Custom Command Panel for GIMP: your top tools, one click away

Key points

• A compact floating panel you configure to keep your most-used plugins within easy reach
• Add any plugin by browsing or searching everything registered in GIMP
• Add as many buttons as you need, drag them into any order, and delete the ones you no longer want
• Requires GIMP 3; works on Linux, macOS, and Windows

The Custom Command Panel for GIMP keeps your most-used tools at your fingertips

The best editing sessions are the ones where you focus on the edit instead of the software. That means spending less time reaching for the plugins you use every session. Colour grading, sharpening, luminosity masking, G’MIC, whatever you use most often.

The Custom Command Panel puts them all in a compact floating panel that you configure any way you want. Your favourite tools are always in front of you and your focus stays on the image.

What is the Custom Command Panel?

A command panel is a small floating window that sits alongside your image. Each button launches one of your chosen plugins directly, the same as selecting it from the menu, without navigating menus.

GIMP already offers menus for everything and keyboard shortcuts for the tools you use most. Menus are deep and general-purpose, built for everyone. Keyboard shortcuts are powerful but require setup per tool and don’t scale well to a large set of plugins. A panel is a middle ground: visible, labelled, and instant.

Why use a command panel to customise GIMP?

Finding a plugin the slow way means remembering which category it lives in, opening a top level menu, scanning through submenus, and clicking through to it. Multiply that by every plugin you use multiple times a session and the cost adds up: not one click, but the accumulated interruption across a day of editing.

Keyboard shortcuts help, but they require setup for every tool you want to cover, and a long list of shortcuts is its own kind of overhead to remember.

The custom command panel complements menus and shortcuts. Your key tools are labelled, visible, and one click away from wherever you are in your edit.

What the Custom Command Panel does

You open the panel from the Windows menu and it floats above the GIMP window. You build the panel yourself, including whatever plugins you want, and from then on every plugin on it is one click away.

The Custom Command Panel is purely a launcher. It doesn’t change how plugins work, and it’s not a macro tool (macros aren’t currently available in GIMP 3). Every button simply calls its associated plugin, so your plugins behave the same as launching from a menu.

A note about Windows vs Linux and macOS

On Linux and macOS, the panel always floats above the GIMP window.

You can interact with the GIMP window as you normally would, and when you want to use the panel, just click on it.

On Windows, the behaviour is a little different. When you click the GIMP window, Windows sends the panel behind the GIMP window. Use Alt+Tab or click the panel in the taskbar to bring it back to the front.

This is a limitation in how GTK (the toolkit GIMP and this plugin are both built on) handles floating windows on Windows. Any fix will need to come from the GIMP team.

How to use the Custom Command Panel

Launching the panel

On the Windows menu, find Custom command panel, click it. The panel opens as a floating window.

Setup

1. Add a plugin: click the Add button at the bottom of the panel. The plugin browser opens.
   

   

2. Find a plugin: in the Add procedure dialog, type in the search box to filter the list.
   

   

3. Select the entry you want and click Add. The button appears in the panel immediately.
   

   

4. Repeat for every plugin you want to include on the panel.
5. Reorder buttons: grab the drag handle on the right side of any button and drag it up or down to the position you want.
   
   

6. Remove a button: right-click any button and choose Delete. Confirm the prompt.
7. Every change is saved automatically. The panel reopens exactly as you left it next session.

Using the panel

• Run a plugin: click its button on the panel.
• Collapse the panel when you need screen space: click the chevron button in the panel title bar. Click again to restore it.
  
  

The Info dialog

The button opens a reference dialog with expandable sections. It covers subjects like how to use the plugin and the differences between how it floats on top of GIMP in Linux/macOS vs Windows. If you forget how something works, the answer is likely in there. It saves a trip back to this post.

The Settings dialog

The button opens the settings dialog. The Settings dialog shows the current plugin version and an option to check for updates. You can run the check manually or leave auto-checking on so the plugin checks for you on a weekly basis. I may add additional plugin settings in the future.

What languages is the plugin available in?

This command panel plugin for GIMP 3 is available in the following languages. You don’t have to do anything to see it in your language. GIMP will automatically load the correct version of the plugin (provided you follow the installation instructions below).

If you have any suggestions to improve those translations, please leave a comment below.

install the Custom Command Panel plugin

This plugin is supported for GIMP 3.0 and later, on Linux, Windows, and macOS.

If you run into any problems with any of the steps below, please let me know in the comments below.

1. Download the plugin

custom-command-panel-gimp3.zip

Download the Custom Command Panel plugin as a ZIP file. You’ll extract it as described below in the next section:

2. Copy the downloaded file to where GIMP looks for plugins

This is something you have to do for every plugin you add to GIMP 3.

Find where GIMP looks for plugins:

1. Open GIMP if it’s not already open and select Edit > Preferences in the GIMP menu.
2. In the Preferences dialog, scroll down the list on the left until you find Folders, then click on the expand icon in front of the word to expand that list.
3. Scroll down the list of folders and select Plug-ins.
4. Still in the Preferences dialog, on the Plug-in Folders panel on the right, locate your plugin folder(s). You can use the folder that’s listed for your user name or add a new one.
5. Click on the “Show file location in the file manager” to open your computer’s file manager.
6. Copy the .ZIP file you downloaded into that folder and extract it there. You should see a subfolder named “custom-command-panel-gimp3”. The plugin is inside that folder (see the note below for why it should be in its own subfolder). Don’t move it, just leave it in that subfolder.
7. Files downloaded from the internet or transferred across systems may not retain their “executable” flag, especially on UNIX-based systems like Linux and macOS. The plugin’s .py file needs the correct permission to be executed as a script. It’s a quirk of the different operating systems’ security models. Windows 11 treats plugin .py files as executable automatically.
   • Linux:
     You should be able to right click on the .py file and set the permission to allow it as an executable (see below for an example screenshot). Or you could set it in your Terminal app with the command chmod +x [PATH TO WHERE YOU EXTRACTED THE PLUGIN FOLDER]/custom-command-panel-gimp3/custom-command-panel-gimp3.py. For example, with GIMP 3 I extracted the plugin folder into a subfolder of Documents, so the command would be chmod +x "Documents/GIMP plugins/custom-command-panel-gimp3/custom-command-panel-gimp3.py".
   • macOS:
     You may be able to right click on the .py file and set the permission to allow it as an executable (see below for an example screenshot). Otherwise, follow these instructions from Apple.

