Rewrite the README for someone arriving, not someone already here

It said 0.9.0 against a 0.13.1 tree, listed focus peaking and burst grouping as unbuilt when both have shipped, and opened with a page of prose about the display path before saying what the application does. Lead with what it is and a picture of it, say how to get it on each platform and what state each channel is in, keep the honest account of what is missing, and put the manual first in the documentation table.
2026-09-20 11:06:10 +02:00
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 # DarkRoom

-A cross-platform, non-destructive RAW photo editor for Linux and Android.
+A non-destructive RAW photo editor and library for Linux and Android, with a
+GPU develop pipeline, a catalog that syncs between devices, and no account,
+no telemetry and no cloud of its own.

-**Status:** 0.9.0, and no longer a spike. A library opens, culls, develops and
-exports on both platforms, across eight tagged releases. What is *not*
-built is written down rather than merely absent — see
-[docs/outstanding.md](docs/outstanding.md) for the requirements that have no
-implementation and why, and [docs/technical-debt.md](docs/technical-debt.md)
-for the compromises that were chosen.
+[![The library: seventy frames, the timeline beside them, the filter bar above](docs/manual/media/library.png)](docs/manual/README.md)

-## Documentation
+**[The manual](docs/manual/README.md)** shows every feature, pictured from
+the application itself. This page says what it is, how to get it, and what
+is still missing.

-| Document | Contents |
-|---|---|
-| [manual](docs/manual/README.md) | What it looks like — every feature, pictured from the application itself |
-| [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) | How to land a first change without reading the rest |
-| [requirements.md](docs/requirements.md) | What the software must do — 179 numbered requirements |
-| [architecture.md](docs/architecture.md) | How it is built — crates, GPU pipeline, data model, sync |
-| [technical-debt.md](docs/technical-debt.md) | Compromises taken deliberately, each with the condition that retires it |
-| [outstanding.md](docs/outstanding.md) | What is not built, and whether that is a decision or a gap |
-| [code-health.md](docs/code-health.md) | What a contribution costs, per seam, measured |
-| [traceability.md](docs/traceability.md) | Generated: which requirement is claimed by which file |
-| [faces.md](docs/faces.md) | Face detection and identity — the models, the licence problem, and what S14 measured |
+## What it does

-## Building
+**A library.** Point it at a folder — on this machine, on a network mount,
+or one a Nextcloud client keeps in virtual-files mode, where a placeholder
+is treated as the photograph rather than as a one-byte file — or at a
+Nextcloud account directly. The grid is virtualised, ordered by capture
+time with a timeline beside it, and filtered by rating, flag, keyword,
+person and whether the file is here. Ratings, keywords, collections and a
+trash that survives a crash mid-operation. Card ingest. Bursts fold. Face
+detection and identity, with the index syncing between devices.

-Desktop:
+**Developing.** Fifteen declared operations fused into one compute
+dispatch, plus the neighbourhood work that cannot be: clarity, texture,
+capture sharpening, noise reduction, lens correction, spectral film
+simulation. Crop and straighten, spot repair, and local adjustments over
+masks the model draws — click a subject or a category, then paint, subtract
+a gradient, grow or shrink the edge. Focus peaking and a raw histogram for
+judging what is recoverable. Named presets; XMP sidecars other editors read.
+
+[![Segmenting an urban scene and choosing the sky as a mask](docs/manual/media/local-segment.png)](docs/manual/README.md#local-adjustments)
+
+**Panoramas.** Select the frames, align, choose a projection, fill the
+ragged border rather than crop it, and the composite lands beside its
+sources as a DNG with the merge as the first step in its history.
+
+[![Twelve hand-held frames aligned on a cylinder](docs/manual/media/panorama-aligned.png)](docs/manual/README.md#merging-a-panorama)
+
+**Export.** JPEG, PNG, AVIF, 8- and 16-bit TIFF, with resize, output
+sharpening, a naming template and a colour space — to a folder here or back
+into the library.
+
+**On both platforms.** The same core runs on a desktop and a 12-inch
+tablet; the interface is one layout, tuned for a wide viewport with touch
+targets throughout. On desktop the develop view draws the compute pass's
+texture directly — no readback between the GPU and the screen.
+
+## Getting it
+
+| Platform | How | State |
+|---|---|---|
+| Arch Linux | [`packaging/PKGBUILD`](packaging/PKGBUILD) — `makepkg -si` | Built from every release |
+| Android | The APK from each CI run, or `./docker/android/package.sh --install` | Runs on a tablet; F-Droid not yet submitted |
+| Windows | `DarkRoom-<version>-x86_64-setup.exe`, cross-built by CI ([windows.md](docs/windows.md)) | Verified under Wine only; unsigned |
+| Flatpak | [`packaging/flatpak/`](packaging/flatpak/) | Manifest in tree; choosing a library does not yet work in the sandbox |
+
+Or build it. Git LFS is required for the model weights, and the toolchain
+pins itself to 1.92.0:

 ```bash
-cargo run -p darkroom-desktop
+git lfs install && git lfs pull
+cargo run --release -p darkroom-desktop
 ```

-Android (containerised toolchain, see [docker/android](docker/android/README.md)):
+Android, through the containerised toolchain ([docker/android](docker/android/README.md)):

 ```bash
 ./docker/android/build.sh cargo ndk -t arm64-v8a build --release
 ```

-Git LFS is required for the model weights, and the toolchain pins itself.
-[CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) has the details and the four commands CI
-will run against what you send.
+[CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) has the system packages, the four
+commands CI runs against what you send, and the shortest useful
+contribution — a develop operation is one YAML file, and it arrives with its
+controls, its place in the chain and its tests.

