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Comment by DidYaWipe | Hacker News Reader

WTF is a "GEGL" operation? I've been using (and have written) image-processing and -manipulation tools for decades, and I've never heard of such a thing.

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GEGL is just a library created to modernize GIMP's image manipulation pipeline. It forms a DAG of image operations. It's what unlocked non-destructive edits and porting everything over to it was a pretty massive undertaking (though it probably didn't need to take 20 years...)

End users really don't need to know about it. Its exposure in the UI is likely just because a lot of stuff it can do isn't available yet in the traditional GIMP UI.

I'm a data engineer so DAG/node systems in content creation software delights me (Blender, Resolve, Houdini). Terrible it's hidden behind the name "GEGL Operations". I'm exactly the person who will get it and love it immediately, but will never find it. Sounds like your parent commenter is the same. GIMP has always been a leader in UI self-owns.

I think they don't want to expose the name "GEGL" anywhere, now it's working would be the time to sort that out.

Yep. I learned to appreciate node-based systems in Shake. Just a great way to work.

That is contradictory:

"End users really don't need to know about it... a lot of stuff it can do isn't available yet in the traditional GIMP UI"

So why "don't they need to know about it?" And regardless, putting a meaningless label on it is a user-hostile blunder. This blunder is not all that uncommon either. Affinity did it by burying a bunch of stuff under a menu item called "Studio." Not as bad as "GEGL", but still meaningless.

I think you maybe didn't see the "yet" in there. This is software written by unpaid volunteers. There is no user-hostility, only a lack of time and help at implementing things.

No, I saw the "yet." I don't see how it excuses a meaningless menu entry instead of a descriptive one.

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