So ... what IS Imlib? It is a low-level Image loading, and rendering library that is designed to replace libXpm as the standard image loading library for X11. Why am I doing this?

1. LibXpm can only load Xpm format images.
   
   
2. Xpm format is a highly space and cpu (for loading) inefficient way of storing Image data. It also only provides colormapped images, which, for large smoothly shaded backgrounds can be limitng for people with high-color displays.
   
   
3. LibXpm has no ability to remap images to a pre-defined set of colours (and so in 8 bit displays allowing images to eat up whole colormaps), and if colors could not be obtained it only uses the nearest-match algorithm, rather than having options for dithering to improve image quality in low-color situations.
   
   
4. LibXpm can become excessively slow in loading Images once 100 or so have already been loaded (the slowdown is exponential).
   
   

Now why do you ask, should you use Imlib for your programs?

1. Imlib can (via the use of external "Helper-Apps" like Imagemagick, or NetPBM) load many, many , many formats (to start, PPM, PGM, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PCX, XPM, TARGA, IFF, TIFF, etc.).
   
   
2. Imlib is able to (via user or system-wide config files) resrict the palette usage of Imlib based apps (like enlightenment) to a certain set of colors (a palette) which can be desgined to offer only the colors the user uses or wants on his desktop, and so conserve colormap usage. At the same time this can also be allowed to lapse if oneday X is run in a higher bit depth like 15, 16 or 24 bits per pixel.
   
   
3. Imlib has options for dithering remapped images to improve image quality.
   
   
4. Imlib can also SCALE images on the fly (from 24-bit images kept im memory) FAST, so allow programmers to create pseudo-resolution independant images for their Apps, and only resize them at runtime according to context.
   
   
5. Imlib can be FAST. It uses optimised rendering routines, and the Mit-Shm extension where possible to gain maximum speed.
   
   

Some problems currently with Imlib are that it has some endianess problems on strange setups and systems. It also doesn't detect bit-depth well currently on "bizzarre" X-Servers (mainly high-end workstation ones like SGI's, Sun's and HP's). This is primarily due to the fact I have no access to such machines, and so have buckleys of debugging and investigating the Xserver features. I do hope that in time this will be fixed, and so Imlib will become truly universal.

If you're a programmer, and interested in Imlib, try the Download page, and get the Imlib archive, and read imlib.h (it's PACKED with comments on how to use the library, and in TST is a sample program to test it. You should also look at Enlightenment. It relies on Imlib for a lot of its "magic").