Programming Web Graphics with Perl and GNU Softwar

File Operations

All of the file operations performed by the Gimp are handled by plug-ins. To support a new file format, all you have to do is write a “file load” procedure and a “file save” procedure, and register them with the Gimp. Each format’s load procedure follows a similar format, taking three arguments and returning an image. The run_mode specifies whether the Gimp should prompt the user for information (if RUN_INTERACTIVE) or simply perform the action with the supplied arguments (if RUN_NONINTERACTIVE). The filename and raw_filename^[23] arguments should both contain the path and name of the file to load. The first five arguments of the save procedure for a file format are also generally standard: the run_mode ,the image to save, the drawable for the image, the filename to save it as, and the raw_filename. Most formats have additional arguments to the save procedure (file_png_save, for example, allows you to specify a compression level and whether the image is to be interlaced).

The gimp_temp_name function will return a unique filename in the user’s .gimp directory. Here’s an example of saving an image as a temporary GIF file:

# Save as a temporary GIF file
#
gimp_convert_indexed_palette($img, 1, 2, 0, 0);   # Use web palette
my $tmpfile = gimp_temp_name('gif');
file_gif_save(RUN_NONINTERACTIVE, $img, $drawable, 
              $tmpfile, $tmpfile, 1, 0, 100, 0);

There are actually many more file formats supported by the Gimp; only those specifically applicable to web graphics have been listed ...