Release Notes

4.1

This is very likely the last release of Export Layers. For GIMP 3, you can use Batcher, a successor to this plug-in.

New features:

• Added a Scale procedure that allows scaling layers, with the option to scale to a percentage of image/layer width/height.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed width and height of images exported using the “For each top-level layer or group” option.
• Fixed a crash when removing a new action while the edit dialog is open.
• Fixed procedure and constraint names not being truncated properly if the text does not fit the dialog width.
• Fixed edit dialog for procedures and constraints stretching because of long names or descriptions.
• Fixed tooltip for filename pattern entry not hiding properly.
• Fixed a crash when clicking on the contents of a popup spawned when an in-line message is too long. The popup was replaced with a tooltip.

4.0.2

• Image metadata (Exif, XMP, IPTC) are now added to each exported layer. Applies to GIMP 2.10 only.

4.0.1

• Fixed JSON serialization for procedures or constraints containing array arguments.
• Fixed a crash when a PDB procedure is no longer available (which could happen if GIMP removed a procedure in a later version or a custom script/plug-in is not available in a different GIMP installation). A warning message will be displayed instead.

4.0

New features:

• In-place batch editing of layers is now available. Procedures can now be applied directly to the layers without exporting them. This option is available by checking “Batch Editing” under the “Settings” button.
• Added the option to export multi-layer images, e.g. multi-page PDFs or animated GIFs. While this is already possible in GIMP, Export Layers allows you to:
  • export images with additional custom procedures applied before the export,
  • export each top-level group as separate multi-layer images.
• Added a new procedure named “Export” to allow multi-layer export as described above.
• Settings (including procedures and constraints) can now be exported to and imported from a file. This allows swapping between different plug-in configurations and sharing them.
• Procedures can now be applied to background or foreground layers instead of always the layer being exported. If a procedure provides a layer/drawable/item argument, you may now select “Background Layer” or “Foreground Layer” (beside “Current Layer”).
• Added “Merge background” and “Merge foreground” procedures to explicitly merge back- and foreground layers, respectively. These procedures are useful for batch editing if you wish to merge background and foreground layers into each layer rather than keeping them as separate layers.
• Added the option to apply constraints to parent layer groups as well (when editing a constraint, check More options → Also apply to parent folders).
• The “Rename” procedure can now optionally rename only folders (previously allowed only layers or both layers and folders, but not folders alone).
• Added another PDB procedure, plug-in-export-layers-with-config, which runs Export Layers non-interactively with the specified settings file (obtained by exporting settings in the plug-in dialog).

Changes to procedures:

• Removed the “Use file extension in layer name” procedure. The same functionality is now available in the “Export” procedure.
• Removed the “Autocrop background” and “Autocrop foreground” procedures as the same effect can be achieved by inserting the gimp-plugin-autocrop-layer procedure and setting the drawable argument to “Background Layer” or “Foreground Layer”, respectively.
• Renamed the “Rename layer” procedure to just “Rename” for brevity.
• The edit dialog for the “Rename” procedure is now displayed when added.

Changes to constraints:

• Removed the “Include layers” constraint and instead added a constraint to export only layers.
• Removed the “Include layer groups” constraint and instead added a constraint to export only layer groups.
• Removed the “Include empty layer groups” constraint without replacement. Empty folders are no longer created.
• With the above changes, all constraints now consistently only remove (filter) layers. For brevity, the names of all constraints have been shortened. For example, “Only visible layers” has been renamed to “Visible”, “Only layers selected in preview” to “Selected in preview”, etc.
• The “Visible” constraint is now enabled when added. It is still added unchecked when opening the plug-in for the first time or resetting the plug-in settings.

