There is no next level. You choose which level you want to see : 1. Beginner 2. Intermediate 3. Expert…
But…but… it isn’t April 1st.
The favourites tab is quite a good start. With three improvements I believe it could become more useful for beginners.
- Select a number of basic tools placed in the favourites by default
- Enable loading of preset favourites and supply a few simple task oriented ones out of the box.
- Use the tab icons as separators so that you can find where the tool belongs in the full ui.
This would change favourites conceptually into more like workspaces in other complex software.
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I think it’s important to be able to find the tool in the full UI, but I don’t understand what you mean by using the tab icons as separators. Can you elaborate on that?
I was thinking like headings basically. It would limit the flexibility in arranging the tools on the favourites as they would be grouped by tab but there’s always a flexibility vs simplicity trade off to make. I tend to favour simplicity.
Not that intuitive but good to know, and it works.
Some software has a switch to advance functionality. But I think it’s good to see what’s there from the beginning. Eventually you know where something is. And frankly, the RT menu ain’t THAT complex and I find it already pretty well structures.
Back my my initial complaint: After first start the all menus expanded view sux. For beginners it’s a information overdose, for people that know RT it’s an annoyance, and my very first step is always to collapse all menus.
It’s not really RT software related, but what I like to see is some modest functions explained on examples that are designed for people that just want to edit their images and have not much interest in the deeper RT software structure or the physics of bayer sensor. For me, only the image counts.
As someone said at some point in time…Wait, what? It was @paperdigits earlier in this thread?
The ecosystem is stronger if everyone contributes to it.
At the same time, your point about those that want to just edit their images without digging into the guts or RT (or any other photography-related app) is important. Not everyone is here for the math. Explanations that describe what happens visually when a tool is used are going to resonate with a wider audience than explanations that depend on the internal logic of that tool.
And yet, by experience I can say it’s not easy at all explaining things visually for people that doesn’t give a damn about how the program works internally and why it does it that way, and at the same time for those who love/want/need to know why it does what it does.
In other words: it’s difficult to satisfy the recipe people needs, and at the same time those who wish deeper explanations. Documentation tends to be longer, needs a lot of images or screen captures, and somebody who knows what everybody wants (that is, a user willing to help other users).
Yes, it has to be done, but it’s absolutely necessary more people helping with the documentation: the more, the merrier. If you’re one of those, write @Morgan_Hardwood and explain him what you’re able and willing to do.
I hope I am not derailing this topic too much (be gentle it’s my second post here). I did use the search function before I hit reply 
This discussion touches a lot of questions regarding UI- and UX-design. Using the search, I only found very brief mentions of how the UI for certain modules was improved, but not more. This reminds me a lot of the software I am/was working with in my lab at uni. UI and UX always were an afterthought in our lab. From my POV RT and DT have quite okay interfaces, but striving for a better interface can imho not be relegated to having a better documentation. I am very much pro better documentation. But also pro better UI and UX.
Of course people can for example code without syntax higlighting and weird non-monospaced fonts. But it just gets your job done faster if you have those UI/UX improvements.
Many of these design choices are not opinion driven, but based on non-arbitrary design rules. Reading through the above I had the impression that people think that this is down to designer taste.
Not overwhelming the user with choices can make everyones workflow faster. Especially with software with a huge amount of parameters. A good UI/UX does not mean catering for the beginner per se.
It is interesting that even collapsing-almost-all-modules sparks a discussion of whether this should be done or not.
Good UI/UX comments with a lot of food for thought can be had in these two videos:
https://youtu.be/7PFRyONURSo
https://youtu.be/dKx1wnXClcI
Both dealing with highly complex software and how Interface Design helps professionals as well as beginners. And they are funny. Much less funny is this short blogpost.
https://theblog.adobe.com/4-golden-rules-ui-design/
tl;dr:
I want FOSS to blossom more. It can be done with better UI/UX-Design principles. It’s not rocket surgery. It will help most users.
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Hmm some rather prominent OG coders argue against you both in regards to syntax highlighting and mono spaced fonts! Rob Pike for instance.
I think most Foss apps fail in the “reduce cogntivie load” in that tools in both RawTherapee and Darktable have a lot of sliders and the algorithms are much closer to the research papers rather than phone app simplicity. This is on purpose, I think.
Take for example the Clarity slider in Lightroom vs the Equalizer module in darktabe, and the Wavelets tool in RawTherapee.
One slider in LightRoom
Three euqliazers in darktable.
Lots of sliders in RawTherapee.
I had to look Rob Pike up. His argument seems to be that visual helpers are childish and, maybe, that childish thinking leads to less good code?! I hope I am not misrepresenting his argument. The first half of his argument is a stretch I think which cognitive studies could disprove I think. I see his concerns for the second half. What do you think?
I am not against having access to parameters. I want this, this is why I use DT and RT!!
I am thinking about a hierarchy of parameter prominence in the UI.
We’re going ot here so lets keep it short. The arguments I remember from a long time ago. Was that it’s good practice to read and write code more like prose. That it will make your code better, collectively and individually. Highlighting actually harms reading and writing. I’m not a programmer though so blame Rob not me! 
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I think you have hit the nail on the head here @Morgan_Hardwood. If there is an appetite for simplification then setting some of the fine adjustment sliders to their default values and masking them would be a good approach.
The idea that RT should be simplified seems to imply for some that it should be dumbed down and getting any consensus could be difficult. Perhaps another approach would be to think of a cut-down version that would serve also as a GIMP plugin, similar to ACR & Lr?
Just my two cents about this discussion, more on a meta-level, as usual feel free to ignore:
I think the main point is that high-level proposals may be interesting to discuss, but unless there’s someone that’s actually committed to implementing such a GUI-overhaul and is looking for a consensus on how to approach it, that’s a somewhat futile effort. That’s different from concrete, scope-limited proposals for improvement. I can’t speak for Rawtherapee devs, but in “my” open source project I tend to implement such proposals if they convince me. Even though I (as many others) try to not touch the UI unless I have to (i.e. that fancy (or not so fancy) new feature I wanted and coded requires a knob in the UI). So far I didn’t read about any such committment and from those that I know/“suspect” to be RT devs (sorry for not knowing) I got the vibe of not being generally opposed to proposals for improvements in the UI, but not having an interest in doing a bigger overhaul of the UI.
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Newbie here; I am not only new to Raw Therapee but also new to Linux and no I am not a programmer. Just a guy that enjoys his Nikon D500 and I like the way Raw Therapee opens much better than DarkTable and am looking forward to learning my way around. One more thing stuff should not be an major event just to find the control like it is on some programs.
Thanks for letting me join this site.
Great! That would be the first step from GUI to the AIUI - Artificial Intelligence UI era. The last step would be the message “You are not worth of me!”, then the RT removal would follow. Without any possibility to download within next 6 months.
Work on the artificially intelligent user interface will soon be underway - I’m just closing a deal with Huawei.
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