lightcraft/docs/ui-parity.md

UI parity

Last reviewed: 2026-10-10 · Last updated: 2026-10-14 · Change: minor (zoom row: soft proofing sharp at 1:1; canvas tools by keyboard; focus-order test; ~50 unnamed hand-drawn widgets named) · Target: Adobe Lightroom Classic 15.5 / Lightroom 9.6

How LightCraft's interaction compares with Lightroom's: views, panels, tools and handles, modifier keys, shortcuts, zoom, context menus and feel. Rows for individual menu items and shortcuts live in parity-checklist.md (sections Y and Z, Classic keys); this page is the assessment and the notes that don't fit a row. Visual reference for agents: plan/lightroom/ (local, gitignored; 10-observed-ui.md and screenshots).

Measured counts (2026-10-10)

• 226 engine commands (crates/engine/src/cmd/, 30 modules) and 143 UI commands (UI_COMMANDS in crates/ui-egui/src/menus.rs, 73 with a shortcut) plus 10 language commands; 23 secondary shortcut bindings (ALIASES, crates/ui-egui/src/shortcuts.rs); a keymap editor.
• 122 develop controls plus 10 indexed templates (crates/develop/src/controls.rs).
• Checklist: menus 95.3% (86 in-scope rows), desktop shortcuts 94.4% (81 rows), Classic extras 48.2% (82 rows), measured by recounting parity-checklist.md.
• 31 panel modules (crates/ui-egui/src/panels/), 26 context-menu sites.

Assessment by area

Area	Target	LightCraft	Ready	Main gaps
Layout and views	Lightroom: grid / detail / edit; Classic: Library, Develop, Map, Book, Slideshow, Print, Web modules, filmstrip, panels	Lightroom-style single window: Photo Grid, Square Grid, Detail, Compare, Survey (≤ 48), Before / After, People, quick slideshow, second window, filmstrip	75%	no Classic module switcher (by design) or output modules; dark theme only
Develop panels and sliders	Light, Color, Effects, Detail, Optics, Geometry, Lens Blur, Calibration	every global slider; scrub, double-click reset, Alt-drag previews where implemented	80%	Lens Blur, Calibration panel depth; slider feel (acceleration, fine Shift-drag) unmeasured
Crop, Upright, transform handles	handles, aspect lock, angle, overlays (O / ⇧O), guided Upright	✅ all of them; overlay cycle on ⇧O	85%	crop opacity of cut-out area (15.5)
Masking tools	brush (A / B, flow, density, auto mask, pressure), linear / radial, range masks, AI masks, pins	brush, linear, radial, colour / luminance range, add / subtract / intersect / invert, masks panel, pins	60%	brush live preview (#517 / #518), no pen pressure, no depth range, AI masks, Feather / Edge controls (15.5)
Remove / heal	content-aware remove, heal, clone, visualize spots	heal, clone, auto source, visualize spots, red / pet eye	65%	content-aware (patch synthesis) remove, generative remove, detect distractions
Zoom and navigation	Fit / Fill / 1:1 / 2:1 … 11:1, Navigator, spacebar pan	Fit to 800%, pinch zoom, pan, Navigator-like	60%	diagnostic overlays (Visualize Spots, Point Color range, HDR range) render the whole frame instead of a zoom window; everything else, mask overlays and soft proofing included, is sharp at 1:1–8:1
Library culling and metadata	ratings, flags, labels with keys, painter, keywording, metadata panel, filter bar	ratings / flags / labels and advance, keyword list and sets, keywording box, metadata fields, smart albums, filter bar	85%	painter tool, quick collection, some Classic keys
Shortcuts	Lightroom desktop and Classic keymaps	Lightroom-desktop keymap with Classic additions, editable	85%	deliberate differences below; no Classic keymap layer
Context menus	everywhere	26 sites (grid, filmstrip, albums, folders, keywords, masks, presets…)	70%	unaudited against Lightroom's menus item by item
Text fields	native editing behaviour	custom text field (LR-BEHAV-TEXTFIELD)	70%	IME and selection edge cases
Accessibility	VoiceOver / Narrator, keyboard navigation	AccessKit tree audited by a test in every view, Develop tool and the main dialogs: every control named, sliders with value, range and Increment / Decrement, dialogs titled, tool sliders reachable with Tab; crop handles, spots, gradient handles and mask pins by keyboard	75%	brush strokes and red-eye ellipses need the pointer; not tried with a real screen reader (audit)
Feel and responsiveness	GPU-interactive sliders (15.3)	≤ 16 ms slider budget on GPU; background renders	75%	colour NR at half resolution, 100k-photo grid test
UI/UX overall			~70%	estimated, weighted by use (develop and library 60%, tools 25%, rest 15%)

Remaining: 32–54 h (zoom detail 8–15 h, brush and masking feel 8–12 h, accessibility 2–4 h, Classic keymap layer 4–8 h, context-menu audit 4–8 h, text-field and IME polish 4–8 h). Output modules and AI tools are counted with their features in target-app-parity.md.

