darktable 2.6.1 just released a feature that solves the need I was having for a long time: a way to organize the the existing styles. With the hierarchical view now you can avoid the long list of presets, and obviously I’m thinking in integrating this into t3mujinpack. But before doing that I’d really like to feel users think it would work better for eevryone, so fell free to pick your options and add your feedback.
PS - bundling different hierarchical flavors in the release package, and letting users install the one it works best, is an option.
Flat - all styles shown in a single list, just like it is like now.
one top group - all styles bundled into a single t3mujinpack group (ex: t3mujinpack → Fuji Velvia 100).
multiple top groups - all styles bundled into several t3mujinpack grouped by emulation type (ex: t3mujinpack Color Slide → Fuji Velvia 100).
2 level hierarchy - all styles bundled into a 2 level hierarchy, with a top t3mujinpack containing all styles grouped by emulation type (ex: t3mujinpack → Color Slide → Fuji Velvia 100).
The nice thing about the 2-level hierarchy is that folks who may not know what some of the film stocks actually were might learn about them a little. That is, they may not know that Velvia was a color slide film, and this might be a neat way to learn a little about those!
Thanks for soliciting feedback about this. I must admit that the huge list of presets is one reason why I stopped trying to use them in the past - too much scrolling and I can never find the one I’m looking for. So my vote was for 2 level hierarchy. IMO, the more organization the better, and as @patdavid says, this can end up as a learning tool too so that styles are not just applied blindly, but with some forethought about what it might look like at a high level (e.g. color slide vs. instant vs. color negative film stocks).
@Isaac thanks for the feedback, and I understand your pain, specially when I use my laptop with a smaller screen where all my styles (t3mujinpack and the rest) filled almost the full screen. That was actually one of the reasons why I was refraining myself of adding new styles, the list was too big.
I honestly never thought about @patdavid argument, for me it was all about optimizing the workflow and getting quicker when working with my photos, but it makes a lot of sense and can look much less overwhelming to new users.
Just noticed the 2 level hierarchy is only shown in lighttable mode, in darkroom mode it’s flattened to only 1 hierarchy, leaving me thinking multiple top groups might work better in both modes.
For now I think I’ll go with the multiple top groups option, as is the multi-level option right now isn’t very helpful in darkroom mode. As soon as we have multi-level support I’ll either add a script to convert them to multi-level or bundle the release packages in different flavors.
I might try myself to add multi-level support, if my very rusty C/C++ lets me .
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