Hello Worthy Monks,

I've returned - once again seeking your sage advice.

Let me preface this post by stating that I am NOT a deeply sophisticated Perl programmer. I'm a designer who has sunk my teeth into JavaScript, DOM, and Action Script and has been using Perl for several years mostly only to accomplish what I cannot do on the client browser. I know nothing about any other programming or scripting languages, but with detailed help am willing to try.

My situation:

I am searching for a method to mangle (transform) Jpeg photo files. I need to Crop (grab a selection out of the middle), Scale-Resize to a defined height and width, and define compression-optimization. GetHeight, GetWidth would be a nice feature but not really needed. I would really like it if this were done using 'cross-platform, stand-alone, pure-perl' code. This is for a web-app and not to deliver thumbs on the fly.

This seems like a highly useful (in demand) utility for image galleries, online catalogs, etc. but I can't find anything that does the job in a Keep-It-Simple manner. Also, I only need this for Jpeg format (.png would be a nice extra), in an attempt to limit the need for outside C/C++ files.

So far:

I've looked into ImageMagic-PerlMagic, Imager, and GD… They all seem to have a rather formidable installation learning curve (for my simple ways of doing things) and the limitation of requiring C/C++ dependencies that I find beyond my grasp to understand.

My limitations:

I'm developing on a Windows machine (indigoStar.com's IndigoPerl - 5.8) but my target environment is a Unix server that gives me limited access for installing custom software and no super-user privileges. That is one reason I would like a drop-and-go perl script that I can use from my less-than root directory. That, and I have trouble installing some modules on IndigoPerl and changing paths to include Win32 binary or DLL files and anticipate even more trouble doing so on this server.

My questions:

• Can this seemingly simple thing be done using pure-perl? I know Perl favors text crunching rather than binary crunching.
• Do I need to hire someone to do this?
• Would I be better off looking at an approach using PHP, Ruby or Python?
• Am I missing something obvious?

Any help or advice getting me looking and thinking in the right direction would be deeply appreciated.

Thank you for any help and insights you can provide.

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