I wasn't aware that you could save process icons
Whenever you have a process dialogue open, instead of dragging the little blue <New Instance> triangle (the one next to the little blue <Apply (F5)> square) over to your 'target image', drag it to a clear area on your Workspace.
What you will see is a 'ProcessIcon' appearing on the Workspace - and the actual 'graphic icon' will be unique for the process that you have been working with. Look closely at the icon, and on the right-hand side of the automatically-generated 'process name', you will see a tiny letter 'N' and what looks like a 'D' (but which is, in fact, a small square with the top-right corner 'folded over'). Hover over each of these tiny icon 'targets' and you will see tooltips that state "Rename" and "View Info" respectively
Click the <Rename> 'button' and you can change the automatically created name into something more useful - but you MUST start with a non-numeric 'letter', and the name cannot contain spaces or punctuation. This means that you will, inevitably, end up using the oft-despised (for no real reason
) CamelCase_and_UnderScore_123 system of naming the ProcessIcon. And, just before you click <OK> for the New Identifier, perform a quick <Ctrl-A> and <Ctrl-C> to copy and paste your newly created name into the clipboard. You'll see why I do this in a moment.
Now click the <View Info> button, and use the free-form text box to enter any details about, for example, 'why' you have used this process at this stage, and maybe even 'why' you have set the parameters the way that you did. You can even record on what image the process was intended to be used. Or, you can just miss this step out entirely - the space is there for you to use, if you need to. And there aren't the CamelCase restrictions imposed earlier.
Now, having quickly single-clicked on a clear area of Workspace (to actually 'deselect' ALL items), you can then right-click on the main body of the process icon once more, and - if you feel that you need to - you can choose to <Save Selected Icons...>. This will allow you to save that particular icon to an HDD destination of your choice and, when prompted for a filename, you can just use <Ctrl-V> to 'paste' in the actual name that you gave to the process icon earlier (remember, you copied it to the clipbard, above).
One thing to be aware of, if you ever choose to reload the icon from the HDD, it will be returned to the Workspace that it came from, and will be placed at the (x,y) coordinate that you had 'parked it at'. This is a good reason to make use of the 'protected column' that is normally available on the PI Workspaces - as a little 'storage bin' if you like. You also have to remember to 'merge' icons when reloading from HDD - otherwise the new process icon (or group of icons) will REPLACE all existing icons - which is a bit
and sometimes even
and often
You can also create a Workspace ProcessIcon by opening the History Explorer, selecting an image to inspect, and - if there is a process history associated with that image - you can drag ANY of the listed steps over to the Workspace, where a new icon will automagically appear!
And, from the History Explorer window, if you drag the little blue cube (shown at 'Stage 0' in the History) over to the Workspace, you will create a ProcessContainer icon - which can be handled just like any other ProcessIcon, except that this 'contains' (or, at least, it 'can' contain) a whole suite of individual process steps, as extracted from the processing history associated with that image, in the order that they were applied to that image. And all the steps described above are equally as applicable to this icon as well (renaming, saving, loading, etc.)
And, very briefly, whilst on the subject of the ProcessContainer - it can be thought of just like a 'bucket'. You can put new processes in, and take existing processes out. It can be filled from the History Explorer, it can be added to by dragging over a Workspace ProcessIcon, or it can be added to by dragging over the little blue <Apply> triangle from an open Process GUI. You can even use the Process Container to help 'create' some basic (in fact, quite sophisticated) PixInsight Java Script (PJSR) code - but that is a whole new topic
One thing though - you only actually have one 'bucket' that you can 'carry' at any one time. If you, for example, relaunch a stored ProcessContainer icon (say, from the Workspace) then you will receive a warning that "You are about to replace the Process Container contents", and that this cannot be undone. Don't worry. Click <NO> and then just save a copy of the existing ProcessContainer contents - as a Workspace ProcessIcon, of course
. But, this is where you have to start getting 'clever' with your 'icon renaming', otherwise you might have a bunch of similar-looking icons all over the Workspace, and you might not really have any idea what they were all about.
I think that the whole concept of ProcessIcons is one of the STRONGEST features of PixInsight - and it is unique in this field (as far as I am aware).
Once Juan develops the notion of a PixInsight saveable and reloadable 'ProjectSpace' as well, then a well-organised approach to creating, using, naming and storing Process Icons will become essential.
