digiKam '97

[Dan Dascalescu]

Hello everyone,

I've been using various image management software for the past 15 years or so, and this weekend I've (re)discovered digiKam. Quite an impressive and polished piece of software. Thank you for making it free.

Any chance to also polish the user experience around it, i.e. the online community? For example,

* The mailing list is a pain. Don't get me wrong, I've been using mailing lists since '94, gone through Yahoo and Google Groups, have set up a bunch of online forums (e.g. https://forum.quantifiedself.com), but we do have Discourse.org nowadays. There's no web interface to search digikam-users, which is a shame. I'm not going to download all gzips from https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/digikam-users/, unpack them, then grep through them, and I suspect nobody else will, nowadays. Please do consider migrating to a modern forum software with a usable web interface (BTW, the link to the web interface at https://www.digikam.org/?q=support#mailinglists is broken). Discourse has a ton of import scripts - https://github.com/discourse/discourse/tree/master/script/import_scripts

* Please host or mirror the code on GitHub. It's hands down the most active place for OSS development nowadays. I've spotted typos in the digiKam UI that would be a breeze to submit a fix for if the code were on GitHub.

* Likewise, the issue tracker is antiquated. If I try searching for something at https://bugs.kde.org/component-report.cgi?product=digikam, I get completely irrelevant results. GitHub issues have been working for many prominent projects more than fine.

* The FAQ at https://www.digikam.org/?q=faq/digikam is woefully incomplete for such a complex piece of software. Please put it on a wiki so everyone can edit it. GitHub offers a nice Wiki engine.

Thank you,

Dan

[Simon Frei]

Hi Dan,

I get your points about Github, but I don't think that is going to
happen. The devs putting in most of the time into digikam are accustomed
to the current process - that's probably it. Saying that, there is a
mirror on github:
https://github.com/KDE/digikam
It even seems like PRs are activated, but that is not used. Use patches
to bugtracker instead.

There is pixls.us, which is a FOSS photography site with a discourse
community. It already hosts the official forums of software like
RawTherapee, Gimp, darktable... There could probably also be a section
for digiKam. Downside: It's another channel that needs to be monitored,
so it will probably be neglected.

The view of the bugtracker you linked to is arguably too fractured into
topics. The view most similar to githubs issue tracker is found via
search when choosing digikam as product (http://tinyurl.com/j4drwz6).

Cheers,
Simon

On 15/01/17 20:38, Dan Dascalescu wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I've been using various image management software for the past 15
> years or so, and this weekend I've (re)discovered digiKam. Quite an
> impressive and polished piece of software. Thank you for making it free.
>
> Any chance to also polish the user experience around it, i.e. the
> online community? For example,
>
> * The mailing list is a pain. Don't get me wrong, I've been using
> mailing lists since '94, gone through Yahoo and Google Groups, have
> set up a bunch of online forums (e.g.
> https://forum.quantifiedself.com), but we do have Discourse.org
> nowadays. There's no web interface to search digikam-users, which is a
> shame. I'm not going to download all gzips
> from https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/digikam-users/, unpack them, then
> grep through them, and I suspect nobody else will, nowadays. Please do
> consider migrating to a modern forum software with a usable web
> interface (BTW, the link to the web interface
> at https://www.digikam.org/?q=support#mailinglists is broken).
> Discourse has a ton of import scripts
> - https://github.com/discourse/discourse/tree/master/script/import_scripts
>
> * Please host or mirror the code on GitHub. It's hands down the most
> active place for OSS development nowadays. I've spotted typos in the
> digiKam UI that would be a breeze to submit a fix for if the code were
> on GitHub.
>
> * Likewise, the issue tracker is antiquated. If I try searching for
> something
> at https://bugs.kde.org/component-report.cgi?product=digikam, I get
> completely irrelevant results. GitHub issues have been working for
> many prominent projects more than fine.
>
> * The FAQ at https://www.digikam.org/?q=faq/digikam is woefully
> incomplete for such a complex piece of software. Please put it on a
> wiki so everyone can edit it. GitHub offers a nice Wiki engine.
>
> Thank you,
> Dan

[Gilles Caulier-4]

gmane.org mailing list archive with search engine sound dead.

You can use nabble instead :

http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/

Gilles Caulier

2017-01-15 20:53 GMT+01:00 Simon Frei <[hidden email]>:

Hi Dan,

I get your points about Github, but I don't think that is going to
happen. The devs putting in most of the time into digikam are accustomed
to the current process - that's probably it. Saying that, there is a
mirror on github:
https://github.com/KDE/digikam
It even seems like PRs are activated, but that is not used. Use patches
to bugtracker instead.

