This feels like a more fruitful chain of thought.
1 Like
you can change scrolling to mouse wheel and change sliders with “shift/ctrl/alt + mousewheel”.
2 Likes
@Qor , yes mask manager is not much use in practice and most people including me get by without using it. Here’s an idea I floated some time back -
Note that it supports parametric masks, unlike mask manager.
What do you think?
Have you got some compelling examples where you need to combine masks that might inspire the devs to build something?
1 Like
I agree it is poor design to have some set of controls for masks in one place, and some in another. They should be all together. The thing preventing this, as far as I’m aware, is vertical scrolling space.
My solution would be to put ALL masking options in a separate tab for each module. Not to have multiple tabs underneath the module and another set of options on the other side of the screen.
2 Likes
My main uses for mask manager have been when I want to use multiple masks with operators such as exclusion, difference, intersection etc. Maybe because of my inexperience I find this very challenging. I have to refer to the user manual and even then often struggle.
Here I have drawn four shapes and for the life of me I can not work out how to tell mask manager I want to set up an operation such as the intersection of these four shapes.
This is not a very intuitive module to use. I am not sure what would be involved in making it more intuitive.
3 Likes
Nobody uses mask manager on a regular basis because it’s only needed for complex masking situations which almost never occur in normal editing. Of course, since it’s seldomly used, you have to spend a few minutes remembering how it works 
.
4 Likes
Expand the group, then right click on the second mask and select the operation, then repeat for the third and fourth
3 Likes
The same thing that happens if I go to Lightroom when all I’ve ever known is darktable. I read the manual, I watch videos, and then I stumble around until I figure it out.
5 Likes
Thanks Bill. I was clicking everywhere but didn’t realise I just had to expand the group to see this. In line with the OP I do feel this action is not intuitive and wonder if there is a design that would would be more user friendly. Maybe by default having the groups already expanded with the option to compress them if needed for real estate purposes.
2 Likes
What would already help is a separation between modules (groups) and shapes.
To clarify, all shapes are displayed at the end, after the groups.
(The shapes that are in use have a special symbol.)
So, if no module has been assigned yet, the shapes appear alone in the field.
However, if I have two sections in the field, one with modules (groups) and one with the shapes, then I can immediately see that none of the existing shapes have been assigned to a module.
It’s already possible to assign a shape to a module (group) by right-clicking and accessing a submenu.
Perhaps this could be made more easily accessible.
DT 5.3.0+733~g789b601649
There’s a bug affecting shapes that were assigned to a group. After deleting the group, they can no longer be removed using “Delete unused shapes.”
delete unused shapes - does not work
Furthermore, they even reappear if you delete them normally and then use “Delete unused shapes” again.
Being a rather infrequent user of the mask manager myself, I do agree here. I would love to have seen a good video on this subject. Maybe it is even out there in the big wide world and I’ve simply missed it. Before wanting something to be changed I would love to have a better understanding. So if someone makes a video - or has done so - or produces a good write-up on this subject I would be thankful. Or even willing to cooperate…
Kind regards,
Jetze
1 Like
1 Like
I had watched this a few months ago and I found it well done. That said, I never needed to use the mask manager (yet)
It’s a quite comprehensive tutorial on DT masks, divided in three parts. The mask manager is discussed mostly here, but also the two previous episodes are worth watching.
Edit: There are actually 5 videos in the series. Here is the playlist:
2 Likes
I disagree. I think!
I’m very hesitant to put anything stronger than that, because whatever I say is based on limited experience and more-limited understanding! But this is what I understand:
Masks and modules fundamentally go together. even when referenced by another module. The module is the key.
Very often, a pair (or more) of module instances will use the same masks but reversed. Simple example: subject and background.
Very often, masks will not be shapes, but will be parametric, modified/limited by shapes. Generally, when using a parametric mask, I define it as parametric+drawn, as it is probable that I’ll have to restrict or include. Whether I add shapes or not is then optional. Reuse of that end result in another instance requires not reusing shapes, but reusing a raster mask.
Yes, I can easily confuse myself when in the middle of all this. Expand mask manager to include all the parametric/raster masks? I can’t get my head around that! I’m prepared to admit that maybe I need a bigger head 
Depends on whether you are willing to read the manual and/or watch tutorials.
If yes, you are fine.
If not, you have unreasonable expectations.
(The same thing happens if I wanted to use Lightroom like Darktable.)
2 Likes
Apparently, I didn’t make that clear enough. I understand the current system and can use it. This understanding is what reveals the current problems. I think it’s not so easy to grasp the difficulties if you haven’t yet worked extensively with the mask manager, regardless of the reason—whether you don’t need it or find it too difficult to use.
My suggestions focus on how to improve the existing system.
The connection between a “utility module” and a regular module doesn’t exist in darktable otherwise.
The interaction between the mask manager on the left and the mask settings of the respective module isn’t easy to understand, even with the current documentation. This is evident in the reactions here.
I’ve made suggestions for improvement. If the current functionality is intentional, or if the necessary resources are simply lacking to improve it, then so be it.
This would be easy and very intuitive with my mask combiner module !
2 Likes
It’s definitely intentional. Whatever you do in a module that’s changing output should be UI-presented as local as possible. Inspecting effect, change mask processing … Just search through github discussions both issues and pull requests.
It’s basically not about resources or being allergic to some other software, it’s the way - i can’t speak for all but i am pretty sure we agree here - we devs want it to be. There is certainly room for improvement how masks are used but staying local.
Are you sure that no module uses those shapes in any step of history?
3 Likes