[Gimp-developer] Parasite system

[Paul Thompson <patjahsd gmail com>]

I have mentioned occasionally that I am working on the problem of a script
recorder for GIMP. While this is difficult, I think that it is do-able for
a least a limited subset of GIMP commands.

I have concluded, at this point, that the parasite system can be used to
record and track actions. Thus, you need to determine when an action
occurs, and record information about it.

There are the three types of parasites: image, gimp, and global. I have
successfully set up image parasites for some commands. The problem is that
you need a reference to the image to attach a parasite to it. This is not
always available.

Global parasites may be a better choice, but the problem is that I cannot
get these to work.

Image parasites (gimp_image_parasite_attach) are defined in
gimp/app/core/gimpimage.c. I have used them in 3 or 4 other internal
functions.

Global parasites (gimp_attach_parasite) are defined in
gimp/libgimp/gimp_pdb.c. I have tried a number of approaches to using
these, but get the 'undefined reference to ' error during the make install
step.

So, questions:

1) Are global parasites considered appropriate for use at this time, or are
there issues with them?
2) How do I use a global parasite successfully? I have attempted to find
the correct *.h file to include a reference to, but as of today, this has
not worked successfully.
3) Do I need to modify the makefile to successfully use global parasite
fuctions?

Paul A. Thompson