Other changes:

• Layer groups as images and as folders are now displayed separately in the preview.
• Built-in procedures and constraints are now listed alphabetically.
• Shortened the name of the DICOM file format. As a result, the file format popup is now much shorter and thus more compact.
• Reworked warning messages displayed when a procedure or constraint fails during processing or preview.
• Added a button to copy details to clipboard in error/warning dialogs for easier reporting.
• A procedure or constraint causing an error during processing is now also indicated in the dialog with a warning icon. Clicking on the icon displays details about the error.
• When editing a procedure or constraint, clicking on the edit button again will bring the edit dialog to front.
• Edit dialogs for procedures and constraints are now closed before the start of processing.
• Removed restrictions on the maximum width and height for the image preview.
• Updated documentation with examples on how to customize the export.
• When resetting settings and Show More Settings is checked, the option to reset procedures and constraints is now checked by default.
• Settings can now be saved to the default location by pressing Ctrl + S anywhere in the dialog.
• Reworked internal representation of settings. This does not impact any existing features, except that some settings will be reset, specifically layers selected or collapsed in the preview. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a crash and inconsistencies in the preview if both “Ignore folder structure” and “Selected in preview” are enabled. This also adversely causes the preview to be slower upon selecting items when “Selected in preview” is enabled. The drop in performance is only noticeable for hundreds of layers in an image.
• Fixed image preview not scaling layer groups if no custom GIMP PDB procedure is active.
• Fixed export failing for some custom procedures modifying the number of layers, e.g. gimp-image-merge-visible-layers.
• Fixed custom PDB procedures modifying layer names not taking effect (e.g. gimp-item-set-name).
• Fixed array widgets in edit dialog for custom procedures having incorrect height when pressing Reset and then Cancel.

3.3.7

• Fixed a bug that was causing the plug-in to fail for GIMP 2.8.

3.3.6

• Fixed file format dialog appearing for every layer group (instead of just once for the first layer).

3.3.5

• The “Rename” procedure can now optionally rename layer groups.
• “Inherit transparency from layer groups” now uses the most recent layer opacity in case a custom procedure adjusting the opacity is applied before.
• Fixed multiple constraints with arguments (e.g. Only layers without tags) where only one of them would be active at the same time even if all of them are enabled.

3.3.4

• Added option to not apply a procedure for previews. This is useful for very slow procedures having little effect on the exported image if you want to keep the preview updated automatically, or procedures that e.g. manipulate the file system (such as export procedures) to avoid saving previewed images.
• Moved the source code repository to a new location: https://github.com/kamilburda/gimp-export-layers
• Moved the site to a new location: https://kamilburda.github.io/gimp-export-layers/

3.3.3

• Fixed a fatal bug preventing the plug-in from starting.
• Improved safeguards against empty fields in the GUI that could possibly cause the plug-in to crash.

3.3.2

General changes:

• Fixed a crash while finishing export when using back- or foreground layers.
• Fixed export when using a custom procedure containing a Color argument.
• Fixed export of layers with locks (position, alpha channel, etc.). All locks are now ignored during export.
• When the “Ignore folder structure” procedure is added, the full layer path is maintained in the exported layer filenames.
• Added an explicit “Rename layer” procedure, overriding the filename pattern for the text field next to “Save as:”. This allows e.g. retaining the old behavior of “Ignore folder structure”, or to chain a sequence of replacements via the new [replace] field (see below).
• The file extension can now also be specified in uppercase.
• The file extension text entry now automatically adjusts the text (removing extra leading ‘.’, reverting to the last valid value) upon clicking outside the entry.
• Renamed Use file extensions in layer names to Use file extension in layer name for clarity. Also added an option to convert file extensions in layer names to lowercase.
• Added outer shadows to pop-ups for the filename pattern entry and the file extension entry for consistency and better visibility.
• Removed the .exe installer for Windows.
• Changed the plug-in license to BSD 3-Clause.

Changes to the filename pattern entry:

• Added a new field named [replace]. This field allows to fine-tune another field, optionally via regular expressions. This allows to e.g. remove “ copy #1” from layer names that GIMP appends to duplicated layers.
• The [layer path] field now strips the file extension by default just like [layer name]. Added options (same as in [layer name]) to allow retaining the old behavior.
• Added an option to the number field (such as [001]) to specify descending numbers.
• Removed description and details from tooltips to avoid displaying too much information and improved examples instead.
• Tooltip text can now be selected and copied.

