In rather a number of software application one can find a ‘marketplace’: a place where users can download (sometime curated) extension / plugins / themes to extend or enhance the application but then created by community members (for free).
A good example of this is Visual Studio Code: on its marketplace one can find plugins for languages, themes, or extensions that extend the program.
Would such a marketplace be a nice feature for darktable? An UI within darktable where users can download: themes, lua scripts, dtpressets, (maybe) luts.
This is just an idea, and wondering what you think…
I like the idea, but it sounds like it adds some unnecessary complexity to Darktable IMO. A standalone website might be better? No idea, haven’t done anything like that
The added complexity is that darktable must be capable of installing those files. (the install functionality is already present for presets). The rest is just a simple viewer.
But the benefit is discoverabillity and user friendliness: yes I can easily create such a website, but then for the users and contributors they need to find it, download it install it (and how many questions are not on this forum: how do install a theme, or lua script etc). So this is about convenience and giving a platform to share.
A few months ago I had started a marketplace for themes (at http://darktable-css.danielepighin.net), because it seemed that there was a lot of demand for something like that. It was received very well on this forum, and a lot of people commented favorably. OTOH, there were literally 0 (zero) contributions to it. Draw your conclusions…
Well, I am often not so hasty in drawing conclusions. What is the reason that people did not contribute? Was it because they didn’t want to share? Something in the way that made sharing hard? Maybe a trust/privacy issue?
I think that there is a lot of asymmetry in the producer/consumer populations. A lot of people want to use themes etc. made by others, but very few are willing to contribute.
And those who would have something to contribute prefer to do it in a way that gives them more immediate visibility and sense of ownership. Even after I started hosting that website, people preferred to share their themes in this forum, or creating their own websites.
And that it is also why a marketplace inside darktable would be a much better place than just an website: the visibility! (I called it discoverability earlier)
Rather than users having to search the internet or this forum there is a central place to find themes etc…
I agree. The purpose of the website was exactly to gauge interest in such an initiative, a first-step to measure the opportunity to do something more principled. From my POV, the experiment has abundantly demonstrated that anything more complex or integrated (with the code bloat and maintenance burden that it would entail) is not worth pursuing.
To be fair and honest, I have considered uploading my theme to your website… I remember that I even asked how to do that… and then I saw: again an account at a random website: no thank you.
That is what hold me back… not the interest of sharing…
Yes, there would be code to maintain, but it wouldn’t be that bloated, and it wouldn’t interfere in any other part of darktable, so the risk is low…
Yes, I like the idea. In favour of the initiative is that I have started to realise that many nice presets or useful additions run the risk of being ‘forgotten’. Pixls.us goes on and on, and very soon posts become history. A separate category will prevent nice things from fading into oblivion.
Is that a problem with presets? I can see this issues with styles? But I have not problem whatsoever of using the styles and presets I created wit darktable 5.0 within 5.6…
Hi Daniele, despite frequently checking this website I was unaware of your efforts of a marketplace. I did download the styles from this forum made by @jssfr and some presets from this forum.
This sounds a good idea. We have a playraw category which is excellent for learning editing skills and a category for presets, styles etc would be good here as well.
I will add that DT has made it easy to add styles and presets with minimal effort.
@Terry I think that this really proves my point of visibility, if something like this would be accessible from darktable itself, it will very much increase people’s awareness of it… even for you as a very frequent pixls user, these efforts where not visible, so I still think that @Masterpiga ‘s conclusion might be premature
