proposal: x/image/webp: support for WebP Encoding

[ainsleyclark]

Hi there,

Currently we are able to decode webp images, which is great. But why can't we encode them?

Given that PSI is such a crucial factor for getting websites to rank, it's important that any server should be able to convert and serve webp images.

I have to jump through hoops at the moment and use the webp executable which is far from ideal.

Please please add an encoder!

Many many thanks.

[ALTree]

cc @nigeltao

[ianlancetaylor]

A WebP encoder would be a lot of work. If someone wants to write one, that would be great. But as far as I know nobody is working on that.

[ainsleyclark]

That's a shame, whilst I understand that it may be a bit of work, it feels like it should be out of the box considering webp and go are both made by you guys!

Adding C bindings when converting to webp using third party packages can be messy, as well as using the executables.

I would love to offer a hand to contribute to the /x/image library but wouldn't know where to start.

[nigeltao]

I understand that it may be a bit of work

It's not a bit of work. As Ian said, it's a lot of work. :-)

[DemiMarie]

That's a shame, whilst I understand that it may be a bit of work, it feels like it should be out of the box considering webp and go are both made by you guys!

Adding C bindings when converting to webp using third party packages can be messy, as well as using the executables.

The good news is that image encoding is much less of a security minefield than image decoding is, simply because the input format (a bitmap) is far, far simpler.

That said, have you considered ImageFlow? It’s free software (AGPL) available as both a daemon and a library. Commercial licenses are also available.

[ainsleyclark]

Hi there,

Thank you for the comments, I'm just wondering if this is being considered for a feature request?

Many thanks.

[ivanjaros]

Yeah, this is so weird to have a reader but not writer in Go when Go and WebP are both Google's projects. Especially when there was all thus fuss about replacing "outdated" formats with modern Web* yet not providing native tools to do so. c'est la vie, i guess.

[FlavioCFOliveira]

Please consider this request

[ivanjaros]

Just thinking out loud here but instead of writing a native Go writer, why not just build it into Go itself? Again, both are Google projects. And while at it, having native support for vp8, vp9, av1... VIDEO would be a game-changer. It could be part of the Go build process where the additional code would get built into the executable only if used(called).