Getting started with gimptools to create a plug-in on MacOS

I have an old plug-in script I wrote for an earlier version of GIMP. I want to port it to GIMP 2.10, the current Mac version, and re-code it in C or C++, whichever is used for GIMP plug-ins, to avoid the on-screen flashing it causes when using a scripting language.

I am getting stuck at doing a “Hello world” script as suggested by How to write a GIMP plug-in by Dave Neary https://developer.gimp.org/writing-a-plu…index.html as I can’t even get that far.

Specifically, when I try to run gimptool-2.0 in Terminal, I get a message that the command is not found. Additionally, gimptool also gets command not found.

I’m guessing I’m missing a path, but I can’t find the appropriate path. If I search my hard drive for files with gimptool in the name, I find gimptool.c and gimptool.h as well as a bunch of gimptool[something].c and gimptool[something].h, but no gimptool or gimptool-2.0 binary file.

Is there a guide somewhere to getting started from a GIMP 2.10 installation to the point where I have an executable gimptool-2.0 binary file, specifically on Mac OS?

I have Xcode installed and expect to relearn C or C++ enough to write the plug-in.

I tried searching on “install gimptools” and “install” “gimptools” and the only results tell me how to use gimptools to install plug-ins, not how to install gimptools itself. I don’t see a download for gimptools on the gimp.org downloads page either.

If someone can point me to getting-started from the beginning type documentation that would be fine. I’m just having no luck tracking it down with a search engine nor can I find it on the GIMP site.

I also tried gcc [path]/gimptool.c and got a response that config.h could not be found.

Found out it’s in the libgimp library. Still not sure how to access that on macos.