Early Access

Background
Adobe has introduced a new plugin technology called UXP, which will eventually be the new standard. This new interface has nothing in common with the old panel technology (CEP) which threw all our current plans out of the window – we had to start over from scratch.
After spending more than a year working past all the hurdles along the way, we can now finally say we have working panels for UXP – and they are awesome. The new technology adds several features we couldn’t do before and it also uses a lot less memory.

Note about early-access
These early-access products are to be considered work in progress. It is backwards compatible with most of the base layout and commands of Panel Maker 3.0, but it is not a 1:1 perfect match.
The early-access price includes free updates and the full version of the same product – once it is released.
Once your purchase has been made, we will need to add the necessary access to your account. Please be patient and check your email for details. We might contact you if we have any questions.

FAQ

What is new?
The big update is (UXP) compatibility which makes your custom panels future proof. Adobe plans to discontinue the current (CEP) technology, and once they do you can no longer run Toolkit 3.0. We have spent several hundred hours on this new “framework” update, and it was not easy creating something as complex as Toolkit in a completely new interface – but we did it! Yay!

This new technology is not all bad, it uses significantly less memory, and with the rewrite we took the chance to make everything better and add a bunch of new features. The biggest one, is that you can control the look of the individual panels inside Photoshop. This includes how elements such as buttons look – flat, gradient, glossy. You can also control if you want rounded corners, how big the font-size and buttons should be (small, medium, large). It also follows your theme in Photoshop, so if you have a bright scheme the panel will also be bright.

Apple M1 and Rosetta
If you are on an Apple M1 or M2 processor, you probably already know that your custom Toolkit panels does not work unless you run Photoshop in emulation mode. This update fixes that.

Why early-access?
Since these panels are usually part of the Panel Maker bundle, we did not want to wait for the next version, and the release of Panel Maker 4.0. So we broke it up into two parts until it is ready. Since we always planned the full upgrade to be backwards compatible this added no extra work, and this way, we can get it in your hands right away.

Do I really need to update?
Well, that is up to you. Getting the early-access means you get the cheapest possible upgrade if you decide to not buy the whole bundle later. You also do not risk anything as the pricing of early-access will be discounted if you buy the whole Panel Maker 4.0.

If you buy early-access, you also help us greatly to get everything back where it should be by supporting the company. We have spent a lot of time not making money, so the pockets are empty. The more we get things back to normal, the faster we can accelerate the next steps of development.

We will not force anyone to update from our end. As long as Adobe supports the CEP technology, we will support all the 3.0 panels.

Why is this not free? I paid a lot of money for Toolkit 3.0!
We have spent several hundred hours on the new 4.0 version already. Because the whole framework and foundation in Photoshop changed, we had to start over. All our old work had to be thrown away. To put it bluntly, all this time needs to generate us some money if we are going to continue doing what we are doing.

We share your frustration, but please remember this is not our choice. Adobe forced this to happen.

If Toolkit was just a static panel without special components, it would not have taken very long, and then we would not have had to charge for it. Unfortunately this is not the case.

We basically had two options: 1. Abandon the customization and Panel Maker – this would have been far easier and we would have made much more money by adding new products instead of remaking the old. 2. Start over and recreate years of work in a framework that did not even support all the functionality we wanted. Even if it is a far worse option financially we went with #2.