HGL Suite For Linux

HGL or HGL Suite is an open source, freely distributed compiler and interpreter command-line software specially designed for developing images. It features its own simple, yet powerful language.

The application's runtime input is handled entirely by plugins, including image output supporting the JPEG, PNG, GIF, caca (ASCII art), X11 (simple viewer), netpbm and decompiler, as well as control input plugins like command-line and CGI input modules. Its output format is also configurable by plugins and the app can be easily integrated into various environments, such as graphical applications and web servers.

For those curious about how the program works, we can tell you that the input is taken from a source file that needs to be compiled for frequent and quick access by the interpreter, which then runs the compiled files, takes input from custom plugins (if required), and outputs its result.

HGL Suite is a network transparent software, which means that it gets input from heterogeneous protocols. It's powered by LUA scripting and can be used as to quickly and easily convert the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) file format to HGL (HP Graphics Language) files.

To install the application on your computer, you will have to download the latest version from Softpedia (the software is distributed primarily as a tar.xz archive), save it on your path, extract it and fire up a terminal emulator.

Navigate to the location of the extracted folder, execute the “./configure && make” command (without quotes). Wait for the program to be compiled and then run the “make install” command, without quotes, as root (system administrator).

The software is written in the C++, Lua and Yacc programming languages. It’s a graphics toolkit that runs from the command-line, targeted at advanced users and developers. At the moment, the developers provide PPA repositories for the Ubuntu and Debian Linux distributions, as well as their derivatives.