Lets gets this conversation back on topic…
A rough Proof of Concept:
Likely the curve smoothing can be moved into the Masking collapsible section and renamed Settings or something similar.
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Looks good in general, especially with the additional changes you mentioned. One thing I would suggest is keeping the “preserve details” setting visible without needing to expand the Settings/Masking section because at least I use it quite often (setting to “no”) .
Another issue is what was mentioned also above is about the possibility of including also the contrast adjustment when preserve details is set to “no”. But maybe that’s out of scope of this change?
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@g-man what you have suggested here is great. The tool would be so much easier to work with.
This sounds a good idea if it can be done and also keep the simple tab which I find can be very useful for some fine tuning.
@okke We have to strike a balance of taking too much vertical space vs presenting every option. The mask compensations are something that you have to use on every image. The preservation is something you can default and only change as needed. I’m interested to hear other opinions.
The contract adjustment when preserve is no is out of scope for this RFC. This is all about layout to make the use of the module more efficient. Currently it forces switch tabs too much.
@Terry What is the difference between sliding horizontal in the simple tab vs sliding vertical in the histogram nodes?
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@g-man I just tested it to confirm. In the simple tab I can move an individual node (terminology?) on the curves and the others remain where they are. However, if I move an individual node in the advanced tab the ones near it are dragged along with the adjustment. Sometimes I find I can minimise artefacts by using the simple tab sliders to be very selective with what is adjusted.
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@Terry Like you, the only times I have ever been tempted to use the Simple tab are when I just want to adjust one node without affecting any of the others. However, in practice, it doesn’t really work that well because the whole module seems to have been designed for smooth transitions, which means adjacent nodes are always affected to some extent. You can see this in action by switching back to the Advanced tab after making an adjustment in the Simple tab and seeing the affect it has had. You often get funky curves and a poor result.
Something else to note is that you can use the “curve smoothing” slider on the Advanced tab to affect the radius of effect of moving a single node. Move it to the left and you will have behaviour similar to using the Simple tab sliders, whereas moving it to the right, you will affect a much wider area along the node line when moving individual nodes.
I’m all for losing the Simple tab because I really don’t think it’s very useful, and previous discussions on this have revealed that not very many people use it.
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no need to lose it - darktable remembers the last used page so if you’re not using it, it’s not presented until you explicitly use this …
Customizing the UI to best match one’s workflow doesn’t need to remove functionality for all users based on assumptions - that’s why the QA panel was designed
I use the simple tab to implement “smart tone curve” presets. For example, I raise the lower half by a stop, then gradually slope back to zero. The effect is similar to raising the “shadows” slider in conventional raw editors.
Specifically, I find this a reasonable approximation of the DR400 mode of Fuji cameras which exposed under-exposed by one stop, and raises shadows and midtones to compensate. This you get a normally exposed image, but with more highlight latitude.
I could do a similar thing with the tone curve, but I find it looks more pleasing in the tone equalizer, as it doesn’t flatten the highlights as much.
Could you do that by dragging the graph nodes i the advanced tab?
silly question - since both ui variants are representing the same parameters this could be done also in the advanced tab.
But that’s not the core question - it’s all about workflow and there’s no one size fits all approach in darktable design philosophy.
btw: the sliders can be controlled with midi controllers …
True! 
My thought process was actually wondering if there was something about @bastibe’s workflow that made the simple tab work better.
I didn’t phrase it very well…
Never a silly question. But I don’t believe it can be replicated in the advance tab. You can not move a single tab in isolation in the advance mode.
Sliding the curve smoothing all the way left you get…
This pulling down the -5ev slider in advanced
Single slider in simple…
Advanced pulled down about the same
So taking the slider to the max -2 is not the same in simple as dragging it all the way down and in advanced if you drag it to about the same position is basically the same curve… so I am not sure there is a huge advantage in simple and it might not map the same…
I guess I would need to try a couple more images …
Mostly that you can set explicit values for each slider. So I’ll set mine to +1, +1,…, +0.75, +0.5, +0.25, 0.
Not that it matters much, really. I could have done the same thing in the histogram tab. The “lack” of precision there wouldn’t actually matter much for the results. It was just more convenient to do textually.
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Ya so if it was possible maybe allowing a right click on the node to put in an actual value if you were trying to so that sort of graded strait line section…
adding complexity rarely results in more simple solutions (also adding further controls into the histigram/curve will make the gui code even more complex) 
the simple tab is there for a reason - to make simple tonal changes simple
I sometimes use the simple tab to reset individual nodes by double clicking the sliders (e.g. to reset what I did to the shadows but keep the changes in the highlights). I don’t think this can be done in the advanced tab, there a double click will reset the whole curve.
So +1 for keeping it.
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Is there an advantage in removing the simple tab or a disadvantage in keeping it since it is already in the module?
There are enough user that we should keep it. Great discussion.