There is pixls.us, which is a FOSS photography site with a discourse
community. It already hosts the official forums of software like
RawTherapee, Gimp, darktable... There could probably also be a section
for digiKam. Downside: It's another channel that needs to be monitored,
so it will probably be neglected.

The view of the bugtracker you linked to is arguably too fractured into
topics. The view most similar to githubs issue tracker is found via
search when choosing digikam as product (http://tinyurl.com/j4drwz6).

Cheers,
Simon

On 15/01/17 20:38, Dan Dascalescu wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I've been using various image management software for the past 15
> years or so, and this weekend I've (re)discovered digiKam. Quite an
> impressive and polished piece of software. Thank you for making it free.
>
> Any chance to also polish the user experience around it, i.e. the
> online community? For example,
>
> * The mailing list is a pain. Don't get me wrong, I've been using
> mailing lists since '94, gone through Yahoo and Google Groups, have
> set up a bunch of online forums (e.g.
> https://forum.quantifiedself.com), but we do have Discourse.org
> nowadays. There's no web interface to search digikam-users, which is a
> shame. I'm not going to download all gzips
> from https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/digikam-users/, unpack them, then
> grep through them, and I suspect nobody else will, nowadays. Please do
> consider migrating to a modern forum software with a usable web
> interface (BTW, the link to the web interface
> at https://www.digikam.org/?q=support#mailinglists is broken).
> Discourse has a ton of import scripts
> - https://github.com/discourse/discourse/tree/master/script/import_scripts
>
> * Please host or mirror the code on GitHub. It's hands down the most
> active place for OSS development nowadays. I've spotted typos in the
> digiKam UI that would be a breeze to submit a fix for if the code were
> on GitHub.
>
> * Likewise, the issue tracker is antiquated. If I try searching for
> something
> at https://bugs.kde.org/component-report.cgi?product=digikam, I get
> completely irrelevant results. GitHub issues have been working for
> many prominent projects more than fine.
>
> * The FAQ at https://www.digikam.org/?q=faq/digikam is woefully
> incomplete for such a complex piece of software. Please put it on a
> wiki so everyone can edit it. GitHub offers a nice Wiki engine.
>
> Thank you,
> Dan

[Dan Dascalescu]

Thank you for the Nabble link, but Nabble is pretty terrible too. It returns completely bogus search results when I search for my name: http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=1695700&query=dascalescu returns five messages instead of two threads, and none of them actually contains "dascalescu". Here's a screenshot (assuming it goes through Mailman - does it even support attachments? We're talking about photo editing software, images would be a must):

So the summary is that, basically, nothing is going to change?

On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 2:42 PM, Gilles Caulier <[hidden email]> wrote:

gmane.org mailing list archive with search engine sound dead.

You can use nabble instead :

http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/

Gilles Caulier

2017-01-15 20:53 GMT+01:00 Simon Frei <[hidden email]>:

Hi Dan,

I get your points about Github, but I don't think that is going to
happen. The devs putting in most of the time into digikam are accustomed
to the current process - that's probably it. Saying that, there is a
mirror on github:
https://github.com/KDE/digikam
It even seems like PRs are activated, but that is not used. Use patches
to bugtracker instead.

There is pixls.us, which is a FOSS photography site with a discourse
community. It already hosts the official forums of software like
RawTherapee, Gimp, darktable... There could probably also be a section
for digiKam. Downside: It's another channel that needs to be monitored,
so it will probably be neglected.

The view of the bugtracker you linked to is arguably too fractured into
topics. The view most similar to githubs issue tracker is found via
search when choosing digikam as product (http://tinyurl.com/j4drwz6).

Cheers,
Simon

On 15/01/17 20:38, Dan Dascalescu wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I've been using various image management software for the past 15
> years or so, and this weekend I've (re)discovered digiKam. Quite an
> impressive and polished piece of software. Thank you for making it free.
>
> Any chance to also polish the user experience around it, i.e. the
> online community? For example,
>
> * The mailing list is a pain. Don't get me wrong, I've been using
> mailing lists since '94, gone through Yahoo and Google Groups, have
> set up a bunch of online forums (e.g.
> https://forum.quantifiedself.com), but we do have Discourse.org
> nowadays. There's no web interface to search digikam-users, which is a
> shame. I'm not going to download all gzips
> from https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/digikam-users/, unpack them, then
> grep through them, and I suspect nobody else will, nowadays. Please do
> consider migrating to a modern forum software with a usable web
> interface (BTW, the link to the web interface
> at https://www.digikam.org/?q=support#mailinglists is broken).
> Discourse has a ton of import scripts
> - https://github.com/discourse/discourse/tree/master/script/import_scripts
>
> * Please host or mirror the code on GitHub. It's hands down the most
> active place for OSS development nowadays. I've spotted typos in the
> digiKam UI that would be a breeze to submit a fix for if the code were
> on GitHub.
>
> * Likewise, the issue tracker is antiquated. If I try searching for
> something
> at https://bugs.kde.org/component-report.cgi?product=digikam, I get
> completely irrelevant results. GitHub issues have been working for
> many prominent projects more than fine.
>
> * The FAQ at https://www.digikam.org/?q=faq/digikam is woefully
> incomplete for such a complex piece of software. Please put it on a
> wiki so everyone can edit it. GitHub offers a nice Wiki engine.
>
> Thank you,
> Dan

