Am Sonntag, 28. Januar 2018, 07:10:18 CET schrieb Steve Strobel: Hi,
I'll try to answer to as many points as I can.
> I recently installed Darktable on a Windows 10 machine and thought I should
> provide some feedback. First of all, thanks for making it available on
> Windows! I have tested only on the one Windows machine, so I don't know if
> some of the issues mentioned below are common to other Windows and/or Linux
> users. Please take these things as feedback, not as complaints.
Feedback is always welcome. What version of darktable did you try?
[...]
> and there are still a few rough spots. Please let me know if I should file
> an issue in Redmine for any of the following, or if listing the issues here
> is enough.
Redmine tickets are the way to go, most things written to the list will be
forgotten soon.
> It took me quite a while to figure out how to import pictures from my phone.
[on Windows gphoto2 needs special USB drivers]
> given up before getting it to work. If it is ever possible to make
> importing work without installing WinUSB drivers, it would reduce the
> learning curve a lot.
I fear there isn't much we can do about it. darktable doesn't talk to the
camera directly but uses a library called gphoto2 for that.
> Once it found the phone, it started displaying a preview of the pictures.
> I selected a few and clicked "import", but nothing happened. I later
> figured out that the phone had hundreds of pictures and I had to wait for
> the preview of all of them to be displayed before the import button would
> work. The best way I found to know when it was ready was to keep dragging
> the thumb on the scrollbar to the bottom and checking to see whether it
> moved up on its own. If it is necessary to wait, it would be nice if there
> was some kind of progress indicator, even if it is indeterminate
> (hourglass, something spinning) and if the import button remained visibly
> disabled until it was ready.
Please file a bug report for that. However, it seems hardly any one helping to
develop darktable uses file import inside dt, so most of us know less about
that than you.
> I am still a bit confused about what a "filmroll" is, especially when
> importing into folders with the EXIF date. I suppose a single filmroll
> could incorporate pictures from multiple folders. I can figure this out by
> reading the docs or experimenting, but I thought that reporting my first
> impression might be helpful.
"Filmroll" is just another word for "folder". The only difference being that
not all images inside a folder have to be in the corresponding filmroll – you
can just not import some of them. That's why we have that extra word to make
it conceptually clear that we are talking about the imported files in a folder
instead of all of them. In some places we do use "folder" when it refers to
the place in the file system.
> It also wasn't obvious to me what a "jobcode" was, although I did
> eventually figure out that it could be incorporated into the folder names
> that the pictures are imported into. I had a hard time remembering to set
> it before each import; perhaps after clicking "import" it could prompt for
> the jobcode and provide a checkbox for "don't ask next time" for those that
> don't use one. Or if the directory naming patterns don't refer to it (and
> it isn't used for anything else), it could just be skipped.
I am sure something like that could be done. Just don't expect anyone to rush
for it as that's not the best maintained code in darktable and it seems no one
feels responsible for it at the moment.
> When importing from the same source multiple times, it has to reload all of
> the pictures into the preview every time; that was kind of painful when I
> was trying lots of things to get the directory naming figured out. If that
> info could be cached, it would make it practical to import a subset of a
> large number of pictures with various jobcodes or into various filmrolls.
> Another thing that would help with that would be some kind of indication
> which pictures had already been transferred and/or a way to delete them
> from the phone (camera) after they have been successfully copied.
See above, some improvement could surely been made, but I don't see by whom.
If you were on Linux I'd advice to use Rapid Photo Downloader to copy the
files to your computer. Does anyone know an alternative for Windows?
[examples of bad UI in camera import]
See above.
> I found that the "base directory naming pattern" needed to end with a "/",
> or the subdirectory name would get merged into the base directory name.
> Perhaps DT should automatically append a "/" if one doesn't already exist.
Please file a bug report.
> It is unconventional in Windows to use "/" as a directory separator ("\" is
> more common). Perhaps either one could be accepted (and perhaps internally
> converted to "/"). If there are multiple separators in a row ("//" or
> "///" or "\\"...), they could be combined into a single "/".
You can already use '\', it's just the default that is using '/'. However, you
have to use "\\", i.e., double the backslashes, as a single '\' is used for
escaping characters for variable expansion. That is also true for the export
module btw.
> Leading and trailing spaces could be stripped from the directory and file
> naming patterns.
Why that? Maybe just don't enter spaces if you don't want them?
> *** Bug *** I found that I couldn't start the "sub directory naming
> pattern" with "$(EXIF_YEAR)" and have it work, but it would work if I
> prefixed it with anything else (even a space). Of course having a space at
> the beginning of each folder name isn't great (if nothing else, it messes
> up sorting with other folder names that don't have the space).
That's a known bug that is being worked on.
https://redmine.darktable.org/issues/11850
https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/pull/1601
> When importing using the EXIF date for the folder name and no pictures were
> taken on the date of the import, DT creates an unnecessary directory with
> the current date (with no pictures imported into it).
Please file a bug report.
> Sometimes after importing, the pictures don’t show up in Darktable even
> when they get copied to the computer. But I can then import from the
> folder they were imported to (recursively) and they show up. I think I
> might have seen a Redmine ticket about this. I think it suggested exiting
> and restarting DT. I haven't tried that yet.
If you find a ticket then add a note, telling us that it's still happening.
Otherwise add a new bug report please.
> I connected a different phone (Galaxy Grand Prime) after the S7. After
> putting it in PTP mode, it worked without having to mess with installing
> WinUSB drivers again. So that was easy enough. On the other hand, I tried
> a Canon SX-160 camera and so far have been unable to make it work; Zadag
> seem to time out when I try to replace its driver. That may be user error
> or maybe a problem with Zadag, but the relevant issue here is that it is
> more evidence that not needing to switch to WinUSB drivers would be a win
> for usability.
As I wrote above, there isn't much we can do about that.
> Wow, this message got really long. I hope that it is clear that I am not
> trying to be critical (I am really thankful DT works as it does), but to
> contribute to making DT better by providing feedback. If more details
> about any of these things (such as screen shots) would be helpful, you may
> find them in my notes here: <
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/11b5BVb8GmbF7Vu3Hs1F-7z6g-oJvhF_MW6J_9aDF
> ca8/edit?usp=sharing>. I would also be glad to answer questions, try
> experimental builds, and/or make new or update existing issues in Redmine.
>
> Thanks again for making DT,
>
> Steve
Tobias
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