v0.12.0-alpha: a Flux.2 (GGUF) preset, every listed preset finally runs, and a "does the .ccx installer actually work?" ask

[MehranMarxian]

Update, 2026-09: Eight releases later, the .ccx installer and every model-download question
from this post have moved forward — the installer's now the default download link and there's a
guided in-panel Setup tab. Full current state: see the v0.20.0-alpha announcement. The macOS
testing ask below is still open and still the single most useful report this project could get.

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v0.12.0-alpha is out: https://github.com/MehranMarxian/OpenLayer/releases/tag/v0.12.0-alpha

What's new:

• A Text to Image preset for the GGUF-quantized Flux.2-dev, built on ComfyUI's own shipped Flux.2 template and its advanced sampler chain. Experimental, and slow on a 12GB card by a wide margin — see the release notes for the reason.
• The two Flux1-dev presets that had been sitting in the panel since v0.2.2 without a working workflow are gone. Every preset the panel lists now actually runs — first time that's been true.
• Assisted install was meant to be the headline of this release and is withheld instead. Full reasoning is in the CHANGELOG's Known limitations — short version, ComfyUI-Manager's install endpoint only accepts models already in its own catalogue, and that catalogue covers 7 of the 16 files this project pins. For several of the 7 it would also fetch from a repository that answers 401 without a token, which would save an authentication page under the model's filename. It is switched off rather than patched.

The one thing I'd genuinely like help with: there is now a .ccx one-click installer attached to the release, added after the tag. In theory you double-click it and Creative Cloud installs the panel with no UXP Developer Tool at all. Nobody has ever confirmed that works — I only have machines that already have developer mode enabled, which is exactly the condition that makes the test meaningless.

If you have five spare minutes and a Photoshop install that has never had the developer tool on it, try it and say what happened: installed cleanly, silently did nothing, or an error worth quoting. Any of those three is a useful answer, and it is the single most valuable report this project could get right now. The five-minute path is here: https://mehran-ahmadi.com/OpenLayer/become-a-tester.html

As always: this is alpha, the zip plus the UXP Developer Tool remains the supported install path, and the Known limitations section in the CHANGELOG is not padding — worth reading before reporting a bug that might already be documented there.

[MehranMarxian]

Update, a few hours later: the .ccx works. Installing OpenLayer is now a double-click.

I asked above for someone with a clean Photoshop machine to test whether the one-click installer actually installs. That turned out to be the wrong question, and I could have answered it myself at any point in the last three releases.

.ccx files install through Adobe's Unified Plugin Installer Agent, not through the UXP Developer Tool. Developer mode only ever gated UDT loading unpackaged plugins — it never gated this path. So "I have the developer tool installed, therefore my machine can't answer this" was simply false, and it kept the artifact gated behind a tester who was never going to show up.

Verified on Windows 11 with Photoshop 2025 (26.1.0): double-click installs it, it registers as Enabled OpenLayer 0.12.0, it lands in the External plugins folder as a packaged install rather than a developer load, and the panel opens and works.

Two things that are expected rather than broken: Creative Cloud warns that the plugin is not verified by Adobe (it is unsigned and not from Exchange — click through), and the file has to be on the same drive as Photoshop or the installer won't find it. If double-clicking does nothing at all, that's a known Windows 11 quirk; UnifiedPluginInstallerAgent.exe /install <path> does it directly.

So the install story is now: download one file, double-click, open Photoshop. No developer tools. The release notes, README, and tester page have all been corrected.

What's actually still unverified is narrower: macOS, and any Photoshop version other than 2025. If you're on either, that report is the useful one now.