Re: [Gimp-user] Gimp macro recorder?

[Øyvind Kolås <pippin gimp org>]

On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 7:21 PM Zbigniew via gimp-user-list
<gimp-user-list gnome org> wrote:
> Are there any plans to equip Gimp with macro recorder? I mean kind of tool
> present, for example, in LightRoom, where every change applied to picture is
> listed on the screen - and one can then copy a whole "procedure" with simple
> <Control>-<C> then apply that series of commands by <Control>-<V> onto any
> other picture, not being forced to start whole procedure all over again.
>
> And such recorded list of procedures/commands - and I mean literally every
> procedure listed in GIMP's menus, be it internal command or installed script
> - it should be possible to save it into ordinary text file, and then to use
> it as a parameter in case of batch processing, I mean something like this
> (parameters fictional, just example how do I see this):
>
>  gimp -procedure recorded-commands.txt --no-gui *.jpg --output new/*.jpg
>
> Something like this should apply recorded actions - one after another - to
> each *.jpg file found in current directory. I mean batch processing using
> GIMP in ImageMagick's way. Correcting only one picture - while recording
> actions during the process - then applying sequence of actions to whole set
> of next pictures, using GIMP as command-line tool.
>
> GIMP has long history - but if I'm correct it still doesn't have such
> ability until this day. Yes, I found some tools like BIMP, I found the tips
> "learn Script-Fu language" - but actually why until now such obvious thing
> requires learning special programming language? GIMP "knows" what have I
> done while processing picture, so it should be able to list my actions like
> this:
>
> sharpen 75%
> automatic-white-balance
> resize 10% down
> some-script-action (applied)
> wavelet-denoise <...parameters...>
> draw-a-line using brush, color etc.

GEGL - http://gegl.org/ was started to revamp GIMP with a new engine
that can handle floating point raster images, as well as enable things
like non-destructive editing, which is what you are describing.
Non-destructive editing is the next thing on GIMPs roadmap, now after
porting core to rely on GEGL apis, and the current cycle of porting
from GTK2 to GTK3 is done. Non-destructive editing seem similar to
scripting and macro recording and the existing GIMP framework for
exposing actions for scripting languages. But actual non-destructive
image editing belongs in the layer stack together with layer mode
operations. The work on porting the functionality of gimp-2.6/2.8 to
GEGL is quite complete with 2.10, but the only real feature GIMP has
gained/exposed is working at higher bit-depth. There is another wrong
direction some people are taking when considering action recorders for
GIMP, the undo stack - but due to how it works in GIMP that is also
not a fruit-ful way to do it.

You can already use filters that have been ported to be GEGL
operations from the commandline - see http://gegl.org/gegl-chain.html
for examples on doing this the format uses to describe processing
chains on the commandline is compatible with prototype user interfaces
for testing GEGL features that are not yet complete or tested enough
that GIMP developers want to start adopting them, like non-destructive
editing, CMYK support and various other methods for more performant
preview rendering, see https://www.patreon.com/posts/24123574 for
details on this work as well as how you can support efforts to improve
this. Since non-destructive editing is coming up on the GIMP roadmap,
a planning session for further plans have been submitted for this
years libre graphics meeting,
https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/2019/schedule-fri-31-05/ .

/Øyvind -pippin- Kolås - GEGL maintainer