GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 173066
Feature Request: Batch-Processor
Last modified: 2018-05-24 11:30:28 UTC
I would like to see a batch-processor in the next GIMP. There is a nice batch-processor in Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9, and there is an OpenSource (GPL) extension to GIMP, which is called David's Batch Processor (DBP). I ask the GIMP developers to include DBP into the GIMP maincode.
It's up to the maintainer of this plug-in to ask us to include it in the GIMP source tree.
Can you please include my DBP plugin in the Gimp source tree?
Reopening as enhancement request on the basis of comment #2.
Is the pthread stuff removed? It won't build on all platforms with this... David, you once told me that it isn't needed anyway.
Does it compile with GIMP_DISABLE_DEPRECATED and GTK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED defined? Does the UI adhere to the standards set in GIMP 2.2?
BTW, this plug-in is currently C++, isn't it? Won't this be a problem?
Not an unsolveable problem but IMO reason enough to not include it in the GIMP source tree but to distribute it separately. David, what are your reasons to ask for inclusion of the plug-in in the GIMP source tree anyway?
Here are my reasons: I think that inluding DBP into the GIMP's codeline is good for several things: 1) Attention - many GIMP users need batch functionality, but don't know that it's lying so near. 2) BETA Testing - you're plugin will be constantly BETA tested & fixed. 3) Development - new features will be added every now and then. (for example I would like to see Grayscaling in the color menu, besides contrast & brightness) 4) Localisation - Inside The GIMP, your code will be localised to some 20 or so languages within few years. 5) Difficulty of compiling : while I could download & install the Windows version (because you showed me where to look, myself could not find any Windows binaries), the Linux version just refuses to compile ... how sad :( I don't say it's because of your code - I think it's because I'm still a newbie in Linux, and unable to set up a proper build environment. But when this will be part of the GIMP this problem will be resolved automatically, because all major Linux distros include GIMP. Hope that's enough ? -Fenix*NBK*
A gui-driven batch processor is something that many users would value, and dbp seems to be rather widely appreciated in the community. If it was included in the source tree, it would be more conveniently available to users. If I were David, given the original bug report here and comments #1 and #2, I would find comment #7 annoying, and might be tempted to respond sarcastically. I have just been experimenting with the plug-in, and my general opinion is that it would often come in handy for basic batch processing of a set of digital photos. The only real usability issue I have is that it does not provide any way of remembering settings.
Re comment #8, the linux version will compile if you change "gimptool" to "gimptool-2.0" in the Makefile, in both places where it appears.
In general we lack the resources to collect even more plug-ins in our source tree. It should thus be our goal to encourage maintainance and distribution of plug-ins by third-party developers. The less plug-ins are included in the main GIMP source tree, the better. Under certain circumstances we can of course consider to add new plug-ins. An important aspect is that the plug-in is of general usefulness. This is given here but that isn't really sufficient. David has so far not said why he would like to stop distributing his plug-in on his own. He also hasn't mentioned yet if he wants to continue maintaining it in any way. Bill and Alexey, can't you just give David a chance to respond to these questions? There is really no point in turning this simple subject into an argument.
Hi, Alexey just notified me that this discussion was happening, so... * I don't much care whether DBP is included in the official source or not, and I can understand that being written in C++ is a problem in that regard. However, I do think that it is an exceptionally useful plugin, and I would like to see it more widely known. If there's a way to do that other than including it in the source tree, that would be great. * I have a family and a full time job, so I don't get much time to work on DBP and other projects; and I'm lazy, so I tend to neglect stuff that doesn't interest me. If anyone wants to set up the autotools build, or add string translation, or... that would be welcome. * No, it doesn't need pthreads. That was leftover from another use of the code. * I think it compiles OK with DISABLE_DEPRECATED, but I need to check. It probably needs some tweaking to match any UI standards, but I think the GUI is reasonably well designed and easy to use and understand. * Yup, gimptool should be gimptool-2.0. Don't know how that got through, because it shouldn't build on my machine either! * I am happy to keep distributing DBP myself. I'm not sure how much more work I want to do on it - it's not intended to do everything, just a common collection of batch ops, and it does that quite well. Mostly, I'd like more people to know that it exists when they need it. * Does "Add CC", below, mean "email me when someone changes this report"? I didn't know this was all going on.
> * Does "Add CC", below, mean "email me when someone changes this report"? I didn't know this was all going on. Yes, normally but you can setup Bugzilla to only mail you with certain types of changes to the bug reports (or never mail you at all).
Does batch processor mean batch convert? That is, by saving a series of, say, BMPs as GIFs for an animated GIF or JPGs as BMPs or TIFFs? Because I make complex animations often with 100 frames or more, it would be worthwhile to mass-convert all those BMP files as GIF images (and especially retain the original colors as is (as in keeping the color 6080FF as 6080FF and not something like 6666FF or 6699FF as I've seen in many batch converters)). A program called 20/20 retains the original colors, but it's batch convert tool doesn't retain the original colors so I have to manually open each file and save them and for 300 frames, it takes nearly 2 hours to process when a batch converter would only need one or two minutes.
Yes, DBP does batch conversions; the last stage of the processing is to save in a specified format, so you can convert a series of JPGs to BMPs. However, it doesn't solve your BMP to GIF problem, because it doesn't have a "convert to GIF usig this palette" function. DBP is not a general purpose GIMP batch system - it can only do the functions coded into it. That covers many common uses, but for anything more complex (or special-purpose), you'll need to use scripting.
*** Bug 305613 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
See also Bug 148333 – Dialog controlled batch operations. It's a pity that you can't do the daily work of a digicam amateur with gimp: batch resize, sharpen or greyscale the folder you just copied from camera. The best tool to do that is still Irfanview on Windows.
If you are only doing resizing, converting between file formats, and some other simple operations, using GIMP to do the processing is probably overkill. Tools such as Irfanview or ImageMagick would be better suited to the task.
(In reply to comment #18) > If you are only doing resizing, converting between file formats, and some other > simple operations, using GIMP to do the processing is probably overkill. Tools > such as Irfanview or ImageMagick would be better suited to the task. > If you are using GIMP for non-simple tasks, why shouldn't you use it for simple tasks, too? If you have experimented which are the best values for unsharp mask in GIMP, why should you have to experiment again for ImageMagick (I assume it can unsharp mask ;-) ? And, usually you try out interactively some changes to see the results before you batch-apply them to the 1000 images in that folder coming from my camera. So, should one try with GIMP and hope, that ImageMagick yields the same results? Why should I have to learn another tool beside GIMP? Irfanview does a lot and is great, but its Windows-only and not open source. And, what if I'd like to apply old photo script-fu to all images in the folder (of course without having to program lisp)? I think it should be possible to batch apply everything that you can do with GIMP on a single image without having to program lisp but rather with a GUI (that would be actions for GIMP applied as batch).
(In reply to comment #19) > Why should I have to learn another tool beside GIMP? Maybe because "GIMP is not the only image manipulation tool" is part of the product vision?
Found a nice tutorial (http://www.gimpguru.org/Tutorials/ChannelMixer/) on "Converting Color Images to B&W using Channel Mixer in The GIMP". Got really great results with Gimp 2.4. Afterwards had a little exercise with the Gimp file dialogs while converting some 20 images to b&w. No, I have absolutely no intention to figure out how to get the same results with ImageMagick. Wonder, if keeping the user busy clicking file open and friends is part of Gimp's product vision? Sorry for being cynical after that many clicks.
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