Got it, I’ll reorganize the repo and I’ll publish it as-is. I’ll use some of my existing renders. Plan is to get out the website today.
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Make sure to update the system requirements section… do not use the same one from the current website. It is very outdated. Perhaps @rodlie can help decide what the new requirements should be.
I’m done with reorganizing everything, just have the system requirements. @El_Artista I assume the README’s system requirements are more recent? Should I base the system requirements off the sys reqs in the README?
Actually nvm it should be updated to the latest system requirements, Hank did a good job at that, I’ll be making a pull request to Natron’s website.
Done!
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Hey, uh, way to not coordinate on this? Sorry if I’ve been less than available recently, but maybe email me or something if you really have no other way of getting in touch?
There are a few render images that should be updated. Other than that, as I’ve said before it’s pretty much ready to go. There’s a few Markdown release notes that I think should probably be written.
@Songtech-0912 If you have images or updates, please submit them as individual PRs to my repo / the dropbox folder that we have for coordinating on feature images.
@rodlie You should not merge the above PR. Details on what should be done have been left as a comment.
Alrighty, website is ready to go! Thanks @Songtech-0912 for your PR getting everything set! As a bonus I added RSS feed support. 
@rodlie The strategy here should probably be to rename and archive the old repo, and then move this repo into the org’s possession? Relevant files from the original site with their git history preserved were moved into this repo, but I would like your eyes on it to ensure nothing of importance has been missed.
I’ll also need to be added as an outside contributor so I can quickly fix the inevitable broken links that will come about as a result of running this under a path from my GitHub pages linked domain at wilkinson.graphics/natronGitHub.github.io.
All things considered, we shouldn’t have more than a half hour of jankyness if done right! PM me on Discord or something when you have a moment and we can sort it out!
Glad to have this one out the door! 
This is up to the team, I can’t decide this.
Run it locally and fix the issues.
Are there any documentation on maintenance? The release manager will need to know how to update the site for a release.
Run it locally and fix the issues.
Nothing comes up locally so hoping everything is fine there!
Are there any documentation on maintenance? The release manager will need to know how to update the site for a release.
I think that we should just crowdfund the money to hire the team that overhauled Blender’s UI, because it’s damn near perfect.
I would argue that any money collected for/to Natron are better spent on the people that keep the software alive (Frédéric/Aaron).
For Blender, probably. I don’t think it’s suited for Natron.
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I didn’t mean to make it the same as Blender, obviously. Just take what we have now in Natron and apply their knowledge & experience to it.
its damn near fucked up is what it is.
Let’s try and keep the criticisms constructive.
We have had the idea plenty of times for years, every year. The problem: nobody pays for free software. There are many projects that have died similarly and Natron’s survival in such a condition really astonishes me (in a good way) and for that reason I really like the people behind the project and the supporters. But that’s just the truth: nobody’s going to donate. If some do, it won’t be nearly enough to hire and more importantly have them continue is expensive as hell today. Just take a look at Blender Foundation’s ever increasing funding requirements.
Even if a lot of people were to donate, who would the money go to? There is no registered foundation/organization that can act as a treasury. And I wouldnt want to be one of the people receiving funds from unknown international accounts and having to explain on my Income Tax form that I am indeed not collecting money to form a terrorist organization.
Jokes aside, these points have been said and reiterated by a lot of people for years and years and I’m just reiterating them once more. This has been discussed over and over and has never reached a conclusion.
Um… hire the blender developers??? Here’s what the team that overhauled Blender’s UI is doing right now: working for the Blender Foundation. And they ain’t leaving. No other UI team needs to be hired. The Natron UI is fine. It’s a VFX compositing software, not a dress up video game for little girls. We don’t need a fancy UI. We need a functional UI. And the current UI is 98% there. It’s almost fully functional apart from a few bugs and quirks. We dont need a team to overhaul the UI. We need maintainers who can improve the current one and fix bugs. Until there is a HUGE update, there will be no UI change and even in case of said HUGE update, the UI update will probably follow the likes of Nuke, not Blender and here’s why:
It’s abso-fucking-lutely not. The 2.8x UI was designed with the 2.7x>2.8x update in mind and it was 10000000000% not futureproof. If you have used Blender since before the 2.8 update, you will know how consistent the UI (and consequent UI updates) was from the 2.5x major update until the last version to have that UI: 2.79b. 2.80 completely screwed things over. Introduced plenty of bugs and extra processing, added unnecessary overhead, and added confusing concepts and layers of said concepts. To the uninitiated and newbies, it will look appealing but to anyone who does any real work, its a royal pain in the arse. It was not designed for any features that were to come and as a result of the rapid dumb ass development cycle that the devs have pushed themselves into, the new features and the UI that they need to be accessed from are clunky as hell and at times, out right confusing. In one word, the Blender UI is incomplete.
if Natron were to ever need a full UI redesign/overhaul, it should be to make the UI more functional and not pretty. Pretty adds overhead, processing power that I’d rather utilize for doing what the software is intended for. Functionality is what’s important for a software like Natron. Can I clearly see and use the tools? Can I clearly read the UI? Can I clearly see the nodes and links? Is the image engine and core getting all the processing power that it can get? If the answer to those questions is yes, then it’s a good UI for something like Natron. We do not need a UI overhaul like Blender at all. Focus needs to go towards functionality and fixing bugs.
