RawTherapee 3.0 Roadmap

From now every major release will have a roadmap. Each will be named after the current release, they detail the current trends and draft the future plans. Please note that roadmaps are not laws carved in stone: these are indeed plans which may change with time.

The current one for the 3.0 branch can be found below: this is how RT OSMC (in alphabetical order: DrSlony, dualon, ejmartin, Gabor, Hombre, janrinze, paul.matthijsse, TheBigOne) envisions the next few weeks. The discussion of the roadmap can be found here.

Please keep in mind that the plans outline an extremely fast progression. That is because we really want to have a stable release as soon as possible and it is beleived that it may be achieved, but the more realistic is that it will be ready only in the next year.
If we reach the beta phase for the holidays that would be already a great achievement.

Short-term roadmap

1. Announce feature freeze
Feature freeze will be announced on the website. Only bugfixes and GUI enhancements will be accepted for a short period. The new features will be included in the continued development tree shortly after the feature freeze, see below.
24th November.

2. Clean-up RT
Find the deprecated elements and redundancies in RT algorythms, GUI elements, etc. and remove them.
28th November.

3. Discuss the pp3 format
The pp3 files should save all the current settings and should be future-proof (as much as they can be). Partial profile application (lets say a pp3 includes only WB data) should be enabled too.
The less the conversion of sidecar files are, the better it is for users as well as for devs, so a thorough planning would be advisable.
28th November, parallel with clean-up.

4. Branch the repository
The main branch will remain the “development branch” and it will be renamed to “rawtherapee-head”, or “head” it will remain called “default”. A new “3.0_branch” will be introduced. Every bleeding edge development can go into the “head”, the 3.0 will accept only bugfixes and GUI enhancements. The commits of the 3.0 branch may be reintroduced to the head at a point later, most probably in big bunches.
28th November, or as soon as the clean-up is finished.

5. Implement pp3 changes.
10-13th December.

6. Fix known critical bugs, release RawTherapee 3.0 beta-1.
The beta-1 should feature all the algorythms and GUI elements as they will be released in the final version. All, or at least all the critical bugs should be fixed in this version (although it may contain some known bugs).
20th December.

7. Release beta-2/RC
If and when needed. Hopefully we can jump this step.

8. Release RawTherapee 3.0 stable.
If we are lucky it can be out until Christmas, but the more realistic is that we can announce it between X-mas and New Year or in the New Year. It would be great to let the users use a stable, or at least almost-stable version during the holidays.
Happy-happy RawTherapee community! :)

9. Maintanance of 3.0.x branch
The 3.0.x branch will be maintained with dcraw updates and maybe bugfixes until the next RC/stable release of RT.

Mid-term plans

- rtengine2
- Color tools in Lab colorspace
- updating documentation
- new profiles for portraits, landscapes, B&W shots, etc.

Mid- and/or long-term roadmap

- plugin system in RT based on rtengine2?
- CustomProfileBuilder v2 (as a plugin?)
- GUI redesign: modular (plugin-based) GUI (maybe based on the QT framework?)
- revision of color management in RT
- adding more digital asset management features (tagging of images, maybe showing all the images from different folders in Thumbnail Browser)
- Black & White tools: testing the current features, adding more if needed
- HDR tools


dualon