just want to say first that I’m starting out my long journey with darktable and so far has been wonderful.
Trying to migrate from Lightroom into darktable but it is a big learning curve has most of the things have different names and positions relatively to LR but the results turn out really good.
One thing I noticed is that the sliders seem a little too small and most of the time I miss them with the mouse and have to try and grab them way too many times, so after a while using the darktable it start to be a little bit annoying to use.
As up today I’m using 2.4.0rc2 so I do not know if this was address already or not and since I could not download the new mac version has it seems there is no dmg available at the moment I cannot tell so I’m sorry if this was already addressed.
Also with this small it’s almost impossible to work with darktable on a 13’’ laptop has it’s almost a miss on them because they are so small and the trackpad is not a very precise tool too.
I’m posting here some examples from other software sliders that could be replaced for the already small ones in darktable.
Apple Photos
Capture One
ON1 Photo Raw 2018
easyHDR
and the darktable one
I believe this would be such a small change that would bring a great impact for positive on all of us users.
Also do not know if this is the right place to post this as I made a mock up (explaining what I would change if I knew how) for a better screen on dartable/darkroom panel that I think would also make it more cleaner and better user friendly.
If you hover your mouse cursor over the slider, you can use the arrow keys to adjust the value (coarse) and Ctrl + arrow keys (fine). Maybe that’ll help for now?
Whyyyy?! Why does everyone tries to grab it and move?
Does no other program implement scrolling of the sliders with mouse scroll wheel?
Also, did you discover the right-click, and that you can move then with arrow keys (and modifiers can change the step)?
Thank you for the quick reply. Doesn’t you think it’s a little bit odd to click with the mouse and then use the keys to choose a setting? Why use the keys if you already have clicked it, the less time you spend editing the more time you have to shoot. But thank’s for the reply. In lightroom I do not even touch the keyboard has I have a controller for setting things up so the less steps the better, my opinion though.
I understand what you’re saying, but my problem with scrolling on mac with the middle touch sensitive is that the values go way out of reach and cannot get a precise 0.1 up or dow they simply move/up and down erratically making it impossible to have the same value up or down every time I use the touch scroll wheel of the magic mouse on the mac and since the refresh do not happen continuously this is causing a delay every time I move up or down.
That right-click thing is phenomenal, thanks for pointing that out. I’m still such a nub on this darktable that I did not dig everything yet, thanks for pointing that out, just awesome feature that is.
Thanks afre, I just wish the values at least would make any sense in terms of camera stops instead of just giving us -0.1000 to 0.1000. I do understand that this method is more precise in terms of small adjustments but it lacks the readability of having just -5 and +5 in a scale meaning 5 camera stops up and 5 down on some settings.
Try use the right-click option mentioned, very neat concept LebedevRI mentioned above. It’s super cool!
I understand but for a straight 600 or 700 edits that’s a pain, you got to admit. Have you tried making shortcuts for the things you use most?
I will try to make my remote work with darktable via Bome Midi translator and let’s hope I can get it to work since this method is a very fast one and much better than keyboard+mouse combo.
Do you know if there is any option so that we can have multiple modules open at the same time? Since it’s very annoying when I need to work in exposure and then change to shadows/highlights the modules close automatically and I keep loosing track of what’s going on for the settings made on that module.
You can shift-click modules to open several at a time. You can also disable the auto-collapsing entirely in the preferences.
About slider interaction, you can just click into any place of the slider, including the height taken by the label, instead of dragging the small triangle. The latter is just a visual indicator, it has no special meaning when interacting with the widget. Just click into the slider and have it set the value. A double click on the label resets it to the default btw.
Thank you, just found the auto collapsing toggle feature that’s in double on the beta version settings
What I feel is that the font type is too small also, I’m working on a 27’’ screen and after a while working with darktable I tend to have my face glued to the screen just to read the small letters, never happened before in any other software I work.
darktable has so many hidden things that makes it impossible to find everything in one pass, wish it wouldn’t take so much time compute the preview and show the updates while moving sliders. Maybe in a near future.
I’m also beta tester for easyHDR and they had this preview problem too, but they manage to correct it after a couple of updates and that makes a lot of difference when editing a photo.
FWIW, on my system (Ubuntu 17.10), hovering does not activate the slider. I have to left click the slider, then the key combinations you mention work as you describe them.
I find all the menus and dialogs in DT to be small (old eyes, perhaps), but I can live with it. I’ve just recently gotten into DT, having been aware of it for a long time. I’m loving the application.
i suppose you tried to globally increase size of things by playing with screen_dpi_overwrite=150 or so in your darktablerc? increasing the dpi makes everything scale up. sorry i have no idea where that would be on a macintosh computer.
I’m with you on this. The size of the triangle is simply to small. I know about the right click and the scroll function and use them regularly, but being able to use the slider like in every other software would be really nice.
Most adjustments work very quickly, your hardware seems to be limiting.
What would be the benefit of bigger triangles? As I have written over and over again, those triangles have no functionality, besides indicating the current value. There is no need whatsoever to click them, hit them with the mouse or anything. They are just a visual cue.
I guess people would like to have more tactile controls. If I see an apple on the table, I would try to pick it up where I see it. It is also about “These apps do it this one way; why can’t app x do the same!”.
I’ve always ‘aimed’ for the triangle thinking it was the trigger point to make an adjustment but you’re right its not, just checked it on levels module. I did think that was a bit fiddly so now I know. You learn something every day! Thanks houz