I get it. But I’m tired of people (often newbies) praising the Blender 2.80 UI when it was designed in such a bad manner and still remains incomplete. I should have posted the full reply on that one but got carried away by some other task. I have found that sugar coating things like this doesnt work at all. Sorry for the usage of bad words, but that is what I genuinely feel about the Blender UI. No hate towards any person here, not at all.
Regardless, I have seen some interesting concepts and design mockups by some very capable people (like Songtech and Hank) here and on the discord. A lot of those designs and concepts were discussed with the current devs and maintainers (Rodlie, Bonalex, etc) and either rectified or completely changed with one thing in mind: functionality. Being pretty to look at gives Natron zero plus points if its a mess under the hood. What do we absolutely need right now? We need to keep the boat afloat and keep making developmental progress. A UI redesign is not going to help with that. The current UI is almost perfect in that despite some bugs and quirks, it does the job. It’s not confusing. It’s almost 1:1 with one of the leading compositing software out there (Nuke). It does not add a performance overhead. It is not difficult to get used to as a newbie (to newbies not understanding this: just get over it. it’s just another UI).
I genuinely do not understand the obsession with the mess that Blender’s UI (language) is. And I also do not understand why Blender users (especially newbies and people who have only ever used Blender) want every software to follow the exact developmental steps that Blender devs did. I’m not making this up, it’s literally a pattern all over the Blender and Open Source DCCs communities. Similarly GIMP was also hated for NOT being like Ps even though it was never meant to be anything like Ps. I just don’t understand it.
Every DCC out there, whether proprietary or open source has its own design and operational philosophy and the UI should compliment that philosophy. With regards to Blender, a lot of the philosophy that built it in the early years was thrown out of the window when the 2.80 update happened and every update since has just been a duct tape here, wd40 there kinda mashup of half assed fixes to core problems that were introduced by the new developmental philosophy. It is just not an example to follow.
If people think Natron needs a total UI overhaul like Blender, I sincerely request all to research and contemplate both the positives and negatives for each little thing. In the end all we need Natron to be is functional. If you want examples to follow, look at the other software in Natron’s specialist niche: compositing. Software like Nuke, Flame, etc. Does the UI stay the same for each version? Yes and no. Yes because the design language is fixed. No is technically still a yes because things only change if they improve the current.
Please please please take a moment or two to just think about the nature of the software in question and other factors like the development status, etc before suggesting vague ideas. Similar ones have been thrown around for years and havent reached conclusions for one simple reason: the current UI works and most of those ideas add zero value or improvements or are just not worth the time and effort.
Yes I understand and I vented my own frustrations on a different thread about a different topic earlier today too. We are at the same place.
I actually agree with you that hiring blender’s UI probably wouldn’t be a great fit, even if it were financially possible. I think people underestimate the amount of domain knowledge it takes to make a good UI/UX.
But ya have to do better than one sentence swear word responses.
This reply was a lot better.
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They 100% do. And if the UI was designed solely with community suggestions and feedback in mind, it would become death by design by committee just like Blender. IF there is to be a UI overhaul, a dedicated team is needed; that much I agree on but the primary design language needs to be influenced by the maintainers, developers and specialists and not the larger community. Don’t basically do what Blender devs did. Dont build stuff you can’t maintain in the long or even short term.
I totally understand. I was going to post the full thing in that single reply but I got carried away by some different task (I’m at my native place for the Ganesh festival in India which is still not over and there’s always someone who needs help or something that needs to be dealt with…) and instead of saving as draft, I replied… My bad on that one.
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Regarding the UI I agree with @El_Artista.
Natron follows the UI “standard” for node based compositing. You don’t fix what works.
Natron however needs a small style change (or refresh, call it what you want), where we fix some ugly buttons, maybe adjust some colors etc. But that’s about it (IMHO).
People that want major UI changes are probably not compositors, they usually come to Natron by mistake and assumes/want UI/UX from NLE’s, AE etc.
This is mostly a information problem, most websites etc put Natron in the motion graphics category against AE. This is at best misleading.
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