Le 15/01/2017 à 23:42, Gilles Caulier a écrit :
> gmane.org <http://gmane.org> mailing list archive with search engine
> sound dead.

that's unfortunate. DDOS seems to have killed him :-!

What was gmane:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmane

should works

https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2016/09/06/gmane-alive/

http://home.gmane.org/

but today, don't

jdd

[Dan Dascalescu]

Thank you for the Nabble link, but Nabble is pretty terrible too:

* Search sucks. It returns completely bogus search results when I search for my name: http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=1695700&query=dascalescu returns five messages instead of two threads, and none of them actually contains "dascalescu". 

* It doesn't support images or attachments (I guess because the underlying mailing list doesn't support them). Are you kidding me? This is a group about IMAGE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE, and I can't attach an image I have trouble with, or even a screenshot of a problem I'm encountering? I did try sending a screenshot of the Nabble search problem but it was rejected because it was over an 80KB size limit. Eighty kilobytes. Hello 1997?

* No single-sign on. I have to remember yet another password. This when everyone else supports logging in with Google/Facebook/GitHub/whatnot.

So the summary is that, basically, nothing is going to change?

Communities have successfully migrated from Mailman to Discourse - https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-mailman-archives-into-discourse/18537/9

Forget GitHub or Bugzilla. Imagine the adoption of digiKam if users saw it as a modern photo management software, with a welcoming community where they could easily search and find answers, or ask for help without going through an arcane signup process. Is digiKam worth it?

On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 11:29 PM, jdd <[hidden email]> wrote:

Le 15/01/2017 à 23:42, Gilles Caulier a écrit :

gmane.org <http://gmane.org> mailing list archive with search engine
sound dead.

that's unfortunate. DDOS seems to have killed him :-!

What was gmane:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmane

should works

https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2016/09/06/gmane-alive/

http://home.gmane.org/

but today, don't

jdd

[Gilles Caulier-4]

2017-01-16 17:59 GMT+01:00 Dan Dascalescu <[hidden email]>:

Thank you for the Nabble link, but Nabble is pretty terrible too:

* Search sucks. It returns completely bogus search results when I search for my name: http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=1695700&query=dascalescu returns five messages instead of two threads, and none of them actually contains "dascalescu". 

* It doesn't support images or attachments (I guess because the underlying mailing list doesn't support them). Are you kidding me? This is a group about IMAGE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE, and I can't attach an image I have trouble with, or even a screenshot of a problem I'm encountering? I did try sending a screenshot of the Nabble search problem but it was rejected because it was over an 80KB size limit. Eighty kilobytes. Hello 1997?

This is an infrastuture problem, not a DK project one. All is relevant of KDE team which provide these mailling list. We have no time/people to change this. So we follow KDE in this way.

Note : all KDE hosted projects have this problem.

 

* No single-sign on. I have to remember yet another password. This when everyone else supports logging in with Google/Facebook/GitHub/whatnot.

So the summary is that, basically, nothing is going to change?

Communities have successfully migrated from Mailman to Discourse - https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-mailman-archives-into-discourse/18537/9

Forget GitHub or Bugzilla. Imagine the adoption of digiKam if users saw it as a modern photo management software, with a welcoming community where they could easily search and find answers, or ask for help without going through an arcane signup process. Is digiKam worth it?

KDE git server is very good there is nothing to change here.

KDE Bugzilla is excellent. It have all legacy/history/rules of the project, since... 17 years now. We don't want to lost all. No changes here...

So to resume, if the vision of the project need to be improved in the future :

1/ re-design digiKam.org.

2/ contact KDE team for a migration of mailing lists.

3/ contact KDE team to adopt a better wiki space.

... and certainly other one.

But the most important is : we (digiKam team) are C++/Qt developers, and we have no free time to manage changes outside application source code. We have plenty of fixes to do in implementation, and free time is very limited. 

