Net-Fu/Script-Fu

Abstract
With the advent of the World Wide Web (WWW), individuals
have an unprecedented ability to disseminate information at little or
no cost. Because of its accessibility, the flow of information on the
WWW is staggering, and appears to be sustaining its incredible rate of
growth. With so much competing information, presentation becomes
as--or even more--important than content; visually appealing web pages
are likely to attract the most attention.
Script-Fu is a newly developed application which
automatically creates the graphics necessary to present information
compellingly. Script-Fu is designed to maximize power and flexibility
and it accomplishes this goal using a three-component architecture.
This architecture is composed of an image manipulation engine (for the
computations necessary to create graphics), a scripting language (for
precisely describing the algorithms required to create the graphics),
and a facilitator/management program (for user-interface and
communication between the components).
This choice of components maximizes the power of Script-Fu, but in
some cases lessens the accessibility. For example, the image
manipulation engine, GIMP, runs only on UNIX workstations, not on
Macintoshes or PCs. A fourth component, Net-Fu, solves this dilemma
by providing an alternate interface to Script-Fu, making its
functionality available to anyone who has access to a WWW browser
application such as Netscape or Microsoft Internet
Explorer. Using both Script-Fu and the WWW, virtually anyone can
present information compellingly, and at low cost.