Pretty sweet!

[read more about Configurator and see some examples at John Nack's blog]
[NAPP members, look for a video this week on the members site that shows these steps]