Hello there!

On Sat, 2009-07-18 at 10:26 -0400, Yuval Levy (RAWstudio) wrote:
> Hello RAWstudio developers,
> 
> I'm Yuv and this is my first post here. Some of you may recall 
> <http://panospace.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/resistance-is-futile/> (where 
> can I mail the high-resolution picture?)
> 
> I've spent one and a half month now seriously using RAWstudio. It's 
> great! WARNING: I've not read any manual. Typical user, isn't it?

Well. There isn't really any manual. Typical open source, isn't it? :)

> I'd like to share with you my experience, hoping it can be helpful to 
> advance RAWstudio. If you need somebody to test things, I'm here. And if 
> you think that some of the features I am requesting are simple to do but 
> you don't have time, just point me to the place in the source code and 
> I'll try to do it. WARNING: I'm a code monkey.
> 
> So far I am using 1.2, built from tarball on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty. I will 
> get the last SVN to dwelve into the code. Is there a way to have both a 
> stable (1.2) and an SVN/trunk version side by side on the same computer?

Yes! I suggest compiling 1.2 like this:
./configure --prefix=/home/yuv/rawstudio-1.2
make
sudo make install

and then compile trunk like:
./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr/
make
sudo make install

Installing in /usr will enable you to use externel plugins - of which
there is 1 (ONE!):
https://rawstudio.org/svn/rawspeed/

> Besides the rare crash without serious consequences (restarting the app 
> takes a few seconds and everything is still there), I find 1.2 stable, 
> very fast/responsive and comfortable to work with.
> 
> As I am writing this mail I am going through the application and through 
> some of my notes of the past six weeks.
> 
> I love the ability to sort by shutterspeed, aperture, focal lenght; the 
> A/B/C "panes"(?) allowing me to have and compare different settings on 
> the same image side by side; the storage of the metadata in .rawstudio 
> inside the same folder where the RAW image is.
> 
> Things I'd like to see (maybe they exist already and I have not found 
> them, please bear with my newbie experience):
> 
> 
> 1. CROP
> * holding down the CTRL key resizes the crop while keeping the form 
> factor constant

Nice idea. Right now CTRL+left mouse is used for the loupe, but it
doesn't have to.

> * holding down the SHIFT key resizes the crop in only one direction (X or Y)

I think this should be implemented by making the sides in the crop-area
dragable.

I _think_ the logic is here:
src/rs-preview-widget.c:motion()
- but it's really messy code.

> * ability to enter the crop size on the right side pane, in pixel.

Hmm.

> * display the crop size next to the cursor and not under the cropping 
> rectangle (useful when viewing the image at 100% and the display is 
> smaller than the crop)

Interesting idea.

> 2. ZOOM
> * a field with the zoom factor in the status bar (on the left of the RGB 
> values) where I can enter the zoom (as a number) and pop up a slider to 
> zoom in and out continuously
> * max zoom: 400%
> * "magnetic" values for the slider: 400%,200%,100%,zoom to fit should be 
> weighted more than inbetween value.

We don't support zooming - and currently has no plans for it. We only
have zoom-to-fit with loupe and 100% view.

> 3. METADATA
> * I am not sure if the different settings from the A/B/C "panes" are 
> stored in the metadata?

They are stored in the .cache.xml files.

(src/rs-cache.c for the interested)

> * On entering a folder where .rawstudio already exist to check if the 
> images are still in the same folder. If they are not, offer the user the 
> options to:
> ** delete unused xml/png

- or maybe just go ahead and do it without asking? But right now we use
no time listing the sidecar files. Rawstudio has no knowledge of "lost"
files.

> ** browse to the new location of the images and move the xml/png there

We generally have a problem maintaining the sidecar files. I'm very open
for suggestions. Anyone?

> * Even better it would be if moving a file would trigger some system 
> event to automatically move the appropriate .rawstudio files with it, 
> but I have no idea if this is possible on current operating systems and 
> how to do it.

