Hello!

I am wondering if anybody else has ever run into this situation. Now, I have GIMP on my thumb drive its packaged from portableapps.com. Now I have no issues if I run it on my PC at home but if I take it to work with me I cannot load PNG's per say.

I even went as far as to uninstall the portable app GIMP and then re-install it same behavior. There's got to be something missing!

I think I'll go find Partha's version for now. I just find it really odd!

Thanks for any ideas!

If it works ok at home I doubt it's Gimp that is at fault. If you have PNGs associated with Gimp and you load them by double-clicking then your work's computer will be different and you will need to open up Gimp first and use file>open to open your png. (or drag it onto gimp)

Actually .. none of them work opening. Can't open gif, jpg, png. Says invalid file type, I export to those types. It'll let me open xcf files.

I'm taking the installer for GIMP with me tonight and installing it directly on my PC at work. Psssft I work in IT so it's not a big deal! I'll see what that does!

Sounds like you've got problems. Parthas versions are usually reliable but I'm no tech expert so I can't really help with problems of this kind. Best of luck.

MrBiggz
Like most programs this one relies on libraries/dll's to render jpeg tiff gif png etc.
Gimp's native xcf's are supported by Gimp itself of course.
Will your boss accept you installing those missing libs?
Gerard.

No. They are plug-ins.
They are in (gimp)\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins and they only need the libraries that gimp needs.
So if gimp runs, the plug-ins run, too.
The directory for the plug-ins must be known to gimp. Normally, the directory is known by default.
So Edit/Preferences/Folder/plug-ins must point to this directory.
XCF is not handled by a plug-in, but is part of the core, so xcf is always handled.

They are not plugins in Linux.
Gerard.

I'll take a look at that! I believe everything is at it's default but I'll double check!

I'm fairly savvy didn't know if it was a windows thing or a gimp thing. Cause I could open the file in MS Paint (ick).

So, I'll try looking at the plugins first and secondly at my disposal I have partha's and I have the PC installer as well. I'll get to the bottom of this! =)

That makes me wonder. I am almost very sure, that they are all plugins, also in linux.
I think they are in
\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins
Please take a look. There should be about 200 programs, the filters, and file-filters of gimp.

I think you are confusing dependencies and plugins.
When someone writes a computer program it's normal practise to use existing software to accomplish certain tasks.
That then becomes a dependency,this holds true for any OS.
No use re-inventing the wheel to accomplish something that already has been made.
The only thing needed is a correct API (application programming interface).
Gerard.

Edit: I just checked in my Windows 7 which I run in virtualbox and has Gimp.
Apparently you didn't actually check it because I can't find anything in the plugin directory.

Hi Garard.

I think, you did not address me with your post, but the thread starter so I try to make
it more clear. He wants to get to the bottom of this...
Dependencies in windows are realized as .dll, and gimp uses a very lot of them.
In linux, they are realized as .so files.
You cannot compile gimp without all the needed dependencies.
And later on (maybe after copying gimp) it will not start without the dependencies.
My experience: If one dependency is missing, gimp will set an error. Is the dependency
important for gimp itself (the core), gimp will not start. If it is only important for a plug-in, gimp will
start, but the plug-in will not be initialized and is missing.
So if a dependency is missing, you will recognize it.
Almost all filters and also the file filters for all file formats except xcf are realized as
plug-ins. These are small programs with a specialized structure.
In linux, they are regular ELF programs, in windows, they are .exe files (PE Header).
I checked my mint with gimp (ok, It is only 2.6, but in this point, there is no difference
between 2.6 and 2.8 [not 2.9, many plug-ins will be .dll for gegl]), all plug-ins are in
/usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins.
There is an other plug-ins folder, it is in the home directory of the current user. This is usually
empty, it is for third-party plug-ins.
On windows, the standard plugins are, if gimp directory is gimp-2 and installed in c:\program files:
c:\program files\gimp-2\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins

When starting gimp for the first time, the gimp directory structure in the home directory of the current user
is created, (I believe, some old properties are copied, too, but I don't know, which ones)
and the properties are reset. So in Edit/preferences/folder/plug-ins there are at least two
entries:
One pointing to the standard directory (/usr/lib/......) and the other one to the home directory
(/home/user/.gimp-2.8/plug-ins)
If the first entry is missing, the described behaviour appears.

I use Gentoo Linux.
Everything is compiled from source.
Gentoo uses "ebuilds" as a recipe for the package manager.
The user can decide what a particular program will support or not.
Below a snippet of the Gimp ebuild.

The ones with the "?" are possible choices the user has.
The others are must-haves.
So,at least in Gentoo,it's possible to have Gimp w/o support for png,jpg,gif etc.
Gerard.

I actually find the problem. There where a few, I think 3 to be exact dll's in the System32 folder they where libgimp-something.dll

I looked at the dates on them and they where aged!!!! I deleted them and cranked GIMP back up and vio'la it worked like a charm!

Go figure!

Thank you to all who helped and suggested things!

Those are just "stubs" to load libraries.
Like in "/usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/file-jpeg"
Look at the source and you'll find in "jpeg-load.c" :
#include jpeglib.h"
Gerard.

That is strange because in Windows gimp should not install any dll outside to its own folder in Program Files , ...or in case of a portable version where ever installed , ... so should be not any gimp dll in system or system32.

Gimp , portable or not ,have no reason to search dll outside its own folder ...but ,alas,it does search also in system/system32 folders and if find clones there... none works

Yet is strange that you have gimp dll in system folder

I look a the source, and see in "plug-ins/file-jpeg/jpeg.c" things like:


So we are definitely looking at plugin code. Futhermore the directory plug-ins/file-jpeg contains 22 files totaling 6282 lines of code, so it's not just a stub...

Of course the code use libjpeg (or libpng in the other plugin) to decode/encode the image file, but loading the JPEG/PNG data is only a small part of the work.

You don't need a "stub" to load a library. You have to insert a header file, link against the library and thats it. Now you can call the code from the library.
Of course the libjpeg library is used by the plugin. Gimp developers uses the functions of that library to get easy access to the jpeg content (like compression, color profile, etc.), or they have to reinvent the wheel. But the library doesn't offer (of course) functions to make a gimp-image from a jpeg. Thats the work of the plugin.
Other plugins makes the filter of gimp (e.g. unsharp-mask). The get access to the pixel of a gimp-image, modifies them and returns the modified gimp-image.

From gimp-2.10, most of the filters are realized as gegl-operations. That are .dll/.so files. They are called from gimp, but can be also called from a plugin.