Shortcuts

Compared plan/lightroom/06-shortcuts.md (desktop part) with our bindings: command specs in crates/engine/src/cmd/, UI_COMMANDS in crates/ui-egui/src/menus.rs and secondary bindings (ALIASES) in crates/ui-egui/src/shortcuts.rs. no_conflicting_bindings (same file) fails when one key fires two actions.

Fixed (M16.1): added Lightroom-desktop keys as secondary bindings for existing commands — ⌘D Select None, ⇧E Export dialog, Space Toggle zoom, ⇧M Create Version, ⇧X Reject + advance, ⇧U Unflag + advance. ⇧Y fired both Before/After Split and the History panel; History lost the binding. W and ⇧⌘I also fired the engine command under the UI command that wraps it (a no-op error); the UI command now wins.

Deliberate differences (our key → Lightroom desktop key) — each is a conflict with another binding we have:

Action	Ours	Lightroom desktop	Why
Pick flag	P	Z	Z = toggle zoom (Classic convention); P is the Classic pick key
Photos panel (left)	⌘⇧L	P	P = pick
Expand/collapse edit sections	⌘⌥1–5	⌘1–6	⌘0 = Zoom to Fit, ⌘1 = Zoom 100 %; Geometry lives in the Crop panel
Histogram	⌘⇧H	⌘0	⌘0 = Zoom to Fit
Square Grid	⇧G	(none; ⇧G = Guided Upright)	Guided Upright is a button in the Crop panel
Hide / show pins (Tool Overlay)	⇧H (cycles Auto, Always, Selected, Never)	H (Classic)	H opens Remove; View ▸ Tool Overlay and the Remove / Masking panels pick a mode
Export dialog	⌘⇧E (+ ⇧E)	⇧E	⌘⇧E is "Edit in Photoshop" there; no external-editor command yet
Crop overlay cycle	⇧O	O	O = mask overlay; ⇧O (mask colour / overlay orientation) unused otherwise
Create Version	⌘⇧S (+ ⇧M)	⇧M (Windows: Ctrl+⇧S)	—
Select None	⌘⇧A (+ ⌘D)	⌘D	—

Library culling (KEYC-RATING): 0–5, 6–9 and P/X/U reach egui on macOS even when displayed in the native menu (adapted from PR #261; issue #283). Shift+0–9 applies and advances once; Shift+P picks and advances in Photo Grid / Square Grid and retains Presets elsewhere. See library shortcuts for the verified Classic mapping and regression coverage. ` cycles the flag (unflagged → pick → reject → unflagged) and ⌘↑ / ⌘↓ raise / lower it; the native menu leaves ⌘↑ / ⌘↓ to egui so Compare/Survey act on the active photo. Remaining Classic gaps: filter-bar keys.

Grid thumbnail size (KEYC-COMPARE): Classic's = and - increase and decrease the Grid thumbnail size (same keys on macOS and Windows; + also works for the larger size here, as Shift+= or the keypad). They step the bottom-bar slider by 30 pt inside its 90–480 pt range, in Photo Grid, Square Grid and People only; Detail, Compare, Survey and Reference ignore them, and ⌘= / ⌘− stay Zoom In / Out. See library shortcuts.

Library navigation keys (KEYC-COMPARE): in Photo Grid and Square Grid, Home / End make the first / last photo of the view the active, selected one, and Shift+Left / Shift+Right add the previous / next photo of the view to the selection (the added photo becomes active; the keys never remove a photo from the selection, and do nothing at either end of the view). They wait in the other views, in the full-screen preview, while a text field or a dialog has the keyboard, and when you gave the key to a command; they are listed under Fixed keys in Help → Keyboard Shortcuts. Cmd+O (Ctrl+O on Windows and Linux) runs File → Open Library… ; View → Visualize HDR has no default key (Shift+H cycles the Tool Overlay, issue #224; Cmd+Shift+H stays the Histogram). Covered by crates/ui-egui/src/tests_keymap.rs; the macOS native menu path for Cmd+O is not exercised by the headless tests.

Still missing / broken:

• No command yet: F1 help (verify the rest of the old list: full screen, settings, stacks, visualize spots and merges have commands now).
• ⌘M / ⌘H / ⌘Q / ⌘W rely on the platform window defaults (unverified).

