That issue has been locked, so I wanted to bring it up here. I think that adding some kind of “progress meter”, or feedback of some kind, to let the user know that patience is needed, would not be a bad idea. Even better would be a way to interrupt the generation of the slideshow. I would also suggest a different default key shortcut, maybe ‘S’ instead of ‘s’.
I just checked on master 4.1.0~git1027.14d51d73 and it is working for me. The amount of images should not matter to at least see the first image. The first image should take the same amount of time as an export. (I checked using -d perf).
I’m not sure who suggested removing the feature. I like the feature to show my wife images from the vacations. Requesting removing the S as a shortcut is also not a good idea since we are not addressing the root cause of your problem. Is there a bug that we need to address? Maybe, but we first need to figure it out. What do you get using -d perf? What version of darktable are you using? What OS? OpenCL?
I do think I discover a bug, but it is likely not related to your problem. I’m not getting the system to move to the next image automatically. I will report it after more research to make sure it is not an issue with my settings.
I also think we could open a Feature Request to have the slideshow use cache images if available or the thumbnail processing instead of export (like press f).
I tried to use slideshow long ago. It is very resource intensive. At the end everything is thrown away.
I resorted to export to a .jpg with higher compression and even the TV can display it without issues.
On the accidental starting of slideshow - I’ve been there few times. Haven’t removed the shortcut yet but I may do that.
Maybe the feature was developed when there was no need of heavy processing - perhaps it had its time in the past but currently I can’t seem to appreciate it.
I agree that it is easy to hit the S key by mistake (eg when trying to take a screenshot in windows which is ‘Windows key + shift + S’) and then the slideshow will freeze or crash darktable. I have now just deleted the S shortcut to stop that happening.
By default, ‘s’ starts a slideshow and ‘d’ toggles between lightroom and darkroom.
I suggest getting familiar with shortcuts… they can save a ton of time when processing a photo. You can even combine keys with the mouse, for example ‘e’ plus the mouse wheel to increase/decrease exposure.
But shortcuts do have their own problems, like hitting the wrong key and getting results you don’t want. Or getting confused between programs… Then figuring out what went wrong can be an issue.
Shortcuts are fine when you use a program a lot: you do have to remember which one does what, and you can end up with a lot of them (especially when you start using modifier keys like , , …)