3.3.1

Changes to the filename pattern entry:

• Reworked tooltips for each field, now containing usage, details and some examples.
• Explicitly specified tags are no longer sorted alphabetically.
• Changed the default separator and wrapper for the [tags] field.
• Modified several arguments to use the % notation for brevity and consistency.
• Added a field to specify several layer or image attributes - layer width, height, x- and y-offsets and image width and height.
• Added an option to the number field (such as [001]) to disable resetting numbering across layer groups.

Misc. changes:

• From version 3.3 onward, obsolete settings, procedures or constraints are automatically replaced when first starting the plug-in with a newer version.

3.3

• Due to significant changes in 3.3, make sure to perform a clean reinstall. The plug-in can still function without performing a clean reinstall (a warning dialog will ask you to clear settings), but will likely not be usable from the command line.
• Removed installers for Linux and macOS. The installers were not flexible enough to handle the diversity of available GIMP installers and different installation directories. The manual package is simple enough to install anyway (in some cases, simpler than the installers).
• Added the ability to add any PDB procedures to apply to all layers before export (blur, scale, drop shadows, …). The argument values of any procedure can be adjusted by clicking the edit button.
• “Operations” are now referred to as “procedures”.
• Allowed adding the same procedure or constraint multiple times.
• Allowed editing the name of procedures and constraints.
• Procedures or constraints are now enabled when added.
• Removed Use image size. Added Use layer size having the opposite meaning to the list of custom procedures. This procedure is enabled by default.
• Removed Treat layer groups as folders. The folder structure is now preserved by default and can be disabled by adding the new Ignore folder structure procedure.
• Moved Only visible layers to the list of constraints (still disabled by default).
• Include layers is now always displayed by default for clarity.
• Flattened menu items for built-in constraints for improved discoverability.
• Only layers with tags and Only layers without tags now optionally allow including/excluding only specific tags.
• Insert background layers and Insert foreground layers now allow modifying which tag represents back- and foreground layers, respectively.
• The preview is now displayed always, i.e. even if Show More Settings is unchecked. This helps users visualize the export even with the basic setup.
• Upon starting the plug-in, the image preview defaults to the active layer if there is no selection in the layer name preview.
• The image preview will be set to manual update if the update takes too long (currently set to 1 second). The automatic update can be turned on/off using the menu entry available above the image preview.
• Name preview: Renamed Add tag... to Add New Tag.... Creating a new tag now automatically applies that tag to all the currently selected layers.
• Improved handling of long or multi-line in-dialog messages.
• Restored auto-hiding of in-dialog messages and delayed preview updates (the latter saving performance).
• Cleaned up arguments for pdb.gimp_plugin_export_layers due to the removal of the three settings visible in the “basic” GUI.
• Performed small adjustments in layout and spacing in the GUI.
• Changed mnemonics of GUI elements to avoid clashes with mnemonics for GTK widgets (such as folder chooser).
• Removed the redundant Home page from the documentation for the ZIP package.
• Errors are now logged as early as possible. If the plug-in is not fully initialized yet, the errors are logged into the export_layers/error.log file.
• Fixed image preview leaving artifacts when downsizing the image (by dragging panes).
• Fixed the main dialog displaying visually jarring white background for a short moment while initializing.
• Fixed a rare crash in the image preview for nested empty layer groups.

3.2.1

• Added installers for Linux and macOS.
• Pressing the Help button now opens the Documentation subpage rather than the main page of the plug-in.
• Fixed updates to previews not working and info/error messages not disappearing automatically for GIMP 2.10 on Windows.
• Fixed GIMP version checks causing incorrect behavior of progress bars and preventing displaying several file extensions available on certain GIMP versions.

3.2

• Added a simple installer for Windows.
• Plug-in dialog now properly inherits the theme set in GIMP 2.10.
• Updated the list of file formats and extensions for GIMP 2.10.
• Error messages no longer disappear automatically after a while.
• Added a small amount of padding in the bottom part of the plug-in dialog.
• Fixed plug-in failing to load for GIMP 2.10 on Windows.
• Fixed a crash when running the plug-in after an upgrade from an early version (up to 3.0-RC1).
• Several minor updates to documentation.

