The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

Darktable homepage: https://www.darktable.org/
Background info: https://www.darktable.org/2015/07/why-d ... ows-build/

Unofficial Windows builds: http://www.partha.com/ (Not Portable) (other good stuff on there too)

This program is somewhat comparable to RawTherapee & Photivo with its comprehensive feature list, modular workflow and dark interface.

The authors wrote:darktable is an open source photography workflow application and RAW developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.

That looks really sharp. It's amazing how many solid, open tools there are in this category.

(Moving to non-portable freeware forum.)

webfork wrote:It's amazing how many solid, open tools there are in this category.

Update on this:

Partha has stopped building Darktable after v2.0 (see 2nd post from top on partha.com). He didn't state why, however it seems to stem from the apparent hostility of the darktable devs (more info).

Anyway, it's quite sad ...

The good news is that Partha has made the Windows source code along with build instructions available on Github.

Topic update: just noting that a while ago Darktable devs stated their reasons for not providing a Windows build (see http://www.darktable.org/2015/07/why-do ... ows-build/)...

BTW, the latest Darktable release is v2.2.5, dated 2017-07-01 (changelog at http://www.darktable.org/2017/06/darkta ... -released/).

A couple of months back, Darktable devs apparently droped their aversion for a Windows release: http://www.darktable.org/2017/08/darktable-for-windows/...

Latest unstable v2.3.0 Windows build (64-bit only) is available from https://discuss.pixls.us/t/darktable-fo ... s/4966/192.

Let's just hope someone takes the extra step of making it portable.

BTW, the last Darktable stable version remains the same I posted above.

hi
any news?
i have used under imac and it's amazing
having portable would be great!

giulia wrote:i have used under imac and it's amazing
having portable would be great!

Agreed but I think we'll probably have to wait for the dust to settle to see if they'd be willing to do specialized versions of their new Windows version. One of the reasons I recommend for creating a portable version is for cross-platform capability via WINE and similar tools. That wouldn't be compelling for Darktable.

Also there have been a few projects that have flirted with a Windows release only to walk away from it. Abiword and some of the K-Office tools come to mind.

It has at least been discussed over at PA, if not in the warmest light and really as a vote for a similar program "LightZone".

Darktable v2.4.4 released (chagelog at https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/releases/).

Some sources claim the ZIP package is now portable (untested!). Revisited after reading about FLOSS RAW processing programs at:

• 3 Open Source Alternatives to Adobe Lightroom
  https://opensource.com/alternatives/adobe-lightroom

The alternatives mentioned are Darktable, RawTherapee and LightZone.

LightZone has no forum topic yet -- it's Java based and on Github: https://github.com/ktgw0316/LightZone.

Midas wrote: ↑Fri Jun 15, 2018 9:45 am LightZone has no forum topic yet

viewtopic.php?t=22859

Topic update: Darktable v3.4.0 released 2020-12-24 (release announcement at www.darktable.org/2020/12/darktable-340-released/).

BTW, a thread on its official forum (https://discuss.pixls.us/t/12888/) concludes that a "--configdir" parameter pointing to program folder would be enough to achieve Darktable portability.

I haven't tested it, so YMMV...

There's an update back in June with quite a few changes: https://www.darktable.org/2021/07/darktable-3-6/

... and I found a nice detailed process for portability that employs the configdir trick: https://dark-raw.com/make-darktable-por ... r-windows/

... So maybe this topic ought to be moved?

Would changing that to --> "start /d ".\darktable\bin" darktable.exe --configdir .\darktable\userdata\config" also work?

That didn't quite work right.. So, just to experiment, I installed, copied that installed directory to my P:/temp folder then unistalled. In the "darktable" folder I created the darktableExt.bat file with this --> "start /d ".\bin" darktable.exe --configdir ..\userdata\config" (without the beginning and end quotes) and it is starting fine and saving user data in the "P:\TEMP\darktable\userdata\config" folder.

I ran regedit and only found Windows based stuff like MuiCache, Store and other stuff. If one of you more seasoned/technical guys want to test further and confirm???

Webfork wrote:

... and I found a nice detailed process for portability that employs the configdir trick: https://dark-raw.com/make-darktable-por ... r-windows/

--- the working link is actually: https://dark-raw.com/posts/make-darktab ... n-windows/