Accessibility audit

crates/ui-egui/tests/accessibility.rs walks the AccessKit tree egui hands to VoiceOver, Narrator and AT-SPI, headless, in Photo Grid, Square Grid, Detail, Compare, Survey and Reference, in each right panel (Edit, Profiles, Crop, Remove, Masking, Red Eye, Versions, Activity, Keywords, Info) and in 13 dialogs (Export, Copy / Paste Settings, Create Preset, Rename, New Album, New Smart Album, Capture Time, Label Names, All Metadata, Save Metadata Preset, Auto Stack, Contact Sheet). It fails on a button, check box, slider, text field, dropdown, tab, link or menu item without a name, on a slider without its value and range, and on a dialog window without a title.

Found and fixed (2026-10-12): 47 problems in the views and tools, 11 more in the dialogs.

• Every text field announced only its contents: the top search box, the Info panel's metadata fields and GPS, the keyword fields, Crop's custom aspect, and plain egui fields in the dialogs (export file name, folder, subfolder, watermark, preset names, label names, rename template, metadata filter). TextField now names itself by its caption (.label) or hint; plain egui fields are named with widgets::named.
• Develop sliders announced a value but no range: they now carry min, max, step, the value as shown ("+0.50"), and answer a screen reader's Increment / Decrement (VoiceOver Ctrl-Option-Up / Down) by one step, as the arrow keys do. A slider reached with Tab takes the arrow keys as a clicked one does.
• Auto Stack's time slider had no name.

Keyboard reach: Crop (angle, offsets, scale, aspect) and Remove (size, feather, opacity) settings are reached with Tab and adjusted with the arrow keys (tested).

Canvas tools by keyboard (crates/ui-egui/src/canvas_keys.rs, tests in tests_canvas_keys.rs): every handle drawn on the photo has an invisible stand-in that takes the focus. Tab reaches it, a screen reader reads its name and position ("Crop bottom-right corner", "left 0%, top 0%, right 100%, bottom 100%"; "Spot 1", "x 30%, y 60%, size 5%"), and the arrow keys move it by 0.5% of the photo (Shift: 5%), one undo step per press. While it has the focus it keeps the arrows, Return and Space, and the app's other shortcuts still work.

• Crop: four corners, four edges and the whole box (crop.drag, so the aspect lock and image bounds apply as they do for a drag); Return applies the crop.
• Remove: each spot's target and source; a "New spot" point that starts at the centre, moves with the arrows, and turns into a spot of the brush's size when you press Return.
• Masking: the four edges and the rotation handle of a radial gradient, the start and end of a linear one, and each mask pin (moving one selects its mask).

Focus order: the audit now also counts any widget that takes the focus or a click, whatever its role. That found about 50 hand-drawn icons, tiles and rows with no name: top-bar icons, flags and stars, filmstrip and survey tiles, preset and profile rows, curve channels, colour wheels, mask tiles and rows, slider labels and readouts. They are now announced as buttons. A test walks Tab through the Edit, Crop, Remove and Masking panels and checks that it goes top to bottom (the tool strip beside them is its own column, walked first). No reordering was needed once nothing unnamed was in the way.

Not done: brush strokes and red-eye ellipses still need a pointer. Nobody has tried the app with a real screen reader on any platform yet.

Revision history

Date	Change	Summary
2026-10-14	patch	Shortcuts: Visualize HDR loses its default ⇧H, which cycles the Tool Overlay (issue #224); both PRs had claimed it
2026-10-12	minor	Accessibility: crop handles, spots, gradient handles and mask pins operable by keyboard with AccessKit names and values; Tab order test for the right panels; hand-drawn icons and rows named; 55% → 75%; UI remaining 34–58 h → 32–54 h
2026-10-13	minor	Shortcuts: Tool Overlay modes for spot and mask pins on ⇧H (H stays Remove; issue #224), listed with the deliberate differences; dropped from the missing list
2026-10-13	minor	Library culling: backtick cycles the flag; ⌘↑ / ⌘↓ raise / lower flag status
2026-10-13	minor	KEYC-COMPARE: = / - grid thumbnail size keys noted in the shortcuts section
2026-10-13	minor	Shortcuts: Home / End and Shift+Left / Right in the two library grids, Cmd+O (Open Library…) and Shift+H (Visualize HDR) get bindings and keyboard tests; percentages and the dated counts above are unchanged
2026-10-14	minor	Zoom row: soft proofing gets zoom windows; LR-VIEW-ZOOM gap closed
2026-10-12	minor	Accessibility: an AccessKit tree audit test over every view, Develop tool and 13 dialogs; unnamed fields, slider ranges and the Auto Stack slider fixed; 30% → 55%; UI remaining 40–70 h → 34–58 h
2026-10-11	minor	Zoom row: Compare and Reference get zoom windows; what remains of LR-VIEW-ZOOM is overlays and soft proofing
2026-10-10	major	Created: measured command and shortcut counts, assessment by area, estimates; moved the shortcut conflicts section here from the checklist