3.1

• Created a single release package for GIMP 2.8, 2.9 and 2.10.
• Further decreased width of the file extension entry and filename pattern entry.
• Properly fixed enabled/disabled state of previews.

3.0

• Created a separate release for GIMP 2.9. This release does not contain the smaller progress bar (displayed while exporting) due to the plug-in dialog freezing during the export.
• Tagged layer groups can now be inserted, even if Include layer groups constraint is disabled.
• Made [layer path] and [tags] fields for the filename pattern entry more flexible.
• If a field for the filename pattern entry has several variations for its arguments, the tooltip displays each variation on a separate line.
• File extension entry is now expandable.
• Decreased width of the file extension and filename pattern entries.
• Moved pygimplib folder back under export_layers.
• Fixed incorrect positioning of layers in the image previews.
• Fixed incorrect layer name in the image preview when a layer is first displayed there.
• Fixed Reset Settings not working for settings persisting during a GIMP session.
• Fixed enabled/disabled state of previews.
• Fixed extra period in export failure messages.

3.0-RC2

• Renamed “filters” to “constraints” to avoid confusion with the concept of image filters.
• Adding a previously enabled and subsequently removed operation or constraint will now be disabled when added back again.
• Moved pygimplib folder above the export_layers folder.
• Changed user documentation to HTML (more-or-less a copy of the plug-in page).
• Fixed operations being ignored for Export Layers (repeat).
• Fixed dialog position resetting after closing the file format dialog.
• Fixed tagged layers (notably foreground and background) not working for indexed images.
• Added French, Russian and Ukrainian translations.

3.0-RC1

Redesign of the basic user interface:

• “Advanced settings” are now referred to as “more settings”.
• Merged the Save Settings and Reset Settings buttons and the Advanced Settings expander into one button named Settings.
• Renamed Export Layers button to just Export.
• Removed Autocrop layers from basic settings.
• Added a second progress bar indicating the export progress of the current layer.
• Misc. adjustments of GUI elements (size and spacing).

Major additions and redesign of the “advanced” user interface:

• Added option to rename layers according to a pattern (default: layer name).
• Removed GUI elements for “advanced” settings.
• Added option to add back the “advanced” settings as operations and filters via Add Operation... and Add Filter... boxes, respectively.
• Added preview displaying layer names to be exported.
• Added image preview of the layer selected in the layer name preview.
• Removed the option to tag layers by renaming layers. Instead, layers can now be tagged via the layer name preview.
• Added the option to add arbitrary tags to layers in the layer name preview.

Changes to settings:

• Renamed Ignore invisible layers to Only visible layers.
• Added the following settings acting as additional operations before export:
  • Insert background layers
  • Insert foreground layers
  • Inherit transparency from layer groups
  • Ignore layer modes
  • Autocrop
  • Autocrop background
  • Autocrop foreground
  • Use file extensions in layer names
• Added the following settings acting as additional filters of layers:
  • Include layers (enabled by default)
  • Include layer groups
  • Include empty layer groups
  • Only layers with tags
  • Only layers without tags
  • Only top-level layers
  • Only layers selected in preview
• Removed settings not in the lists above as the same functionality can be achieved via additional operations and filters or the filename pattern text entry.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed crash when Search or Recently Used were selected in the folder chooser.
• Fixed in-dialog messages with special characters not being displayed.
• Fixed Export Layers (Repeat) terminating prematurely if the user closed the overwrite dialog during a previous export.

Misc. changes:

• Reduced the number of PDB parameters for plug-in-export-layers as a result of the replacement of advanced settings with operations and filters.
• Export can now be stopped by pressing Escape.
• Export is now stopped if the image is closed during the export.
• Tagged layer groups are now also considered by settings dealing with tags.
• Added undo/redo capability to the file extension entry.
• JPEG dialog is no longer displayed in Export Layers (Repeat).
• In-dialog informative messages (e.g. Settings successfully saved) now disappear automatically after a while.