So if somebody want to help us as webmaster for ex, you is welcome...

Gilles Caulier

[J Albrecht]

On 16 Jan 2017, at 11:59, Dan Dascalescu <[hidden email]> wrote:

 Is digiKam worth it?

Of course digiKam is worth the effort to bring its communication mechanism up to date by dragging it out of its arcane dark-age mailing list system. 

However, I wouldn’t want to see progression on the important bits to be diverted because certain users are clamouring for this evolution. digiKam devs, keep up the great work! We appreciate it very much!  And, Giles’ open attitude to let somebody else run with the non-core changes which he outlined is also appreciated. Let’s see if somebody with the requisite skills and time takes the reins…

Le 16/01/2017 à 18:28, J Albrecht a écrit :

> Of course digiKam is worth the effort to bring its communication
> mechanism up to date by dragging it out of its arcane dark-age mailing
> list system.

I don't see what is so bad in this mailing list system

If you want to share images, use http://www.cjoint.com/ or any
dropbox/owncloud alternative

but in fact I see very little such thing in this list, most problems
here are about digikam itself, not more general photo

jdd

[Dan Dascalescu]

On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 9:39 AM, jdd <[hidden email]> wrote:

Le 16/01/2017 à 18:28, J Albrecht a écrit :

Of course digiKam is worth the effort to bring its communication
mechanism up to date by dragging it out of its arcane dark-age mailing
list system.

Thank you for acknowledging that.

 

I don't see what is so bad in this mailing list system

Have you used Discourse? If you had, you'd see how bad this mailing list is. To put it a different way, once you drive a Tesla, you'll see how bad a bicycle is, even if both get you from point A to point B.

Gilles, I have setup Discourse before and I would be glad to volunteer to set it up for digikam-users, provided KDE offers the hosting. Discourse supports mailing list mode as well as replying via email for those who prefer email.

[Gilles Caulier-4]

2017-01-17 0:33 GMT+01:00 Dan Dascalescu <[hidden email]>:

On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 9:39 AM, jdd <[hidden email]> wrote:

Le 16/01/2017 à 18:28, J Albrecht a écrit :

Of course digiKam is worth the effort to bring its communication
mechanism up to date by dragging it out of its arcane dark-age mailing
list system.

Thank you for acknowledging that.

 

I don't see what is so bad in this mailing list system

Have you used Discourse? If you had, you'd see how bad this mailing list is. To put it a different way, once you drive a Tesla, you'll see how bad a bicycle is, even if both get you from point A to point B.

Gilles, I have setup Discourse before and I would be glad to volunteer to set it up for digikam-users, provided KDE offers the hosting. Discourse supports mailing list mode as well as replying via email for those who prefer email.

As i said previously, these point must be talk with KDE admin team who maintain all the mailing list / wiki infrastructure of KDE projects. digiKam use KDE infrastructure.

Gilles Caulier

Le 17/01/2017 à 00:33, Dan Dascalescu a écrit :

> Have you used Discourse?

we can't change to any new system - there are so many. Specially when we
don't see what is better. For example I don't want to see photos on the
list, this would make archives much too huge

jdd

[Dan Dascalescu]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 1:02 AM, jdd <[hidden email]> wrote:

Le 17/01/2017 à 00:33, Dan Dascalescu a écrit :

Have you used Discourse?

we can't change to any new system - there are so many.

I'm not sure I understand this. Are you saying there's a Paradox of Choice and we can't choose between any of the much better OSS forum software packages?

1) Even phpBB would be a ton better

2) I've spent two weeks researching all the available options and have done the evaluation work for you.

 

Specially when we don't see what is better.

When *you* don't see what it better. Look, I can show you in particular 50+ features that make Discourse far superior to a mailing list, but

1) What would it take to change your mind?

2) If you do change your mind, how does that make it more likely that this community will be more open to migrate?

 

For example I don't want to see photos on the list, this would make archives much too huge

As you can imagine, you can disable attachments in Discourse, and control their maximum size. But the problem is you're still thinking in 1997 terms:

1) Data storage is extremely cheap nowadays. What is "too huge"? This is a forum, not a gallery.

2) There will be no "archives" to care about. You access all the discussions conveniently online.

[Simon Frei]

And just to address the elephant in the room: Discourse can be
configured to run exactly like a mailing list as well. Meaning a user
can get any post per mail, reply to conversations by mail and create new
conversations by mail. So you can have the best of two worlds or more
likely, you can work in the "world" you like better.