I don't think this is possible.

> 4. SETTINGS/VARIATIONS
> * It would be nice to have the ability to store the parameters for an 
> infinite number of variations (e.g. different crops of the same image; 
> different outputs of the same image; etc.)

Yes!

> * It would be nice to have all these variations in a palette and move 
> them freely to the A/B/C "panes"

You mean like a tool palette where the user can drag tools to the pane?

> * Crop would be also saved/copy/pasted from "pane" to "pane".

Yes please - right now crop isn't differentiated from pane to pane.

> 5. SAVING
> * currently for the file _IMG_8955.CR2 _IMG_8955.CR2.jpg is the default 
> name when "saving as".
> * Is it possible to *replace* the RAW extension with the output extension?

I _think_ current development tree does that.

See src/filename.c

> * Is it possible to *add* a reference to the settings used? e.g. adding 
> the settings ID from the cache as in _IMG_8955_S1.jpg?

Use "%s".

> * even better: pad the settings ID to 4 digits _IMG_8955_S0001.jpg?

Not really possible, we use letters.

> 6. CURSOR
> * it is neat that on most occasions, when I click with the mouse pointer 
> somewhere in the image the white balance is set accordingly. Would be 
> better if the cursor would signal this function (drop pipette icon?) and 
> to have an option to use either the exact pixel value underneath the 
> pointer or an average of 3x3 5x5 9x9 pixels.

Current development version (trunk) shows a pipette :) Right now it
samples 3x3 pixels - if someone can find a photo, where that isn't good
enough, we can start discussing other options.

> * also when initially selecting the crop, the cursor could change / 
> signal the current tool (maybe a crosshair?)

See trunk :)

> 7. TOOL PANE (on the right side)
> * would be nice if the tool that I am actually using would move on top 
> of the list (small screen here) so that I can at the same time use the 
> A/B/C pane and the tool in question.

Anders Kvist did a patch implementing exactly that some time ago:
https://rawstudio.org/files/patches/akv/rev2574_current_tool_in_top_of_toolbox.patch

I'm not entirely sure if it's a good idea. It's somewhat confusing with
tools jumping up and down.

> 8. UNDO SETTINGS
> * it would be nice to have more finer grained "forward/backward" 
> movement in the settings. I am currently working around this with 
> copy&/paste between A/B/C panes, but would be much more efficient if I 
> could simply undo and redo individual steps.

Somebody please implement this!

> * also when undoing/redoing the steps, they could be displayed for a 
> couple of seconds in an overlay with very big font, like an OSD (and 
> like Adobe Lightroom does, hey why not copy good things from the 
> competition?)

Great artists steal :) Overlays are sexy!

> 9. OTHER THINGS
> * Quick export: would be nice to have a small cheat sheet for the 
> Filename expandos.

Click the "+"-sign.

> 10. OBVIOUS BUGS
> * I have about 300 pictures all taken with the same camera orientation 
> (portrait, perfectly calibrated with a bubble level) from a tripod. When 
> I load them in Hugin, a few of them (usually in the first 10) randomly 
> report to be landscape, although they are all portrait. Opening them 
> with Gimp yield the same result as Hugin, as if those 2-3 pictures are 
> randomly / erroneusly rotated by RAWstudio

I would love to see an example of that. Both the raw file and the output
file.

> * I had it set to display the filenames underneath the thumbnail and the 
> height of the thumbnail strip was not sufficient

Yuck. It's only luck that most people have space for the filenames. It's
dependent on the current GTK+-theme.

> OK, that was it. I hope I am not ruining anybody's weekend with this 
> user report. I like RAWstudio and if there is anything I can do to 
> contribute, I'll try to do it.

Well, my saturday is ruining by a severe hangover. This mail made it a
bit less severe ;)

If you feel like it, you're very welcome to add relevant bugs to our
Bugzilla.

/Brander

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