2.5

• Added a feature to tag layers as foreground layers. To use it, type [foreground] before the layer name.
• Changed the way background layers are specified. Instead of enclosing the layer name in square brackets, type [background] before the layer name. If you used background layers, make sure to change the layer names.
• Changed the setting Layer names in [square brackets] to [Tagged] layers and several other setting values to reflect the addition of foreground layers.
• The main dialog now hides again when a file format dialog is about to be displayed, in order to make sure that the file format dialog is not displayed behind the main dialog. The main dialog reappears after the file format dialog is closed by the user.
• Consolidated error and warning messages displayed when an error during export or an unhandled exception occurred.
• The plug-in no longer crashes when it doesn’t need to for certain errors during export, such as too long filenames.
• The output directory and input directories of imported images are no longer validated. If the output directory is invalid, a warning message is displayed and the user can try exporting again. This also avoids needless crashes.
• The plug-in no longer remembers settings in the non-interactive run mode. This behavior is consistent with other GIMP plug-ins.
• Export only layers matching file extension is now applied before tagged layers are processed. This means that when this setting is selected and back/foreground layers don’t have a matching file extension, they will no longer form the back/foreground of the exported layer.

2.4

• The File extension text field now displays a dropdown list of file formats and associated file extensions (upon clicking or pressing Up/Down keys). Several third-party formats are also listed, provided that the corresponding plug-ins are installed. You can still enter a file extension not in the dropdown list in case you use a different file format plug-in.
• Renamed Export Layers to to Export Layers (repeat).
• Added mnemonics (keyboard shortcuts) to the dialog in Export Layers (repeat) and to the overwrite confirmation dialog.
• Fixed crash for input images located in folders that contain accented characters.
• Fixed export of layers with file extensions containing periods (e.g. xcf.bz2) if files with the same name already exist in the chosen output folder.
• If Use as file extensions is selected and layers contain multiple extensions for the same file format (e.g. jpeg, jpg or jpe for the JPEG format), the file format dialog is now displayed only once.
• If a layer name is enclosed with multiple pairs of square brackets, only the outermost pair is removed upon the export (e.g. a layer named [[Background]] is exported as [Background].png).
• Removed ` copy` suffix from the names of exported layers for formats preserving layer information (e.g. PSD or XCF).
• On Ubuntu, replaced the overlay scrollbar with the classic scrollbar.

2.3

• Removed tooltips for settings (except File Extension) due to being redundant.
• Allowed to type in the output directory manually in the directory chooser if the Location: label is visible.
• Changed the default value of the file extension strip mode to Always strip file extension.
• Changed the persistent storage of settings from a custom JSON file to the GIMP’s native parasiterc file. This improves compatibility for certain GIMP builds not bundling some less commonly used Python modules. Users need to re-save settings if they used the Save Settings feature.
• The plug-in now logs unhandled errors (exceptions) to the export_layers/export_layers_error.log file for official releases.
• Major refactoring of the code dealing with settings to make it easier to create and maintain them.

2.2.2

• Set PNG as the default file format.
• Renamed settings containing the word “directory” to contain “folder”.
• Allowed to install the plug-in system-wide (e.g. to C:\Program Files\GIMP 2\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins on Windows).
• Pressing Enter while the focus is on the File extension text field will now export layers.

2.2.1

• Images in RAW format are saved with ‘.data’ file extension instead of ‘.raw’.
• Image type is now preserved, instead of always using the RGB type. E.g. if the image is indexed, the exported layers will be indexed as well. File formats that don’t support the an image type (such as indexed) will automatically convert the type as appropriate (the same way the Export menu does).
• Renamed Use image size instead of layer size to just Use image size for the sake of brevity.

2.2

• Changed how the initial output directory in the GUI is determined. It is now remembered separately for each image currently opened in GIMP.
• Added support for plug-in internationalization and localization. It is now possible to create translations of the plug-in (see the Readme for Translators.txt file in the package).
• Allowed again the following special characters in filenames: ~!@`#$%&=+{}[]
  • They can appear even on Windows (which seems to be the most restrictive of the popular OSs as far as invalid characters go). The exceptions are ‘[’ at the beginning and ‘]’ at the end of the layer names, which are still removed, since they have a special meaning in the plug-in.
• When No special handling is selected, file extension strip mode will no longer default to Strip identical file extension (because the setting was always overwritten by its default value and thus did not remember the last used value).
• Misc. code refactoring and cleanup.

