GIMP# 0.12

GIMP# is an API wrapper around GIMP, written in C#. However, its not just a wrapper. GIMP# project also adds a thin layer which adds C# specific features, like iterating through a collection. An example of this is an iteration through the guides of an image. In C# this looks like:

foreach (Guide guide in image.Guides)
{
// Do something
}

In C this would have been:

gint32 guide_ID = 0:
while ((guide_ID = gimp_image_find_next_guide(image_ID, guide_ID)) != 0)
{
// Do something
}

GIMP# also offers a base plug-in class which does the difficult stuff for you. Implementing a new plug-in is just a matter of overriding a few virtual methods. See the samples directory for examples of how to do this.

Gimp# fills the niche between scripting languages (easy to write, slow) and C (harder to write, fast). If you need a quick and dirty plug-in where speed doesnt matter that much, write it in any of the scripting languages that come with GIMP (Scheme, Perl, etc.). Scripting languages are very well fitted for calling existing functionality, shortening manual tasks.

You probably dont want pixel manipulation in Scheme. In C, on the other hand, it takes a lot more time to create a plug-in for several reasons: building the GUI is time consuming. Secondly, pixel handling is not completely trivial. You have to know how to traverse through the tiles of an image, etc. Typically the actual algorithm is only a very small (5 - 20 %) part of the total code. Gimp# is not as fast as C, but much faster than a scripting language. Building a decent GUI is much easier than in C.