[Digikam-devel] Comments on Light Table

[Mikolaj Machowski]

Dnia środa 23 maj 2007, Luis De la Parra napisał:
> Hello Gilles, hi all...
>
> I just saw the light table's video you posted on the planet, so went
> right away and updated my svn-copy of digikam...
>
> wow. first of all: congrats. I think the light-table is coming along
> very nice and all the functionality needed for image comparison seems to
> be there already.  the only thing I didn't like is that the navigation
> between the images is kind of difficult/strange... I only tested it for
> a few minutes, so I guess you could get used to it. but at least to me
> it seems to be somewhat difficult to use.
>
> I don't really see the point in the "navigate by pair" option, with the
> right-image becoming the left-image and the next image becoming the new
> left one...  but oh well, I guess I can just not use this function. BUT
> the one thing that I find annoying, is that page-up/page-down moves only
> the selection in the thumb-bar, but does not change the image in the
> table so I have to go and click the "put it on the right" button. It
> would be great if page-up/down (and left/right arrow) would change the
> image on the table automatically. (as it works on "pair-navigation", but
> only change the "selected" one, or the one on the right)
>
> In case you are interested, take a look at this video.
>
> http://idisk.mac.com/george_jardine-Public?view=web
>
> just scroll down and look for  "20070418 Tutorial Podcast - Compare View
> + QD"..
> (NOTE: you have to change the agent-identification in konqueror or use
> firefox)
> It's 24 MB, and has a bit of blah-blah but it is worth it.  it shows the
> light-table in lightroom (called "compare mode") which has probably not
> more functionality than digikam, but it is (to me) easier to use.

Very nice tutorial and I completely agree. Navigation in Adobe Lightroom
is solved very, very well.

Few crucial (IMO) points:

1. Firts two images are loaded automatically into compare view.
2. One of them is Selected - The One, second only Candidate.
3. With arrow navigation you can switch between Candidates, The One
   always stays the same.
4. With one keypress you change Candidate into Selected

Really good video to see.

> I also think it would've been better to embed the light table in digikam
> instead of opening a new window. maybe it's just me, because everyone
> seems to find this ok (same goes for the editor)

Not possible for technical reasons. Everyone here agrees for this
because making this in one window would require huge amount of work on
basics instead of adding new, great features.

> ... and finally... I took me a while to find out that middle-clicking on
> the image changes the mouse to the "hand"-tool to move the picture. is
> there a reason not to use just normal left-click to move the image
> around?

Good point. In IE it is used for selecting, here could be immediately
available for panning.

m.