Viewing Actions and Their Commands
You can view actions in the Actions palette in two ways: Button mode and Command mode. Each mode gives different access to actions and the commands contained within an action. Button mode is the simplest, displaying each action as a button, while Command mode displays all the commands within an action.
Button mode
Button mode hides all the commands within an action and also hides the record/playback buttons located at the bottom of the Actions palette when the menu is viewed in Command mode. Button mode displays each action as a button, as shown in Figure 8-2.

Figure 8-2: When the Actions palette displays in Button mode, just click a button to play an action.
To play the action, just click the button. To view the Actions palette in Button mode, open the Actions palette menu and choose Button mode.
Command mode
While giving access to an action set so that you can select and play it, Command mode also lets you view and manipulate the commands within an action, and gives access to the record/playback buttons at the bottom of the Actions palette. By default, the Actions palette displays in Command mode. If your Actions palette is displayed in Button mode and you want to switch to Command mode, make sure Button mode is unselected on the Actions palette menu. Figure 8-3 shows the Actions palette displayed in Command mode.

Figure 8-3: Command mode gives access to all the commands within an action.
To work with the commands in an action, you need to view them. To do so, click the tiny right-pointing arrow next to an action. The action expands, showing the commands contained within the action in a nested fashion.Using Command mode, you can set how much of an action plays back. If a command is within an action that you don’t want to use, remove the check mark from the left-most column next to the command. Also, if you don’t want to play an action from the beginning but want to start with a command within the action, highlight the command within the action, and then click Play. The action plays from the selected command to its end.