These discussions need a very good noise filter though, very hard to spot points to think about 
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I’ve been reflecting about what bugs me about the DT UI. One thing that comes to mind is that when I open an image that has been edited, I see a stack of module names, but no details of what has been done. I don’t see an overview of the editing. Of course that would be quite difficult, because if each module were open, the list of sliders would take up a lot of screen real estate and you still wouldn’t see an overview, so maybe there is no solution without a serious reworking. And I’m sure anyway that the long time users are happy with it as it is.
Somewhat related, when I open an image for the first time, if I know exactly what I want to do, I can do it, by selecting the required modules and making the appropriate adjustments. But if I’m not sure what I want to do, it’s actually quite hard to play with the modules and parameters to get a feeling of what I like. A quick example - if I have the idea that I want to open up the shadows, maybe I open up Tone Equaliser. But before I begin I need to adjust the mask and it’s not a one click operation. The UI does not make this sort of exploration easy.
So I don’t have a solution, or an actionable piece of code - just some thoughts, to consider or dismiss, as you wish.
Do you mean which sliders within the active modules have been changed? I have no idea about lua script, but our edits are in the xmp and database. Maybe a script could read that? But how would it be presented in “human-readable” form? Probably best to just open the Active Modules tab and check them out one-by one.
Just thinking out-loud.
Is the history stack not what you’re looking for? You can hover over each entry in the stack to see the details of what changes were made. You can take a snapshot of any point in the stack to compare against other entries before and after.
If you’re just exploring possibilities you could use a simpler tool like color balance rgb and just bump the shadows brightness up a bit. Personally I don’t find the few clicks it takes to get the tone equalizer mask set up too much of a hindrance, but I also don’t use that tool very much. If I was working on hundreds of images maybe I’d see it as a pain, but I’d probably not use tone equalizer as a generalist tool in that case.
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If you toggle the “active modules” group, it will show you a list of the active modules. This is quite nice overview IMO:
If you give meaningful names to your modules, that is even more informative. I generally do that, and I find it quite useful.
You can also use the duplicates panel to take notes about each photo:
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[quote="Thad_E_Ginathom, post:126, topic:58799]
Do you mean which sliders within the active modules have been changed? [/quote]
Yes, exactly.
That seems to be the only option. As @raublekick says, there is also the possibility to hover over the History Stack, but seeing that - for example - Dehaze is set to Distance 0.373 is not very intuitive
p.s. sorry, the format got messed up.
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What’s not intuitive about it? It’s telling you exactly what changed. I opened up the haze removal module and bumped up the distance.
Now the history stack shows that I changed the distance from 0.200 (the default) to 0.331.
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Aah - sorry - I don’t have a feeling for if 0.373 is a big bump in Dehaze, or a small one.
Maybe something that would be useful is that clicking an item in the history stack expands and focuses the corresponding module so you can see it directly.
But I also don’t think that looking at the slider itself would answer the question of if it’s an appropriate change either. Take something more measurable like the exposure module. If the history stack and the slider shows you that it’s a change from +0.700 to +2.500 that is a “big” change, but is it appropriate? Only looking at the image can tell you that.
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What exactly would you like to see? What would be more useful?
In the active modules, you see all the settings; at least for the sliders, you also see where those settings stand inside the slider’s range. With the history, you get modifications in that step. Can you describe what would be better, more helpful? We certainly won’t get an LLM to generate ‘in this image, you bumped up global exposure a bit, then added 1EV more on the red flower in the middle, applied sharpening and a touch of bloom’. I’m sure there’s a middle ground, but you’ll have to describe it.
Very understandable. I don’t think that many of us edit by numbers, even with sliders that have an EV scale, which is probably the most relatable unit to photographers. I sometimes wonder why the CB-RGB scales are all percentages. Percentage of what? I don’t care, I’m not about to try and script any of this for the command line! I just move the slider. I have some feeling for the visual slider line length, but, unless I want to repeat it, I don’t even look at the numberer.
I have one shell script that uses ImageMagic to reduce size and sharpen. The sharpen parameter is incomprehensible to me, I just copied it from some article. Whenever I try to adjust it, it baffles me. And I am used to Unix/Linux command line.
It seems like a good idea. But where? As the module was at that history instance? And playing in the history stack is dangerous, because, if it took you to a module, and you made a change… you just lost the rest of your edit above that point.
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Maybe as a first step I need to create a preset with module groups that deal with editing areas, such as “Tone”, “Colour”, “Details” - along the lines of PhotoLab. If such a group was small enough, then opening up the settings view could be manageable. How these would integrate into the whole “pixepipe” story you would know much better than me.
Sorry I don’t have an answer. I’m still trying to decide what my question is
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You can certainly do that and that might help you to get better accustomed to the workflow. I use a custom tab arrangement that’s limited to about a dozen of the core modules that I use. It’s very easy and uncluttered.
Not to pile on, but for all the complaining over the DT UI, there are so many positive aspects that escape the attention of the criticizers. A big one is the ability to organize the tabs as you suggested. Also, the working display is much higher fidelity at working view than other programs - even with high fidelity preview turned off. Not to pick on PhotoLab, but even at 100% view the display is noisy, low fidelity and unlike how it will export, which is why that have a small loupe to view parts of the image.
And the Photolab tabs have a permanent ad for their Filmpack in the tabs along with greyed out features that require you to buy that add in. These are things like luminosity masking and fine contrast - which are standard in most programs, including DT.
What I’m trying to say is that every program has its UI burbles, but they won’t be so terrible once you get a better feel for the DT modules.
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I’m sure, and I’m here to learn, not standing outside and saying it should be the same as Lightroom 
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I tried DaVinci Resolve photo and thought the same. The preview, even zoomed in looked low resolution. The tools also felt pretty poor compared to what is offered in darktable.
I want to try DxO Photolab because it’s European but it can’t be used with wine so I gave up.
The tabs are configurable UI elements and don’t influence the pipeline, if that’s what you are asking.
I understand that. I was really talking about the professional complainers residing in internet chat groups
I actually like Photolab quite a bit. That is the program that I would buy if I was in the market for a commercial editor. But it has its burbles like everything else.
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I use it with wine all the time. Can lead to some strange edits. Hic!!
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