Know what a version is without opening it — introducing REFLO’s change summaries

“What’s different between this version and that one?”

That’s the question we ran into most while building REFLO. Having versions stack densely on the timeline was good. Then, the moment there were twenty dots, thirty dots, a new problem appeared. Every single dot was anonymous. Which dot was “the moment I changed the logo color,” and which was “the moment I fixed a typo,” you couldn’t tell from the outside at all.

So we made this. Today I’m introducing REFLO’s change summaries.

This is how we used to work

Open a designer’s folder and you’ll find files like these.

draft_final.psd
draft_final_revised.psd
draft_final_revised2_really_final.psd

Those filenames are really traces of a tearful effort. An effort to remember by hand what state this file was in. But after only a week, nobody remembers what the difference was between revised2 and really_final. In the end you have to open them one by one and look. On a large PSD, opening a single file can take tens of seconds — open three or four and ten minutes are gone.

REFLO’s timeline did away with filename hell, but at first the same problem stayed, just in a different shape. Versions stacked automatically, and what each version actually changed you still had to open to know. No matter how well you leave a record, if you can’t read the record it’s only half done.

What change summaries do

A change summary attaches a one-line English description of what changed in that save next to each version on the timeline. Sentences like these show up on the actual screen.

• 「Text change · Spring sale → Summer sale」
• 「Layer added · Background gradient」
• 「Color change · Button · #ff5a3c → #2f6bff」
• 「Font added · Pretendard」
• 「Linked asset added · hero_photo.jpg」

Now scrolling the timeline is enough to read a day’s work as sentences. “Ah, around 3 p.m. I changed the copy, and at 4 I overhauled the button color.” You don’t have to wonder which version to open. The moment you’re looking for is already visible as a sentence.

If you changed several things at once, they’re grouped like 「Text + color change」, and you can check the details item by item in the inspector’s Change summary section.

How does it know?

You may wonder, “How do you know what changed if you didn’t even open the file?” Change summaries use three layers of information, in order.

1. Changes the plugin saw directly. If you have the REFLO panel (plugin) installed in Photoshop, at the moment of save the panel asks Photoshop directly “what changed in this document right now.” That’s the most accurate primary source.

2. Clues recorded at save time. When it leaves a version, REFLO also writes down key clues inside the file — text fragments, layer structure, fonts used, linked assets.

3. Inference by comparing with the neighboring version. Even without a change seen directly, it lines up this version’s clues next to the previous version’s. If text that was there is gone and new text appeared, it reads 「Text change · A → B」; if a layer that wasn’t there appeared, 「Layer added」.

Of course some versions have all three layers empty. Then, instead of inventing a lie, we show only what’s certain — a size change like 「Size +2.3 MB (+12%)」, or 「This is the first save」 for a first version. If analysis is still running, we say so honestly: 「Analyzing changes…」.

Why we went this far

The purpose was one thing from the start. To eliminate “the time it takes to find the moment to undo to.”

There are plenty of backup tools. Most of them only give you a time coordinate like “a few days ago at such-and-such o’clock.” The problem is that isn’t how people remember time. We don’t remember “Tuesday at 4:12 p.m.” We remember “before I changed the button color.” Change summaries turn the timeline’s coordinates from time into events. So you can find the record the way people actually remember.

And this direction has one principle. Ask the designer for nothing. We don’t ask you to write a commit message, or leave a note every time you save. That’s developer culture, not designer culture. Change summaries are fully automatic. You just press ⌘S the way you always do.

We’ll say the limits as they are today, too

Better to write this honestly.

• The richest summaries come from the Photoshop + REFLO panel combination. Versions saved without the panel rely on clue-based inference, so the summary can be simpler.
• Inference is inference. It doesn’t catch every change inside the file, and versions short on clues may show only a size change.
• How deep we can read differs by format. PSD is the deepest; other formats are still shallower.

So I won’t claim that “every version gets a perfect description.” What is certain: every extra version that gets a summary is one fewer time you have to open a file to check.

Where we’re headed

Change summaries are one of the features we’ll keep developing longest in REFLO. Here’s the direction we’re thinking about.

To more formats. Right now it runs deepest on Photoshop-family files. Attaching the same level of summary to other design formats, including Illustrator, and to document formats, is the next step.

In more human language. 「Text change · A → B」 is accurate, but where we ultimately want to go is a summary where the intent is readable, like “Replaced the main copy with summer-sale wording.” From a list of items, to a sentence, to a story.

Together with search. Typing “the version where the button was blue” into the search box and getting that version — the more change summaries stack, the more search becomes content search, not time search. We plan to bind timeline search and change summaries more deeply.

Connected to comparison modes. We’re also preparing a flow where tapping an item you’re curious about in a summary opens a comparison screen of before and after for that part. From “what changed” to “how it changed,” in one go.

Closing

I believe a work record is truly useful only if two things are true. It stacks without gaps, and it can be read. If the timeline owns the first, change summaries own the second.

So your work history isn’t anonymous dots, but sentences you can read without opening them — we’ll keep refining this one line.

Change summaries run automatically on the timeline and in the inspector, with no extra settings. If the timeline is new to you, start with the timeline guide; if you want to see the difference between two versions with your own eyes, read introducing comparison modes as well.