2.1

• Added support for Unicode characters. This means you can now use any character in layer names and the output directory, except for most of the special characters.
• Export Layers GUI: Removed the small dialog. The progress bar and the Stop button are now displayed directly in the main dialog.
• Renamed File format to File extension since that’s what the user actually specifies. Also, renamed a bunch of options so that they contain “extension” instead of “format”. Because of this, if you use Save settings, you’ll need to re-save them.
• Removed Remove squared brackets setting as it served little purpose. [square brackets] will now always be removed from layer names.
• Added Ignore layer mode setting, which sets the layer mode to Normal for each layer.
• When No special handling is selected, file extension strip mode now defaults to Strip identical file extension.
• More special characters are now removed from layer names.
• Removed unnecessary files from the package.
• Fixed a bug that caused the file format dialog to not appear if the user chose Skip in the overwrite dialog for the first file (or the first and subsequent files).
• Fixed filenames and directory names not being made unique properly, hopefully for real this time.
• More code refactoring and cleanup.

2.0

Implemented advanced settings, including the following:

• export only layers whose names match the file format
• use file extensions in layer names as file formats
• use layers with names in [square brackets] as a background for all other layers
• merge each top-level layer group into one layer
• permanently save settings in the Export Layers window to a file

Major code rewrite.

• Split the file into several separate modules. Written unit tests for most of these modules.
• Implemented API for plug-in settings for easier management.
• Implemented layer filtering, making it relatively easy to filter out layers according to their attributes, such as visibility (including its parents), name, and more.
• Misc. code refactoring and cleanup.

Changes to the GUI:

• Added advanced settings, collapsed by default.
• The main window now hides when the Export Layers button is clicked. Instead, a small dialog with a progress bar and a Stop button is displayed. This is to avoid the file format dialog being completely hidden by the main dialog. The Stop button allows the user to stop the export prematurely.
• Progress bar now updates after each successfully exported (or skipped) layer.
• Added a simple dialog to the Export Layers To menu entry, identical to the small dialog in Export Layers when exporting.
• Overwrite dialog now hides immediately after choosing an option.
• The order of the Export Layers and Cancel buttons is now the same as in the Export menu.
• Renamed Choose output directory to Save in folder: to be consistent with the Export menu.
• In the overwrite dialog, renamed Overwrite to Replace to be consistent with the Export menu.
• Swapped the order of the Skip and Replace buttons in the overwrite dialog.
• Upon opening the main window, the focus is now set on the File Format field.
• Error messages are now in bold text. Removed the icon next to the error message as it didn’t look good and didn’t serve much purpose.
• Added tooltips to most of the settings.
• Added mnemonics (keyboard shortcuts) to the following components in the dialog (use Alt + the key after the underscore to activate the component, e.g. Alt+E for the Export Layers button):
  • _Export Layers
  • _Cancel
  • _Advanced Settings
• If the plug-in encounters an unexpected error, an error dialog (with details) is displayed.
• Adjusted spacing, padding and border width of components.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed JPG export of invisible layers.
• Fixed OpenRaster (.ora) export. No idea how it got fixed, though. Most likely it’s the same issue as JPG.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the user from exporting layers to a root directory on Windows (e.g. C:\).
• Layer names can no longer have characters : or \, which could cause problems on Windows. These will now only be allowed in directory names.
• If Treat layer groups as directories setting is enabled and if the names of layers and layer groups have the same name after removing characters not allowed in filenames or directory names, they are now made unique properly.

Misc. changes:

• Layers exported with the raw file format will now have the .raw file extension added.

1.1

Release date: September 08, 2013

• Added Export Layers to menu entry, repeating the export with last used settings.

1.0

Release date: July 01, 2013

• Initial release.