3 Replies Latest reply: Nov 7, 2014 10:41 AM by sigtm RSS

    Changes in .psb files don't propagate through other .psb files. Ideas/insight?

    sigtm Community Member

      Someone has asked this before, but about embedded smart objects so I'm wondering if any other designers or Adobe staff can share any insights about linked Smart Objects.

       

      It would be an extremely powerful feature if I could structure a UI something like this:

       

      • some-ui-view.psd
        • menu-button.psb
          • menu-icon.psb
          • button-bg.psb

       

      This would allow me to change all button backgrounds by just changing button-bg.psb. The problem is that currently I still have to open every x-button.psb file to update the contents of the linked button-bg.psb file, and then do the same for my top level .psd files that use those buttons.

       

      I can understand that nested .psb files are tricky, but I would love to know if there is any hope of this kind of structure being more dynamic in the future – it would save my team literally days of work over the course of a project as we iterate over various aspects of a UI and need to build new views based on existing elements.

       

      Libraries could have offered a fantastic workaround if they simply updated Smart Object contents automatically when adding them to my document. That way I could have a Menu Button item in my library, and button-bg.psb would no longer be a nested smart object in my .psd – all I need is for Photoshop to make sure the .psb link is refreshed when it is placed. Anyone know why this isn't the case, or have any ideas for a workflow that achieves something similar?