The new scene-based workflow is excellent. It is true that it requires more time to learn and that it leads to changes in the way of editing that many have ingrained for years, either in darktable or inherited from other development programs.
What would be useful for the user, in addition to the excellent help of the program and the tutorials that several users and developers have created, would be a better organization in the management of the modules belonging to each workflow.
If users want to know if a module is scene-based or display-based, they should hover the mouse pointer over the module name and then the tooltip with the information is displayed.
If a user selects blend mode on a module, they should also make sure to select scene-referred or display-referred in the list of blend modes (this is also confusing, because if in the darktable configuration window the scene-based workflow is selected as the default and this selection would transform the workflow, there would be no need to display this blend mode selection).
For a new user it is a bit confusing to know which module is scene based and which is display based as many modules are repeated in one workflow and another indistinctly.
Blue modules are scene-referred but are present in the display-referred workflow.
Magenta modules are display-referred workflow but are present in the scene-referred workflow.
Added to this is that when you go to the manage presets window… the modules tend to confuse, since for example: the display-referred workflow contains some modules that belong to the scene-referred workflow. (This can only be changed by duplicating the preset and adjusting it as desired). The same goes for the scene-referred workflow, which in turn contains modules that belong to the display-referred workflow.
It is understandable that there are modules that can be contained in one or another workflow, such as: crop, rotate and perspective, exposure, color calibration, color balance rgb, retouch and tone equalizer among others, since many modules such as: color calibration and tone equalizer are the replacement of modules that have been deprecated as the manual makes clear.
tone equalizer
Dodge and burn while preserving local contrast.
When used together with filmic rgb, this module replaces the need for other tone-mapping modules such as the base curve, shadows and highlights, tone curve and zone system (deprecated) modules. It works in linear RGB space and uses a user-defined mask to guide the dodging and burning adjustments, helping to preserve local contrast within the image.
But in that case it would be better if the user has some kind of visual aid to know to which workflow each module belongs. (e.g. with some color). Maybe this option could be enabled or not in the darkroom tab in the darktable configuration window and so it would not be annoying for advanced users who know the program better.
This is just an idea, I know many of you have better ideas on ways to organize workflows in a way that is more user friendly. So, other ideas are welcome.