There are two files in the custom-command-panel-gimp3 folder that need to be marked as executable: custom-command-panel-gimp3.py and helpers.py. Do not mark any other files in that folder as executable.

3. Register the plugin with GIMP

Now you have to register the plugin with GIMP: just close and re-open GIMP.

If all has gone according to plan, you should find a menu entry called Windows > Custom command panel. If not, please leave a comment below.

4. Optional: create a keyboard shortcut

If you want to assign a keyboard shortcut to the custom command panel menu item, go right ahead:

These instructions are the same as for my other GIMP plugins (Interactive luminosity masks, Frequency separation, Dodge and burn…). Only the plugin names are changed.

Why it’s important to follow these steps

GIMP version 3.x requires that every plugin must live in a folder with exactly the same name as the plugin file. So for example, you add the subfolder where you’ve saved the plugin file to the list of folders where GIMP looks for plugins, and that folder needs to be named exactly the same as the plugin with that subfolder.

This is an example of how working with free software isn’t entirely free. You have to do some of the work that other systems automate, and put your thinking cap on. Bear in mind that GIMP is developed and maintained by volunteers who donate their time and talents as and when they can. So sometimes documentation lags behind development.

Streamlined editing, mental relief

A panel like this relieves a bit of the mental overhead involved in using GIMP. When the tools you reach for are already in front of you, you stay in the image instead of in the menus. That kind of convenience adds up quickly across every session.

The Custom Command Panel is free and open to suggestion. If you have ideas or run into anything unexpected, I’d love to hear from you.

Good to know

• The panel doesn’t dock in GIMP’s main interface. It floats as a separate window. This is a current limitation of the GIMP API.
• On Windows, the panel drops behind GIMP when you click the GIMP window. Click the panel in the taskbar or use Alt+Tab to bring it back. See “A note about Windows vs Linux and macOS” above.
• The plugin browser lists everything GIMP considers a plugin, including internal procedures. If a name is unfamiliar, the detail panel in the browser shows a description and its parameters.
• Your panel configuration saves automatically to your GIMP user directory. Uninstalling the plugin leaves the config file in place; you can delete it manually if needed.
• Requires GIMP 3. Not compatible with GIMP 2.x.

Key takeaways

• The Custom Command Panel puts your most-used GIMP plugins one click away, without touching menus.
• Each button runs the selected plugin exactly as launching from the menu would.
• You build your own button list and can add, reorder, and delete at any time.
• The panel saves your configuration automatically.
• The plugin is free and open to improvement. Suggestions are welcome.

FAQ

Is the custom command panel for GIMP free?

Yes. The custom command panel is free and open-source, and it runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. There’s no subscription and no account to create. You download it and use it.

Can I have more than one panel open, or one panel per image?

The panel isn’t tied to a specific image. It works with whichever image currently has focus in GIMP. A future version may add presets, letting you save separate panel configurations for different workflows and switch between them.

Where exactly does GIMP store my panel configuration, and can I back it up or move it to another computer?

Your configuration is saved to panel_config.json in your GIMP user config folder: ~/.config/custom-command-panel-gimp3/ on Linux and macOS, or %APPDATA%\custom-command-panel-gimp3\ on Windows. To back it up or move it to another computer, copy that file and place it in the same location on the new machine.

Does the panel work with Script-Fu or Python-Fu console scripts, or only registered PDB procedures/plugins?

The panel can launch anything registered in GIMP’s procedure database (PDB). That includes most Script-Fu and Python-Fu scripts, if they’re registered as PDB procedures. Ad hoc snippets typed directly into the Script-Fu or Python-Fu console aren’t supported, since those aren’t registered procedures.

How do I update the plugin when a new version comes out? Do I lose my configuration?

Open the Settings dialog and click Check for updates, or let the weekly automatic check notify you. If a newer version exists, you’ll get a download link. Installing it follows the same steps as the original install. Your panel configuration is stored separately and is never touched by an update.

A plugin button doesn’t do anything when I click it, what should I check first?

First, confirm the plugin is still installed in GIMP. If you removed it after adding it to the panel, the button can’t find it. Next, check whichever menu it belongs to and confirm it still works from there directly.

I deleted a button by accident, is there an undo?

No, deletion is immediate and there’s no undo. You’ll need to re-add the plugin through the Add button and search dialog. It only takes a few clicks. Treat the delete confirmation prompt as your chance to catch a mistake.

Does this work with GIMP 2.10?

No. The Custom Command Panel requires GIMP 3.0 or later and relies on APIs that don’t exist in GIMP 2.10. If you’re still on GIMP 2.10, you’ll need to upgrade to GIMP 3 before installing this plugin.

Can I install this alongside my other plugins? Does it conflict with anything?

The Custom Command Panel runs independently and doesn’t modify GIMP’s core behaviour or interfere with other plugins.