Today I have showed a colleague Rawtherapee; he has never worked with it so far and he didn’t take anything for granted…
While working with the application he asked me why most tools have a “power button” to activate them BUT other tools, the minority, do not need to being “activate” through such buttons (you must display them through an "expander instead).
I checked RawPedia [1] but the reason for this difference was not cleary answered.
I suppose the power button in the GUIs is necessary to activate a tool and its underlying commands.
However it is unclear to me why some tools do not “need” these buttons (ON - OFF) and they make use of “expanders” to show-hide their options…
I suppose all boils down to improve the interaction between the user and the GUIs of RawTherapee (User experience stuff)
Sure. Some time ago there were no power buttons at all in RT. Then we started to add power buttons for some tools, but we were lazy and didn’t do the job completely. Also, there are tools, which do not need a power button (e.g. the demosaic tool for raw files, what would we use with power button disabled). Or the colour mangament tool, what would disabling this tool mean?
Though I agree, that some tools, which currently don’t have a power button, deserve one (e.g. raw ca-correction and some other tools in raw tab)
Though I agree, that some tools, which currently don’t have a power button, deserve one (e.g. raw ca-correction and some other tools in raw tab)
As an aside, a bit off-topic, once in a while I test some new open source softwares. It always surprise me how fast their developers have been able to code these applications.
As time goes on and I continue testing their softwares I always realize that what it really takes a lot of time is polishing an application (GUIs) and squashing its bugs.
This is the process which takes many years and a lot of expertise (developers UX experts, users etc)
I don’t use RT much or any app for more than basic raw processing. I noticed that pushing a reset button may pull the value differently than the neutral profile would. Maybe I haven’t set the fill mode to full… but that is coming from using a freshly downloaded binary. Also, checking each parameter is tedious. Would love a reset button next to the power one.
? Wer’re talking about the power buttons for tools, not about reset buttons for adjusters inside a tool. The power button just disables the tool. Do you want a reset button, which resets all adjusters of a tool to default values?
Well, that’s not surprising to me. They at least are allowed to use a lot of already coded (and tested) stuff in their applications (which is perfectly fine).
Well, that’s not surprising to me. They at least are allowed to use a lot of already coded (and tested) stuff in their applications (which is perfectly fine).
Yep.
With Commercial softwares they (the developers…) can take inspiration from the open source code plus their employers can pay also some UX esperts to suggest the developers how to code the GUIs to better serve the end-users (in terms of consistency, icons, themes, shortcuts and so on).
It is a bit the issue with my colleague which was a bit puzzled about the different use - choice of “expanders” and power buttons in the RawTherapee GUIs…
I think this would be useful yes. It would save you having to reset all sliders in a tool one by one.
Regarding the power buttons, has it ever been discussed to automatically enable them when you first adjust a slider? I’m embarrassed to say how many times I’ve adjusted sliders and wondered why nothing was happening. And then I remember that I had forgotten to activate the tool…
Personally I like the current behaviour (adjusting sliders not automatically enabling the tool) for the reason I can adjust the sliders without triggering expensive preview updates, then finally enable the tool to update the preview. But maybe it’s just me…
I like the current behavior. Of course each time you start using a new program, or if you switch between programs, it takes time to feel at home. It’s like learning a new language, in the beginning you mess things up, but after awhile your brain gets fit to the gymnastics.
Just as Ingo, for some tools I like to set the sliders before turning the module on, especially for some tools which need several sliders.
Personally, I like to see the effect of each slider before moving on to the next. I can’t imagine adjusting a lot of sliders all at once without a preview unless I knew for sure what the effect would be. But I guess maybe that comes with more familiarity.
So, maybe the default behaviour could be an option in settings to please both camps?
I think processing profiles is a different topic to what we’re discussing in this thread. We’re talking about the power buttons (or tool activation buttons) and also a reset button for each tool that would reset all sliders in each individual tool (not resetting the whole image).
I believe it is because I mentioned profiles but I was saying it in relation to how my resetting sometimes gives me unexpected values, as in I get confused about what is the default. As I said, all I needed to do is toggle the fill button.
I think the key here for both the power buttons and parameter controls is to remember what is toggled (or reset) or not. As humans, we sometimes get confused by the on/off and default/not states. I know it is silly for computers and our engineers here, but for some of us, ▼ throws more into the mix than is comfortable.
The power button question prompted my thoughts to go in that direction.