-## Current state
+## Where it stands

-**Working.** A catalog over a local folder, a Nextcloud account, or a folder a
-sync client keeps in virtual-files mode — where a placeholder is treated as the
-photograph rather than as a one-byte file. A virtualised library grid with a
-capture-time timeline, ratings, labels, keywords, collections and a trash that
-survives a crash mid-operation. Card ingest. Face detection and identity, with
-the index syncing between devices. A develop pipeline of fifteen declared
-operations fused into a single compute dispatch, plus the neighbourhood
-operations that cannot be — clarity, texture, capture sharpening, noise
-reduction, lens correction, spectral film simulation. Crop, straighten, spot
-removal, gradient and subject-segmentation masks, named presets, and a
-generated panel that no operation in `ui/` is allowed to name. Export to JPEG,
-PNG and 8- or 16-bit TIFF with resize and output sharpening.
+**0.13.1**, fifteen tagged releases in. 184 numbered requirements in
+scope, 84% of them claimed by code and [traced to it](docs/traceability.md);
+the rest are written down rather than merely absent.

-**The zero-copy display path works on desktop.** The compute pass writes a
-texture that Slint composites directly, which is what
-[ARCH §6.1](docs/architecture.md) requires; the readback it forbids costs 96%
-of frame time at 4K, and
+**Not built:** plugins (post-v1, [D12](docs/requirements.md)), compare and
+survey culling, AI denoise, tiled and progressive rendering, HDR merge and
+focus stacking, most of the Android platform integration beyond running,
+and the Flatpak's library chooser. The performance targets are half
+verified: the per-commit benchmark suite §8 requires exists for everything
+that does not need a frame — the catalog, the scan, the thumbnails — and
+not yet for the render path, so a regression there fails nothing.
+[outstanding.md](docs/outstanding.md) is the list, with the reasoning for
+each.

-```bash
-cargo run -p dr-gpu --example bench --features readback
-```
+**The one deliberate compromise worth knowing about before reading
+anything else:** the Android develop view reads its frame back through the
+CPU, because zero-copy there needs wgpu's Vulkan swapchain and that tears a
+portrait window on a tablet whose panel is mounted landscape. It is debt,
+not a revision of the rule — [technical-debt.md TD-1](docs/technical-debt.md)
+has the measurements and the three things any one of which would remove it.

-still reproduces that measurement. **The one exception is the Android develop
-view**, which reads the frame back through the CPU because zero-copy there
-needs wgpu's Vulkan swapchain, and that tears a portrait window on a tablet
-whose panel is mounted landscape. It is debt, not a revision of the rule: the
-reasoning, the on-device measurements that forced it, and the three separate
-things any one of which would remove it are in
-[technical-debt.md TD-1](docs/technical-debt.md).
+## Documentation

-**Not built.** Plugins, compare and survey culling, focus peaking, burst
-grouping, AI denoise, tiled and progressive rendering, and most of the Android
-platform integration beyond running. The performance targets in §4.1 are
-unverified rather than unmet — the per-commit benchmark suite §8 requires does
-not exist, so nothing fails a build on a regression.
-[docs/outstanding.md](docs/outstanding.md) is the list, with the reasoning.
+For someone using it:
+
+| | |
+|---|---|
+| [manual](docs/manual/README.md) | Every feature, pictured |
+| [gestures.md](docs/gestures.md) | How it is driven — generated from the code, so it cannot describe a gesture that does not exist |
+
+For someone changing it:
+
+| | |
+|---|---|
+| [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) | How to land a first change without reading the rest |
+| [requirements.md](docs/requirements.md) | What the software must do — the numbered register, and the decisions |
+| [architecture.md](docs/architecture.md) | How it is built — crates, the GPU pipeline, the data model, sync |
+| [technical-debt.md](docs/technical-debt.md) | Compromises taken deliberately, each with the condition that retires it |
+| [outstanding.md](docs/outstanding.md) | What is not built, and whether that is a decision or a gap |
+| [code-health.md](docs/code-health.md) | What a contribution costs, per seam, measured |
+| [traceability.md](docs/traceability.md) | Generated: which requirement is claimed by which file |
+
+Designs, one per subsystem:
+[segmentation](docs/segmentation.md) and [mask editing](docs/mask-editing.md) ·
+[spot removal](docs/spot-removal.md) · [panorama](docs/panorama.md) ·
+[faces](docs/faces.md) · [inference](docs/inference.md) ·
+[storage and sync](docs/storage.md) · [catalog](docs/catalog.md) ·
+[display and extension](docs/display-and-extension.md) ·
+[navigation](docs/ui-navigation.md) · [distribution](docs/distribution.md) ·
+[windows](docs/windows.md) · [benchmarks](docs/benchmarks.md).

 ## Licence

-GPL-3.0-or-later.
+GPL-3.0-or-later. The photographs in the manual and the test fixtures are
+the author's and are there to show and test this project, nothing else.
+The model weights carry their own licences — [models/LICENCE.md](models/LICENCE.md).