Hi.
I am new in this list. I had subscribed because i want to use the gimp in a way I had found little documentation (maybe i had looked for it in a wrong way ).
Gimp is a very nice development, and a great tool, I know its possible to use it like a user (thought its user interface), add it plug-ins (in scheme or python), and use it in a batch mode. But I want to extend it to allow to use its api from another program (suppose i had a console program and I need to edit a photograph, it would be nice to have access to a libgimp utility -and all its dependencies files- with the minimum install process).
Why? I am trying to develop a mozilla component to add this feature. I hope the short description above its enough clear to ask you: any tips or suggestions for this task? I think its a big and complex task but I want to try.
Thanks in advance.
Mariano.

Sven:
Really, thanks for your repply. Yes, I misunderstood. Then suppose that I develop that plug-in, something that allow an interproccess comunication with the GIMP, i still will have to install the GIMP, to start it in some way, and then to use it. I wonder if it is a good solution to use interproccess comunication instead of link or add it to a project (may be I cant still see the dimension of the task). Is it more difficult? or is there nothing developed that will make more easy the task? or is it impossible for some reason? or the plug in way can be a good starting point?
Another possibility can be: add to the gimp-console, this plug-in ability, or develop something like the gimp-console with this functionality, and allow it to be compiled like a library. But, if the way is a plug-in, it must have two parts: one (that must be installed in GIMP) that is responsible to expose the GIMP functionality, information about the environment (the plug-ins installed, the GIMP version,..). And a client part, that encapsulate the interproccess comunication. Because the GIMP runs on a big amount of systems, do you recommend something about the kind of ic that is the best to use? GIOChannel? signals? socket? pipe? another? In some point, the idea is, form a console test program, and like the first possible step:

#include "gimp_remoteclient.h" int main (void)
{
Gimp_Remote_Start ( );
Gimp_Image aGImg = Gimp_Remote_OpenImage ( "aImg.png" ); /*in a future, add image manipulation, filters and layer access,...*/ Gimp_Remote_SaveImageAs ( aGImg, "AImg2.png", Gimp_ImageFormat::PNG );
Gimp_Remote_End ( );
return 0;
}

I am sorry about my little knowledge about this idea and how to implement it -I really want to extend GIMP in this direction, I think it will be very nice.
Thanks in advance.
Mariano.

On 7/19/06, Sven Neumann wrote:

Hi,

On Sun, 2006-07-16 at 17:08 -0300, Mariano Cuenze wrote:

Gimp is a very nice development, and a great tool, I know its possible to use it like a user (thought its user interface), add it plug-ins (in scheme or python), and use it in a batch mode. But I want to extend it to allow to use its api from another program (suppose i had a console program and I need to edit a photograph, it would be nice to have access to a libgimp utility -and all its dependencies files- with the minimum install process).

I think you misunderstood what libgimp is doing. There is no image manipulation functionality in libgimp. libgimp is just used to allow the GIMP core and it's plug-ins to communicate. Without the GIMP core running, libgimp is useless. So you can't build an application, link to libgimp and use all the GIMP functionality. What you can do is to write a plug-in that communicates with a running GIMP process (or even to gimp-console, which is a gimp binary without the user interface).

Sven