lightcraft/docs/ui-parity.md

UI parity

Last reviewed: 2026-10-10 · Last updated: 2026-10-10 · Change: major (created; shortcut notes moved here from the checklist) · 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%	original-pixel detail at 100% (preview capped at 2,560 px; P0 gap LR-VIEW-ZOOM)
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: sliders, buttons, dropdowns, section headers announce	30%	canvas tools pointer-only; not audited with a screen reader
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: 40–70 h (zoom detail 8–15 h, brush and masking feel 8–12 h, accessibility audit 10–20 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
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. Remaining Classic gaps: rating [ / ], flag cycling and filter-bar keys.

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).
• H opens Remove; Lightroom also uses it (Classic) to hide pins — pins toggle from View → Show Mask Pins.
• ⌘M / ⌘H / ⌘Q / ⌘W rely on the platform window defaults (unverified).

Revision history

Date	Change	Summary
2026-10-10	major	Created: measured command and shortcut counts, assessment by area, estimates; moved the shortcut conflicts section here from the checklist