[Daniel Bauer-2]

Am 17.01.2017 um 16:37 schrieb Dan Dascalescu:
>But the problem is you're still thinking in
> 1997 terms:

What's your problem with 1997?

I spent the last few month with a girl born that year and I can tell
you: it's marvelous. If you think, that's off topic, well, I think this
discussion is OT, too.

This is a low traffic mailing list, and, as much as I understand, it is
for people having some more or less technical problem with digikam. And
they find help here, easy and fast, above all thanks to the very kind
developers.

If you like a more adorned way of communication you are free to hang
some flowers on your screen or what ever makes your life easier and more
happy.

For me the mailing list just works and that's all I want from it. And I
am happy that the devs spent their time to better and better and better
their product, and not to spend their energy in things that are
absolutely unnecessary, even if they might be beautiful.

SCNR

Daniel

--
Daniel Bauer photographer Basel Barcelona
http://www.daniel-bauer.com

[Simon Frei]

I agree 100% on the priorities you set. But that is not the issue here.
Dan offered to take matter into hands to do this after Gilles asked
whether someone would step up.

Please keep the discussion rational and leave the polemics out. Both
calling mailing lists useless stone age technology as well as suggesting
hanging flowers instead of using something like discourse is not very
constructive.

Say Dan sets up Discourse such that you can still use it as a mailing
list, but also on a browser, what is your issue with it?

On 17/01/17 18:10, Daniel Bauer wrote:

> [...]
>
> For me the mailing list just works and that's all I want from it. And
> I am happy that the devs spent their time to better and better and
> better their product, and not to spend their energy in things that are
> absolutely unnecessary, even if they might be beautiful.
>
> SCNR
>
> Daniel
>

[Jack Marxer]

I'm not familiar with Discourse, but I do think some way to have tech questions on DigiKam available by searching a Wiki or something similar would be valuable.

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 7:12 PM, Simon Frei <[hidden email]> wrote:

I agree 100% on the priorities you set. But that is not the issue here.
Dan offered to take matter into hands to do this after Gilles asked
whether someone would step up.

Please keep the discussion rational and leave the polemics out. Both
calling mailing lists useless stone age technology as well as suggesting
hanging flowers instead of using something like discourse is not very
constructive.

Say Dan sets up Discourse such that you can still use it as a mailing
list, but also on a browser, what is your issue with it?

On 17/01/17 18:10, Daniel Bauer wrote:
> [...]

>
> For me the mailing list just works and that's all I want from it. And
> I am happy that the devs spent their time to better and better and
> better their product, and not to spend their energy in things that are
> absolutely unnecessary, even if they might be beautiful.
>
> SCNR
>
> Daniel
>

Le 17/01/2017 à 19:12, Simon Frei a écrit :

> Say Dan sets up Discourse such that you can still use it as a mailing
> list, but also on a browser, what is your issue with it?

I don't want to set up my mail client other than what I already did.

but if you can setup a server and *copy* the mailing list to an other
system of your own, why not

right now I'm satisfied with kde workflow

jdd

Le 17/01/2017 à 20:00, Jack Marxer a écrit :
> I'm not familiar with Discourse, but I do think some way to have tech
> questions on DigiKam available by searching a Wiki or something similar
> would be valuable.
>

that's true, but I manage wiki(s) myself and know for sure it's very
difficult to maintain *up to date*.

and having one just for some years and then collapsing is worst than nothing

if somebody is ready to work on digikam documentation, I'm sure Gilles
will be glad

jdd

[Erick Moreno]

I received the welcome e-mail from this list in 2010, I`m here for enough time to agree with many of you.

This list have lots of valuable information that it's not accessible to a newcomer. This is a problem.

We have lots of better options to keep a community in touch and exchange information than a mail list. Discourse is one of them.

I believe that a migration to discourse will not be a big issue, the drawbacks are minor and the advantages are huge. I truly believe that this migration will improve the community engagement, the information flow and will attract lots of new users/contributors to digikam ecosystem.

The point is, this change can`t be a new responsability to the actual small dev team. But this can`t be reason to kill the ideia. I'm quite sure that we have people to talk to KDE team and help/do this migration.

We need to talk about it.

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 6:31 PM, jdd <[hidden email]> wrote:

Le 17/01/2017 à 20:00, Jack Marxer a écrit :

I'm not familiar with Discourse, but I do think some way to have tech
questions on DigiKam available by searching a Wiki or something similar
would be valuable.

that's true, but I manage wiki(s) myself and know for sure it's very difficult to maintain *up to date*.

and having one just for some years and then collapsing is worst than nothing

if somebody is ready to work on digikam documentation, I'm sure Gilles will be glad

jdd

--