Was the Zone System module removed in dt release 3.4.0? I recently started using the module in the last version of darktable, but I cannot seem to find it now (even using the search module function). It is still in the 3.4.0 user manual (Section 3.4.2.10), was it renamed or am I missing something?
There is a modules:deprecated group that contains the zone system module. Otherwise it is deprocated.
Itās marked as deprecated in the new user manual darktable 3.4 user manual - zone system (deprecated)
Thank you for the quick answer! I will use the Tone Equalizer or parametric masks to affect the same changes then. I will note that the 3.4.0 dt PDF version of the user manual does not seem to have the same (deprecated) notices beside the modules that the online version has.
There are two versions of the manual running together at the moment. The old one has reached end of life. The link Iāve provided is the new version and there is a pdf of it available: https://www.darktable.org/usermanual/en/darktable_user_manual.pdf
I am new to darktable. But I have used and teached lightroom, photoshop ao for many years. And i like many things in darktable - and would like to teach students DT as an alternative- adobe is annoying - and expensive (and now bying is not possible anymore)
Having teached photographers the zone system on reg. film I do like the module. It is not āreallyā zone system, but it works well.
It much better than the replacements!
I have searched for an explanation - no luck.
Please send a link to a the discussion tread where the decision is made.
Better still - fix the problems with the module;) It has potential!
Tried to get the new manual, hereās what came up.
What URL are you trying? It works for me
Btw, you might want to have https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/ redirect to the latest one a la https://docs.darktable.org/lua/ instead of throwing a 403?
Perhaps, though there have been a few iterations of the URL structure as weāve been finalising the new manual so thereās a danger of polluting the server with a lot of redirects for old links. @darix what do you think?
On a nutshell, it canāt handle the āunlimitedā dynamic range of the new workflow in DT, and the ātone equalizerā can do what the zones module did.
If you agree or not is not what I want to go into (done so many times) but this is the gist of it Iād i scan through the links you gave.
Basically these older modules clip data so you loose the potential of all other modules , and they have a tendency ro cause hue shifts or have other things wrong in the algorithm , that the more modern modules try so hard to prevent.
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Besides clipping the input data, they also clip the output data. So they can cause loss of detail in highlights and shadows, if used carelessly.
That said, good edits were produced with the display-referred modules as well. So thereās no reason to immediately throw away all old edits, especially as the deprecated modules are still carried along specifically to handle older edits. The removed modules are just no longer available throught the GUI for new edits.
so for links 3 and 5 I would say posting random links and expect them to work is not a good idea 
for the the plain https://docs.darktable.org/lua/ it already works.
https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/ now does work as well.
not sure i how to make https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/{lang}/{path} work.
https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/stable/ now points to 3.8. cant we edit links 3 and 5 to point to https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/stable/ ?
They worked fine when I posted them last year 
Iād rather not have to go through all my old posts and update links to olde worlde versions of the manuals.
I would prefer if usermanual/3.8 redirected to usermanual/stable (the other way round than you have put it). The reason being that the help links from darktable (which contain the version number in them) will show /stable as the url from the latest version (meaning that saved/posted links will always point to the latest). The user then only needs to see the version number in the URL if they are running an old version.
Basically if you do it the way you have suggested nobody will ever see /stable in their url so they will never post links using that url (theyāll just copy from the address bar).
If i would do that ā¦ then as soon as 3.10 is out ā¦ those links would suddenly point to the wrong version. the main reason is that āstable docsā is a link for users and all the links inside the app should point to the versioned url. that way nothing will break.
Fixed. doc links from www.darktable.org now go to the stable url.
curl -sS -L -I https://www.darktable.org/usermanual/en/darktable_user_manual.pdf | grep '^location'
location: https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/stable/en/darktable_user_manual.pdf
location: https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/3.8/en/darktable_user_manual.pdf